To designate Poland as a program country under the visa waiver program established under section 217 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Mr. President, I rise in strong support of this amendment. First, let me congratulate my colleague from Alabama for putting together this very essential amendment. I am proud to be an original cosponsor, and I want to strongly support it.

I also want to suggest that based on the discussion we just heard involving the chairman of the Budget Committee and the Senator from Massachusetts, everyone in this Chamber, based on their statements, should support this amendment. Based on what the Senator from Massachusetts just said, he should embrace this amendment because, if you look at the details of what this amendment does, it is perfectly consistent with those statements, and it is perfectly consistent with what the President said on Monday night. It is utterly consistent with what Secretary Chertoff says he wants and needs as a crucial element of border security. It is not the only element, not the only silver bullet, there is no magic wand, but it is a crucial element of border security.

Unfortunately, the underlying bill does not provide enough authorization and demand for fencing in this regard. The underlying bill, particularly section 106, only calls for a very limited and modest repair and construction of fencing along very limited parts of the southern border of Arizona. That is basically fencing that largely already exists in the Tucson and Yuma sections of Arizona.

What this amendment would do would be to expand that provision in a very reasonable and cost-effective way. What this amendment would say is that the Secretary of Homeland Security would construct at least 270 miles of triple-layered fence, including the miles of fence already built in San Diego, Tucson, and Yuma, and 500 miles of vehicle barriers at strategic locations.

Again, I underscore that this is not building a wall or a fence across the entire Mexican border. This is not the cost cited by the Senator from Massachusetts. This is something far more focused, that will be a great force multiplier as we put more agents at the border, and that is an absolutely critical part of truly defending the border.

As the chairman of the Budget Committee said, in highly urban areas there is simply no way around the need for a fence. To avoid a fence in highly populated areas would literally require a border agent every few feet to monitor the border because you are talking about a border running through the middle, essentially, of an urban neighborhood. That is an impossible enforcement situation without some sort of physical barrier. These 370 miles would go into those highly populated areas.

I underscore that this is exactly consistent with what virtually everybody has been talking about. Monday night the President talked about border security. He wasn't quite as strong on border security as I would have liked. He wasn't quite as focused on border security, first, before we move on to other elements of this bill, as I would have liked, but he explicitly mentioned the need for significant fencing for those highly populated areas. This amendment simply does that.

The President's own Secretary, Mike Chertoff, has met with Members of this body, and he specifically talked about exactly the same need and specifically talked about 370 miles. That is where this number in this amendment comes from. This number didn't come from out of the blue. It wasn't just a wild guess. It wasn't just a pretty number. It came from discussions with Secretary Chertoff.

The chairman of the Budget Committee, when asked by the Senator from Massachusetts would he support fencing, said we absolutely need it as a piece of our enforcement puzzle for highly populated areas--for urban neighborhoods.

That is exactly what this amendment addresses. Again, the 370 miles is exactly focused on that type of need--highly populated areas where to patrol the border without any physical structure would literally require a border agent every several feet, which is completely impractical and cost prohibitive.

I think this is an absolutely essential amendment to the bill. Really, this is the sort of amendment that will test how serious folks really are about enforcement.

This whole immigration debate is pretty interesting. We have wildly divergent views and strong passions on the issue from one end of the spectrum to the other. Yet if you listen to speakers on this floor, no one is in favor of amnesty and everyone is in favor of border security. Of course, it depends on how you define ``amnesty'' and how you define ``border security.''

In terms of border security, this amendment is a simple test on whether you are really serious in what you say. This is a gut check that the American people can understand very simply. If border security means anything, it surely means, among many other items, this 370-mile fence. If a Member of the Senate votes against this really quite narrowly tailored, limited in some ways, modest amendment, I think the American people will get it. They will surely know that Member isn't serious in any way about border security.

In closing, let me thank the Senator from Alabama again for this very necessary amendment. If border security is to mean anything, if it is to possibly work--and I have serious reservations about whether the plan in this underlying bill will be allowed to work, will be enforced, if the appropriations will happen to make it work, but if it is to have a chance to work, surely it has to include this modest 370-mile fence, the sort of fencing President Bush specifically talked about and the number of miles his Secretary of Homeland Security specifically mentioned in meetings with Members of this body.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I call up amendment No. 3963.

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

Madam President, I bring before the Senate an important amendment, I believe, which goes to the heart of so many American concerns about the bill before us.

I must say, in the beginning discussion of this amendment, that I have grave concerns about this bill. I think it is a mistake in many aspects. I think it ignores history and ignores very specific, concrete experience. Not too long ago, in 1986, Congress passed similar measures, albeit on a much smaller scale, which ultimately and clearly failed to solve the immigration problem.

I am very fearful that we are repeating history, only on a much broader, much bigger, much more dangerous scale. My amendment goes to the heart of those concerns, goes to the heart of the matter, goes to the absolute heart of what so many Americans find most objectionable about the bill on the floor. That is what I would characterize what tens of millions of Americans characterize as amnesty provisions in this bill.

In introducing this amendment, let me thank the many coauthors I have who are in strong support of it: Senators Grassley, Chambliss, and Santorum. Also, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Coburn be added to this list of original cosponsors.

All of us join together with tens of millions of Americans to simply say we cannot have amnesty provisions in this bill. We cannot have anything approaching amnesty in this measure. So my amendment would very clearly, very simply, withdraw those provisions from the bill.

Madam President, as I noted while speaking on another amendment about an hour ago, this is an interesting debate. The country, including the Senate, is widely divided on the question in many respects. Passions run deep from one end of the argument to the other. Yet to listen to the debate, particularly on the Senate floor in the midst of a fundamental disagreement, it is interesting that nobody says they are for amnesty, and everybody says they are for enforcement.

But, of course, the devil is in the details. Of course, it depends on what you mean by amnesty, what you mean by enforcement. And what I mean by amnesty certainly covers many provisions of the underlying bill, which my amendment would strike. More importantly, what tens of millions of Americans know through common sense, basic reasoning is amnesty is included in this underlying bill and we must take it out.

Maybe we can begin the discussion with what is amnesty. Well, the President, in his speech 2 nights ago, said that he is not for amnesty and ``they''--meaning illegal aliens--``should not be given an automatic path to citizenship.'' What is an automatic path to citizenship? The President himself, again, 2 nights ago, pointed to this distinction: ``that middle ground''--the one he is advocating-- ``recognizes that there are differences between an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years and has a home, a family, and an otherwise clean record.''

So what the President points to, in terms of why the provisions in this bill are not amnesty, is that distinction between folks who crossed the border illegally very recently and those who have been here for some time. I think it is very important, if we think about that distinction, to look at the details of the bill.

I encourage my colleagues to actually read this bill. The devil is in the details. If that were ever true, it is true in terms of this legislation. It is important to read the bill and understand the details. Yes, this bill does make a distinction between those who have been in the country 5 years or longer and those who have been in the country less than 5 years, and some other distinctions, 2 years and between 2 and 5 years. But again, the devil is in the details.

How does an illegal immigrant prove that he has been in the country over 5 years? You would assume the proof required is specific documentation which has been verified by the Government or other authentication sources. Those documents are certainly accepted, but they are not required, because if an illegal immigrant doesn't have those sources of documents--objective evidence--he or she can do something else. He or she can get a piece of paper, declare that he or she has been in the country over 5 years, sign his or her name to it, and that is it. That is all that is required.

Well, if the President's argument that this is not amnesty in large part hinges on this big distinction that we are not giving a path to citizenship for those who have been in the country a shorter period of time, should it not matter what documentary evidence is required? Doesn't it make a farce of the whole distinction if that immigrant can simply sign a piece of paper declaring otherwise? That obliterates the entire distinction. That means, in fact, that we are making available this fairly automatic path to citizenship to virtually everyone in the country illegally.

The President also points to four requirements: This is not amnesty because there is a penalty the immigrant has to pay because they have to pay their taxes, because they have to learn English, and because they have to be in a job for a number of years.

Again, I say to my fellow Senators and everyone watching this debate, the devil is in the details. Let's look at this bill. Let's look at what it requires.

No. 1, a penalty. It is true, the underlying bill means a person has to pay $2,000--$2,000--which is less, in some cases far less, than many legal immigrants pay to go through the legal process. Is it a penalty when the amount of money required is the same or, in many cases, less than a person who is following all the rules, doing everything we ask of them, following the law, living by the law, becoming a legal immigrant and a full citizen through the legal process?

No. 2, pay all their taxes. Well, not all their taxes. A person doesn't have to pay all of their back taxes. They have to pay a certain number of years; they do not have to go back for the entire length of time that person was in the country. Again, they are being treated better than the folks who have lived by the rules from the word go than the folks who are citizens through the legal immigration process who have had to pay taxes every step of the

way. Those folks who live by the rules have to pay all their taxes. These folks do not have to pay all their back taxes by any stretch of the imagination. The devil is in the details.

No. 3, learn English. Well, not necessarily learn English. The actual requirement can be met simply by being enrolled in an approved English language and history program. Again, the requirement can be met simply by being enrolled in a program with no test at the end of the program about proficiency or anything else.

And No. 4, work in a job for a number of years. Well, not the full period for a number of years, only 60 percent of the time for a handful of years.

Again, the devil is in the details, and I suggest that when the American people look at those details and ask themselves, is this amnesty, is this a fairly automatic path to citizenship, the answer will clearly be yes.

What does this sort of amnesty program do? We can debate about that, we can bring up hypotheticals, we can say I think it is going to do this, may do that, but the sure answer is to study history--and not ancient history, but recent history, going back only to 1986 because the last time Congress acted on this matter in a major way, it put together a package strikingly similar to this general package before us, which included an amnesty provision for agricultural workers.

