First Responders Interoperable Communications Act of 2005

Mr. President, we are a Nation of immigrants. There are so many great stories of people who have come to this country and enriched our Nation and benefited their families and had great life experiences. There is no dispute about that. I don't think there is a single Member here who would deny that.

But there is a suggestion that those who do not support the Kennedy bill--or whatever you want to call the bill that came out of the Judiciary committee, of which I am a Member and the Presiding Officer is a Member--if you don't support that bill, you want to run everybody out of the country and you want to lock them up and prosecute them. If you don't support this bill, you have bias against them and you don't believe in immigration. You don't believe in the great freedoms of our country. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is not right.

What we are trying to do is to develop a system to deal with the immigration crisis that we have that is consistent with our values as Americans, that is consistent with the rule of law in this country, that treats people who do the right thing better than it treats people who do the wrong thing. That is what this debate is all about. We are trying to set policy for the future about the people who are allowed into our country, how many and under what circumstances. A Nation surely has a right to decide how many people it allows to come in. We are one of the most generous nations in the history of the world in allowing people to come here. But we have a right to decide how it should be done.

Under this bill, we have provisions that actually allow a virtually unlimited number of unskilled workers to come in, but limits the amount of skilled workers that come in. How weird is that?

This legislation came together in a most hasty way and violates a number of principles. One thing I would mention, the Presiding Officer, Senator Coburn, has been involved in these discussions. I know he and I share a common view about it. I thought we all agreed we would not have amnesty. The President, as much as he believes in bringing people into this country, as

much as he believes in allowing workers to come here who want to work, has said: No amnesty. Our Democratic colleagues have said: No amnesty. This morning I said: The truth is, this bill is amnesty. It is exactly like the 1986 bill, and everybody said that was amnesty. They didn't even dispute it.

I have the definition from ``Black's Law Dictionary,'' the one law students use to get legal definitions, and it uses the 1986 bill as an example of ``amnesty.'' Of course it was. And the bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee is the same thing.

I have to tell you, Senator Specter's bill that we started with in the Judiciary Committee was not amnesty. Senator Frist's bill is not amnesty. But the bill that we came out with was. That is just a fact. I am going to go into some detail about that because Senator Kennedy has said it is false for me to say this is amnesty. We are going to talk about it. Senator Leahy said it is not amnesty. Why are they saying this now? I'll tell you what is going on.

They are over there talking with the President and they are trying to get a compromise. They are trying to come up with something so they can come back and say it is not amnesty. They will claim that they moved in this direction and now they want to pass it.

We are going to have to read this bill, and we are going to have to think about it because it is a major issue facing our country today. It really is. We need to do the right thing, and we can do the right thing. I am actually optimistic about our options and our capabilities of coming up with something that will work. But this bill is not it. It is absolutely not it.

I want to say a couple of things first. We are going to pass legislation dealing with the entry of people into our Nation. We are going to pass legislation, and I will favor properly drafted legislation that will increase the number of people who come to our country lawfully. We want to pass legislation that treats fairly and decently and humanely the 11 to 20 million people who are here illegally. But I hope and trust we won't pass amnesty which gives the full benefits of legal entry into our country to those who come illegally.

That is really what we are talking about, because what we learned in 1986 was that when you do that, before the ink is dry on the bill, other people come in illegally because they expect we will be right back here again in this Congress giving them amnesty again. So we need to reestablish the principle of law. That is all I am saying. We can treat people in a good way. We will not have to remove all of these people from America. They would not have to be prosecuted and put in jail. How silly is that? That can't be done. Nobody is proposing that.

What we are working on is legislation that can bring law, bring principle, and bring integrity to our immigration system, and I believe it is within our grasp to do so. But I am not going to support the legislation that is before us now. It is just not good.

The question about amnesty and where we are arises from the nature of the provisions in the bill that passed the Judiciary Committee. I don't know what to call it. I guess it is the Kennedy-Specter bill. Senator Specter's bill, though, that he offered and we began with, did not do the unprincipled things that this compromised bill does.

Senator Frist, the majority leader, has offered legislation that does not create a direct path to citizenship for the entire illegal alien population. His bill didn't do that. The original Specter bill did not create a new or direct path to citizenship for illegal aliens. Before the committee markup, the Specter bill would have given illegal aliens working in the United States a temporary work permit, renewable every 2 years as long as the individual was working.

We still don't have the language that passed out of the Judiciary Committee. I know Senator Coburn has been around Congress for some time, and he serves on the Judiciary Committee with me. We still don't have the language we voted on Monday. I don't know for sure exactly what it is, but we sure should not be passing a piece of legislation when we haven't even had a chance to read it.

But in the committee, a complete amnesty program was adopted for the illegal alien population and large, new permanent immigration programs were created for low-skilled workers. The committee bill, as reported, creates a direct pathway to citizenship for aliens who have broken our laws.

You will hear claims that this bill is earned adjustment, earned citizenship. Those are descriptions, but they are misnomers. This bill really is--in the sense that we have been talking about it for several years now as a part of an American dialog, in every sense of what people mean by amnesty--it is amnesty. If it is not amnesty, it is the same thing as amnesty. That is what it is.

There are four different amnesty provisions in the bill. These four amnesty programs are what you are voting for or against when you vote on the Judiciary Committee bill. Let me clearly describe to you the breathtaking enormity of the four programs that I believe clearly constitute amnesty in the Judiciary Committee bill.

Element No. 1, the committee bill takes every illegal alien in the United States who pays $1,000 and was employed before January 7, 2004-- whether full time, part time, seasonally or self-employed--and puts that person on a direct path to citizenship. The family of the illegal aliens, their spouse and children, would also be given amnesty, even if they are not already in the United States. They would now be able to come and come legally.

How will it be given out? How do you get on this direct path to citizenship? What is required of the person who seeks it? The truth is that other than illegal presence in the United States, very little is required.

We have been following very carefully the draft of the bill that we were provided and that we had as we voted on this legislation in Committee. The final passed version, however, is still being cobbled together, but I am confident that what I'm saying is accurate with regard to these issues.

All illegal aliens present in the United States before January of 2004, who have worked illegally here since then for any amount of time, will first be given an H-5B nonimmigrant status, good for 6 years. They are made legal for 6 years. Their spouses and children will be given the same status. After 6 years and another $1,000 fine, the aliens and their families will get green cards if the alien has been ``employed in the United States, either full time, part time, seasonally, or self- employed, or has met educational requirements.''

The education requirement is as broad as being in a 1-year vocational work program at ``an institution of higher education.''

These requirements are very broad.

A self-employed person could be someone who worked 1 day a year, and there is no limit on that definition. A person who meets the work requirement through education has to prove that they had full-time attendance in as little as a 1-year educational program, not that they completed any educational program.

Additionally, the work requirement and education requirement for the green card are completely waived if the alien is under 21. After getting the green card, illegal aliens will be able to apply for citizenship like any other lawful permanent resident. They are put in the same status as the people who came here legally.

To satisfy the work requirement of being employed in the United States, either part time, seasonally, or self-employed, the bill states that an alien can conclusively establish his work history in the United States either by, one, presenting records maintained by one of the following: Social Security Administration, IRS or any Federal, State or local government agency or employer, a labor union, a day labor center, and ``organizations that assist workers in matters related to employment,'' or presenting two of the following: bank records, business records, sworn affidavits from nonrelatives or remittal records.

However, the documents listed that conclusively establish work history are not even really required.

Later on, the bill states that the burden of proof that the alien must meet to qualify is even lower than that. It says: ``The alien has a burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the alien has satisfied the requirements. An alien must meet such burden of proof by producing sufficient

evidence to demonstrate such employment as a matter of reasonable inference.''

Reasonable inference? That is not a proof standard. It is a situation that allows everyone to qualify.

Why would we want to do that?

The bill then states: ``It is the intent of the Congress that the work requirement be interpreted and implemented in a manner that recognizes and takes into account the difficulties encountered by aliens in obtaining evidence of employment due to the undocumented status of the alien.''

It is not that hard to prove you have worked. If you work for an employer, you can get the employer to provide a statement that you worked for them even if you don't have pay stubs. It is not that hard.

This basically obviates any requirement of proof and allows anybody to qualify.

I am just telling you that is what is in the bill. I wish it were not so. I am not making this up. I am reading to you what is in the bill.

The work standard is not a work standard at all. In fact, the bill basically says that Congress is telling the Department of Homeland Security to accept pretty much anything as proof of work.

This is an open invitation to fraud and will prevent Department of Homeland Security from vetting out fraudulent applications.

It is a perfect example of why our immigration laws are so messed up.

We have placed so many difficult obstacles in front of agencies that are required to enforce them that they have become utterly unenforceable.

We say that we have a work requirement, and then we say it can be seasonal, it can be part time, and it can be self-employed. Then we say just about any records you can produce, or that you conjure up will be sufficient. But if you do not have records and you have a reasonable inference that you worked, they must let you qualify.

Basically, that is what the Department of Homeland Security office is going to do. They are going to accept anybody's application. There is no way you could object to it. This standard appears to be a standard but is not one at all.

What about waiver of the work requirement? What if you have not worked since January of 2004 and did not work before then. Does this bill leave you out? Does it mean you can't be a citizen now? Can you qualify for this type of amnesty? The answer is still yes.

Even if you are an illegal alien who has never worked in the United States and cannot produce any evidence to reasonably infer that you have worked illegally in the United States, you and your family can get on the bill's direct path to citizenship. You get automatic amnesty, no requirement to prove work.

If you have full-time attendance at an institution of higher education--graduation is not required--full-time attendance at any secondary school, as defined by State law, or you are a minor under the age of 21, what does qualifying for amnesty get you?

The mere filing of an application for amnesty triggers the following things: Employment authorization for the alien, the alien's spouse and children, permission to travel abroad and return to the United States, protection from being detained, determined inadmissible or deportable or removed pending final adjudication of the alien's application for adjustment of status.

Only future conduct or a criminal conviction removes these protections.

Additionally, if you have already been ordered removed from the United States or if you are subject to mandatory detention for a criminal conviction, the Department of Homeland Security has to give you the opportunity to show you are eligible for amnesty before you can be removed.

This will simply freeze the entire detention and removal operation of the Department of Homeland Security.

If you are legally here in January of 2004 because you got a work visa before you came to the United States, you will not get the benefit of this amnesty.

Repeat that: If you are legally here because you got a valid work visa or permit before January of 2004, you do not get the benefit of this amnesty. This amnesty benefits you only if you came here illegally.

So we are only giving you a direct path to citizenship if you first broke our laws. If you came here the right way and did not break the law, you are out of luck. No new path to citizenship for you.

They say this is a guest worker program.

The second major part of Specter-Kennedy substitute amendment--that was an amendment that was substituted for the original Specter bill in the past--is a new program for bringing low-skilled workers into the United States, in addition to illegal aliens already doing these jobs. The program puts them on a direct path to citizenship. It is a new program.

The new program would bring 400,000 low-skilled workers per year into the United States on a 3-year work visa. This visa is renewable for 3 years. It is essentially a guaranteed entry for 6 years to work in the United States.

This 400,000-per-year cap is supposed to be limited, they say to 400,000. This is several times what the cap is today. I am mistaken-- several times this 400,000 is how many will be allowed to come in under an illegal system. But the cap that purports to be is completely artificial. If the cap is reached and actually 400,000 come in that year and an additional 80,000 visas can be given out that year, the cap will go up automatically the next year as much as 20 percent. By the sixth year this program will immigrate 2.4 million new low-skilled workers, at a minimum, into the United States.

On day one, when the worker arrives in the United States, the employer can sponsor the alien for a green card. It gives them legal permanent status. Normally the employers or family members sponsor the alien before they have the right to permanent entry and a green card. But this is a major change. The person can sponsor himself and make his own application. So after 4 years of work, the new immigrants can self- petition for a green card and then be eligible for citizenship.

Normal grounds for inadmissibility, except for the most serious crimes on national security grounds, can be waived for a fee of $1,500. All legal permanent residents are eligible for citizenship after 5 years. All legal permanent residents, green card holders, after 5 years, are eligible for citizenship. If they have not been convicted of a felony, if they have basic English skills, they can become a citizen automatically. People all over this country and all over the world are waiting and hoping to be able to be selected to be able to come to the United States following the laws and rules.

To be eligible to come to the United States under this low-skilled immigrant worker category, the alien is merely required to pay a $500 application fee, undergo a medical examination, and show they are capable of performing the labor or services required, and have evidence of employment from ``employers, employer associations or labor representatives.'' Those are probably some of the people who have been leading these protests the last few days.

Under the bill language, you can qualify for this new program and come to the United States as a low-skilled immigrant even if you were in removal proceedings and signed a voluntary departure agreement but never left, or you were already removed from the United States and illegally reentered. If you had been removed and illegally reentered, you are eligible.

One might ask, why does this program cover these people? I thought the program was for people who wanted to come to the United States to work in the future, not for those who are already here. This provision is specifically designed to make sure that illegal aliens who are not covered by the bill's amnesty provisions because they did not work in the United States prior to January of 2004, or because they were not legally present in the United States on that day, are not left without a direct path to citizenship also.

This bill covers everybody. It should be called ``no illegal alien left behind.'' I am not exaggerating. It is fixed so that if they are not covered under this ``magic'' date, January 7, 2004, they are covered under the new exemptions of the 400,000 people per year.

Element three, the Dream Act. That was brought up several times. It never moved in the Senate. But boom, in 2 minutes, Senator Durbin offered the

Dream Act and we voted on it in committee Monday afternoon as an amendment to the bill. It took him less than 2 minutes to get it in the bill as an amendment.

The Dream Act does two things. It grants amnesty to an unlimited number of illegal alien minors who graduate from a high school and enroll in college or the military for at least 2 years, or who perform hours of volunteer work, or who can show ``compelling circumstances for the inability to do any of those three,'' and, two, eliminates United States Code section 1623 which I will describe below, thus allowing all illegal aliens enrolled in college to receive in-State tuition rates.

This means that while American citizens from Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Massachusetts, have to pay out-of-state tuition rates if they send their kids to the University of Virginia or the University of Alabama, people who have illegally immigrated into this country do not.

How much sense does that make, to have people here illegally and they have more benefits than those who are here legally? Instead, they receive educational benefits paid by the taxpayers of Virginia and Alabama for in-State residents. I do not mean to suggest in any way there are not good kids out there. We need to figure out a way to accommodate them and work with those who have come here illegally. Maybe they came here a long time ago. Maybe they came here illegally as a junior or senior in high school. They came across the border and now they want to be on a direct path to citizenship.

I am not saying we should not wrestle with how to treat them in a generous way, but should we give them more rights than we give to American citizens? When you do too much of this and you work at it too hard, pretty soon you end up with a mockery of law, an unprincipled bill that cannot be defended, and we are in the situation of wondering why would you want to bother to try to come into the country legally. Why not come illegally?

So the Dream Act establishes a seamless process to take illegal aliens directly from illegal status to conditional permanent resident status, to legal permanent resident status, to citizenship.

