Sudan Disclosure and Enforcement Act of 2007

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, today a piece of legislation is being sent from this Congress to the President dealing with stem cell research called the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.

On the way to the White House is a piece of legislation called the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. Now, I know there are some who say: Well, what does this mean to our lives? Well, the research in stem cells is some of the most promising research in medicine we have seen in our lifetimes. We have a lot of people in this country today who are suffering. They suffer from dread diseases. They suffer from Alzheimer's. They suffer from Parkinson's disease, cancer, heart disease, diabetes--so many ailments and so many difficulties.

Research occurs in this country to try to address these issues and find cures, to unlock the mystery of these diseases. One of the most promising areas of research has been stem cell research.

Now, the President has indicated he does not support Federal funding for certain kinds of research in stem cells. He says he will veto this legislation. I hope he changes his mind. He has a right to veto the legislation. We then would try to override the veto. But I think it will be a significant setback if the President vetoes the legislation.

This legislation deals only with a specific area in stem cell research. It deals only with stem cells from embryos that were created for fertility purposes by the in vitro fertilization process. Those embryos that are created in the in vitro fertilization clinics--they create more of those embryos than are needed, and then they throw them away if they are not needed.

We have had about 1 million people walking on this Earth now in the last 25 years who were conceived, in many cases, in a test tube or a petri dish in the process of in vitro fertilization--nearly a million people. It was big news when the first such conception occurred, but now it is relatively routine for those couples who are unable to conceive to go through in vitro fertilization and conceive. When doing that, there are embryos created--a sperm and an egg create an embryo; a fertilized egg creates an embryo--and there are more embryos created from the in vitro fertilization process than are used. Some are then stored frozen. After a period of time, when it is clear they are not going to be used, they are simply discarded. They are thrown away.

The piece of legislation that goes to the President, saying let us proceed with additional research, deals only with those embryos that otherwise would be thrown away. These are the embryos that could be used instead for this critical area of research. Rather than throwing the in vitro fertilization embryos in the garbage, it is much more life affirming, I think, to use them to better understand and to treat some of the devastating diseases and illnesses--diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's.

I know there is great passion about this issue. Often, the issue is cast in terms of: When does life begin? But that is not about this debate on this bill. These are embryos that are about to be discarded and could instead be used to search for the cure for these diseases and to enhance life, to extend life.

I am sure there are desks in this Chamber--perhaps every desk-- occupied by someone who knows a friend, a loved one, a neighbor, an acquaintance who is suffering today from one of these awful diseases.

A former colleague of ours asked a question. I wish to put it up on a chart because it is such an interesting way to address this issue. One of our former colleagues, former Senator Jack Danforth, from Missouri, who is also an ordained Episcopal priest--he was a Senator, yes, but is an ordained Episcopal priest as well--here is what he said about this issue. He says:

It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish

are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible

diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only

explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish

to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine

into statutory law.

Senator Danforth is a Republican, an ordained Episcopal priest-- interesting person and legislator. I served with him in the Senate, and I think he puts it well.

Nancy Reagan says:

Science has presented us with a hope called stem cell

research, which may provide our scientists with answers that

have so long been beyond our grasp. I just don't see how we

can turn our backs on this--there are just so many diseases

that can be cured, or at least helped. We have lost so much

time already, and I just really can't bear to lose any more.

Nancy Reagan. We know, of course, her husband, the late Ronald Reagan, suffered from Alzheimer's disease. In fact, he sent a message to America in which he announced he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He entered into a long period of darkness from this terrible disease that is affecting more and more people in our country.

There are about 400,000 embryos frozen in in vitro fertilization clinics. It is estimated that about 8,000 to 11,000 of these embryos are going to be discarded, thrown away. This debate is about whether we should, with the consent of those who own those embryos--or from whom those embryos were created, with their consent--whether we should use these embryos that would otherwise be discarded for research that has the potential to cure diseases and save lives.

There is a young woman in North Dakota. She has recently come to Washington, DC, with her mother. She is a young woman who suffers from diabetes--a very significant form of diabetes. She has had a pretty aggressive time dealing with it. Her name is Camille--Camille Johnson. This is a picture of Camille, with her clarinet and her two friends who play in a middle school band. Camille has nearly lost her life on more than one occasion as a result of having to battle this disease. Her mother Andi and Camille have told me it is fine to use her picture because she has worked very aggressively in the juvenile diabetes area to try to address these issues and say to the Congress: Won't you please--won't you please--give us the opportunity to proceed with stem cell research to unlock the mysteries of these terrible diseases?

So there are thousands--there are millions--of Camilles and people with different names, young and old, who rely on this Congress and rely on this President to do the right thing.

This is a quote from Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who is the Director of the National Institutes of Health for this administration. He says:

From my standpoint, it is clear today that American science

will be better served, and our nation better served, if we

let our scientists have access to more stem cell lines.