One of the most interesting exercises I performed in thinking about this issue, in getting ready for this floor debate, was to go back to that time period, the mid-1980s, and read some of the arguments made in this Chamber, including the arguments of the folks who were for that immigration reform proposal of 1986.

The arguments they made are strikingly similar to the arguments being made by the proponents today: We need to do something comprehensive; it can't be enforcement only; we need to do this provision for earned citizenship, once, this one time, and then the problem will be solved forever because we will have border security and will have dealt with illegal immigrants then in our country.

What is the bottom line on that experiment doing exactly what we are debating doing again? The bottom line is not very hopeful in terms of solving the problem once and for all. The bottom line is back then the flow of illegal aliens was 140,000 per year, and now the flow is 700,000 per year. So it didn't exactly stop the problem.

The bottom line is back then the number of illegal aliens in the country was perhaps about 3 million, and today, by conservative estimates, it is 12 million. It didn't exactly solve the problem.

I will be happy to yield.

Reclaiming my time, Madam President.

Madam President, there have been significant studies since 1986 that have looked specifically at the impact of what Congress did then. What do these studies show?

A 2000 report by the Center for Immigration Studies states:

INS estimates show that the 1986 amnesty almost certainly

increased illegal immigration, as the relatives of newly

legalized illegals came to the United States to join their

family members.

Again, these are INS statistics, not some think tank on the conservative side. These INS statistics show that even though 2.7 million illegal aliens were granted lawful citizenship through the amnesty program--and by the way, that was far more than anticipated-- within 10 years, a new illegal alien population had replaced all of those and had grown to 5 million. That growth only continued.

Again, that growth today has gone from 140,000 illegal aliens streaming across the border per year back in 1986 to 700,000 per year today. That growth has been 3 million illegal aliens in the country going back to 1986 to at least 12 million today.

There was another study in 1992, 6 years after the agricultural amnesty program was passed. The Commission on Agricultural Workers issued a report to Congress--so a specific report to Congress that studied the effects, again, of the 1986 agricultural amnesty program. First, the Commission found that the number of workers amnestied under the bill had been severely underestimated. So the numbers that were talked about, in fact, the true numbers were well more than that.

Second, the Commission found that the agricultural worker amnesty only exacerbated existing problems:

Six years after IRCA was signed into law, the problems

within the system of agricultural labor continued to exist. .

. . In most areas, an increasing number of newly arriving

unauthorized workers compete for available jobs, reducing the

number of work hours available to all harvest workers and

contributing to lower annual earnings. . . .

Again, the bottom line is very clear. We had the same arguments back then as today: Let's do this once, the problem is solved forever; we will get tough with enforcement, we promise; really, we mean it. And what happened? That 140,000 per year increased to 700,000 per year. The problem of 3 million illegal aliens has increased to at least 12 million. We do need to study history and see what the impact of this amnesty program in this bill will be.

This threat is particularly grave, and I think it is absolutely certain that this will exacerbate the problem for the following simple reason: In terms of border security, everyone--everyone--on the floor of this body, everyone agrees that true border security cannot and will not happen overnight. The best case, if we are sincere about it, if we follow up this debate with adequate appropriations, the money, the manpower, the resources, the focus, the best case is that we will get a handle on our border in several years, perhaps 2 to 3 years, absolute minimum. But, of course, the other elements of this bill would be passed into law and would go into effect immediately. That is repeating the exact mistake of 1986. It would be one thing to consider an amnesty program down the road after we have acted on border security and proven that we have executed meaningful border security.

I don't think I could be for it even in that circumstance. That would be one thing. But what this bill does is something far different and even far more dangerous. What this bill does is put that program into effect now, immediately, move forward with that amnesty track immediately, even though everyone agrees, best case, we will only have meaningful border security in several years. So we establish the magnet to draw more illegal aliens into the country before anyone pretends that we have adequate border security or workplace security.

That is an even clearer reason that this is a big mistake and repeating the mistakes of the past, particularly in the era around 1986, on a much grander and, therefore, more troublesome scale.

Another point I wish to make is the overall numbers these provisions will lead to because I think there has been a lot of fuzzy math and a lack of attention to detail on this question. Again, the devil is in the details. Let's read this bill. Let's look at this bill and understand the full consequences of this bill, including the amnesty program.

The number folks toss around most commonly on the floor of the Senate, as well as in the wider debate around the country, is 12 million illegal aliens are currently in this country. Most experts seem to think that is a pretty minimum number. It could be significantly above that. Again, we need to look at the bill, and we need to understand the details because that is not the total number who may be eligible for citizenship.

The bill is very liberal and very broad in granting this citizenship path to an extended definition of family

members of these folks. So in fact, as a direct, immediate result of this bill, we could well have about 30 million folks on that citizenship path, getting on that path very quickly.

Over an extended number of years, that number will be far larger. Estimates, for instance, by Robert Rector over a 20-year period after enactment of this underlying bill is that it would mean a minimum of 103 million new folks gaining citizenship, possibly much higher. Again, the devil is in the details. Let's look hard at the numbers. Let's add it up. We are not talking about 12 million, we are talking about 30 million immediately. We are talking about huge numbers, 100 million or more over 20 years.

Finally, the argument that is most often put up against avoiding this sort of amnesty program is that we can't make felons of all these millions of illegal aliens in the country. We can't round them up and deport them. It is impractical. It may not be a good idea, even if we could do it. President Bush made this specific argument 2 nights ago. Many of my colleagues on the Senate floor have made the same argument.

The truth is that is not the alternative. That is a straw man, an easy argument to push aside and defeat. That is not the practical alternative at all. The practical alternative to rushing toward an amnesty program is to do meaningful things with regard to enforcement and other measures in the country that on their own can decrease the illegal alien population in this country over time.

Let me mention six items in particular: Secure the borders through Border Patrol agents, increase fencing, substantially increase detention space and do that before we do anything else. Some provisions are in this bill, but it is not being done before we move on to other aspects of the bill.

No. 2: Implement strong and serious worksite enforcement measures and, again, do that before other aspects of the bill are implemented.

No. 3: Eliminate document fraud through the use of biometrics, immigration documents, and secure Social Security cards.

No. 4: Reform existing laws to reduce the incentive to work illegally by providing the IRS with increased resources to investigate and sanction both employers and illegal aliens for submitting fraudulent tax returns, requiring the Social Security Administration to share information with DHS when no match letters are sent to employers, and barring illegal workers from counting work performed illegally toward Social Security.

No. 5: Encourage State and local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws themselves by giving them authority and by requiring the Feds to reimburse them for expenses directly related to that enforcement, and enhancing coordination and information sharing between the State and local law enforcement and Federal immigration authorities.

No. 6: Provide the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice with the necessary resources to perform their jobs.

Madam President, these six things, without an amnesty program, would, in fact, lower the population of illegal aliens in this country over time. Why would it lower it? Because it would remove the incentives for those folks to stay here. It would remove the mechanism by which they can successfully stay in this country and gain employment.

So again, it is a straw man to talk about making all of these people felons. My amendment doesn't do that. We are not proposing that on the floor of the Senate. It is a straw man to talk about rounding up 12 million people around the country. It is a completely false argument to suggest that the only alternative to essentially amnesty is to have to do that and deport all 12 million of these people.

The practical alternative, which we can absolutely do, is avoid amnesty while implementing steps such as these six things. And that will provide real border security and real workplace security by demanding absolute requirements that ensure that folks getting jobs are legal immigrants, not illegals. That is the practical alternative which, over time, can dramatically reduce the illegal population in the country.

I don't know of any single aspect of this bill before us on the floor of the Senate that has Americans more concerned than these amnesty provisions. It goes to the heart of this debate. It goes to the heart of Americans' concerns that, once again, we are talking a good game about enforcement, but we are not demanding that it happen before considering other aspects of the bill. It goes to the heart of our experience in 1986, when that agricultural worker amnesty program clearly--clearly--was a huge part of the failure of that attempt to get our hands around illegal immigration. It was a huge part of the flow across our border, ballooning from 170,000 per year to 700,000 per year, and a huge part of the illegal population in our country skyrocketing from about 3 million to over 12 million.

So this is an important amendment that goes to the heart of so many Americans' concerns about the bill which are reflected in townhall meetings and discussions I have all across Louisiana. It is also reflected in every major national public opinion poll on the subject. Over and over again, Americans make very clear the huge majority want enforcement. There is a legitimate debate about a temporary worker program, but a huge majority have fundamental problems with these provisions which they know, using common sense, particularly when they understand the details of the bill, amount to absolute amnesty.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, if I could clarify the request to understand that under our previous unanimous consent agreement on this amendment, it will come out of the time of the opposition.

Mr. President, I ask for 5 minutes to respond to some of the arguments of the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. President, what is amnesty? I'll tell you what Merriam-Webster's dictionary says:

[T]he act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon

is granted to a large group of individuals.

What we are talking about is a large group of individuals illegally in the country. And the main consequence of that, under present law, is to leave the country. Surely, under this provision, we are pardoning them from that main consequence. Surely, this is a pardon from what present law states must happen to folks who have come into this country illegally, who stay in this country illegally.

The Senator from Arizona made several points, all of which I essentially rebutted in my comments before. There is a big distinction in this bill between those who have been here over 5 years and those under. There is on paper. And guess what. An illegal alien can satisfy the requirements of the bill that they have been here over 5 years and get all of the benefits of this amnesty program

by simply signing a piece of paper himself that it is so. It makes a mockery of the distinction.

The other requirements--a penalty. Yes, a penalty, which is less money than many immigrants pay to go through the legal process. Is that a penalty?

Paying back taxes--well, not all of them. Paying some back taxes. That is certainly less than folks who have gone through the legal process have had to do.

Learning English--well, not exactly. Being enrolled in a program is good enough, not proving any proficiency.

And working in a job solidly for a number of years. Well, not solidly for a number of years; 60 percent of the time is good enough.