First, the illegal aliens who came here before age 16 and have been here for 5 years will be given conditional permanent residence through cancellation of removal if they have been admitted to college or have a GED or a high school diploma. So if you get your high school diploma or get yourself into college somewhere, whether you are passing or not, then you qualify for cancellation of removal.

Step two, after 6 years, the alien will then be eligible to apply for a green card if they have attended 2 years of higher education, served 2 years in the military, performed 910 hours of community service for an organization that receives funds under the Combined Federal Campaign, or prove an extreme and unusual hardship, and you have good moral character and do not have a deportable offense. It is a guaranteed step forward if you do not do something wrong and get yourself convicted of a felony.

After 5 years, those green card holders can apply for citizenship and cannot be denied if they meet the basic standards of English and have no criminal history. Current law provides ``that an alien who is not physically present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State or a political subdivision for any postsecondary educational benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such benefit in no less amount, duration and scope, without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.''

That is basically the law we passed several years ago, I think before I came to Congress. It said if you are here illegally, you do not get in-State tuition.

We are going to reverse that. Congress just passed it 8 or 10 years ago. The DREAM Act would eliminate this provision and allow illegal alien college and university students to be eligible for in-State tuition without affording out-of-State students the same opportunity. Thus, the University of Alabama could offer in-State tuition to illegal alien students while requiring citizens residing in Mississippi to pay a much higher tuition rate. In fact, that is being done probably in violation of law in some areas right now.

Allowing all the illegal aliens enrolled in college to receive in- State tuition rates means that while American citizens from the 49 other States have to pay out-of-State tuition rates to send their kids to the University of Alabama or Virginia, people who have illegally immigrated into this country might not. Out-of-State tuition rates range from 2 to 3\1/2\ times what in-State tuition rates are. It has always struck me that one of the things you do to encourage people to come here legally and abide by the law, is not give benefits to those who come illegally. It is one thing not to prosecute them; it is one thing not to take them out of the country; but to give them benefits that people who do the right thing get? We should not do that. It is bad policy.

So what about loans in the DREAM Act? I think this is still in the bill. We have not had a chance to see all of language. This was in the DREAM Act originally. I do not know if it is still in there under the Judiciary bill, but I assume it is. Under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, legal permanent residents and certain other eligible noncitizens receive Federal student financial aid, including Pell grants and Stafford student loans. That is part of the 1965 act.

The committee bill will add illegal students, illegal alien volunteers, and illegal alien military members to the list of people eligible, by changing their immigration status to that of a legal permanent resident. This change in status would make them eligible for Federal financial aid. Pell grants and Stafford loans currently comprise 85 percent of postsecondary student aid available to citizens and eligible noncitizens. In fiscal year 2002, 8.8 percent of the individuals receiving Pell grants were eligible noncitizens over 380,000 people.

We want to help people and be generous. But if you are in an illegal status, I do not see why there is an obligation to give the same extra benefits that you do to those who are lawfully here.

Pell grants. The Federal Pell Grant Program is the single largest source of grant aid for postsecondary education funded by the Federal Government. There is already a current fiscal year Pell grant shortfall of over $2.5 billion. We have done a lot of different things to try to get money as high as we can get it this year. The fiscal year 2003 estimated program costs are approximately $12.5 billion. The annual appropriations is $11.4 billion. Now we want to open up Pell grants to illegal aliens?

Although Pell grants are a discretionary program, the cost of increasing the number of eligible recipients in an award year is considered direct spending, when the appropriations and maximum grant award for that year are already set in law and a payment schedule is published. Thus, we could be facing a budget point of order with this bill. In other words, since in a number of these instances the right to have a Pell grant for qualifying persons is an entitlement, making more people eligible for this entitlement could subject this bill to a budget point of order.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 58,500 additional Pell grants would have been given within 1 year if last year's DREAM Act had passed, with an average grant being $2,420. How many people do not get a dime who try to send their kids to college, out of State maybe, people who have worked hard all their life, middle-class Americans? They do not get a dime. But somebody who is here illegally gets $2,400? I do not think that is fair. I do not think that is being insensitive to legitimate interests of people who want to come to America, who want to participate in the American dream, or is inhumane in any way.

What about Stafford loans? The Congressional Budget Office estimated under last year's DREAM Act--the one that was offered last year but did not pass--65,000 would enroll during the first year and meet all other criteria. Because 1 in 10 students borrow student loans, the student loan costs would increase by $22 million per year over the 2003-to-2012 period.

While we were going about our business in committee, the AgJOBS bill was offered as an amendment. Well, we had a big fight on the AgJOBS bill last year. It was offered on the floor of the Senate. Senator Saxby Chambliss of

Georgia, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, opposed the bill, offered a number of important amendments that I thought made it far more sane, far more appropriate, and the bill did not pass, after a great deal of debate.

Well, in about 15 minutes, in the committee, Senator Feinstein offered the AgJOBS bill to the Specter bill, the committee bill. It was a 106-page amendment. It put 1.5 million illegal alien agriculture workers on a direct path to citizenship--just like that.

How does it do it? After the Feinstein amendment, 1.5 million illegal alien workers who pay a $500 fine and demonstrate they worked in agriculture for 150 workdays in the last 2 years will be given blue cards and will be allowed to stay in the United States. Because a workday is defined as 1 hour of work per day, an alien who worked in agriculture for only 150 hours--there are 168 hours in a week--over 2 years will qualify. So if you work 150 hours over 2 years, you qualify.

Spouses and children of illegal alien agriculture workers also get legal status and work permits, and they are not limited to working in agriculture either.

The blue card holder is eligible for a green card in two ways: after 3 years of 150 additional workdays--1 hour per day is all that is required--per year or after 5 years of 100 additional workdays per year.

Then, what about citizenship? For these who come here illegally, and they work 150 hours, what happens as to their citizenship? Even though they came here illegally, are they put on the path to citizenship? Yes. All legal permanent residents become eligible for citizenship after 5 years.

On May 18, 2004, the Washington Times published a column by Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, titled ``Stealth Amnesty'' dealing with the AgJOBS bill when it came up back in 2004. The article correctly summarized the AgJOBS bill when it said this:

By the legislation's own terms, an illegal alien will be

turned into ``an alien lawfully admitted for temporary

residence,'' provided they had managed to work unlawfully in

an agricultural job in the United States. . . .Once so

transformed, they can stay in the U.S. indefinitely while

applying for permanent resident status. From there, it is a

matter of time before they can become citizens. . . .

If any were needed, [the AgJOBS bill] offers a further

incentive to illegals: Your family can stay, as well.

Alternatively, if they are not with you, you can bring them

in, too--cutting in line ahead of others who made the mistake

of abiding by, rather than ignoring, our laws.

What about the safe harbor provisions? Under the AgJOBS bill, which was added to this committee proposal without much debate, an illegal alien is undeportable as soon as the amnesty paperwork is merely filed. So if you file your amnesty paperwork and you are otherwise deportable, it automatically stops. No adjudication of the application is necessary to kick start the legal status of the illegal alien.

Once an alien receives a temporary work visa, it never expires unless the worker is otherwise deemed deportable or applies for permanent residence and is denied. There is nothing temporary about a single temporary work visa lasting indefinitely. It is not temporary. The alien's blue card status can only be revoked if the alien is determined to be deportable, the blue card was acquired through fraud, the alien is convicted of a felony, three or more misdemeanors, or an offense which involves serious bodily injury or damage to more than $500 of property.

What about all the legal stuff that gets involved with this? How do you prove all this stuff? The AgJOBS amendment even goes so far as to provide free legal counsel to illegal aliens who want to receive this amnesty. The AgJOBS amendment specifically states that recipients of ``funds under the Legal Services Corporation Act'' shall not be prevented ``from providing legal assistance directly related to an application for adjustment of status under this section.''

Not only will the AgJOBS bill give amnesty to 1.5 million illegal aliens, it would have the American taxpayer pay the legal bill of those 1 million illegal aliens.

We are going to work on something here. We are going to pass some legislation--if not this year, soon--that will work through all these difficult human issues and treat people in a fair and just way. Nobody is proposing that we do not. I mean that. There is a consensus in this Congress that it is time for us to fix this problem, to deal with the 11 million people here illegally, to allow more people to come legally, and to shut down the border and stop people from coming illegally. But this legislation does not do that.

People say: I want to vote for something. I want to fix it.

Don't vote for this bill. It will not fix it. Not only does it give amnesty to 1.5 million illegals, it would have the American taxpayer pay the legal bills of the 1 million illegal aliens.

What about the H2A farm workers? The sponsors of the AgJOBS bill will have you believe that farmers want the AgJOBS bill. They say: This is for agriculture. It has to be done. If you don't do this, the country is going to collapse. Maybe that is the case in the District of Columbia where the national groups get to write the letters and speak for their farmers and come in and tell us what farmers want, regardless of what the individual farmers have to say. One of those people talked to me about it.

I said: That may be your opinion, Mr. Farm Leader, but if you took a poll of the farmers I know in my home State or the Presiding Officer knows in his home State, I will bet you 80 percent of them would agree with me that this is not a principled way to do business. This is not the right way to do business. We are not here to serve agribusiness. We are here to promote the national interests of the United States, to create an immigration system consistent with our generous values, and a legal system that will work, not to reward those who violate the law but provide the benefits to those who follow the law.

Last year when we debated this bill, I received an open letter from the Southern Farmers Coalition. The letter is signed by a list of organizations and individuals who participate in the H2A program. The letter says: Overwhelmingly, the majority of H2A program users in this country--the list of signatories is expansive, including the North Carolina Growers Association, the MidAtlantic Solution, Georgia Peach Council, Ag Works, the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, the Virginia Agricultural Growers Association, the Vidalia Onion Business Council--I like Vidalia onions--and the Kentucky-Tennessee Growers Association. They all signed this letter. The cover page of the letter, contrary to what some national agricultural experts say, says this:

Farmers in the southern United States are opposed to S.

1645--

the same bill being offered as an amendment today, as part of this bill--

introduced by Ted Kennedy and Larry Craig. It is an amnesty

for illegal farm workers. It does not reform the H2A program.

Please oppose this legislation.

These are the farmers who are supposed to be helped by it. That is what they say about it: ``Please oppose this legislation.''

The text of the letter, which asked me to stand up and fight against this legislation, states:

Ag JOBS is nothing more than a veiled amnesty.

I am reading this letter from the farmers themselves.

Ag JOBS is nothing more than a veiled amnesty. While

everyone, it seems, agrees that the H2A program desperately

needs reform, this legislation does not fix the two most

onerous problems with the program--the adverse effect wage

rate and the overwhelming litigation brought by legal

services groups against the farmers using the H2A program.

That is what the farmers told us. The letter goes on to say:

The Craig-Kennedy-Berman reform package provides a private

right of action provision that goes far beyond legitimate

worker protections and expands legal services attorneys

ability to sue growers in several critical areas. These

lawyers, who have harassed program users with meritless

lawsuits for years, will continue to attack small farmers

under the new statute. Supporters of the Craig-Berman

legislation have endorsed this alleged reform, believing, in

a misguided fashion, that it will bring stability to the

agricultural labor market. It will not. It will create

greater instability. As the illegal farm workers earn

amnesty, they will abandon their farm jobs for work in other

industries. Many of the attached signatories have been

actively involved in negotiations surrounding this

legislation. The following groups have broken ranks with the

American Farm Bureau, the National Council of Agricultural

Employers, the Agricultural Coalition for Immigration Reform,

and the American

Nursery and Landscape Association to oppose the legislation

because those groups have decided an amnesty is more

important than legitimate H2A reform. You are likely to hear

that the majority of agriculture supports this bill. The

industry, in fact, is split. History has demonstrated that

the amnesty granted under the Immigration Reform and Control

Act of 1986 was a dismal failure for agriculture employers.

Farm workers abandoned agricultural employment shortly after

gaining amnesty and secured jobs in other industries.

Of course, they did. So why should we pass this Judiciary bill, what I guess we can call the Specter-Kennedy package?

Who supports the amendment? I know who supports the amendment. The national lobbying groups are really out of touch with the desires of the American people and the desires of farmers and the desires of those who want to see a good and decent system created.

I don't believe I am out of touch on this issue. I believe I know what average American citizens and farmers want. They want real immigration reform that guarantees the laws we pass will be enforced and that people who do not honor our immigration laws will be punished, not rewarded with worker visas and green cards. So I strongly oppose the Specter-Kennedy bill that came out of committee, and I hope my colleagues will join in that.

Now, earlier, Senator Leahy said that the 1986 bill Congress passed was amnesty. He said it was amnesty, and he admitted it was. ``Blacks Law Dictionary'' says that the 1986 bill was amnesty. It is the very definition of amnesty.

By the way, when we passed that bill, it was supposed to fix the immigration problem. As I explained and talked about this morning, that is a very important concept. So the deal in 1986 was that we were going to give amnesty to 1 million people who we thought were here illegally. We now think there are 11 million here illegally. We are going to give amnesty to those, and we are going to create a legal system that encourages people to come legally and we won't have this problem again. Those who were dubious about it said: No, this amnesty would encourage more people to come illegally, but the pro-amnesty crowd won out and they passed the legislation and it became law.

Well, what happened immediately afterward? It wasn't 1 million people who showed up to claim amnesty; it was 3 million--three times as many. I don't know how many will show up this time. Will it be 11 million or 33 million? Probably not 33 million, but I would not be surprised at all, based on our history, if we would have a good many more show up and claim amnesty.

Six years after the bill passed, the Congress, in a very unusual action, voted to form a commission to review the legislation to see if it worked. The commission, a bipartisan professional commission, did a study and said it was a failure. It did not work, did not do what it was supposed to do.

Well, the Citizenship and Immigration Services tried to say that 1986 was not amnesty. But everybody has agreed it was. CIS later explained what the 1986 bill did. I would like to go over it with you because this current bill does the very same things. It is just not disputable. So if we have any understanding of what an amnesty program is, we have the 1986 act to give us a guide. It says:

The legalization program was not amnesty, but a targeted

program that balanced the offer of legalization with

stringent requirements.

This is how they defended this problem.

Legalization of applicants had to: prove to INS

adjudicators that they had resided in the U.S. since January

1, 1982--

I went over with you how this bill said you had to be here since January 2004. If you came after 2004, you could still get in. That is a real stringent standard. You had to prove you resided there before that day--

pay a $185 fee--

We upped it to $1,000--

for principal applicants, $50 for each child, with a $420

family cap; accept ineligibility for most public benefits for

5 years after application--

We don't even do that in this bill. It says you could not go on welfare for at least 5 years. We did that in 1986. That is not in this bill today--

and complete an 18-month period of temporary residency. After

that, and only after successfully completing an English

language and civics requirement within a year-long one-time

window--

Which is a very low-grade test for the most part--

and the payment of an $80 fee per applicant (with a $240

family cap) they were eligible to apply for permanent

residency. In exchange, the applicant would be authorized to

work, travel, and after becoming a permanent resident,

petition for the immigration of certain family members.

They could bring family members in from out of the country to join them. Then, of course, once you become a permanent resident, it is a matter of 5 years to become a citizen, if you have not been convicted of a felony and you can speak English. I don't want to be demagogic and say this is amnesty, amnesty, amnesty, and vote against the bill. I am saying that everybody agreed that 1986 was amnesty, and it did not work.

Everybody I hear publicly talking about this bill says it is not amnesty. Senator Kennedy, I think, used the word ``lie'' after I said it was amnesty this morning. I think I have demonstrated that it is precisely the same scheme that was used in 1986, which we proved didn't work. If that is not amnesty, what is? Senator Leahy defended the bill and said it is not amnesty. President Bush said he doesn't believe in amnesty. All he believes in is immigration, and he wants us to do better and be as generous as we can possibly be. But he doesn't believe in amnesty.

Scott McClellan, yesterday at the press briefing he does for the President, said that the President believes that a direct path to citizenship is amnesty, and he opposes that.

This bill provides a direct path to citizenship for people who came to this country illegally. That is just the fact. If we want to have people say it is not so, we will keep talking about it every day this week. That is all I am saying. I wish it weren't so. It is not necessary that we do that. We can provide a humane and decent way to give people full opportunities to live and progress in our society without giving the people who come here illegally benefits over those who wait in line and come legally. That is what it is all about.

So I will just say that, in this rush to move a bill through and to prove that we care, we have not thought it through. We spent 5 days in markup in the Judiciary Committee, and about 4 of those days we really spent some time dealing with enforcement and border issues. We talked about them in some depth. We went over the wording of the statutes with some care. We debated single words. Senator Durbin, who is here, is a great lawyer. He made some points, being the skilled lawyer he is. We changed words and did all kinds of things.

But when we got to the last day, Monday, they offered an AgJOBS bill, with over 100 pages, in about 15 minutes, and it passed. We still had not seen the draft of it. During the debate in our committee on how to handle the 11 million people in a decent, fair, and just way, to not remove them or make them all leave this country in a permanent way or to abuse them or prosecute them, but how to handle this in a logical, sane way--we spent almost no time on it.

I urged the committee to stay with the enforcement matters like the House did. Let's start hearings immediately and get the best minds in America. Let's find out who these 11 million people are, their desires and wishes; what would be a good and principled way to deal with them; who we should let into our country in the future; what standards should we use; should we have unlimited numbers come in for low-wage jobs and have limits on the high-wage people? Is that logical, what we want to do?

How many more people do we want to allow into our country legally? This bill will allow every year, annually, at least 400,000, and that number can increase every year, forever.

I wish to make one more point, and this is where the American people have to watch this Congress. If we pass this amnesty legislation, if we pass the legislation that makes all these status changes and makes them into law and they become law, that becomes a permanent decision of this U.S. Congress.

But what about the promises that we are going to have enforcement? I offered an amendment in committee that was accepted to add 10,000 detention beds. That probably is not nearly enough, but it would make a big difference. That was accepted. I offered an amendment to increase the number of Border Patrol agents. It probably is not a large enough number, but it would ramp it up faster than the plan was, and that was accepted.

Then it hit me. I have been in the Senate long enough, and I should have been more alert. This is an authorizing committee. The Judiciary Committee is an authorizing committee. We know what happened in 1986. They granted amnesty, they gave everybody amnesty, and they promised in the future they were going to fund an enforcement mechanism, but they didn't do it. It was the bait and switch.

So what did we get? We got an authorization to step up enforcement on our borders, but we didn't get the money to do it. We don't have it yet. Who is to say we won't have a slowdown in the economy next year, and they will cut the money, we will never get the enforcement, and we will still have large numbers coming into the country illegally. That is a big concern to us.

We need to tie this issue down so that we know and the American people can have confidence that the enforcement mechanisms will work and will be funded. That is why the House took the approach they did.

I again say it is not true that those of us who oppose this bill oppose immigration. It is not true. We actually, at least as far as I am concerned, need to increase the numbers that come here legally. It is not true that we want to prosecute people.

What is true is that it is important for our Nation to create a humane, fair, and just way to deal with the people who are here illegally and to make positive and thoughtful decisions about how we want to handle immigration in the future. I do not believe this bill does that job. It is not something I can support. I hope the Senate will not support it. We will see a number of amendments that can make it better. I hope our Senate colleagues will study the legislation and inform themselves of the great issues at stake so we can fix it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I want to make some remarks today on the Defense supplemental we have before us. It is critical we pass that legislation. I have been exceedingly disappointed that critical legislation to support our troops who are serving us in Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas around the world is being held up by what now appears to be a prolonged and extensive debate on immigration. More than that, we are being asked to vote on a very significant immigration legislation. No. 1, the AgJOBS bill is 105 pages. As I read it, Mr. President, as I know you have, it is breathtakingly deficient. It will undermine our current immigration system, make it much worse. It is an abomination. Yet I understand at one point the sponsors, Senators Craig and Kennedy, said they had over 60 Senators prepared to vote for it. Now, they are peeling off right and left and we may certainly hope there are not votes sufficient to pass this legislation we will be voting on now on a defense bill.

I was in an Immigration Subcommittee hearing yesterday, chaired by Senator Cornyn who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration. It was a very informative and important hearing. He has been working on this for many months now, trying to hammer out something that makes sense for America. Yet now we are rushing through to vote on this bill. I want to share some thoughts about it.

I want to strongly oppose the AgJOBS Act. I oppose it, not only because it has nothing to do with the money we need to support our troops in Iraq and will no doubt, and already has, slow down the bill, but because it undermines the rule of law by rewarding illegal aliens with amnesty. It creates no mechanisms in the law that will help bring integrity to a system that is failing badly. It is a huge step backward. It would be a disaster, if you want to know the truth.

It contains a host of bad provisions that should not be law and, as a result, has even lost the support of much of the agriculture community the sponsors claim to be so much in need of it.

It will provide amnesty to 1 million illegal aliens and their families in addition, illegal aliens who broke the immigration law to come here illegally and then again broke the law by working here illegally. The AgJOBS bill will treat unfairly those people who come to the United States legally to work in agriculture, and do their work and comply with the rules dutifully. They do not benefit at all from this amnesty. Only illegals can benefit from its passage. That is a fundamental principle a great nation ought to think about. This is not an itty-bitty matter. We are going to provide a benefit to somebody who violates a law and deny it to somebody who complies with the law? What kind of policy can that be? How can one justify such a policy?

Under the AgJOBS bill, illegal aliens are granted not only the right to stay here and work here, but they are put on the road to citizenship, a virtual guaranteed path to citizenship unless they get arrested for a felony--not arrested, you have to be convicted of a felony. Or if you are convicted of three misdemeanors, that can get you out--three or more.

As I noted, the legal farm workers under the current H-2A program will get nothing. They are certainly not put on a road to citizenship. Legal workers will not become permanent resident workers and then citizens under the AgJOBS bill. If the AgJOBS bill passes, we will state to the world that America is in fact rewarding people who break the law to the disadvantage of those who follow it.

The sponsors of the amendment say this is not amnesty, it is earned legalization; it is adjustment of status; it is rehabilitation. Those are misnomers, to say the least. The AgJOBS bill is amnesty, plain and simple. It will give illegal aliens the very thing they broke the law to get, the ability to live and work inside the United States without having to wait in line the same as everybody else to get it. The amnesty contained in AgJOBS does not stop there. It goes even further and gives illegal aliens a direct path from their new legal status to U.S. citizenship.

Getting rewarded by being handed the exact thing you broke the law to get plus the ability to get citizenship is amnesty, I think, under any definition of it. It even goes far beyond the proposals President Bush has made that some have called amnesty, and he says it is not.

I am somewhat dubious about some of the ideas he has proposed. But his principles are clearly violated by this AgJOBS bill. Make no mistake about it, President Bush, for all his commitment to improving the ability of people to come to America to work, has never announced principles as breathtakingly broad as this.

Let us remind ourselves that criminal laws are involved here. Title 8, section 1325 of the United States Code says illegal entry into the United States is a misdemeanor on the first offense, a felony thereafter. Coming here illegally, regardless of why you came, is a criminal offense. Oftentimes, false documents and papers are submitted and filed. That is a criminal offense also.

Not only does it provide amnesty to illegal aliens who are already working here, it gives amnesty to the illegal alien's family, if their family is also illegally here. But if their family is still abroad and not here, the AgJOBS amendment allows the illegal alien to send for their family and bring them here, cutting in line ahead of others who made the mistake of trying to comply with our laws rather than break them.

According to a Pew report, there are at least 840,000 illegal immigrant workers who would be eligible for amnesty under this bill. Adding in one spouse and a minor child for each of those, the estimate can easily increase to 3 million immigrants--3 million, all of whom are defined only in the agricultural community, not in any other community in the country where it seems to me we would have a very difficult time on principle defining why agriculture workers get such beneficial treatment compared to any other worker who might be here.

Not only does AgJOBS give amnesty to the current people who are in our country illegally, but it extends that amnesty to illegal aliens who once worked in America but have already gone home. It actually encourages them to come back to the United States and puts them on a route that leads them to full citizenship. These are people who have returned home to their country, and we are putting them ahead of lawful workers who come here and may also want to be citizens one day.

The AgJOBS amendment will create a category of ``lawful, temporary resident status'' of agricultural workers who have worked at least 100 days in the 18 months prior to December 31, 2004. These are supposed to be workers who were here working, contributing to our economy, but they only have to work 100 days.

You have to read these acts. You can't just believe what you hear about them. I was trying to study it last night and things kept hitting me that almost take your breath away. One hundred workdays--do you know how that is defined in the act? An individual who is employed 1 or more hours in agriculture per day, that is a workday. For literally as many or as few as 100 hours of agricultural work in 18 months you are put on this track. That is not good policy. I don't know who wrote this bill. The details of it are extremely troubling.

Because the bill now only applies to agricultural workers, it is true the entire illegal population that is estimated to be in our country of 8 to 10 million will not be legalized under the bill. However, we can be quite sure the majority of those 1.2 million illegal agricultural workers will apply for amnesty if this amendment is passed.

Again I ask, what real principle can we stand on to say we need to give these people who are here illegally preference over people who might be working in some other industry?

Under the AgJOBS bill, an illegal alien is not deportable as soon as his paperwork is filed. No factfinding or adjudication on the application is necessary. It kicks in a protection that he cannot be deported. Maybe he has been charged with a felony, but the trial hasn't come along yet. It seems to me the procedure is guaranteed to go forward and they will be able to be put on this track. After the illegal alien gets the first round of amnesty, being granted temporary legal status under the AgJOBS bill, the bill gives them the opportunity to continue working in agriculture and apply for permanent resident status here in the United States. Thereafter that puts you in a position to become a citizen--guaranteed, unless you get in some big trouble.

There is no limit on the number of individuals who would be allowed to adjust to lawful permanent residence and eventually become citizens. If the illegal alien who meets the bill criteria has already left the United States, the legislation actually would encourage them to come back through the border to become a lawful temporary worker. As I read the legislation, they are allowed to do that by filing a petition. I believe it is called a preliminary petition. This petition is pretty interesting. The petition fundamentally is filed at the border with an officer, it says. And who is the officer? An officer is a member of a farm workers organization or an employer group, both of which are not representing the interests of the citizens of the United States but both of which have a special interest in having the alien come into the country. That is how they make their money. And they have to accept it if he produces virtually any document at all that would say he or she has worked in the country at sometime previously.

Later on my breath was taken away where it says in this act that the documents filed by the illegal alien are confidential. Read this:

Except as otherwise provided in this section, the Secretary

[that's the Secretary of Homeland Security, who is supposed

to be supervising all of this, under his jurisdiction] nor

any official or employee of the Homeland Security or Bureau

or Agency thereof may use the information furnished by the

applicant pursuant to an application under this section. . .

.

It goes on to say:

Files and records prepared for the purposes of this section

by qualified designated entities [these are these employer

groups. These are the farm worker organizations] are

confidential, and the Secretary shall not have access to such

files or records relating to the alien without the consent of

the alien, except as allowed by a court order issued pursuant

to paragraph 6.

Great Scott, you mean you file an application that is supposed to justify you to come into the country, and it is supposed to allow you to come in here, but the drafters of this legislation are so distrustful of our Government and the Secretary of Homeland Security that he is not even able to see the documents? I don't know how this became the policy of the United States.

The fundamental principle is that no nation is required to allow anyone to come into their country because they have sovereignty over their country. They set standards and try to adhere to them. Wise countries such as ours are very generous about how many people are allowed to come in. Some are far more strict--most are, in fact, more strict than are we. But no one has a right, automatically, to enter somebody's country. You enter by permission of that country. I don't think there would be anything wrong to ask the applicant to at least file a petition so the designated governmental official in charge of the operation can see it, instead of it being secret from them.

Frank Gaffney recently wrote a column entitled ``Stealth Amnesty.'' He is the president of the Center for Security Policy. We do have some security problems involving terrorism involved around our country. He summarized the AgJOBS bill by saying this:

By the legislation's own terms, an illegal alien will be

turned into ``an alien lawfully admitted for temporary

residence'' . . .

Just by fiat.

Provided they had managed to work unlawfully in an agricultural job in the United States for a minimum of 100 hours; in other words, for 2\1/2\ weeks during 18 months prior to August 31, 2003.

I will continue to talk about the bizarre nature of this application process. Someone who is even not in the country who wants to come back into the country, as I understand it, who has worked in our country illegally for some period of time and have returned to their country, they want to come back; they file an application, a preliminary application, I believe the phrase is. They do not file it with the Government, they file it with a farm workers group or an employer group,

both of which do not have a real interest in seeing that the laws of the United States are enforced.

It goes on. It is difficult to understand. I read from page 24 of the 205-page bill:

. . . the Secretary shall not have access to such files or

records relating to the alien without the consent of the

alien, except as allowed by a court order.

It goes on to say that ``neither the Secretary nor any official'' shall ``use the information furnished by the applicant pursuant to an application filed under this section,'' provided they cannot use it ``for any purpose other than to make a determination on the application or for enforcement.''

Then it goes on to state that ``nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the use or release for immigration enforcement purposes or law enforcement purposes'' of information contained in files and records of the Department of Homeland Security but that does not give them the ability to use the information contained in the paperwork filed with the employer group. Those papers the employer does not give to the Department of Homeland Security are kept secret and not available to law enforcement, the bill goes on to add that no information in the application can be used ``other than information furnished by an applicant pursuant to the application or any other information derived from the application that is not available for any other source.''

I was a prosecutor. I know how hard it was to handle these things. This bill will create a situation that makes these documents virtually unusable in making sure this system has integrity. Why do we want to do that? What possible reason do we want to have in legislation of this kind that would say when you come here and you present documentation into evidence that justifies coming here to do that--why shouldn't the information you present in your application be part of the files of the Government, be reviewable at any time by any agency of the Government, for any purpose for which they want to use it? Everybody else has to do that.