The devil is in the details. I invite Members to look at the definition of amnesty. I invite Members to study the details of this bill because the American people certainly will and will come to the clear conclusion that is what it is and is a repeat of the mistake of past experience.

I would now like to yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Georgia.

I have no objection and will be happy to grant the Senator an additional 5 minutes.

In closing the debate on this amendment, I thank all of the Members who have participated on both sides. It is a very important debate.

I wish to make three closing points.

First of all, I find it a little bit amusing and quite telling, the extreme reaction that erupted from some of the

Senators at my suggestion that this is amnesty. It sort of reminds me of the famous line ``Thou doth protest too much.''

I offered a textbook definition of amnesty, and I heard no rebuttal to the fact that these provisions match that definition. Here is an even better definition from ``Black's Law Dictionary,'' which specifically cites as an example:

The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided

amnesty for undocumented aliens already present in the

country.

What is the comparison between that 1986 act and this bill? The comparison is laid out, and it is very striking. Penalties were there in both cases. Learning English? Guess what. That was required in 1986. Working in a job for certain periods of time? Guess what. That was in 1986 as well. The parallels, the comparison is striking.

Second, again, it is a straw man to suggest there is absolutely no way to deal with the 12 million illegal aliens presently in the country but the provisions of this bill. There are alternatives. I laid out an alternative. Senator Chambliss laid out an alternative offering these folks the ability to work as temporary workers but not an automatic guaranteed path to citizenship.

This is not about whether we deal with the problem; this is about how we deal with the problem. And amnesty, in my opinion, is exactly the wrong way to deal with the problem. Recent history has proven that.

Third, and finally, I do not offer this amendment ignoring the values behind American citizenship, ignoring the enormous devotion to those values that so many Americans have, perhaps most of all those who have recently become American citizens. I offer this amendment because of those values and my commitment to honor them because I truly believe the provisions of this bill, which amount to amnesty, will erode the concept of citizenship and will erode those very values.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I object to proceeding with the amendment.

Mr. President, perhaps as we go forward, we can finish up in less time than that. Maybe our colleagues on the other side will yield back some time. I think this is an amendment that we need to talk about in some significant way. This amendment deals with barriers at the border. I think this is something for which there is a growing appreciation, and it is not in the bill today.

Before I go into that, let me say to my colleagues and those who may be listening that we need to spend yet more time with this legislation. It is a 614-page bill. Few of our Senators have had the opportunity to study it or to understand in any significant degree the breadth of it. There are things in it that absolutely do not represent good policy and need to be reconsidered. I hope our colleagues will do that.

The vote last night on the Bingaman amendment was a very important one. It took the maximum number of people who could enter our country under the so-called guest worker provisions from around 130 million over 20 years, at a maximum, down far below that to probably 9 million. That is in only one provision of the bill. However, I remind my colleagues that while that was one of the most egregious provisions in this entire legislation, this legislation still calls for massive increases of legal immigration into our country, even with that change we effected last night.

My staff worked hard on this, and I don't think anybody has even considered the numbers until the last week or the last few days. That analysis concludes that as the bill is now written----

I will yield if I can reclaim the floor.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3979.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my colleagues, Senator Santorum, Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Vitter, and Senator Bunning be made original cosponsors of the amendment.

Mr. President, my colleagues need to know that we still, after the positive step we took last night, are looking at increasing immigration into our country by a significant amount. Those totals will range, depending on how it plays out, from a minimum of 63 million to 93 million. That is 3 to 5 times the current number we now allow, and would expect to allow, over 20 years, which is 19 million people allowed to come into our country legally. This would raise that number to between 63 million and 93 million. It is better than where we were yesterday, but I still submit that it is a number that has not been carefully thought out. We have not analyzed how to do this with a number that is still too great, in my opinion.

We hear over and over that this is a guest worker proposal, it is a guest worker plan. There is nothing ``guest'' about it. Every person who comes in under this legislation, as it is now written, as it is now on the floor of the Senate, will be able to enter for a significant period of time. They will be able to apply for a green card shortly thereafter. That means you are a legal, permanent resident. After 5 years, you can apply for citizenship. So this is not temporary.

As President Bush mentioned yesterday several times--a temporary worker program--it is not temporary. It is a permanent move for people to enter our country to become citizens, and that is a matter far more significant than some have suggested to us. I think it is important for us to all know that. Please, we need to know that. Anybody who says ``temporary worker'' in discussions with the media or on the floor of the Senate ought to have their hand spanked a little bit.

Next, the legislation continues and accelerates an emphasis on low- skilled workers. All of the economists that we have heard testify in the Senate Judiciary Committee--and we have not had a lot--agreed that low-skilled workers tend to be a net drain on the economy and utilize more in Government benefits, welfare, and health care than high-skilled workers. Any program that we pass ought to emphasize high-skilled workers. This bill doesn't do that. This bill does nothing about the chain migration in which people who work their way to citizenship can bring in their parents, their brothers and sisters, adult children, regardless of the needs of the United States for workers, regardless of what skills they may have and whether we need them in the United States. Under this bill, citizenship is an automatic right. That ought to be confronted. The economists and public policy experts we have heard from raise that point and say other countries are not that way.

So this is the Senate. We are supposed to be the thoughtful branch. This is one of the most important issues this Senate has faced in decades. The people of the United States really care about this. They are concerned about it. They want us to do the right thing. That will include creating a legal system that is enforceable and will increase the number of legal immigrants into our country.

But how will we do it? Will we do it in a principled way that is helpful to our Nation's future or will we continue to willy-nilly provide, in effect, entitlements to people from all over the world to come here regardless of the needs of the United States?

Some say: We just need to pass something. Don't be nitpicky, Sessions, just pass something. We will get it to conference and somehow it will be fixed there.

I have my doubts about that, No. 1. No. 2, this is the Senate. We will be casting votes on this legislation, and we ought not vote for anything that we know is not good public policy.

A critical part of the immigration reform that we need to effect for our country is to make sure that our legal system, which is so utterly broken on this issue, is repaired. It needs to work. Can anyone dispute that? Today, we understand that 1 million people come into the country legally each year. The estimates are that 500,000 to 800,000 will be coming in illegally each year--almost as many legal immigrants.

I see Senator Vitter in the Chair, who is such a knowledgeable and articulate spokesman on this issue. I happened to see the mayor's debate in New Orleans last night, and Hard Ball asked them what about illegal immigrants? They had to have them to do the work in New Orleans. There was a discussion about it. What is the answer to that? Of course, you don't need illegal immigrants to do the work. Of course, if we craft a good immigration bill, when you have a crisis like Hurricane Katrina, we would be able to have temporary workers come in in whatever numbers are necessary to do that work. That is what a good bill would do.

That is a crisis that calls for an unusual amount of workers. Why don't we draft something that would actually work in that circumstance? Not anybody, no one, should come in and justify illegality. If the law is not adequate, let's fix it. The truth is, I think it is adequate today.

A critical part of moving us to an effective, enforceable, honorable, decent, legal immigration system is to send the message to the world that our border is not open, our border is closed. There are a number of ways to do that. I think that is important because we need to reach a tipping point where the people who want to come to our country know without doubt that coming here illegally is not going to be successful, and their best way to come here is to file the proper application and wait in line. Isn't that the right policy?

So how do we go from this lawless system, a system that makes a mockery of the laws of this great Nation, the United States of America, to a system that works? We send some signals and we do some things appropriately. President Bush did one of them the night before last when he said we were going to use the National Guard. That is a signal to the world that business as usual has ended, that we are going to create a legal system that works. We want him to follow through on that and with all of the other requirements that go with it. But it is a good step and a good signal, and it will help us improve that system.

Another way is to have more Border Patrol agents. We need that. We have authorized some more in this bill but not enough. It is a matter of critical importance, and we will need to fund that--the Senate and House--and not just to authorize it. Isn't that an essential part of it if we are going to change from a lawless system to a lawful system?

Another thing that we absolutely need, and every expert knows, is to increase the retention space. We have to end the catch and release. When you catch someone who comes into this country through Mexico or Canada from a country that is other than Mexico or Canada, where they are not contiguous to the United States, how do you get them home?

How do you return them? You have to put them on a boat or train or plane, and that is not always easy to do. So do you know what has been happening, friends and neighbors? They catch them around the border, and they are released on bail and asked to come back at a certain time so they can be taken out of the country. How many do you think show up to be deported? They violated the law to come here, so we release them on bail and ask them to show up so they can be deported. How laughable is that? One reporter did an analysis in one area of this system, and 95 percent did not show up. Surprise, surprise. Why do we release them? Why do we not hold them until they can be deported? Because we don't have sufficient bed space.

Part of reaching a tipping point in creating a legal system is to make sure we don't eviscerate the work of our law enforcement agents by having them turn loose the people they just went out in the desert to catch. How simple is that? But it is critical, and it is not there yet. So people who say they want a stronger border have to support, in my view, more detention spaces.

This amendment also deals with a critical component of creating a legal system that works, and that is fencing. It sends a signal that open border days are over, and it will greatly enhance

enforcement. It will pay for itself many times over the years. It is a reasonable proposal. It does not overreach. It builds on the provisions that are in the bill.

Senator Kyl in committee had a number of provisions dealing with Arizona and fencing along that border. It builds on those provisions and keeps that language in the bill but provides and directs that we have 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of barriers sufficient to keep vehicles from crossing the border. We are at a point where we need to take this step if we are serious.

The bill before us today, S. 2611, is the fundamental base bill from which we are working. Its language calls for repair and construction of additional fencing in very limited areas along the southern border, mostly in Arizona, as I just mentioned. But for the most part, this provision simply calls for the repair of fences that already exist in the Tucson and Yuma sections of Arizona.

Other than this limited amount of fencing, provisions contained in title I of this bill call only for the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to develop a comprehensive plan for the systematic surveillance of the border, and section 129 calls for only a study to assess the necessity, feasibility, and economic impact of constructing physical barriers along the border. Just a study.

This amendment attempts to go forward and create a real solution to the problem. It directs that the Secretary of Homeland Security construct at least 370 miles of triple-layered fencing, including the fencing already built in San Diego, and 500 miles of vehicle barriers at strategic locations along the southwest border.

These are not extreme numbers in any way. In fact, they are the numbers given to a number of Senators in a briefing a few weeks ago by Secretary Chertoff himself, President Bush's Secretary of Homeland Security. He said this is what he believes at this point in time he needs. It directs that this be done. It sends a signal to our appropriators that it should be funded, and it authorizes the President and the executive branch to go further than this and build such other fences as they may find appropriate.

We will have objections for reasons I am not sure why, but I suspect we will have objections. One of the points I have been making for some time when it comes to fixing our immigration system is that we have quite a number of Members of the House and Senate and members in the media who are all in favor of reforms and improvements as long as they don't really work. If it really makes a difference and will actually tilt the system from one that is illegal and will change the status quo and move us to a legal system, somehow, someway, there will be objections to it.

I submit that we are going to have objections to this modest proposal to build 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of barriers according to the request of the Secretary of Homeland Security because it is going to work. That is why. We will have a lot of other reasons, such as it might send a bad signal. But good fences make good neighbors. Fences don't make bad neighbors. Go to the San Diego border and talk with the people. There was lawlessness, drug dealing, gangs, and economic depression on both sides of the border. When they built the fence and brought that border under control, the economy on both sides of the fence blossomed, crime has fallen, and it is an entirely different place and a much better place. That is just the way it is. We have to do this, and it is time to move forward.

A state-of-the-art border security system should be robust enough that it would not be easily compromised by cutting, climbing, tunneling, or ramming through with a vehicle, when combined with high- tech detection devices, motion sensors, body sensors, and seismic or subterranean sensors. A good barrier should make intrusion time consuming enough that a border unit could respond to the attempted intrusion before they are successful. That is what a fence does. To be worth our efforts, it does not need to be 100 percent impenetrable; it simply needs to improve significantly the status quo, and I am confident this amendment will do that.

Mr. President, it is great to see my colleague, Senator Ben Nelson, in the Chamber. He is dealing with a number of important issues today, but he has understood the importance of security at the border from the beginning. He has articulated clearly and effectively his vision for that and has recognized that unless we demonstrate to the world and to our own people that we have border security done first, then nothing else is going to be meaningful, and we will be right back where we were in the beginning.

I know Senator Nelson has to leave, and I am pleased to yield to him such time as we have remaining to speak on this amendment. I have been pleased to work with him on this issue.

Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire wanted to speak on a different subject, and I believe he has cleared that, and it would not count against the time on this amendment. I would be pleased, if there is no objection, to allow him to speak on that subject now.

I ask unanimous consent that I be able to claim the floor afterward.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire because it is very important that we have, as the chairman of our Budget Committee, someone who can add and someone who has a memory. We forget how things happen around here, and Senator Gregg has a way of reminding us of how we get in these fixes. It is very valuable to us.

I would respond to my colleague from Massachusetts that $4 billion to $5 billion is an estimate for the fence across the entire 1,980 miles of border. This amendment calls for 370 miles, some of which has already been built. It is called for by the Secretary of Homeland Security. It does, indeed, focus mostly on urban areas, and it gives him great flexibility in deciding where to put it.

Does it cost some money? Yes. But I want to tell every Member of our Senate community that the American people expect this. If it takes a sequester

across the board and takes a half of 1 percent of every budget to get this thing done and fix immigration, that is what they want us to do.

I am delighted that Senator Vitter of Louisiana is here and also wants to speak on this issue. He is an original cosponsor.

I would also note, and add for the Record, that Senator Graham, our Presiding Officer, and Senator Inhofe wish to be original cosponsors, as does Senator Kyl from Arizona. I ask that be part of the Record.

I yield such time as Senator Vitter uses.

I thank the Senator from Arizona. There is no more harder working, no more knowledgeable Senator in this Senate on the issues involving the border than he. I thank him for his eloquent remarks.

I am pleased to yield such time as he may consume to Senator Cornyn of Texas who, like myself, is one of the most knowledgeable people in this Senate who has been engaged in this debate from the beginning and whose advice and recommendations I have valued throughout. So I will yield to Senator Cornyn for such time as he may choose to use.

Madam President, we are at a point where everybody in this body--and overwhelmingly, the American people--wants to see a lawful system of immigration in America. We can all disagree about what to do about the people who have come here illegally already. There are a lot of ideas about that. We can disagree about what our policy should be in the future, but we pretty well have been unified on that point. The 370 miles of fencing that we are talking about, plus barriers for vehicle traffic in a larger amount, has the support of Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff and the administration. They believe it is a good expenditure, and they are prepared to help find the money to fund it because it will save money in the long run. It is a one-time expenditure and will be a multiplier of the effectiveness of every single Border Patrol agent.

As we have heard from Senators Cornyn and Kyl, who have visited the border on a regular basis, we have borders that run right through the middle of towns and communities. How could we possibly put enough agents at every corner, every street to guard it? We need to do better and we can do better.

I am amused by my colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, saying there is going to be 1,000 miles of fencing. I had originally offered in committee 700 miles. That is what the House passed. We have now come in and listened to the administration and proposed a modest figure of 370 total, counting portions of the fence already built in San Diego, and those being refurbished in Arizona. The House is at 700. So the argument that it is going to be a fence across the whole border or the argument that we are going to build 1,000 miles of fence is not very plausible. Frankly, if the Senate is at 370 and the House is at 700, we are not likely to come out with a compromise at 1,000. What kind of argument is that?

Then we heard the argument that it is going to bankrupt America. We spend over $800 billion a year. We can't find a billion dollars to fix this problem? We certainly can. They ask: Will it work? I say let them go to San Diego. Let them go there and talk to the people on both sides of the border where the whole county showed a 56-percent reduction in crime, and on both sides of that fence the economy is booming. It is safe and secure. The smugglers and dope dealers are gone, and things are much better off. It is a positive development. Why are we having opposition to it?

Senator Kyl came close to the truth when he said: Whenever anything gets proposed--I am paraphrasing--that might actually work, we get an objection to it. What about a good identifier card? They say something like that makes sense, but every time we get close to having a good biometric identifier card that would actually work, we get all kinds of objections.

There is no doubt that some people believe in open borders. There are people who do not want to see this immigration system become a lawful system. I will repeat, we are a nation of immigrants. We are going to increase the number of immigrants. I will support increasing the number of lawful immigrants into our country by a reasonable amount, not three to five times the current level that is in this bill today, even after we reduced the numbers last night. Three to five times is way out of the range of what should be accepted. But we are going to increase immigration. We are not against immigration. I reject that. We want to travel across the border, particularly our

Mexican border. It is a very busy place. Senators Kyl and Cornyn are familiar with that border, and they wouldn't support anything that would back that up.

I am confident we are on the right track. We have checked with a series of contractors and looked at the numbers. The best estimate we get is that the kind of premier fence we are talking about would be at most $3.2 million per mile, and that would, at 296 miles of new fencing cost approximately $940 million, not $14 billion. Where did that come from? That is not so. It will probably cost around a billion dollars.

Remember, as Senator Cornyn reminded us, 1.1 million people are being arrested each day at that border, 1.1 million. How much does it cost to detain and process those people and deport them and move them out of the country or release them or catch and release, in which they then abscond and don't show up to be deported? Is it not better to reduce the number of arrests by creating an effective system that prevents crossing the border rather than all the expense of detecting and apprehending and deporting?

We have had some good discussion. We have talked about these issues in a number of ways. With regard to the San Diego fence, according to the FBI crime index, crime in that county dropped 56.3 percent between 1989 and 2000, after the fence was erected. Vehicle drive-throughs in the region have fallen between 6 to 10 per day before the construction of the border infrastructure to only 4 drive-throughs in 2004 for the year. And those occurred only where the secondary fence is incomplete.

According to the numbers provided by the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol, in February of 2004, apprehensions decreased from 531,609. The American people need to hear this as well as Senators. In 2004, the apprehensions on the San Diego, CA, sector of the border only were 532,689 apprehensions. How expensive is that? Those figures were in 1993. And in 2003, after the fence was built, it dropped to 111,000 across that whole sector.

So the idea that the fence had no impact and everybody went around it is not true. It sent a message that we were serious about creating a border that works, and it reduced by four-fifths the numbers of arrests. How much money did that save? How much time did that save? And it left the Border Patrol officers available to do a lot of different things.

In 1993, authorities at the San Diego border apprehended over 58,000 pounds of marijuana coming across the border from Mexico. In 2003, after the fence, the tide of drugs was reduced and only 36,000 pounds of marijuana were apprehended, and cocaine smuggling decreased from 1,200 pounds to 150 pounds. That is some of the progress that was made.

This is a narrow amendment, concentrating on the most important 800, 500, or 350 miles of fencing, with 500 miles of barriers. It is focused and it is what the Department of Homeland Security says they need. It is reasonable in cost. It will save money considerably over the long run. It is a one-time expenditure, but it can save us from having thousands of permanent investigators, permanent prison bed spaces, and things of that nature. The key to it is to change the perception and the reality of how we are doing business.

Let me conclude with that thought. It is important for this country to make clear to our own citizens and to the world that a lawful system is going to be created, that this is no longer any open border. Once that happens, and once that is absolutely clear, we are going to have fewer people attempt to come in. It is that simple. How do you do it?