Before you can be a Senator, you have to disclose all your finances. That does not take me long, but for some people it takes a long time. We have to do that, but somebody who is not even a citizen, not even a resident of this country, can keep information secret even though they are asking to become legal permanent residents eligible for citizenship.

Mr. President, I will quote from an article by Mr. Frank Gaffney. This confirms what I have been saying, which is undisputable about the bill. We are not at a time in our history when we should be doing this. It is exactly opposite of what we should be doing if we want to create a new system of immigration that allows more people to come here legally, to work as their schedules are fit, with employers who may need them.

We can do that. We should do that. We can do better about that. We can improve current law. But to just willy-nilly allow people who could very well be very marginal part-time employees, who never worked much-- to give them permanent resident status and citizenship for violating our laws is thunderously erroneous, in my view. It is just not good.

Mr. Gaffney goes on to say:

Once so transformed--What he means by that is once you have been transformed from an illegal person to a legal person by filing an application--they can stay in the U.S. indefinitely while applying for permanent resident status. From there, it is a matter of time before they can become citizens, so long as they work in the agricultural sector for 675 hours over the next six years.

But you only have to work, really, 2,000 hours, or 1 year out of 6 years, but you have to stay in the agricultural sector.

Some have called this creating indentured servants. Why isn't it a form of indentured servitude? You have to come here. You are required to work for 6 years in agriculture. You cannot take some other type employment.

The Craig[-Kennedy] bill would confer this amnesty as an exchange for indentured servitude. The amnesty will be conferred--Mr. Gaffney goes on to say--not only on farmworking illegal aliens who are in this country--estimates of those eligible run to more than 800,000. It would also extend the opportunity to those who otherwise qualified but had previously left the United States. No one knows how many would fall in this category and want to return as legal workers. But, a safe bet is that there are hundreds of thousands of them.

If any were needed, S. 1645 [the AgJOBS bill] offers a further incentive to the illegals: Your family can stay, as well. Alternatively, if they are not with you, [and you are in the United States] you can bring them in, too--cutting in line ahead of others who made the mistake of abiding by, rather than ignoring, our laws.

So the system would work this way. I do not think anyone would dispute this. Someone is here illegally. They are working in agricultural work. By the way, it defines, at the beginning of this legislation, what an ``employer'' means in agricultural employment. And it says:

The term ``employer'' means any person or entity, including any farm labor contractor and any agricultural association, that employs workers in agricultural employment.

So you have to work for an agricultural employer, but that does not indicate to me that you have to be working in agriculture. Maybe the company has some workers who are agricultural, and 90 percent of them are not. Maybe you could work for them the way this thing is written, regardless.

But the way this system would work is if they were here illegally over a period of 18 months--if they were here just 18 months--and had worked 100 hours in agricultural employment during that 18 months, the Secretary shall make them a lawful temporary resident--required to, unless they committed a serious crime or something.

Then, over the next 6 years, if they were to work in agriculture for up to 2,060 hours--that is about 1 year's work--over 6 years in agriculture, they become a legal permanent resident. Then if you just hang along there for 5 years, you can become a citizen.

Now, I do not see where this can be supported by somebody saying they earned their citizenship. Citizenship should not be bought and paid for in labor. Why? Well, they worked for compensation, they wanted to work for compensation, this is not something we forced them to come here and do, they were paid like every other American is paid. You earn your pay for the work you perform. I do not know that you should earn additional benefits because you work. All the while, of course, the lawful H-2A workers are still required to go home when their time is up. They only receive pay for working, why should we give illegal workers more than that.

The AgJOBS amendment goes so far as to provide free legal counsel to illegal aliens who want to receive this amnesty. All Americans don't get free legal counsel. There is no notice in this bill that suggests they have to have any low-income level or have no assets to get the legal services this bill gives to illegal alien workers. It provides that the Legal Services Corporation can expend their funds and shall not be prevented from providing legal assistance directly related to an application for adjustment of status under this section.

Again, we are now giving them free legal status, free legal services, and we are allowing them to go to these groups, these farmworker organizations or employer groups, to help them with that. The AgJOBS amendment provides all that in that fashion.

Let me talk about another item in this amendment an item that restricts the rights of employers. I don't know how every State does it. I think probably a substantial number of States, like my State of Alabama, have laws that provide for employment at will; that is, unless an employee has a contract, they work for the company and they can leave the company whenever they want and the company can terminate them whenever they want. That is Alabama law. I am rather certain of that. But if you come in under this act, you get an enhanced protection over American citizens. Prohibition: No alien granted temporary resident status under subsection (a) may be terminated from employment by any employer during the period of temporary resident status except for just cause. And they set up an administrative law process, an arbitration proceeding to have all these trials. The burden of

proof is on the employer to demonstrate just cause for termination, and he has the burden to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence.

Once again, we are entering into a complex legal deal here we need to avoid, providing legal rights and protections to noncitizens who have violated the law that are not available to American citizens.

Presumably, there are two farmworkers on this farm somewhere. One of them is an American citizen--in Alabama, let us say--and the boss wants to fire one of them. If he fires the temporary resident alien, he has to go through arbitration and hire a lawyer and defend himself and be sued. As a matter of fact, it goes on to say that doesn't end it. That is one additional remedy the worker can have. He can still sue the employer for any kind of fraud, abuse or harassment or any other thing that some trial lawyer may pursue. So it doesn't end it. The evidence apparently can be utilized from that trial into a next trial.

I am concerned about that. I believe it is an unnecessary litigation that is going to impact our country adversely. That is why you will see that agricultural groups are not supporting this AgJOBS bill.

What we really should do is follow the recommendations made to us over the years by immigration commissions of Congress that have been created for the specific purpose of providing advice and counsel to us on how to effect immigration reform. In 1992, 6 years after the last illegal alien agricultural worker amnesty passed in 1986 as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, the IRCA, the Commission on Agricultural Workers issued a report to Congress that studied the effects of the 1986 agricultural amnesty called the Special Agricultural Worker Program.

One of the first things the Commission acknowledged was the number of workers given amnesty under the bill had been severely underestimated. The Commission reported the SAW Program legalized many more farmworkers than expected:

It appears that the number of undocumented workers who had

worked in seasonal agricultural services prior to the IRCA

was generally underestimated.

What else did the Commission find? Did it suggest that this solved the problem of workers in America in agricultural industry? Did it fix the problem that they tried to fix in 1986?

They say this:

Six years after the 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 workers available to all harvest workers--

That is, those who were given amnesty and those who are citizens--

and contributing to lower annual earnings.

Did the Commission recommend we pass a second legalization program such as AgJOBS? What did they say that might help us on that? They said this:

A worker specific and/or industry specific legalization

program, as contained in the IRCA, should not be the basis of

future immigration policy.

This was 6 years after we did the last one. They had a commission study it. This is what they concluded. What do they suggest we ought to do? What did the Commission recommend? They said the only way to have structure and a stable agricultural market was to increase enforcement of our immigration laws, including employer sanctions, and reduce illegal immigration:

Illegal immigration must be curtailed. This should be

accomplished with more effective border controls, better

internal apprehension mechanisms, and enhanced enforcement of

employer sanctions. The U.S. Government should also develop

better employment eligibility and identification systems,

including fraud-proof work authorization documents for all

persons legally authorized to work in the United States so

that employer sanctions can more effectively deter the

employment of unauthorized workers.

That is what they recommended. That is what we haven't done. In fact, we are in an uproar over this rather minor Sensenbrenner language the House put on their bill that deals with national security and a way to make ID secure and other matters consistent with recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. So it appears that the Senate does not want to do that but what we want to do is continue to pass these amnesty bills. This should not be happening.

Restoring our ability and commitment to successfully enforce our immigration laws is the only long-term solution. A real solution will not reward illegal behavior by handing out amnesty to people here illegally, but instead will require effective control of our borders, active policing in the interior, and participation among all levels of law enforcement. Of course, it includes improving the laws that we have to allow, where needed, more people to come legally in a system that actually works. But to have any system at all, of course, that must be created with an enforcement mechanism that works. We have never created such a mechanism and now it is time to do so.

I introduced a bill last Congress--and will introduce, again--that would strengthen the United States' ability to enforce our immigration laws. The Homeland Security Enhancement Act would clarify for law enforcement officers of a State, county, and city that they do have authority to enforce immigration violations while carrying out their routine duties.

They don't have authority to deport or try, but they have a responsibility, in most instances, to detain people they identify as being here in violation of the law and contact Federal officials to process that individual after that. They have been told, and been confused about, what their authority is. I have written a law review article on it, aided by my assistant here, my counsel, Cindy Hayden. We researched the law and came to that conclusion.

The law provides the authority, in virtually every instance, but lawyers have confused cities and counties and police and sheriffs, and they are not participating in anything the way they would like. We are not talking about forcing them to do anything. We are trying to make sure we pass legislation that clarifies existing law and makes it clear they have the ability to serve and assist our country. It would increase the amount of information regarding deportable illegal aliens entered into the FBI National Crime Information Center database, making the information more readily available to local officials.

This is a big, big deal. In the hearing Senator Cornyn chaired yesterday, we had a person from the Department of Homeland Security who is in charge of detention and removal, and what we learned was that over 80 percent of the people who are detained, processed and found to be here illegally are released on bail while the government arranges for their deportation. It is not surprising they don't show up to be deported. Even after they are given a hearing and found to be here in violation of the law, they are consistently released on bail, and 80 percent of those don't show up to be deported. Then, we now have some 400,000 absconders. Now, Mr. President, if a Senator gets a DUI in Kansas or someplace and you don't show up for court, they put your name in the database, and if you get stopped for speeding somewhere in some other State, they will pick it up. So they are a fugitive, but their information is not being put into the NCIC.

I know police officers. I was a prosecutor for over 15 years. I asked them about this. They tell me they do not even bother to call the Federal Immigration officials if they apprehend someone that is illegally here because they won't come and get them. So they have just given up. They are prepared to help. What a great asset that would be. But, no, we have not seen fit to do that.

But more importantly, the 400,000 absconders are not in the National Crime Information Center computer. So when a State officer apprehends someone, and they have a name and they want to run it through the wanted persons database they would use for an American citizen, they run the birth date, the driver's license, or other identifying characteristics, and it tells them whether there is a warrant out for their arrest.

That is how most people are caught today who violate the law and who are fugitives. Most of them are caught in simple traffic stops. Don't tell them because they will quit speeding. But that is how we catch them--when they get in a fight somewhere and the police runs their name and there is a warrant out in Texas for them for assault or something.

We raised Cain last year about that and asked the tough questions of a number of the Department officials. They said they would try. So out of 400,000, we learned there are about 40,000 of those names they found time to put in the NCI Center computer system that is available at city, county, and police offices out in the country. That indicates to me how confused we are about how to make this system work.

I want to say this. I absolutely believe that we have one big problem on our minds; that is, we think it cannot be done. We think we cannot enforce immigration laws, that we might as well just quit. Well, under our present way of doing so, that is correct. However, if we create a more generous way for people to come here legally that is simple and understandable, and if we enhance our enforcement abilities and if we quit rewarding those who come illegally, you will begin to see the numbers change. As a matter of fact, there is a tipping point out there I am absolutely convinced exists.

If we enhance the enforcement of those who come illegally, we quit providing those who are here illegally with benefits, we increase border enforcement, and we enhance the way for people to come here legally to work, and we make that easier and will get more support from countries from which these people come, we can tip this thing. As the number that come into the country illegally goes down, and as our enforcement effort and officers are increased, you will have a tremendous change in the number of enforcement officers per illegal. That is when you make progress. That is what happened in crime.

The crime rate has been dropping for the last 20 years. As it drops, we don't fire policemen. We have gotten more policemen per crime, so they have more time to work on crime. They are doing a better job of apprehending repeat offenders and putting them in jail. The crime rate has broken. Instead of going up, as it did in the 1960s and 1970s, it has been going down for over 20 years. We can do that here. It will affirm America's commitment to the rule of law. To do that, we are going to need additional bedspace for detention, and we cannot continue to release people who have been apprehended on the street so they just disappear again. We have to require the Federal Government to receive and process people who have been apprehended by local law enforcement. We need to make sure the system provides them a fair hearing, but it also needs to be a prompt hearing. If someone is in violation of the law, the system should work rapidly and not with great expense. Those are some of the things I am concerned about in the bill I have offered. But there are many other problems of a similar nature that need to be dealt with.

We are a nation of immigrants. America openly welcomes legal immigrants and new citizens who have the character, integrity, the decency, and the work ethic that have made this country great. But they are concerned, rightly, about the politicians in Washington who talk as though they hear them when they cry out for a system that works, and we say we are working on it. What do we do? We came up with an AgJOBS bill that absolutely goes in the wrong direction. The same people who are supporting that bill, for the most part--although not Senator Larry Craig--are opposing my bill, for example, that would enhance law enforcement authority for local officers, and they wonder if we have any commitment at all here to enforce the law. They have every right to do so because I will tell you, from my experience in talking with police officers in my State, nothing is being done. Until we put our minds to it, nothing will be done.

How do we go from here? What should we do? In my view, we need to pass this emergency supplemental to support our troops. We need to reject all immigration amendments on it. We need to follow President Bush's lead and have a serious debate and discussion on this issue.

We need to agree on certain principles about how it will be conducted. We are going to have a legal system that works. We are going to be humane in how we treat people who come here. We are going to consider American needs. It is not going to be an unlimited number. And we are going to create a legal system that works.

We can do that, and we should do that. A lot of work is going on toward that end right now. Senator Kyl and Senator Chambliss have a major bill to deal with some of these issues. Senator Cornyn, a former justice of the Texas Supreme Court, a former attorney general of Texas, is doing a real good job in managing the Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee and is considering all these issues. Then sometime later this year, I think, we might as well get serious, bring something up and try to make some progress. Who knows, maybe even the President should appoint an independent commission of people who understand this issue--we have had commissions before--and make some specific recommendations about how we ought to proceed. That could work, in my view.

Right now the American people lack confidence in us, and they have every right to lack confidence in us because we have created a system that is flawed, it is not working. It is an abomination, really.

I want to share this information with my colleagues. Farmers who are supposed to be benefiting from this act, the agriculture workers amnesty legislation, do not want it. Maybe some farm groups in Washington or lobbyists are for it. Maybe some big agricultural entities want it. But I have in my hands an open letter from the Southeastern Farmers Coalition. It is signed by a list of organizations and individual H-2A program participants, people who utilize farm workers from out of the country who are ``the overwhelming majority of H-2A program users in the country.''

The list of signatories to this letter is expansive, including the North Carolina Growers Association, the Mid-Atlantic Solutions, the Georgia Peach Council, AgWorks, the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Association, the Virginia Agricultural Growers Association, the Vidalia Onion Business Council--I am sure that is a sweet group--and the Kentucky-Tennessee Growers Association.

The letter states:

Farmers in the Southeastern United States are opposed to

Senate bill S. 1645 introduced by Ted Kennedy and Larry

Craig. It is an amnesty for illegal farm-workers. It does not

reform the H-2A program. Please oppose this legislation.