Well, the President's call out to the National Guard is one signal that things have changed. Business as usual is over. Utilizing fencing is important. Increasing bed spaces and increasing agents along the border are important. All those things can help us reach a tipping point, a magic point on the seesaw or the balance scale. When it tips, it is going to tip so that people will find out it makes more sense to apply to come here legally, according to our laws, rather than coming in illegally. It will add to the workplace enforcement on top of that, and you will become serious about immigration.

We can do this. It is not hopeless or impossible. For a reasonable cost, we can tip the scales from illegality to legality. That is what the American people are asking us to do. A vote for this amendment is a step in that direction.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for 2 minutes.

Mr. President, on the Vitter amendment, I thank Senator Vitter for his amendment. Yesterday, Senator Dorgan offered an amendment to remove the guest worker program in its entirety, and I supported that because I believed it was flawed. Eventually, last night, we came back with an amendment that pretty much fixed it, that whole guest worker program, which I thought was good.

I think Senator Vitter's amendment points out and allows us to focus on the fact that this amnesty provision in the bill or regularization provision in the bill--whatever the fair way to describe it is--also has serious flaws. By supporting this amendment, it would be my intention to say let's make it better because I do believe we are not going to reject the people who are here and try to eject all of those people who have come illegally. We need to treat them in a decent and fair and caring way.

But also the rule of law is important. I think we ought not to develop a procedure that essentially provides every benefit to someone who came illegally that we would provide to those who come legally. So I will be supporting the amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from Arizona may need.

Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from South Carolina needs.

Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.

I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. President, would the Senator from Texas yield me a couple of minutes on his time?

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, just so the membership has a good understanding of where we are, I will summarize this provision. I thank Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl for working with us, and Senator Graham and Senator McCain for their great help and assistance, and my wonderful assistant, Esther, for all of her good work. Senator Durbin has illustrated the human terms which are involved in this issue as well.

Let me very quickly point out what the language provides. People should understand now what the sense of this whole proposal is about. We want to keep those who can harm us, the criminal element, out of the United States or for the consideration of being able to adjust status and be able to continue to work and live here. Those who can benefit the United States ought to be able to remain.

This is what we were attempting to do with this particular language. That is more complicated than it might seem.

Effectively, the Kyl-Cornyn amendment would make the various classes of aliens ineligible for the earned legalization program: Any person who is issued a removal order, failed to deport, or deported and subsequently returned; any person who was ordered to leave the country under the visa waiver program is subject to expedited removal; any person who fails to depart under a voluntary departure agreement; any person convicted of a serious crime inside or outside the United States; any person who has been convicted of a felony, or three misdemeanors.

That is the operative aspect of the amendment. The compromise reached yesterday strengthens the waiver so that aliens under the final orders of removal will still be eligible for earned legalization if they did not receive a notice of their immigration hearing, obviously, through no fault of their own--we know what the agency itself has missed, as the GAO report indicated--or it is established they failed to appear at their hearing because of exceptional circumstances, which are certainly understandable; or, three, that they can establish extreme hardship to their spouse or child or parent who was a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident. Senator Durbin gave the excellent examples of that provision. Those are the kinds of examples we are all familiar with in the Senate.

The waivers are available to immigrants who entered without inspection or those who fell out of status or who used false documents but not to criminal aliens or aggregated felons. We believe the waiver will cover many of the current undocumented who otherwise would be excluded under the original Kyl-Cornyn amendment.

We believe it is important progress. It is not the way, certainly, some Members would have drafted this proposal, but we understand the concerns that have been expressed by the proponents. We believe this is language which will for all intents and purposes treat individuals fairly, welcome those who should be welcome and exclude those who should be excluded.

We yield back the balance.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, could I, just for a moment, ask the leader to withhold the request and see if I can clear this with the leadership here? Could you withhold the request?

Will the Senator be good enough to yield for a question?

We have before us now an amendment in terms of building some 350 miles of additional fence. It is going to be a triple fence. The best estimates--the Senate, I am sure, will hear from the Senator from Alabama--but the best estimates we have been able to see is approximately $4 billion.

I am just listening to the Senator talk about allocating resources to renew technology between border guards, between helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, other infrastructure improvements, and the pressure that we are under in terms of the appropriations. Having listened to the Senator from New Hampshire, and listened to how he had to allocate $1.9 billion, is he prepared to make any comment if we add another authorization for another $4 billion or $5 billion on fencing, where that money would be available?

If the Senator could yield for another question? Could the Senator have 3 more minutes to just yield for a question?

I must say I agree with the Senator--we will have a chance, when I have my own time, to talk about Secretary Chertoff--that there are appropriate areas. I agree with the Senator as well. But just extending a fence all along the border does not make sense. I think his response is certainly one with which I agree, and I thank him for his comments.

Mr. President, how much time do I have?

Mr. President, I yield such time as I might use.

Over the course of the discussion and debate on immigration reform, those of us who have been strong supporters of it have pointed out what the President of the United States pointed out; that is, this is about four major aspects of having this program work. They are all interrelated. That is what we call comprehensive. One of them is border security.

Those of us who support strong immigration reform strongly support border security. We voted for the enhancement and the increase in the supplemental.

We just listened to the Senator from New Hampshire who outlined how he allocated $1.9 billion. It is very interesting that we have some allocation for a San Diego fence in that, but he also talked about using new technology and using recent technological breakthroughs as being the most effective way to provide security at the border. He reiterated that today.

The chart behind me illustrates border enforcement which is in S. 2611 at the present time: 12,000 new border agents; high-technology, virtual fence which was favorably and positively commented on by the Senator from New Hampshire when he had responsibility to take the $1.9 billion and look at how he was going to allocate it over the period of time.

It talks about the new roads, vehicle barriers at the border, and about fencing in strategic locations.

Do you understand fencing in strategic locations? That is a part of

Madam President, I want to bring some relevant and important facts to the debate. As we have pointed out, we are for security of the border. We have outlined, in my earlier comments, the provisions in this legislation which would help to achieve that. I want to point out some of the history of the building of a fence and the cost of the building of a fence.

When the first fence was going to be built, Congressman Hunter, the House's largest proponent of fencing, originally estimated the cost of completing the 14 miles of fencing in San Diego at $14 million, the same as the current estimate, I believe, of the Senator from Alabama. Fencing was completed over 11 miles, and the cost was more than 200 percent over budget, costing $42 million. The real cost of construction ended up being more than $3.8 million per mile. At that rate, a complete fence across the U.S.-Mexican border would cost $7.6 billion.

As was referenced, the House of Representatives position calls for a 700-mile fence. Congressman Hunter boasts of securing an additional $35 million for the last 3 miles of fencing in San Diego, approximately $12 million per mile. These costs are significantly higher because of difficult terrain. Much of the U.S. border with Mexico crosses mountain terrain such as these 3 miles, potentially driving up the cost of borderwide security.

Let's look at what happened in terms of people. Currently, there are 70 miles of fencing along the U.S.- Mexican border, including 40 miles in California and 25 in Arizona. Partial fencing of the U.S.-Mexican border shifted migrant traffic from one area to the other. The apprehensions dropped in San Diego from a high of 450,000 in 1994, when fencing construction began, to a low of 136,000 in 2005, a reduction of 70 percent. Over the same period, the apprehensions in the Tucson sector, covering most of Arizona, rose from 137,000 in 1994 to 489,000, almost an exact shift in migrant traffic from San Diego to Arizona. So the number of apprehensions along the U.S. border from 1994 to 2005 has barely fluctuated, ranging from 900,000 to well over a million per year.

What the facts show is that having large-scale fences has been grossly inadequate, if we are talking about security. We need to have real, effective security, as we discussed earlier, the virtual fence, using the latest in technology, and also enforcement of laws in the workplace which will discourage people from coming and which those who have studied this believe to be the most effective.

We are talking about a cost of billions of dollars for something that has not been shown to be effective in achieving an outcome. There are ways of securing the border, but this is not the way to do so, for the reasons I outlined earlier and the reasons I cited at this time. We have evaluations of fencing in our legislation. We ought to find out what is the most effective way, whether we use the virtual fence, the newer technologies, what is having the best and most positive result, and invest in that. That is what we ought to do.

What we are doing this afternoon is a good-feeling vote, in terms of trying to give some assurances to the American people, which history has shown is highly costly, and in terms of the amount of resources we are likely to expend has not been effective.

For the reason of raising the kinds of conflicts that we are going to have with our neighbors to the south rather than working with them effectively, there are better and more effective ways of securing the border.

I hope this amendment will be defeated.

As I understand it, there is a desire to vote at 2:30. I think I have used about all my time. I would be glad to yield back the time, maybe move on to another amendment.

Madam President, I have not yielded back my time. I may yield back my time. I will have to get a short quorum call if we are going to ask consent on establishing--unless our leaders have agreed to have the series, I would have a short quorum call until we can clear that.

Yes, I yield back my time.

That is fine.

What is the time situation, Mr. President?

The other side?

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nebraska for his excellent presentation. He laid out as effectively as one could the reasons against this amendment. Effectively, the Vitter amendment undermines the whole concept of a comprehensive immigration bill. But having said that, it is not a constructive or positive solution to the challenges we are facing with the 11 million or 12 million undocumented individuals who are here at the present time.

First of all, our bill says if you are going to be able to earn citizenship, you have to pay a penalty. So you have to pay the penalty. You have to be continuously employed. You have to meet a security background check. You must learn English. You must learn U.S. History. You must pay all back taxes, and then you get in the back of the line of all of the applicants waiting for green cards. Effectively, it takes 11 years for them to be able to earn citizenship. That is the earned legalization program.

For those who say this is 1986, they are either distorting the record or haven't read it clearly. This is what we are talking about for those 11 million or 12 million people: They have to earn it--the end of the line, pay the penalty, work hard.

We have seen some of them join the Armed Forces of our country. That is the earned legalization.