The text of the letter, which asks me to oppose the bill, says:

[AgJOBS] is nothing more than a veiled amnesty. While

everyone, it seems, agrees that the H-2A program desperately

needs reform, this legislation does not fix the two most

onerous problems with the program: the adverse effect wage

rate and the overwhelming litigation brought by Legal

Services groups against farmers using the H-2A program.

In fact, it explicitly provides for more such litigation. The letter goes on to say:

The Craig-Kennedy-Berman reform package provides a private

right of action provision that goes far beyond legitimate

worker protections and expands Legal Services' attorneys

ability to sue growers in several critical areas. These

lawyers, who have harassed program users with meritless

lawsuits for years, will continue to attack small family

farmers under the new statute.

Supporters of Craig-Kennedy-Berman have endorsed this alleged reform believing in a misguided fashion that it will bring stability to the agricultural labor market. It will not. It will create greater instability. As illegal farm workers earn amnesty, they will abandon their farm jobs for work in other industries.

Continuing this letter:

Many of the attached signatories have been actively

involved in negotiations surrounding this legislation. The

following groups have broken ranks with the American Farm

Bureau.

As a matter of fact, I think the Farm Bureau has now switched sides on this bill, and they are no longer endorsing it. They are not supporting it now. They have changed their position.

They continue:

You are likely to hear that the majority of agriculture

supports this bill. The industry, in fact, is split.

But, in fact, the trend has been the other way against it.

They go on:

History has demonstrated that the amnesty granted under the

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was a dismal

failure for agriculture employers. Farm workers abandoned

agricultural employment

shortly after gaining amnesty and secured jobs in other

industries.

I also received a letter last week from two growers in Alabama who favor improving the ability to utilize foreign workers. They strongly support that. But still they asked me to oppose the AgJOBS legislation.

Tom Bentley of Bentley Farms, which grows, packs, and ships peaches from Thorsby, AL, and Henry Williams, head of the Alabama Growers Association, write:

In the coming days, you may be asked to vote on legislation

offered by Senator Larry Craig and Senator Edward Kennedy

that purports to significantly reform the present H-2A

agricultural worker program by providing an earned amnesty to

hundreds of thousands of undocumented farm workers now

present in the United States.

Despite claims that this bill is bipartisan and represents

the interests of all agricultural employers, growers in the

Southeastern United States do not support the passage of this

legislation.

This bill is not H-2A reform as touted, it is simply an

amnesty bill for a selected group of workers.

If farmers who make up a majority of H-2A employers are opposed to AgJOBS because it is amnesty for illegal workers and it does not reform the H-2A program, why should we pass it? Who supports this amendment? I believe the supporters who are advocating it are really not in touch with the desires of the American people and the desires of the farmers they claim to represent. In fact, I am not sure the authors understand just how far this bill goes and just how many serious problems exist within it.

I do not think that I am out of touch with the American people. I certainly believe the principles I have advocated are consistent with the rule of law that I cherish in our country, and I am troubled to see it eroded in this fashion. I believe reform is necessary. I believe we can achieve reform. I believe we need to spend some time on it. I do not think it can be done piecemeal. I originally thought it had to be done comprehensively. Then somebody convinced me we could break it up. But the more I look at it, the more I see the nature of it. Why would we want to spend all this time on one group of workers, agricultural workers? There are other workers who are facing the same challenge. Why not fix this problem in a generous way for foreign workers to come and work, a generous way to achieve citizenship, a focus on the real needs of America, not just laboring immigrants. We need people who have Ph.D.s, brain power, scientific people who may cure cancer one day. We need more of those kinds of people, too.

We need to look at it comprehensively. Draw up a system that works. But one that allows us to honor the heritage we have been given as Americans, the heritage that draws so many people--our heritage of the rule of law--is being eroded terribly today.

I thank the Presiding Officer for the time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from Arizona finally coming to the floor with a piece of legislation. For the last several years, I have challenged the Senate to deal with what I believe, and I think most colleagues believe, is a very urgent problem. Our borders, as much money as we have poured into them and as many new border patrolmen as we have put along them--primarily our southern border today--are still being overrun substantially by illegal people crossing.

While we have been trying, since 9/11, to understand and reform our immigration laws, there has been a great deal of talk, but very little done--some 1,300 days now of high-flying political talk about the dramatic problem that we awakened to post-9/11, and that was that there were between 8 million to 12 million undocumented illegal people in our country--most of them here and working hard to help themselves and their families. But it was obvious there were a few here with the evilest intent in mind: to destroy our country and to destroy us, too.

While I accept the argument, as most do, that comprehensive immigration reform is critical, right now we have a critical situation in front of us as it relates to agriculture. Starting about 5 years ago, and before 9/11, American agriculture was attempting to get the Congress to look at their plight. The plight was obvious and simple-- and criticize it if you will--but the reality was that 50 to 70 percent of their workforce was undocumented, and the law we had given them, as the Senator from Arizona has so clearly spoken to, was so cumbersome, costly, and so untimely--and the key to timeliness is when the crop is in the field and ripe, it has to come out or it rots--that American agriculture could not depend on it. The workforce who was seeking the work in American agriculture began to recognize it. If you will, the black market or the illegal processes began.

It should not be a surprise to any of us that when government stands in the way of commerce, stands in the way of an economy, usually people find a way around it. Tragically enough, it happened. But, by definition, it was an illegal way.

Last year, in our country, there were 2 months in which we were a net importer of food. This year, it is guesstimated it could be in as many as 6 months that we will be a net importer of food, and that will be the first time, in the history of American agriculture, that becomes the situation. So why we are here on the floor today debating a piece of a much broader overall immigration problem is because it is urgent, it is important we deal with it, and we deal with it now as thoughtfully and as thoroughly as we can. That is why I insisted that the Senate come to this issue.

I am glad my colleagues have come up with an alternative. I think the provisions in it are quickly thought up. They were criticizing my bill earlier because I offered a temporary visa. They offer a visa. They offered it for 3 years--3 years--as many as 9 years. What I am glad to hear said, for those who argue what we were doing was an amnesty issue, is that it is no longer viewed as that, that we recognize there is a legitimate need for an American agricultural workforce, and it is critically necessary we make it a legal workforce for the sake of our country, for the sake of our borders, and for the sake of American agriculture.

That is what this debate will be all about in the next several hours and tomorrow morning before we vote on this issue. Both sides have accepted a rather unusual procedure, Mr. President--a supermajority procedure. Why? Well, we are germane to this supplemental bill because of what the House did earlier with a Sensenbrenner amendment dealing with what is known as REAL ID. It dealt with immigration and, as a result of dealing with immigration in the House, we were legitimized to do so, in a germane way, in the Senate. We will do that.

At the same time, we all understand that in legislative procedures, on cloture 60 votes are required. We have agreed to do so. Tomorrow, we will vote--first on the Chambliss-Kyl amendment and then on the Craig amendment. It will require 60 votes to proceed. Whether we succeed or fail--and I think I can succeed--what is most important is that the American people are beginning to hear just a little bit about what they have deserved to hear for the last 1,300 days, since 9/11 awakened us all to the dysfunctional character and the lack of enforcement of immigration law that has been going on for well over two decades. It was so typical of a Congress that wanted to talk a lot about it but do very little about it.

The Senator from Arizona and I and the Senator from Georgia, without question, agree on the critical nature of American agriculture today. What we also agree on--symbolic by their presence on the floor today, debating the issue and offering an alternative--is that we cannot build the wall high enough along our southern border, we cannot dig its foundation deep enough to close that border off, that it requires good, clear, simple, understandable, functioning law, not unlike the old Bracero Program of the 1950s when we had a guest worker program, when we identified the worker with the work, and they came, they worked, and they went home.

Up until that time, illegal immigration was astronomically high. It dropped precipitously during that period of time when we were identifying and being able to work about 500,000 workers who were foreign national in American agriculture. It was a law that worked.

Then somehow, in the sixties, Congress got it all wrong again. Why? Because they thought they were protecting an American workforce. But what the AFL-CIO found out and why they support my legislation is that there are unique types of employment in this country with which the American workforce will not identify.

I am pleased to hear that the Chambliss-Kyl bill, along with mine, provides a first-hire American approach. We create a labor pool. The employer must first go there, but if that workforce is not available, they do not have to languish there because, in essence, they have a crop to harvest, and the crop is time sensitive. We understand all of that.

I will get to the detail of my bill over the course of the afternoon and tomorrow. This is a bill that for 5 years has been worked out between now over 509 organizations. It is interesting that the Farm Bureau supports the Kyl-Chambliss approach, but they do not oppose my approach. And last year they supported my approach. In other words, they are as frustrated as all of us are about this very real problem of immigration. First they are here and then they are there. What is most important is that we are here on the floor of the Senate this afternoon talking about an issue on which this Senate has been absent way too long.

What the Senator from Arizona, the Senator from Georgia, and I and others who will be on the floor--I see my prime cosponsor Senator Kennedy is on the floor--believe is that this is an issue whose time is coming, and we believe for agriculture it is now because it is critical and it is necessary. We are learning at this moment that as much money as we throw at the border, as many Border Patrol men as we hire, if the law on the other side does not back them up, if the law on the other side does not create a reasonable pathway forward for a workforce to be legal and a workforce that is necessary in this country, then you cannot put them along the border unless they are arm length to arm length from the Gulf of Mexico to San Diego. And even then, those folks have to sleep.

The reality is, we have to get the law right, and the law has been wrong for a great long while. In the absence of a functioning, reasonable law, we have set up for our country a human disaster. Not only do we have an uncontrolled illegal population in our country, but because they have no rights, because of the way they are treated, it is not unusual in the course of a given year to see 200 or 300 lose their lives along the southern border of our country, to see our emergency rooms in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California flooded, to see the very culture and the very character and foundation of our country at risk because we do not control process, we do not control immigration, and we do not do so in an upright, legal, and responsible way.

We are here. We are going to debate this for a time, and there will be much more debate tomorrow. We will have some key votes to see whether we proceed to deal with the bill that I call AgJOBS and that 509 organizations across the country that have worked with us for the last 5 to 6 years call AgJOBS. It is a major reform in the H-2A law. It is a simplification. It is a clearer understanding. It is a reasonable process: The blue card, if you will, or the green card that is acceptable, normal, and understandable and provided in a temporary and earned way, as my bill does, is simply a point in transition, and it ought to be viewed as that.

You will hear the rhetoric that it will allow millions of people to become legal. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Labor, does not agree with that at all. The Department of Labor says there are about 500,000 who they think will responsibly and legitimately come forward, and of that, there may be dependence of around 200,000 that are already in this country because that workforce has been here 5 or 6 years or more, for that matter. So those numbers are reasonable and realistic, and that is a moment in time, a transition as we create a law and allow American agriculture to work their way into a functioning realistic H-2A program that is timely, that is sensitive, that meets their workforce needs, and recognizes the value and the production of American agriculture.

If we do not correct this law and correct it now, Americans have a choice because we already decided years ago, based on the character of the work, that most Americans would not do it. They had better jobs and alternative jobs. So American agriculture began to rely on a foreign workforce.

I say this most directly, and I mean it most sincerely. Either foreign workers will harvest America's agricultural produce for America's consumers or foreign workers will harvest agriculture in another country to be shipped to American consumers. Ask an American today what they want. They want a safe food supply. They

want an abundant food supply. They hope it would be reasonably priced. But most assuredly, they want to know that it is safe and it is reliable. The only way to guarantee that is that it be harvested in this country, as it has been from the beginning history of our great country. It was not for 2 months last year and possibly not for 6 months this year.

We have a choice to make. We either create a legal workforce, a workforce that is identifiable, or we keep stumbling down this road that no American wants us to go down, and that is to not control our borders, to not identify the foreign nationals within our borders, and to not have a reasonable, legal, and timely process. That is what the debate is all about.

I am pleased to see the other side, having been in opposition for so long, finally say, Whoa, I think maybe we ought to try to get this right. We disagree on process, we disagree on their approach, but there is similarity in many instances on reform of the H-2A program. We will work over the course of this afternoon, evening, and tomorrow to break all those differences out so all of our Senators can see these differences and sense the importance of what we debate.

There are many others who have come to the floor to discuss this legislation this afternoon. I yield the floor so the debate can proceed.

Will the Senator yield?

Because our debate time, as I understand it, is actually tomorrow, and I think we will go off and on this issue today, and because the chairman of the Appropriations Committee is on the floor managing the supplemental and may have other amendments he wants to deal with, I would hope we can rely on the Chair for moving us back and forth in a balanced way from side to side before we look at a structured way to proceed. I have difficulty with that.

It is clear anybody coming to the floor to offer amendments to the supplemental would have that right.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about immigration and the issue that will be before us for two very important votes tomorrow. My colleague from Alabama is also in the Chamber. I will take the allotted time under the unanimous consent, and then I think he wants to spend more time on these issues.

What I find very fascinating is that everyone who has come to the Senate floor this afternoon to talk about immigration agrees that our country is in near crisis at this moment for our inability to control our borders, to stem the tide of illegal movement into our country, and to fashion comprehensive or targeted immigration law that effectively works. Simply put, our Federal Government has to do better. It has to move faster in improving our border security and meeting this phenomenally large and important issue of illegal immigration.

Congress is no further along today on a comprehensive bill than it was a year ago at this time when my bill, the AgJOBS bill, had a thorough hearing before the Judiciary Committee. It is now well over 1,300 days since we woke up after 9/11 with thousands of our country men and women dead and a phenomenal frightening awakening on the part of the American people that there were millions of undocumented foreign nationals living in our country.

As I said earlier, while most of them are law-abiding, are here to work, and are extremely hard-working people, we found out tragically enough that there were some here with evil intent, and we began to control our borders. I think that is why Congress then again started beefing up border patrol and buying high-tech verification systems for the Department of Homeland Security, and that is why, whether one agrees on the specific methods or not, the House of Representatives just attached to the legislation we are talking about this afternoon a national driver's license standard and asylum changes, those seeking asylum in our country, in the so-called REAL ID provisions to the Iraq supplemental. That is why I have supported a Byrd amendment on this bill to take money away from certain portions of this bill that are not immediately necessary for our troops for their security and allow our border security to hire more investigators and enforcement agents to boost up that whole area we are so concerned about.

That is why I am cosponsoring a bill that helps States deal with undocumented criminal aliens. We must get it right everywhere if we are going to reinstate in our country secure borders and functional immigration law. That is why I have worked for the last good number of years on AgJOBS. We talk about it here today. What does it mean? It means Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act. That is why we are on the floor of the Senate today.

Some would argue we ought to be doing the Iraqi supplemental because it is urgent. None of this money is immediately necessary in Iraq. The House took 2 months to craft it. We are going to take a few days to pass it. But I must tell you as I have before, I believe the crisis in immigration today is every bit as significant. No matter the money we pour along the borders, still our borders are not under control, especially our southern border.