What is Senator Vitter's answer? Do you know what is going to happen? You are going to have the 11 million or 12 million individuals continue to be exploited in the workplace. You are going to drive down the wages and, therefore, undermine working conditions for Americans. They are going to be exploited. They are going to be threatened in the workplace: If you do not do this job that I am asking you to do, I am going to call the immigration service and have you deported.

They are threatened. That is happening every single day all across this country to these individuals.

Third, if you are a woman you are going to suffer exploitation, you are going to suffer abuse, and you are going to suffer sexual harassment. That is the record. Those are the things that are happening, and at the end of the day you are going to have a two-tiered society. That is something that we, as Americans, have avoided. We take pride that we are a singular society and we struggle to create equality for all the people of our society.

If you accept the Vitter amendment, you are going to have a two- tiered society; that is, a permanent underclass. That is the United States of America. That is going to be the result if we are going to follow the recommendations. There is even the suggestion it was going to be for deportation.

We have heard different approaches to these 12 million. Our friends in the House of Representatives have effectively wanted to criminalize every 1 of these 12 million. We are going to criminalize them and stain them for the rest of their lives. We have rejected that.

We have, on the one hand, people prepared to play by the rules. By and large, these are the people who are devoted to their families, who want to work hard, who want to play by the rules. There are 70,000 permanent residents now serving in the Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world, willing to do so. Many of them have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are prepared to do so. They want to be part of the American dream, as our forebears from other nationalities have been part of the American dream. They want to participate. We are saying to them, that is the choice: a permanent subclass, permanent underclass, permanent exploitation of 11 million or 12 million, or have them earn their way, go to the back of the line, show they are going to be good citizens, learn English, pay their back taxes, and demonstrate they are committed to the American dream.

That is the choice we have made. That is the choice which is clearly in the interest of our country. That would be altered and changed and dramatically undermined with the Vitter amendment. I hope it is not accepted.

I withhold whatever time remains.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Illinois for bringing this to the attention of the Senate. I rise in strong support of the amendment. One of the dynamics of a comprehensive approach is legality and fairness. What we want to make sure is that when jobs are advertised for Americans first, Americans should be able to take advantage of the opportunity. But if they are going to go, by and large, to Hispanic individuals who come here, they ought to be treated at fair wages. There are protections that are included in the bill at the present time. The amendment offered by the Senator from Illinois addresses that issue and strengthens it. I hope we will find a way to accept it.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object, as I understand, at the time they are going to have the consideration of the Inhofe amendment, there may be a side-by-side amendment, and I hope that perhaps we would move to Inhofe. I would also hope that the Senator might withhold his unanimous consent request, at least until we have the full package, so that the Senate understands exactly the way we are going to proceed.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have been ready to go, urging relatively short time agreements. We have a whole series of proposals from that side and virtually none from here. This has been sort of a jump ball. We are trying to adopt to that. We have a Democratic amendment that we are prepared to go to. I am more than glad to work out with the floor manager as to time limits. The Cornyn amendment we had not expected would come up. It reaches the heart of the issue, and our side needs at least an hour for it. I know the Inhofe amendment has been a matter that has been discussed. We were trying to work out a time agreement for consideration of a side-by- side. There has been a good deal of discussion and desire to try to work out a relatively limited amount of time. We are not interested in prolonging that discussion and debate. I think people would like some time to try to figure that out. I think when they have that, we could have a relatively short period of time for the consideration of it. I am familiar with the Ensign amendment. Senator Vitter and Senator Cornyn have amendments. We are prepared to have a short time agreement.

Our concern is that we have a whole series of Republican amendments, and we are not having Democratic amendments. We want to try to work this thing through. We have had a short time. I have every intention of suggesting to our side that we have short

times. But we need to at least try to work out with the floor manager some opportunity for the consideration of our side.

Mr. President, I am glad to do the Inhofe amendment. I understand there is going to be a side-by-side, but I can't enter into a time agreement on that until that thing is finished. I know what the Senator's amendment is. I know people want to debate it. But in terms of limiting the time, until we have the side-by-side, I cannot enter into a time agreement. When we have a side-by-side, we would enter into a short time agreement--I think an hour or an hour and half evenly divided. There isn't any desire to prolong this. We are going to be on this bill--I understand there are 16 more amendments on that side which are serious amendments. We are going to be on this legislation. We made good progress today. I am glad to make some progress. That happens to be the reality on this. Maybe later in the afternoon we could get a short time agreement. But until we work out the side-by-side language on it, I would not be able to enter into a time agreement at this time on the Inhofe amendment.

I am glad, when we get to the Vitter amendment, to go for 45 minutes, but I think it is our turn after disposing of the Cornyn amendment. Senator Lieberman has an amendment, the Lieberman- Brownback amendment. We can agree to a short time limit on that. We would want to go back and forth.

I suggest an hour. I think we can get it done in 45.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 minutes and the time not be charged to this amendment and that Senator Sessions be recognized upon completion of my statement.

Mr. President, I wish to talk about border security. Obviously it is a topic of hot discussion here in the Chamber, and I just wanted to try to put in perspective what has actually happened and what may happen, especially in light of the President's presentation on Monday night.

I have the good fortune, I guess, to chair the appropriations subcommittee which has responsibility for border security. I took this over 2 years ago, a year and a half ago, I guess. When I took the committee over, it became immediately apparent to me that the priorities within the Department of Homeland Security were not necessarily focused on what I consider to be the primary threat. So we reoriented the funding within the Department to look at threat first, the highest level threat being, of course, a weapon of mass destruction which might be used against America. So we started to increase funding immediately in that account.

In my opinion, the second highest level of threat was the fact that our borders were simply not secure. They were porous. We didn't know who was coming in. We especially didn't know who was leaving. We knew that we weren't in control of the southern border relative to those folks coming in, and we knew that on the northern border, although we don't have the human-wave issue of illegal immigrants coming into the country, we do have a very serious issue of people who might come across the northern border represent clear and present threats to us, probably even more so than across the southern borders, in some cases. So we reoriented funding within the homeland security programs through the first bill that I was in charge of.

At that time, the administration sent up a proposal which essentially continued what I would call the benign neglect of the border security effort in our country. Their proposal in that budget was for 210 additional border agents and essentially no increase in technical capability or in the capacity of infrastructure or the capacity of ICE. There was a proposal in the Coast Guard area, but it was anemic. So we took that proposal which came from the administration and we reoriented that, too. We said: We are going to increase the number of border security agents on the border by 8,000. We are going to spend about 4 years to 5 years doing that. We had to begin slowly because the training facilities simply weren't there for this type of a huge increase in border security staff. So we began with a supplemental number of 500, and then we followed that up with 1,000 additional agents in the next regular bill that came through. So we added 1,500 new agents.

In addition, agents aren't the only issue. Boots on the ground is not the only issue. Technology is an issue, but probably even more important is the issue of what you do with an illegal immigrant who has come across our border once you capture that individual on our side of the border. Most of them are Mexican, on the southern border--about 85 percent--and they are immediately put on a bus and taken back across the border. In many instances, they just come back the next day or a week later. But a number of them are non-Mexicans, and those folks were given what was called a catch-and-release status, where you essentially

gave them an indictment which said they must return to be heard in a hearing 2 or 3 weeks later, maybe a month later, and then you released these individuals. Of course most of them never come back. Sixty-six percent never return to that hearing. That wasn't working, so we believed we should significantly increase the number of detention beds so we would have the capacity to actually hold people, especially non- Mexicans, who were coming across our border and whom we couldn't immediately return by bus to their country, as we could with the Mexicans. So we started to expand the number of beds, and we increased the number of beds by about I think 2,000 in that first budget cycle.

After having done that, it was ironic, and I guess appropriate, that the White House came forward and said: What a great idea. That is our idea. Let's take credit for this idea. So they held a press conference and said: What a wonderful idea you had to increase the number of border agents by 1,500 people and the number of beds by a couple thousand, and we would actually be taking the money and putting it toward border security. That was a year ago.

Now the new budget came up again, and this time the administration sent up a budget which was oriented toward border security in that they represented that they were going to increase the number of agents by another 1,500 and the number of beds by another 6,000, and they were going to begin to put more money into the Coast Guard initiative called deepwater. But it is not really deepwater; it would be better called protecting our coastline from threat. ``Deepwater'' makes people think it is somewhere out in the middle of the ocean. It may occur in the ocean, but actually this is threat protection along our coast.

So they made these commitments within the budget they sent up. What they failed to do, however, was fund those commitments because they sent up really a hollow budget in that they put in that budget a system for paying for these new Border Patrol agents and these new beds by increasing the fees on people who are traveling on airplanes by about $1.2 billion. Of course, that fee proposal had been rejected the year before. The Chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction over that proposal had rejected it out of hand this year when that budget was sent up, and everybody knows that it is not going anywhere, so it is what is called a plug. It happens around here. People send up a budget, and they will put a plug in it, which is basically a number they know they are never going to get, but they put it in to make the budget look correct. This was a plug. Clearly, airline fees, if they are going to be increased, that revenue should go toward airline traffic protection, which is basically TSA activity, maybe some visa activity, but it is not appropriate to put an increase on the airline passenger, on people using the airlines, and then take that revenue and put it on the border. If you want to use a fee on the border, put a fee on the border. Put a 50-cent charge as if you are going through a toll gate. If people want to come across the border, maybe it should cost people 75 cents.

But in any event, that wasn't proposed. What was proposed was to raise the airline fee, which everybody knew was not going to be done. It was a plug number. So even though they sent up a budget number to increase the Border Patrol agents by 1,500 and the beds by about 6,000, as a practical matter, it would be very hard for us to do that with the numbers they sent up to back up those commitments, but at least the commitment was there.