Senator Kennedy came to the floor a few moments ago to give a very comprehensive analysis of how he and I, and now over 500 groups, have come together to try to resolve the issue of immigration, specific to American agriculture. Those are the issues at hand at this moment. We are not in any way obstructing the process. This afternoon could have been filled with amendments on the supplemental if those who have amendments would have been here to offer them. We are simply taking time in the debate. We will have those votes tomorrow. If Senators Saxby Chambliss and Jon Kyl do not get the necessary 60 votes, or I do not on these issues, they will be set aside. But they will not go away, because I do believe, as I think most Americans believe, somehow we have to get this right. Somehow it is necessary to do so.

I am committed to making this debate as brief as possible. That is why I agreed to a unanimous consent request to conform it and to shape it, but to allow a full and fair and necessary debate. As far as I am concerned, a thorough debate on AgJOBS does not need to take a multiple of days or months. Every Senator knows this issue. Every Senator knows his and her constituents are upset at this moment because somehow Congress has failed to deal with this issue. I have received my fair share of criticism from some of my constituents for offering AgJOBS. I smiled and said: You sent me to work in Washington to solve a problem. I brought the solution to that problem. I believe it is the right one. No one else, except for those this afternoon, has brought a second solution. I welcome all Senators to get involved in this debate and understand the issues. But most importantly, we cannot do what past Congresses have done or what we have done for the over 1,300 days since 9/11, look over our shoulder and say: Oh, boy, that is a big problem; and, oh, boy, our borders are at risk and, yes, some of those illegals could be here to do us harm, but we can't seem to get our hands around it because it is such a complicated issue.

I do not dispute its complications. But I am frustrated that the Senate and the House have literally not been able to act. I believe the Senate has had enough time. As I mentioned earlier, we have seen this bill when it was

before the Judiciary Committee. I think most of my colleagues know about AgJOBS. Yes, 63 Senators supported it last year. We are now nearly at 50 at this time. Clearly a large number do support it. I think that is extremely important that we do. It is so necessary that we move appropriately to solve this problem and solve it in a timely fashion. This now gives us an opportunity to do that.

As I said to my colleagues, I have worked on this issue with numerous communities of interest for nearly 5 years to craft what we believe is one of the best approaches to solving the problem, not only recognizing that illegals, the undocumented are a problem in our country, but once they are here, and if they are here illegally, how do we treat them? How does the agricultural economy provide for them and respond to them while they are so necessary in that workforce? That is what is embodied in AgJOBS. It is not simply a threshold of how you transition through. It is in reality a major reform of the H-2A program.

Let's continue with this issue. I am going to stop at this moment. My colleague Senator Sessions is on the floor. I need to step away a few moments. I know he has important things to say--many that I agree with, but there are some I do not agree with.

Don't kick this ball down the field to another day. We look now at a comprehensive piece of legislation. It is very necessary we attempt to solve it now, get this Congress involved, and tell the American people we hear them, we know our national security is at risk, and in this instance our food security is at risk. We need to solve a very important problem.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The Senator is making a very interesting point. Has the Senator looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics' numbers of those they believe--if the law were passed--are AgJOBS eligible?

About 500,000 is what they estimate. When you do all of the very thorough background checks we have within it that are consistent with immigration law today, they figure a certain number would fall out, and then there are the wives and dependents. A very large number of these are not married. They have no immediate family-- about 200,000 more. It is reasonable to say the Department of Labor is looking at a total number of workers, spouse, and dependents of upwards of possibly 700,000. I know millions and millions are talked about. I believe that is unrealistic based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Does the Senator disagree with those figures?

Based on what figures?

I don't disagree with that. But the criteria was entirely different. If I could be so kind, I think my colleague is mixing apples and oranges and getting an interesting blend of a new juice. An earned status approach has never been used before. The full background check, and the thoroughness of that background check as we anticipate in this legislation, is only used when you have a legal immigrant standing in line. In fact, our law is more stringent for illegal than it is for the legal immigrant because they can get the misdemeanors. We say, if you get a misdemeanor with 6 months' incarceration, that is pretty serious. The Senator from Alabama is an attorney. Would he agree with that? They are out of here. There is a much different criteria when you start comparing the total numbers. That is why I think they would be different.

Then they are deported.

That is correct. That is the current law. That is what current law says for the illegal immigrant.

It is in the law.

I thank my colleague for yielding. What is important is the bill be read very thoroughly. Extrapolations can be made. But when it says 100 hours of work, I think it is important to assume you would only work 1 hour a day for 100 days. That is not a very logical process.

I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. President, our Federal Government has got to do better, faster, in improving our border security and meeting the growing problem of illegal immigration.

That is why Congress has been beefing up the border patrol and buying high-tech verification systems for the Department of Homeland Security.

That is why, whether you agree on the specific methods or not, the House of Representatives attached national drivers' license standards and asylum changes, in the so-called REAL ID provisions, to the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill.

That is why I have supported Senator Byrd on an amendment to this bill to increase border security, hire more investigators and enforcement agents, and boost resources for detention.

That is why I am cosponsoring a bill to help States deal with undocumented criminal aliens.

And that is why I have worked to bring the AgJOBS--bill the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act--to the Senate floor.

I truly wish we did not have to have this debate on this bill on the Senate floor.

However, the House of Representatives has forced this opportunity upon us. By putting border, identification, and asylum provisions in the supplemental, the House has turned this bill into an immigration bill.

I am committed to making this debate as brief as possible, and as full and fair as necessary. As far as I am concerned, a thorough debate on AgJOBS does not need to take more than a couple hours, if we can get agreement from Senators who oppose the amendment.

The Senate has enough time for this amendment. If anyone is going to unduly delay this bill, it is not this Senator. As a member of the Appropriations Committee and on this floor, I fully support prompt appropriations for our men and women in uniform and for operations necessary in the war on terrorism.

AgJOBS is only an installment toward an overall solution to our nation's growing problem of illegal immigration. However, it is a significant installment, a logical installment, and one that is fully matured and ready to go forward.

I have worked with my colleagues and numerous communities of interest on AgJOBS issues for several years. The amendment I bring forward this week has been, in all its major essentials, well-known and much discussed in the Senate and the House for more than a year and a half.

This bipartisan effort builds upon years of discussion and suggestions among growers, farm worker advocates, Latino and immigration issue advocates, Members of both parties in both Houses of Congress, and others.

We have now built the largest bipartisan coalition ever for a single immigration bill. This letter was just delivered this week to Senate offices. There are about 100 more signatures on this letter than a similar letter delivered a year ago. Support for AgJOBS is growing.

That support reflects the fact that, in agriculture as in other sectors, the current immigration and labor market system is profoundly broken.

An enforcement-only policy is not the answer and doesn't work.

The United States has 7,458 miles of land borders and 88,600 miles of tidal shoreline. We can secure those frontiers well but not perfectly. As we have stepped up border enforcement, we have locked undocumented immigrants in this country at least as effectively as we have locked any out.

With an estimated 10 million undocumented persons in the United States, to find them and flush them out of homes, schools, churches, and work places would mean an intrusion on the civil liberties of Americans that they will not tolerate. We fought our revolution, in part, over troops at our doors and in our homes.

History has shown us what does work: A coupling of more secure borders, better internal enforcement, and a guest worker program that faces up to economic reality.

The only experience our country has had with a legal farm guest worker program--used widely in the 1950s but repealed in the 1960s-- taught us conclusive lessons. While it was criticized on other grounds, that program dramatically reduced illegal immigration from high levels to almost nothing, while meeting labor market needs.

AgJOBS is a groundbreaking, necessary part of this balanced, realistic approach. American agriculture has boldly stepped forward and admitted the problem. AgJOBS is a critical part of the solution.

Agriculture is the sector of the economy for which the problem is the worst. Fifty to 75 percent of farm workers are undocumented. As internal enforcement has stepped up, family farms are going out of business because they cannot find legal workers.

This mighty machine we call American agriculture is on a dangerous precipice--perhaps the most dangerous in our history. This year, for the first time since records have been kept, the United States is on the verge of becoming a net importer of agricultural products.

To keep American-grown food on our families' tables, we need a stable, legal, labor supply. To keep suppliers, processors, and other rural jobs alive, American agriculture needs a stable, legal, labor supply. It has been said, foreign workers are going to harvest our food; the only question is whether they do it here or in another country.

Whatever the case is in other industries, in agriculture, we really are talking about jobs that Americans can't or won't take. This physically demanding labor is seasonal and migrant in nature. Few Americans can or will leave home and family behind, to travel from State to State, crop to crop, for only part of the year, living in temporary structures. The planting, growing, and harvesting seasons occur at different times in different States--usually when students are not available.

AgJOBS is also part of a humane solution. Legal workers can demand a living wage and assert legal rights that undocumented workers--smuggled into the country and kept ``underground''--cannot. Every year, more than 300 persons die in the desert, the boxcar, or the back of a truck trailer. For a civilized, humane country, that is intolerable.

For the long term, AgJOBS reforms and streamlines the profoundly broken H-2A program that is supposed to provide legal, farm guest workers. It is now so bureaucratic and burdensome, it admits only about 40,000 workers a year--2 to 3 percent of farm workers.

However, we cannot expand the H-2A program overnight. A system of consulate system, a Homeland Security bureaucracy, and a Department of Labor bureaucracy that, today, chokes on processing 40,000 workers a year will need several years to ramp up to several times that amount. Growers, almost all of which do not use H-2A today, will need time to get into the system. Also, growers will need time to build housing and prepare for the other labor standards that H-2A has always required to prevent foreign workers from taking jobs from Americans.

As a bridge to stabilize the workforce while H-2A reforms are being implemented, AgJOBS includes a one-time-only earned adjustment program, to let about 500,000 trusted farm workers, with a proven, substantial work history here, continue working here, legally. The permanent H-2A reforms would make future farm worker adjustments unnecessary.

AgJOBS is not amnesty or a reward for illegal behavior.

Requiring several years of demanding, physical labor in the fields is an opportunity to rehabilitate to legal status--to earn the adjustment to legal status.

Adjusting AgJOBS workers would have to meet a higher standard of good behavior than other, legal immigrants, in the future. Once a worker is in the adjustment program, he or she has to obey all the laws that other, legal immigrants have to. In addition, an adjusting worker would be deported for conviction of one felony; or three misdemeanors, however minor; or, in the amendment before, a single serious misdemeanor, defined as an offense that results in 6 months of jail time.

Part of earning adjustment involves the immigrant surrendering to some limits on his or her legal rights--including a substantial prospective work requirement in agriculture and meeting a higher legal standard of good behavior than other, legal immigrants.

The adjusting worker can apply for permanent residence--a green card--at the end of the adjustment process. As a practical matter, obtaining a green card would take about 6 to 9 years after the worker enters the adjustment process. For the work involved, the economic contributions made, and the diligence required over a long period of time, this is fair. Sharing the American dream with persons who want to be--and will be--law-abiding members of the community, is fair.

AgJOBS workers, both adjusting and H-2A, would be free to leave the country at the end of the work season and not be ``locked in'' the country, between jobs.

Finally, AgJOBS is good for our homeland security.

With background checks, AgJOBS would let American families know who is putting the food on our tables. That means ensuring a safe and stable food supply for American families.

When we stop sending investigators and enforcement agents into the potato fields and apple orchards, we will be able to devote critical resources where they belong--hunting down real criminals and stopping terrorists.

AgJOBS is a win-win-win, for growers, workers, taxpayers, and homeland security. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record several documents setting out facts about AgJOBS, the need for AgJOBS, frequently asked questions, and letters of endorsement from the New England Apple Council, Americans for Tax Reform, and from former U.S. Trade Representative and Secretary of Agriculture, Clayton Yeutter.

Mr. President, I join the Senator from Arizona in his request. I think it is important if we are to spend most of the afternoon on the issue. If we could work out an orderly arrangement, that would be good.

Mr. President, I do not see Senator Chambliss, but I would like to enter into a discussion. We will be voting tomorrow on the AgJOBS bill and the Kyl-Chambliss bill, and maybe other bills--the Mikulski bill and who knows what else--in the next few days as we are debating the emergency supplemental. These are amendments filed to the emergency supplemental, legislation to provide funding for our magnificent soldiers who are ably serving our country in harm's way to carry out a national policy that we sent them to carry out.

We have been told that since the House of Representatives, when they passed their emergency supplemental, added several provisions to enhance our border security, recommendations that were in substance made by the 9/11 Commission to provide greater protection to our country against attacks by terrorists, such action by the House has opened the door to any immigration language and bill that we want to offer, that any Member may favor, to be added right onto a supplemental for our soldiers. There is a tremendous difference between those provisions, in my view. The Sensenbrenner language in the House bill is narrow, based on recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, related to our national defense and should have broad-based support. I hope it does. The President supports it. The AgJOBS bill, however, is controversial. It deals with a very large and complex subject that affects our economy and our legal system in a significant way. We absolutely should not be attempting to slip such legislation of such great importance, and on which our country is so divided, onto the emergency defense supplemental.

Let me speak frankly on the issue. There is no legislative or national consensus about how to fix our immigration system. I serve on the subcommittee on immigration of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We have been having a series of important hearings on this subject. Our chairman, Senator John Cornyn, has been working very hard and providing sound leadership, but our subcommittee and the full Judiciary Committee and this Senate are nowhere near ready to develop a comprehensive immigration proposal. This is made clear when we see that a number of outstanding Senators who worked on immigration over the years--such as Senator Kyl, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Saxby Chambliss--are working on legislation, also.

Surely no one can say this AgJOBS bill that really kicked off this debate is not a colossally important piece of legislation. Every one of us in this body knows that immigration is a matter of great importance to our country and one that we must handle carefully and properly. After the complete failure of the 1986 amnesty effort, surely we know we must do better this time.

Let me state this clearly. I believe we can improve our laws regarding how people enter our country, how they work here, and how they become citizens in this country, and we should do so. We absolutely can do that. Many fine applicants are not being accepted, applicants who could enrich our Nation.

Further, as a prosecutor of 15 years, a Federal prosecutor for almost that long, without hesitation I want to say this: If we improve our fundamental immigration laws and policies, and if at the same time we work to create an effective enforcement system, then we can absolutely eliminate this unconscionable lawlessness that is now occurring in our country and improve immigration policies across the board, serving our national interests and being certainly more sensitive to the legitimate interests of those who would like to come here, live here, work here, or even become citizens.

Any such legislation we pass should, in addition, protect our national security. Of course, we need to keep an eye on our national security--Have we forgotten that? Surely not--and allow increased approval for technically advanced, educated and skilled persons and students, as well as farm labor.

More importantly, under no circumstances should we pass bad legislation that will further erode the rule of law, that will make the current situation worse and will violate important principles that are essential for an effective national immigration policy.

Some will say, Well, Jeff, it is time to do something, even if it is not perfect. My direct answer to that is it is past time to pass laws that improve the ability of our country to protect our security from those who would do us harm. That is our duty. But we simply are not ready to legislate comprehensively on the complex issue of immigration.

We have not come close to completing our hearings in the appropriate subcommittees and the Judiciary Committee.