As the chairman of that appropriations subcommittee, it put me in a very difficult position because basically I have to go out and find that $1.2 billion to fill that hole, to get the additional funding to get those agents, which we wanted to do or had intended to do. That means I have to convince the Chairman of the committee, Senator Cochran, to take money from some other subcommittee in order to do that within the confines of the budget--obviously a challenge to Senator Cochran and clearly a position he shouldn't have been put in, but he has been, as have I.

Now, because of the fact that, as we looked hard at the border patrol issue and the securing of the border issue, it became very apparent that not only were boots on the ground an issue but actual physical capital assets were a huge issue--for example, the planes that are flown by the Customs Department, the Customs agents, are 30 to 40 years old and 20 years past their useful life. The helicopters being flown by the Border Patrol agents are 20 years past their useful life. The Coast Guard has a fleet which is very aged and which is not fast. They have one or two planes that are up to snuff, but most of their planes need to be refurbished. In addition, the unmanned technological activity along the border, specifically unmanned aerial vehicles--there was one, but regrettably it crashed 3 weeks ago. That has been discussed a lot on this floor. So there are actually none right now, and there won't be a new one until August. In fact, the surveillance fleet is so bad that about a month ago, the entire fleet was grounded, so we had no planes in the air.

Then you have the vehicle issue. These vehicles wear out very quickly because they are used very aggressively in very difficult terrain. Then you have the issue of just simply the training facilities because as you dramatically expand the number of people you are trying to put in the Border Patrol, you need training facilities to do that. Those training facilities are being upgraded and have been upgraded, but they need to be upgraded further to handle the even more people we are going to put in there.

So I suggested about a year and a half ago that we do a capital infusion into the border security effort which would essentially accelerate the Coast Guard refurbishment, taking it from completion in the year 2026, which I thought was a little long to wait for the Coast Guard to be refurbished, down to 2016. It would get the new planes for the Customs Agency; get new helicopters for the Border Patrol; and instead of having one Predator, which no longer exists, in the air on the border, have three or four Predators on the border. There are other technologies which are a lot cheaper, actually, than using that vehicle which probably should be pursued, and doing the technology along the border relative to land-to-land detection.

In addition, the capital infusion would give the Border Patrol the physical facilities so that when we get all of these Border Patrol agents together in their various facilities, they have a place to sit down, they also have desks at which to work, and they have vehicles that allow them to go out in the field and do their job.

To accomplish that kind of refurbishment was in, our estimation, about a $1.9 billion effort. So I initially put that forward in the Defense bill last year. It got knocked out. It went in on the Senate floor, went to conference, and it got knocked out. I then put it in the reconciliation bill, and it got knocked out. I then put it in, with the support of the Senate--the strong support of the Senate--actually Senator Byrd has been a pleasure to work with as the ranking member on this subcommittee. I then put it into the most recent supplemental that came across the floor, $1.9 billion for capital activity. Well, then we had a presentation by the President on Monday night which suggested we bring in the National Guard to basically, I guess, as I understand it, free up Border Patrol agents from desk jobs and get them out in the field--to simplify the statement of what they will be doing, although they will be doing more than that, I am sure--essentially is funded by taking the $1.9 billion and moving it from capital refurbishment over to operational exercises. That, in my opinion, is not necessarily-- well, I will let people assess where that is.

In any event, it would mean the capital initiative would no longer exist and the dollars would go to pay for the National Guard and for other activities that are operational in nature, including adding an additional 1,000 Border Patrol agents on top of the 1,500, which we did plan to add this year. This would be good if we could actually accomplish that. However, there are technical restrictions on the ability to hire--it takes about 35,000 applications to get 1,000 agents--and the capacity to train is extremely limited. It is limited, not extremely limited--but it is limited so you probably can't do 2,500 agents in the timeframe this proposal has put forward. Maybe you can. I

doubt it. The track record of this department in this area is not stellar.

Essentially what is happening is that $1.9 billion which was supposed to go to capital improvements to get the planes, so they could fly the helicopters, fly the predators--so they could be up in the air, and the vehicle so they can drive around the border doesn't exist anymore. I was told by the Chairman of the conference yesterday: Good luck in getting this money. If you want to break the President's hard number of $94 billion and claim it as an emergency, you can get the money and get it that way.

Of course, as the Chairman of the Budget Committee, when I put this proposal forward I hadn't actually paid for it, and that was the key. I took it out of the across-the-board cut from defense. It was not my first choice on how to pay for it, but at the request of Senators Stevens and Warner, I did that. But, obviously, I am not going to put forward a proposal that exceeds the $94 billion and is unpaid for and there is no way to pay for it from the money paid to the Defense Department in this supplemental as an add-on to the initial $1.9 billion. We need, obviously, $3.8 billion at that point. So this capital improvement exercise is essentially dead as a result of the money being moved, migrated over to the operations side relative to the National Guard.

The practical effect of that also will be that the out-year pressure on the budget, on the appropriations account relative to this account, will be significantly higher because we will be putting in place a budget item essentially paying for the National Guard, or the people who replace the National Guard, which will be at least $1.9 billion in costs annually on top of the present appropriated plan. So to do it correctly we should not only use this $1.9 billion for this operational activity, but there should have been a supplemental request for the budget of the homeland security agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to reflect what you might call the expense that is going to be generated by the ongoing cost of putting this type of initiative in the field, if you are going to be sure that initiative will continue and will be robust.

I would be very much in support of that, obviously, because clearly that number is going to have to be paid for. As I mentioned earlier in this discussion, I already have a $1.2 billion hole in that budget which I have to pay for in order to get the full 1,500 complement in place of additional agents. Now I will have a $1.2 billion hole plus a $1.9 billion hole on the operational side. And in addition, of course, I will have a $1.9 billion hole on the capital expenditure side because we still have these airplanes that have to be replaced, helicopters that have to be replaced, unmanned vehicles that have to be put in the air, and a Coast Guard that really should not have to wait until 2026 to adequately defend our coastline.

I want to outline the specifics of where we are now on the dollars relative to border patrol and border security. When you get down to it, this is not a complex issue, securing our border. We all know that with 8,000 more agents, about 10,000 more detention beds, with decent technology on the border relative to unmanned vehicles and sensors, with a Coast Guard that is up to snuff, with airplanes that are up to snuff, we can essentially control the border to the extent you can control it without a guest worker program in place. A guest worker program still, in my opinion, is critical to any long-term resolution of this program because human nature says people are going to cross the border if they are getting paid $5 in Mexico and $50 in the United States for a day's labor and they have a family to support. So that is an element of it.

But the first element to which I think everybody has agreed is decent border security. Decent border security only requires resources. We have the capacity to do it; we have the technology to do it. It would be nice if the Defense Department would share a little more aggressively with Homeland Security, or Homeland Security would, on the other hand, go out more actively to try to get the Defense Department to share it, but we have all the parts sitting there in the box. What we have to do is pay the price of taking them out of the box and putting them in the places they should be.

I just wanted to outline where we stand relative to the issue of resources because I think there has been considerable confusion, especially in light of the speech by the President on Monday.

Of course, I am happy to yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

In response to the Senator from Massachusetts, neither he nor Senator Sessions is going to like my response. I come down on the middle on this one. We can have, in that capital allocation, money for a fence. I believe additional fencing is important, especially in the urban areas where the crossing points are basically stepping across a street corner, and you have to put up significant fencing to accomplish that. I honestly don't know the number of miles. But clearly there is going to be a significant cost. I am of the view that we ought to listen to the department as to what the number is relative to the miles of fence that is needed. I would very much oppose a fence that ran the whole length of the border. I think that would be a waste of money, it would be inappropriate, and it would be extremely inhospitable to Mexico.

But there are areas of the country that the only way you can do it is by fence. Certainly, the San Diego fence proved to us that fences do work in urban areas. What the distances should be and what the numbers should be, I don't know the answer to that question.

I thank the Senator and yield the floor and appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Massachusetts for allowing me to speak.

Mr. President, I think we made good progress yesterday. We just had a brief discussion in the well of the Senate. I believe we are prepared to proceed.

I ask unanimous consent that we next take up the Kyl-Cornyn amendment, with no second-degree amendments in order, with 30 minutes equally divided.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the amendments beyond Kyl-Cornyn be as follows--Senator Sessions, Senator Vitter, Senator Obama, and Senator Inhofe. I ask unanimous consent that sequence be agreed to.

Yes.

At 10:01.

Mr. President, may we proceed with the final argument on Kyl-Cornyn?

Amendment No. 4027

Mr. President, under our sequencing, we are about to go to the amendment of the distinguished Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions. We are trying to get time agreements. Senator Sessions believes this is a very complex and important matter, which I agree that it is, so I propound a unanimous consent request for 3 hours equally divided.

Mr. President, I do withhold the request. In the interim, while Senator Kennedy is reviewing the matter, we can start the debate with Senator Sessions and look forward to counting the time, which we start now, on Senator Sessions' ultimate hour and a half, if we may.

Mr. President, if I may interrupt the Senator from Alabama to propound a unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we set a 3- hour time limit, with an hour and a half under the control of Senator Sessions, 45 minutes under the control of Senator Kennedy, and 45 minutes under my control, with the time of the vote to be determined by the leaders. I do not anticipate a 1:30 vote, which would be inconvenient. We will respect Senator Reid's position of taking the amendments one at a time and not setting them aside. But we can do that consistent with stacking the votes until later in the afternoon.

Starting this morning, it was hard to get all of the people in, and we started the vote a little earlier than anticipated. So we did not maintain our time structure on the first vote. But we are going to insist on observing the rule of 15 minutes and 5 minutes over, or if votes are stacked, 10 minutes and 5 minutes over, to see if we can move the bill along. So I ask unanimous consent for that.

Mr. President, I add to that agreement no second-degree amendments.

Madam President, we are talking about a possible 2:30 vote. The day is badly fragmented with a signing ceremony at the White House at 1:45, a briefing by Director Negroponte at 3, and a social at the White House at 5. It is pretty hard to see how we get any business done when we dodge in and out of the raindrops in a hurricane. But we are talking about a 2:30 vote. If we are to have it, I wanted to stack three votes at that time. We are going to respect what Senator Reid wants to do, to take them up one at a time, but we are asking Senator Vitter to come over right now because we are about to wrap up. Senator Sessions wants 10 more minutes. I will speak briefly. Then we will yield back the remainder of the time. Then after Senator Vitter's amendment is heard--we have already argued Senator Inhofe's amendment-- we may be in a position to stack three votes at 2:30 or very close to that time. That is what we are looking toward.

I yield to Senator Sessions for his final 10 minutes and yield back the remainder of the time to move on to Senator Vitter's amendment.

Madam President, the issue of border security is obviously a vital matter. The assurances that we will be able to check the flow of illegal immigrants will materially aid in the passage of this bill, a comprehensive bill--if assurances can be given that the border is secure and also with employer sanctions.

I think the Senator from Alabama has submitted a good amendment. It does not have the overtone of the enormous fence along the entire border, stretching 2,000 miles. It is targeted. We have been advised by the administration, by Secretary Chertoff, that there is support for the amendment of the Senator from Alabama. That is about what they are looking for. They have made a detailed analysis. Secretary Chertoff met with the Judiciary Committee on a very extensive briefing 2 weeks ago. We talked about this at length. For those reasons, I plan to support the Sessions amendment.

Madam President, I am prepared to yield back all time if Senator Sessions and Senator Kennedy are prepared.

If we can yield back time, we are prepared to go on to another amendment. We are trying to structure it so we will have three votes in the range of 2:30.

Madam President, while the Senator from Massachusetts

is working out the questions, I have discussed with him setting aside temporarily the Sessions amendment so that we can proceed to the Vitter amendment and not waste any time. Madam President, I have discussed it with Senator Vitter, who is agreeable with an hour and a half equally divided. I have made that suggestion to Senator Kennedy. He is going to run it by his leadership to see if it is acceptable on his side. Why don't we proceed as if it is so that Senator Vitter is recognized now and starts to talk, and it will count against his time when we finally get the agreement.

I yield back my time and Senator Sessions yields back his time.

I think the record is closed on the Sessions amendment, and we are now proceeding to the Vitter amendment, and we will await Senator Kennedy's comment as to the unanimous consent request on an hour and a half. I thank the Chair.

Madam President, will the Senator from Louisiana yield for a unanimous consent request?

Madam President, we have now worked out that we will conclude Senator Vitter's amendment, then we will go to Senator Obama's amendment, which I believe we can accept.

I ask unanimous consent that between now and 2 o'clock, the time will be equally divided between Senator Vitter on one side and Senator Kennedy and myself on the other.

Senator Kennedy and I will divide the time evenly, and we are agreed we will have two votes at 2:30 p.m. or perhaps 3 p.m. if the Obama amendment is to have a vote, but I do not expect it. And we preclude second-degree amendments.

Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from South Carolina.

I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Florida.

How much time remains?

That is all the time that remains?

Mr. President, I oppose the amendment by the Senator from Louisiana because it makes enormous changes in the committee bill by eliminating the citizenship track.

I understand the point of the Senator from Louisiana. He does not want to see the 11 million undocumented immigrants on the citizenship track. But I believe we should not have a fugitive class in America, that it is necessary, in order to bring these immigrants out of the so- called shadows--they are out of the shadows for many purposes, and they are identifiable, working constructively in the American economy--to have them come forward, we are going to have to provide incentives for them to do so.

We have had a great deal of debate on whether there is amnesty in the committee bill. My own view is that we ought to tone down the rhetoric on that subject, not accuse one side of amnesty, trying to give away something that ought not to be given away, and in return not charging that amnesty is an evil argument.

We ought to deal with what the facts are. The issue is whether it is in our national interest, considering all the factors, to grant citizenship to these 11 million undocumented immigrants when they go to the end of the line if they perform certain tasks, if they meet certain criteria. The criteria are substantial and onerous: the payment of a fine, the payment of back taxes, the criminal background checks, learning English, the learning of American history, working a substantial period of time, and then 6 more years at the end of the line.

In a very realistic way, there is not really a lot of choice as to what we are going to do. It is totally impractical and unrealistic to think about deporting 11 million people. The question is, What do we do with them? How do we handle them?

It has been said in the Senate repeatedly but not too often that we are a nation of immigrants. Many of the Senators who speak start off by referencing their own backgrounds, as I have.

My father came to this country in 1911 at the age of 18. He came from czarist Russia. The czar wanted to send him to Siberia. As I have said in the past, he chose Kansas. It was, perhaps, a close call, I say in a facetious way. My mother came at the age of 6 with her family, settled in St. Joe, MO, and my parents have contributed to the American way of life. My father served in World War I and was wounded in action. In my Senate office, I proudly have their wedding picture. He was in uniform, and she was a beautiful bride of 19. They raised four children who contributed to our country and many grandchildren and many great- grandchildren and many great-great-grandchildren, so far.

This situation is a test of our humanity as a nation and the values in which we believe in the United States. We do not condone the breaking of the law, the breaking of the rule of law, but we are dealing with a very difficult situation in the best way we can.

With respect to the Senator from Louisiana, if his amendment were agreed to, we would not have comprehensive immigration reform. I believe comprehensive immigration reform is what is needed.

I yield the floor and reserve the final minute for perhaps some rebuttal.

Mr. President, the essence of the argument from the Senator from Louisiana is when he says ``automatic guaranteed path to citizenship.'' Well, it simply is not so. There is nothing automatic when you have to fulfill the requirements of paying a fine and learning English and paying back taxes and working for a protracted period of time. There is nothing guaranteed about it. It is earned. And that is the hallmark of American values: to earn it.

That concludes my argument, Mr. President.

Mr. President, as soon as Senator Kennedy returns to the floor, I will make it official on asking unanimous consent locking in the two votes at 2:30.

I am informed there is agreement by authorized representatives of the leader of the Democrats. And we are now awaiting the arrival of Senator Obama, who is reportedly due here momentarily.

So until he arrives, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, when we complete debate on Senator Obama's amendment, we will then have two votes at 2:30. And then, after the votes, it is our desire, subject to Senator Inhofe's agreement, to come and debate his amendment. That may take a substantial period of time. I am advised by Senator Kennedy they would like 2 hours equally divided. So that will take us fairly far into the afternoon. We will stay in session even though Director Negroponte will be having a session upstairs. This bill needs to be moved, so we will stay in session on the Inhofe amendment during that period of time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Idaho be given 2 minutes to debate the Vitter amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:30 we proceed to the Sessions amendment for a

15-minute vote, and thereafter we proceed to the Vitter amendment for a 10-minute vote.

Mr. President, we have Senator Obama on the floor ready to offer his amendment. There is some issue as to whether it has been worked through on all of the aspects of being modified. But I think we are very close. So what I would suggest we do is proceed to consider the Obama amendment, subject to some minor change which may be made on modification. And I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided between now and 2:30.

Mr. President, we are still working on a modification. I am advised that it is a minor modification, but until we get it, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I have no objection to proceeding to consider the amendment, as modified. There are still Senators on this side of the aisle reviewing it. We are not yet prepared to take a position. I think it is entirely appropriate to consider the discussion. I believe, as I said to Senator Obama privately, that we will work it out.

I yield to the Senator from Illinois for further debate.

Mr. President, have the yeas and nays been ordered?

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Have the yeas and nays been ordered on the Vitter amendment?

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, for 1 minute.

Mr. President, before moving on to the next vote, we have the pending amendment by the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama, which we are prepared to accept. I ask for a voice vote.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Isn't it true that we have the unanimous consent agreement to take up the Inhofe amendment after we have the vote on the Vitter amendment?

Mr. President, then I ask unanimous consent that the Inhofe amendment be taken up following the amendment referenced by the Senator from Vermont.

Mr. President, that is agreeable.

Vote on Amendment No. 3963

Mr. President, I think we are ready to go on the amendment.

Mr. President, we are ready to have a voice vote on the pending Leahy-Stevens amendment.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 4000

Mr. President, I will now ask for consideration of the Santorum amendment, amendment No. 4000, which has been cleared on both sides.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I think we are prepared to go with the amendment by the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn. I ask unanimous consent that we have a 2-hour time agreement on the Cornyn amendment equally divided.

Mr. President, I am talking about changing the order. When the Senator from Oklahoma and I last talked, Senator Kyl had asked for more time and there were discussions. It is my understanding that we were trying to work through to simplify the action once it got to the floor. My interest is finding an amendment which I can bring to the floor and debate and vote. I am prepared to go any direction practicable to achieve that. We now have Senator Vitter on the floor who has another amendment. But may we hear from the Senator from Oklahoma as to what his concerns are?

Mr. President, do I understand the Senator from Massachusetts to mean he would be prepared to go, if we revert to the original schedule, with Senator Inhofe and take the Inhofe amendment now under a time agreement?

Mr. President, it would be my suggestion, if we can't work out a time agreement on the Inhofe amendment, subject to an agreement on all sides, that we try to get the side-by-side before the afternoon is up so we can take up the Inhofe amendment first thing tomorrow morning, hopefully, on a limited time agreement. Would that be acceptable?

Mr. President, is there a unanimous consent agreement setting up the Inhofe amendment?

Will the Chair repeat that?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to the Cornyn amendment with a time agreement of 2 hours, equally divided. There has been a suggestion by Senator Cornyn that he can take less time. Perhaps Senator Kennedy can take less. But the consent agreement is for 2 hours, equally divided, with no second degrees.

Then I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to the Vitter amendment for 45 minutes, equally divided, with no second-degree amendments.

Can we have a time agreement on Lieberman-Brownback, 45 minutes equally decided?

One hour equally divided, no second-degree amendments.