More importantly still, time or not, we must not pass bad legislation. The Nation tried amnesty for farmworkers in 1986 and few would deny it was a failure. That legislation, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, established within it section 304. The Commission's duty was, after the act had been in effect for some time, to study its impact on the American farming industry. The Commission issued its report and found, in every area, farm labor problems had not been improved and as many as 70 percent of the applications for amnesty were fraudulent.

I wish that weren't so. I wish we could pass laws that people conjure up

which would solve the complex problems and it will all just work like we think it might. I am sure those people, in 1986, heard the exact same argument we are hearing today why this kind of legislation is so critical. They tried it. But they put in a commission to study it.

The Commission was clear. The Commission said:

In retrospect, the concept of worker specific and industry

specific legislation was fundamentally flawed.

That is exactly what the AgJOBS bill is, industry and worker specific. Indeed, it is the same industry and the same workers-- agriculture--that the 1986 sponsors said would be fixed by their bill. It was an amnesty to end all amnesty. That is what they said. Now we are at it again in the same way.

Later, in 1997, former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, an African- American leader of national renown, was authorized, by a 1990 immigration law, to chair a commission. The Commission reported to President Clinton on the status of existing immigration law. The Jordan Commission found that the guest worker programs do not ``reduce unauthorized migration. To the contrary, research consistently shows that they tend to encourage and exacerbate illegal movements by setting up labor recruitment and family networks that persist long after the guest programs end.''

The Commission further concluded that what was needed was an immigration system that had integrity where laws were enforced, including employer sanctions. I will quote from their report. They stated:

Illegal immigration must be curtailed. This should be

accomplished with more effective border controls, better

internal apprehension mechanisms, and enhanced enforcement of

employer sanctions. The U.S. Government should also develop a

better employment eligibility and identification system,

including a fraud-proof work authorization document for all

persons legally authorized to work in the United States so

that employer sanctions can more effectively deter the

employment of unauthorized workers.

Our enforcement efforts remind me of the man who builds an 8-foot ladder to try to reach across a 10-foot chasm. While he may have been close, close doesn't count in such an event. He is heading for disaster.

We are not as far away as most people think from an effective enforcement mechanism. It is absolutely not hopeless for this country to gain control of its borders, especially with the new technology we have today--biometrics and that kind of thing. We are spending billions of dollars, but we are spending that money very unwisely. The solution to our immigration situation is to review the procedures by which people come to our country, and the procedures by which people become citizens, and to then steadfastly plan a method that will work to enforce those rules. Without that enforcement, no matter what changes we make in our current law, we will be right back here discussing Amnesty III for agricultural farmworkers before this decade is out. This is plainly obvious to anyone who would look at our current system.

By all means, this Nation should not, in response to this current failure, pass a bill like what has been offered which basically says our current system has failed and we intend to give up and do nothing to fix it. It says we have failed, our system is not working so we are just going to quit trying and let everybody stay in. The American people are not going to be happy if they learn that is what we are about here. They surely will learn about it sooner or later.

Polls show huge majorities, upwards of 80 percent, want a lawful system of immigration. Why are we resistant to that?

It has been amazing to me, anytime a piece of legislation is offered that might actually work to tighten up the loopholes we have, it is steadfastly opposed and seems never to become law.

I feel very strongly about this. If it is not amnesty, I don't know what amnesty is.

This bill will bestow legal status and a guaranteed pass to citizenship for over a million individuals, perhaps 3 million, perhaps even more.

The Commissioners who studied the last bill all agreed the number that actually obtained amnesty was far greater than anticipated.

In addition, it makes no provision whatsoever for commensurate improvement of law enforcement.

It hurts me, as somebody who spent most of my professional life trying to enforce laws passed by Congress, to see us undermine the ability of our system to actually work.

The passage of this legislation will be the equivalent of placing a neon sign on our border that says: Yes, we have laws but we welcome you to try to sneak into our country, and if you are successful, we will reward you, as we have done twice before, with permanent residency and a step onto citizenship.

Under this legislation, if a person has worked within 18 months, 575 hours or 100 workdays--and a workday is defined in the act as working 1 hour--then for 100 hours within 18 months, they are eligible to apply for a temporary resident status even though they are here plainly and utterly illegally. They do not have to go home and make another application; they simply apply for this. In addition, they become a temporary resident.

It then provides they can ask for permanent resident status and that the Secretary of Homeland Security shall grant them this permanent resident status if they work 2,000 hours in a 6-year period. That is about 1 year of work period. Then they apply for a permanent resident status. In 5 years, if they have not been convicted of a felony or have not been convicted of three misdemeanors, the Secretary shall confer citizenship on them if they apply.

If they become a permanent resident citizen, they can call for their family, who may be out of the country. A family who never had any thought to come to this country is allowed to come in free. All of them are put on a guaranteed track for citizenship.

Indeed, if they have already left the country not intending to return, but did work 575 hours in 18 months before that period, or if they are willing to say they did--true or not--they get to come back in and bring their families with them. Maybe a person here never intended to bring their family, but faced with this offer, they bring them in.

I am not sure we know how broad this bill is, how dangerous this language is.

I have a host of specific complaints about the provisions within the statute. I will talk about them later today or tomorrow.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Idaho. Senator Craig is one of my favorite Members of the Senate. We agree on many things. We have not agreed on this one.

Yes, I think we all understand we are dealing with a broad, important, and complex issue. It does require us to give it some thought. But the point of the matter is we are being asked to vote on AgJOBS tomorrow. People are going to have to cast a vote on this bill. I urge you not to vote for this legislation, because it should not be on the Defense supplemental and, second, because it is flawed, seriously flawed. It is not consistent with what I think are the views of most Members of Congress or the American people on how we ought to handle this matter.

I mentioned briefly earlier how the process toward amnesty works in this legislation. I would like to refer to this chart. I think it makes the point rather simply. I do not think it is disputed.

You have people who came here illegally. Perhaps they are in the country, perhaps they have already gone back to their home country, but they have violated our law by coming here, both in coming here and in working illegally for some firm or company.

If they have done that and if, within 18 months of December 31 of last year, 2004, they have worked 100 workdays--and they have defined a workday in the act as 1 hour, so that could be 100 hours of work--they earn what the proponents of this legislation say they are earning: their right to be here.

They are being paid for this, presumably. They didn't come here to work for not being paid. They came for a salary they are willing to accept. They work here for 100 hours. Then they become a lawful, temporary resident. Then all of a sudden someone who was here unlawfully is now converted to a lawful resident.

A number of things occur after that. If they have family here, a spouse or children--one, two, three, four, five, six--and that spouse or those children may have been here 6 weeks, the spouse and children are entitled to stay as long as the person who now has become a lawful, temporary resident; and within the next 6 years, if that person is employed in agriculture for 2,060 hours--the average worker works about 2000 hours a year, so that would be about 1 year out of 6, being paid for this--they have therefore earned legal permanent resident status. That is pretty significant, legal permanent residency, because if you become a legal permanent resident, then you are no longer an indentured servant. You are not required to work in agriculture. You can work on any job you want.

It might be this court reporting job right here.

I don't know what they want to work on. They became a legal, permanent resident. They can wait for 5 years, and then they are virtually guaranteed a citizenship unless they are convicted--charged, convicted--of a felony or convicted of three misdemeanors. A misdemeanor can be a pretty serious offense sometimes.

I am not sure we want somebody to want to come here to commit a bunch of misdemeanors. You don't usually get caught for all of them. People do things and half the time they do not get caught at all. If you catch a victim twice on a misdemeanor, that can be very serious.

Then they are given citizenship.

By the way, if their children are not here, have never been here, and they became a lawful, permanent resident, they can send for them--one, two, or five members. They can come on down and be a part of the United States and be on the road to citizenship, even though maybe that was never the intention. Maybe it was never the intention, to begin with, for their family to come here.

Yes.

About a million.

I will say it this way: I will say it is very likely to be a million.

Close to a million, if you take the figure of 700,000. I am not sure we have thought it through.

The Senator, I believe--who was here in 1987 when the 1986 amnesty was passed--would admit that the estimate of how many people would take advantage of it was very low. In fact, I believe three times as many people took advantage of that amnesty as the estimators estimated. It could happen here. I don't know.

The act says three convictions of misdemeanors. The Senator is right. It can be up to 6 months or a year.

Not if there are two convictions.

It is in the legislation.

For those here illegally and want amnesty to be given even though they have already violated immigration laws.

I agree with the Senator on that. I will disagree with the concept that somehow, by working here, coming here, and getting a job you wanted to get when you came, that that is somehow earning something, if you did it illegally. You are getting what you wanted, which was pay for the work.

That is what I would point out. Then, a family would be automatically eligible to come into the country. I don't think there is any dispute about that.

If a person came here illegally, if they worked here 18 months and met those qualifications of 100 workdays, or 565 hours, I believe-- either way, it is not very much--they can come even though they are not here now. In other words, if they did that illegally, worked here and for some reason went back home, then they are getting a letter from Uncle Sam saying, By the way, we know you violated our law but we are in a forgiving mood. You can come on back and join the process toward citizenship and bring your family, too.

I am not sure that is what we want to do. I don't think it is what we want to do. That is the fundamental of this legislation.

I think that is what you call amnesty. Not only does it give the person what they wanted in terms of being able to come into the country and get a job and be paid, that puts them on a track--unless they get seriously conflicted with the law--to be a permanent resident and then even a citizen, and their children and family can be on that same track.

That is a big deal. That is what I am saying. It is not something we need to be rushing into on this legislation today.

Under section 101(d)(8), entitled ``Eligibility for Legal Services,'' it is required under the act that free, federally funded legal counsel be afforded, through the Legal Services Corporation, to assist temporary workers in the application process for adjustment to lawful permanent resident status.

American workers are not always available for that. They have to meet other standards such as need and that sort of thing.

Also, the act gives several advantages to foreign workers not provided to American workers. Look at this.

Section 101(b), rights of aliens granted temporary resident status.

Right here--temporary resident status.

Terms of employment respecting aliens admitted under this section, A, prohibition.

Quoting:

No alien granted temporary resident status under subsection

A may be terminated from employment by any employer during

the period of temporary resident status except for just

cause.

Then they set up a big process for this. There is a complaint process. The subsection sets out a process for filing complaints for termination without just cause. If reasonable cause exists, the Secretary shall initiate binding arbitration proceedings and pay the fee and expenses of the arbitrator. Attorneys' fees will be the responsibility of each party. The complaint process does not preclude ``any other rights an employee may have under applicable law.''

That means they could file under this process for unjust termination and hire a plaintiffs lawyer and sue the business for whatever else you want to sue them for.

Any fact or finding made by the arbitrator shall not be

conclusive or binding in any separate action--

That is the action filed in the court by plaintiffs' lawyer--

or subsequent action or proceeding between the employee and

the employer.

I submit to you, by the language of this statute, it would appear they intend for that to be admissible, if not binding. It says not binding but the implication would be it would be admissible.

This means an employer cannot allow that arbitration proceeding to go without an attorney. He will have to hire an attorney and go down there because things will go wrong and that will be used against him in any civil action that might take place. They have to pay counsel in both places.

This section will override State laws in America. In Alabama, unless you enter into a contract that states otherwise for employment, your work for an employer is at will. Contracts of employment at will mean just that: it is the will of either party. Employees can quit at will and employers can terminate at will, with cause or without cause, and for no reason, good or bad reason.

That is the way I think it is in most States. Certainly that is true in my State. This provision will mean illegal aliens who file for amnesty under the AgJOBs amendment, after coming here illegally in violation of our law, are guaranteed to have a job unless they are terminated for just cause. If the AgJOBS amendment passes, employers of aliens given amnesty will be subject to forced and binding arbitration regarding the termination of the alien, and they will have to cover their legal bills for the defense in arbitrations even if the arbitrator finds they had just cause to terminate the alien.

I suggest what we are about here is a provision for greater protection for a foreign worker, one not only who is foreign but who previously violated American law. If you were an employer and you need to lay off one person, and you have two working for you, and one would have the ability to take you through arbitration and argue that you did not have just cause, and the other one had no such rights, you might fire the American citizen first, not the foreigner.

There is another provision I will talk about later that deals with the filing of the application. The Senator says they will be doing background checks. I see nothing in here that provides for background checks. It requires an application to be filed to become a temporary resident. Get this: It can be filed with two groups who are called ``qualified designated entities.'' That can be an employer group who wants workers to come here to work for them, or a labor group. And they are qualified entities. The application is filed with them.

It prohibits giving the application to the Secretary of Homeland Security unless a lawyer has read it first. It says the entities that receive this application cannot give it to the Secretary unless they are conducting a fraud investigation. How would they know to conduct one if they haven't seen the documents? It might be fraudulent.

It is a rather weird idea, is antigovernment, and seems to be far more concerned with protecting an applicant who may be committing fraud than protecting the security and the laws of the United States.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator from Vermont allow me the opportunity to offer an amendment? I do not know how long he will be speaking.

Less than that.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 456.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be set aside.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I see my friend from New Mexico who was here before I was here. Let him proceed.

Reserving the right to object, I welcome the opportunity to work this out. Can we perhaps get some time understanding as well? The Senator from Oregon mentioned he will probably need 15 minutes. Could we get some kind of understanding about the length of time? Generally we go from Republican to Democrat. Now we are looking at going from proponents to opponents. I do not mind that, but if we can limit this to 15 minutes each--I see we have a number of people--would that be agreeable? So we would go to Senator Wyden, and because the Senator from Arizona has been so persuasive, we will hear two on his side, and maybe Senator Bingaman can be recognized after Senator Wyden, and then two for the Senator's side, 15 minutes each, and then I be recognized.

If the Chair would be good enough to notify me when I have 1 minute remaining, please.

Mr. President, it is a privilege to join with Senator Craig in offering the Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits, and Security amendment.

America has a proud tradition as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws, but our current immigration laws have failed us. Much of the Nation's economy today depends on the hard work and the many contributions of immigrants. The agricultural industry would grind to a halt without immigrant farmworkers. Yet the overwhelming majority of these workers are undocumented and are, therefore, easily exploited by unscrupulous employers.

Our AgJOBS bill corrects these festering problems. It gives farmworkers and their families the dignity and justice they deserve, and it gives agricultural employers a legal workforce.

Impressive work has been done by many grassroots organizations to make AgJOBS a reality. They have demonstrated true statesmanship by putting aside strongly held past differences to work together for the common good. We have our own responsibility to join in a similar way to approve this needed reform that is years overdue.

I commend Senator Craig and Congressmen Berman and Cannon for their leadership. I urge my colleagues to wholeheartedly endorse the AgJOBS bill.

Our bill reflects a far-reaching and welcome agreement between the United Farm Workers and the agricultural industry to meet this urgent need, and Congress should make the most of this unique opportunity for progress.

Our bill has strong support from business and labor, civic and faith- based organizations, liberals and conservatives, trade associations and immigrant rights groups. More than 500 organizations across the country support it.

AgJOBS is a bipartisan compromise reached after years of negotiations. Both farmworkers and growers have made concessions to reach this agreement, but each side has obtained important benefits.

In contrast, opponents offer a one-sided proposal that has failed to win the broad support AgJOBS has received. I urge my colleagues to oppose it. It vastly favors employers at the expense of farmworkers. It makes harsh revisions to the current agricultural guest worker program and creates a new blue card program for undocumented workers without a path to permanent residence, and without any meaningful governmental oversight to prevent labor abuses.

Agricultural employers would have the freedom to avoid hiring U.S. workers, displace U.S. workers already on the job, and force both U.S. workers and guest workers to accept low wages. They could do all this by claiming they can't find any U.S. workers. Even when the few labor protections are violated, workers would have no meaningful ability to enforce their legal rights.

This program would return us to the dark and shameful era of the Bracero Program where abuses were rampant and widely tolerated. That is unacceptable. We must learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.

The Chambliss amendment also ignores the needs of many growers and farmworkers. It offers no solution to the basic problem faced by agricultural employers--the problem that an overwhelming majority of the workers are undocumented. By offering no path to permanent residence for these undocumented workers, none of the guest workers, no matter how long they have worked, will ever be able to earn their permanent status.

Perhaps more troubling is the amendment's repeal of the longstanding adverse effect wage rate under the current program. This wage rate was created during the Bracero Program as a necessary program against the depression in wages caused by guest worker programs. The Chambliss proposal would replace it with a prevailing wage standard, substantially lower than the adverse effect wage rate. It would be based on the employer's own survey of prevailing wages rather than the Labor Department's survey. Farmworkers, who are already the lowest paid workers in the United States, would see their wages drop even lower. In contrast, the AgJOBS bill preserves the adverse effect wage rate while recommendations are made to Congress to resolve these long-contested pay issues.

The Chambliss amendment also eliminates the key provision that gives U.S. workers a job preference by employers who request guest workers. It would end the longstanding 50 percent rule which requires employers to hire qualified U.S. workers who applied during the first half of the season. Studies have shown that this rule is a valid protection.

In addition, the Chambliss amendment would end what they call positive recruitment--the obligation of employers to look for U.S. workers outside of the government job service which currently provides farmworkers with agricultural jobs. This proposal creates a new guest worker program for the undocumented that would offer them visas that would be valid only for 3 years and renewable for up to 6 additional years. They would have no opportunity to earn a green card no matter how many years they worked in the United States. In fact, they would actually lose their status if they merely filed an application to become a permanent resident.

Senator Chambliss believes that undocumented farmworkers will come out of the shadows and sign up for such a temporary worker program, but they are highly unlikely to do so. The vast majority will be deported after their temporary status expires. Registering as the first step towards deportation is unfair, and it just won't work.

In contrast, the AgJOBS bill offers farmworkers a genuine earned adjustment program that will put these workers and their families on a path to permanent residence. Hard-working, law-abiding farmworkers will be able to come out of the shadows. The Chambliss amendment is far less satisfactory than the AgJOBS proposal, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

Opponents of the AgJOBS bill claim that we are rushing this bill through Congress without full and careful consideration. This claim is without merit. Since 1998, the Immigration Subcommittee has held three hearings that have fully examined our agricultural workforce problems and the need to reform our immigration laws. Last year, we considered the issue once more. Legislation to address this problem has been introduced by both Republicans and Democrats in every Congress since 1996.

In September 2000, a breakthrough occurred, and both sides agreed to support compromise legislation that won broad bipartisan congressional support. Unfortunately, attempts to enact it were blocked in the lameduck session that year. The election of President Bush in 2000 changed the dynamics of the agreement, and the compromise fell apart.

A compromise was finally reached in September 2003 which led Senator Craig and me to introduce the AgJOBS bill. Last Congress, we had, as Senator Craig has pointed out, 63 Senate cosponsors, nearly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Despite such strong bipartisan support, the leadership last year blocked our attempt to obtain a vote on this legislation. This is the second Congress in which Senator Craig and I have introduced the AgJOBS bill. Congress has had extensive discussions of this legislation in the past, and it is long past time for us to act.

Opponents of our amendment have offered no workable solutions. We cannot be complacent any longer. It is time for a new approach.

The American people want commonsense solutions to real problems such as immigration. They want neither open borders nor closed borders. They want smart borders. They are neither anti-immigrant nor anti- enforcement. Instead, they are anti-disorder and anti-hypocrisy. They want the Federal Government to get its act together, to set rules that are realistic and fair, and to follow through and enforce these realistic rules effectively and efficiently.

AgJOBS meets these goals. It addresses our national security needs, reflects current economic realities, and respects America's immigrant heritage.

The status quo is untenable. In the last 10 years, the U.S. Government has spent more than $20 billion to enforce our immigration laws. We have tripled the number of border security agents, improved surveillance technology, installed other controls to strengthen border enforcement, especially at the southwest border. None of these efforts have been adequate. Illegal immigration continues.

The proof is in the numbers. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of undocumented immigrants doubled from 3.5 million to 7 million. Today that number is nearly 11 million, with an average annual growth of almost 500,000. Those already here are not leaving, and new immigrants keep coming in. Massive deportations are unrealistic as a policy, impractical to carry out, and unacceptable to businesses that rely heavily on their labor.

Obviously, we must control our borders and enforce our laws, but we first need realistic immigration laws that we can actually enforce. The AgJOBS bill is a significant step. By bringing these illegal workers out of the shadows, we will enable law enforcement to focus its efforts on terrorists and violent criminals. We will reduce the chaotic, illegal, all too deadly traffic of immigrants at our borders by providing safe opportunities for farmworkers and their families to enter and leave the country.

The AgJOBS bill enhances our national security and makes our communities safer. It brings the undocumented farmworkers and their families out of the shadows and enables them to pass through security checkpoints. It shrinks the pool of law enforcement targets, enables our offices to train their sights more effectively on the terrorists and the criminals. The undocumented farmworkers eligible for this program will undergo rigorous security checks as they apply for legal status. Future temporary workers will be carefully screened to meet security concerns.

The AgJOBS amendment provides a fair and reasonable way for undocumented agricultural workers to earn legal status. It reforms the current visa program so that agricultural employers unable to hire American workers can hire needed foreign workers. Both of these components are critical. They serve as the cornerstone for comprehensive immigration reform of the agricultural sector.

Undocumented farmworkers are clearly vulnerable to abuse by unscrupulous labor contractors and growers. They are less likely than U.S. workers to complain about low wages, poor working conditions, or other labor law violations. Their illegal status deprives them of bargaining power and depresses the wages of all farmworkers. These workers are already among the lowest paid of all workers in America. According to the most recent findings of the national agricultural workers survey issued last month, their average individual income is between $10,000 and $12,000 a year. The average annual family income is $15,000 to $17,000.

Thirty percent of their households live below the poverty line. Only half of them own a car and even fewer own a home or even a trailer. By legalizing these farmworkers, the threat of deportation is removed. They will be on equal footing with U.S. workers and the end result will be higher wages, better working conditions, and upward job mobility for all workers.

Opponents of reform continually mislabel any initiative they oppose as ``amnesty'' in a desperate attempt to stop any significant reform. Instead of proposing ways to fix our current broken system, they are calling for more of the same--increased enforcement of broken laws. However, enforcing a dysfunctional system only leads to greater dysfunction.

The AgJOBS bill is not an amnesty bill. The program requires farmworkers to earn legal status. They must demonstrate not only contributions but also a substantial future work commitment before they earn the right to remain in our country.

First, they will receive temporary resident status, based on their past work experience. They must have worked for at least 100 work days in agriculture by December 31, 2004. To earn permanent residence, they must fulfill a prospective work requirement. They must work at least 360 days in agriculture during a six-year period. At least 240 of those 360 work days must occur during the first 3 years. Temporary residents who fail to fulfill the prospective agricultural work requirement will be dropped from the program and required to leave the country.

It's not amnesty if you have to earn it. AgJOBS offers farm workers a fair deal: if they are willing to work hard for us, then we're willing to do something fair for them. It's the only realistic solution.

Contrary to statements made by its critics, AgJOBS does not provide a direct path to citizenship. Farm workers would first earn temporary residence if they provide evidence of past work in agriculture. The next step would be permanent residence, but only after they have completed thousands of hours of backbreaking work in agriculture--a process that could take up to 6 years. Once they earn permanent residence, these farm workers would have to wait another 5 years to be able to apply for citizenship. At that point, they would have to pass an English and civics exam, and go through extensive backgrounds checks. This process is long and arduous, as it should be. There is nothing direct about it.

To be eligible for legal status, applicants must be persons of good moral character and present no criminal or national security problems. Whether they are applying here or at U.S. consulates abroad, all applicants will be required to undergo rigorous security clearances. Like all applicants for adjustment of status, their names and birth dates must be checked against criminal and terrorist databases operated by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the State Department, and the CIA. Applicants' fingerprints would be sent to the FBI for a criminal background check, which includes comparing the applicants' fingerprints with all arrest records in the FBI's database.

Contrary to arguments made by detractors of AgJOBS, terrorists will not be able to exploit this program to obtain legal status. Anyone with any ties to terrorist activity is ineligible for legal status under our current immigration laws, and would be ineligible under the AgJOBS bill. Our proposal has no loopholes for terrorists.

Opponents of AgJOBS claim that this bill is soft on criminals. Wrong again. AgJOBS has the toughest provisions against those who commit crimes--tougher than current immigration law. Convictions for most crimes will make them ineligible to obtain a green card. Generally, these convictions include violent crimes, drug crimes, theft, and domestic violence. AgJOBS goes even further. Applicants can be denied legal status if they commit a felony or three

misdemeanors. It doesn't matter whether the misdemeanors involve minor offenses--three misdemeanors and you are out, no matter how minor the misdemeanors. In addition, anyone convicted of a single misdemeanor who served a sentence of 6 months or more would also be ineligible. These rules are additional requirements that do not apply to other immigrants and they cannot be waived by DHS.

There are those who would prefer to disqualify a farm worker who commits even a single minor misdemeanor, with no jail time. But that goes too far. In some States, it's a misdemeanor to put trash from your home into a roadside trash can. It's a misdemeanor to park a house trailer in a roadside park, or have an unleashed dog in your car on a State highway, or go fishing without a license.

If we're serious about this proposal, minor offenses like these shouldn't have such harsh consequences. We'd be severely punishing hard-working men and women for minor mistakes, and tearing these immigrant families apart.

It's hard to imagine any public purpose that would be served by such a severe punishment. But it's easy to imagine all the heart-wrenching stories and nightmares created by this proposal for people caught by its provisions. Many of these farm workers have lived in America with their families for many years. They've established strong ties to their communities, paid their taxes, and contributed to our economy. They deserve better than a punishment out of all proportion to their offense.

Opponents of AgJOBS also claim that it will be a magnet for further illegal immigration. Once again, they are wrong. To be eligible for the earned adjustment program, farm workers must establish that they worked in agriculture in the past. Farm workers must have entered the United States prior to October, 2004. Otherwise, they are not eligible. The magnet argument is false. New entrants who have not worked in agriculture won't qualify for this program.

Hard-working migrant farm workers are essential to the success of American agriculture. We need an honest agriculture policy that recognizes the contributions of these men and women, and respects and rewards their work.

Our bill will modify the current temporary foreign agricultural worker program, while preserving and enhancing key labor protections. It strikes a fair balance. Anything else would undermine the jobs, wages, and working conditions of U.S. workers.

For many employers, the current program is a bureaucratic nightmare. Few of them use the program, because it is so complicated, lengthy, uncertain, and expensive. Only 40,000-50,000 guest workers are admitted each year--barely 2 to 3 percent of the estimated total agricultural work force.

To deal with these problems, the bill streamlines the H-2A program's application process by making it a ``labor attestation'' program similar to the H-1B program, rather than the current ``labor certification'' program. This change will reduce paperwork for employers and accelerate processing.

Employers seeking temporary workers will file an application with the Secretary of Labor containing assurances that they will comply with the program's obligations. The application will be accompanied by a job offer that the local job service office will post on an electronic job registry at least 28 days before the job begins. In addition, the employer must post the position at the work site, notify the collective bargaining representative if one exists, make reasonable efforts to contact past employees, and advertise the position in newspapers read by farm workers.

Longstanding worker protections will continue in force. For example, the ``three-fourths minimum work guarantee'' will remain in effect. Employers will be required to guarantee work for at least three quarters of the employment period or pay compensation for any shortfall. The ``50% rule'' will also continue. Qualified U.S. workers would be hired as long as they apply during the first half of the season. No position could be filled by an H-2A worker that was vacant because of a strike or labor dispute. Employers will continue to reimburse workers for transportation costs and provide workers' compensation insurance coverage. Employers will be prohibited from discriminating in favor of temporary workers.

The bill will modify some current requirements in important ways. Employers must provide housing at no cost, or a monetary housing allowance in which the State governor certifies that sufficient farm worker housing is available. Employers will also be required to pay at least the highest of the State or Federal minimum wage, the local ``prevailing wage'' for the particular job, or an ``adverse effect'' wage rate.

For many years, the adverse effect wage rate has been vigorously debated, with most farm worker advocates arguing that the rate is too low, and most growers complaining that it is too high. The bill will freeze adverse effect wage rates for three years at the 2003 level, while studies and recommendations are made to Congress by the GAO and a special commission of experts. If Congress fails to enact an adverse effect wage rate formula within 3 years, this wage rate will be adjusted in 2006, and at the beginning of each year thereafter, based on the change in the consumer price index.

The Secretary of Labor will establish an administrative complaint process to investigate and resolve complaints alleging violations under the H-2A program. Violators will be required to pay back wages, and can also be given civil money penalties and be barred from the program.

In addition, the bill provides a significant new protection for H-2A workers--a private right of action in Federal court. Currently, these workers lack this right, and can seek redress in State courts only under State contract law. Such workers are also excluded from the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, which provides U.S. workers with protections and remedies in Federal court. Although the exclusion continues, our bill will permit workers to file a Federal lawsuit to enforce their wages, housing benefits, transportation cost reimbursements, minimum-work guarantee, motor vehicle safety protections, and other terms under their job offer.

Our bill will also unify families. When temporary residence is granted, a farm worker's spouse and minor children will be able to remain legally in the United States, but they will not be authorized to work. When the worker becomes a permanent resident, the spouse and minor children will also gain such status.

Mr. President, I have a letter from the AFL-CIO that calls AgJOBS a recent legislative compromise between farmworker advocates and agricultural employers. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, this mentions:

The Chambliss-Kyl proposal would radically change the H-2A

program, stripping it of all labor protections and Government

oversight. This amendment would create a new year-round guest

worker program with no meaningful labor protections and no

role for the Department of Labor to enforce housing, pay, or

other essential worker protections. The Chambliss-Kyl

proposal would tie workers to particular employers and

require them to leave the country if their jobs ended and no

other employer petitioned for a visa for them within 60 days.

I yield the floor.