That is from the President's own adviser on these issues. Yet the President says he is going to veto this legislation.

I care deeply about this issue for a lot of reasons. I lost a beautiful 23-year-old daughter to heart disease, and I decided, not just for her sake but for the sake of others in my family who are gone as a result of devastating diseases, that we must do everything-- everything--possible to find a way to cure these terrible diseases that take so many lives. Some say: Well, you

don't have to use these embryos. There are other things much more promising, such as adult stem cells. There are adult stem cells you can use. The fact is, we have been working on adult stem cell research for decades--for decades. Yet, while I support that, it doesn't show nearly the promise that embryonic stem cells show in the ability to respond to some of these diseases.

Let me go through just a couple of them. One day, I was on an airplane, and I was talking to a man who is called the father of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins. He told me of some fascinating research that is going on. They induced heart attacks in mice, severe heart attacks in mice, and I believe, as I recall, there were a dozen and a half or two dozen mice in which they induced severe heart attacks. Then they extracted stem cells and invested those stem cells back into the heart muscle of those very same mice, and in a matter of weeks, a good number of those mice--in fact, I think the majority of those mice--had no evidence of a damaged heart. These were hearts which had been severely damaged, and in a matter of weeks, the investment of stem cells that could build new heart muscle, and those hearts showed no evidence of damage.

At Johns Hopkins University, paralyzed rats partially regained the use of previously immobile hind legs in studies where they injected the rodents with stem cells from mouse embryos. At the University of Wisconsin, they have turned stem cells into nerve cells carrying the messages between body and brain offering the possibilities for repairing damage caused by ALS, by spinal cord injury, and other nerve- related disorders. At UCLA, at the AIDS Institute, they were able to coax human embryonic stem cells into becoming maturity immune T cells. This discovery might suggest new ways to fight immune disorders such as HIV and AIDS.

Until now, it is impossible to study the complete progress of Alzheimer's disease, which robs both memory and life. We don't know how or even when it exactly begins. With human embryonic stem cells, we might be able to isolate the disease and observe its progress from inception to death on human tissue--excuse me, on human tissue cells-- not necessarily on the human beings themselves, and find a cure for this terrible disease.

The ability for embryonic stem cells to transform into any cell type gives them the potential that adult stem cells simply do not have. We just have not had the capability with adult stem cells that we have with embryonic stem cells.

So those patients in this country who are struggling and are suffering today with these terrible diseases, looking to the Congress, looking to science, say: Don't lock in areas that prevent research from continuing, but expand opportunities for research; yes, with ethical guidelines; yes, with a sensitive understanding that there are issues you have to resolve, but proceed. Don't stop them. Proceed ahead to conduct this research and give us hope.

There are so many patient groups and scientific organizations and foundations and others that support this Federal research. I know they, too, believe what Congress has done here is a breath of fresh air. It is the right thing to do. I know they hope the President will not keep his promise to veto this legislation. That is one promise he should not keep. It is exactly the wrong thing for the President to do. By a wide majority, the American people believe that, rather than discard those embryos, rather than simply throw them away, they ought to be used for life-affirming research, with the consent of those from whom they were created. That is what this bill does. That is why this bill is so important.

As I end, let me say again, this is about giving life, affirming life, saving life. My hope is that the action today by which we move this legislation from Congress to the White House will be seen as great hope for a different approach and a more aggressive approach on this stem cell research, and my hope is the President will take another look at this and decide what we have done is the right thing for us and especially, most especially, for those in this country who have waited so long for this kind of approach taken by the United States on stem cell research.

I was not intending to speak at this moment, but I listened to several of my colleagues talk about the immigration bill. We apparently will cast another cloture vote this evening and perhaps votes beyond that, depending on how that cloture vote turns out. But because of a number of statements by colleagues this evening, I wanted to make a couple of comments.

There is a suggestion by a number of our colleagues who brought a plan to the floor, what is called a grand bargain or the grand compromise. This is a group of people--self-appointed, I guess--who spent a lot of time in rooms together, with the White House accompanying them, and produced a plan they brought to the floor of the Senate and said: Here is our immigration plan. And by the way, if you try to change it, you will destroy it.

Most Members of the Senate were not part of these meetings and not part of this grand compromise. A number of us have offered amendments. A number of our colleagues have tried to offer amendments. I am thinking of Senator Webb, who has waited for 2 weeks to offer an amendment. It is problematic whether he will be given an opportunity to offer an amendment. He wasn't part of the group, wasn't part of the grand compromise, but thinks he could improve the legislation. But, because those who have brought the bill to the floor have done so with arms locked together, believing that anyone who could try to improve on their work would be destroying their compromise, we have people who are not able to offer these amendments.

There is also some implied suggestion here that those who do not support this grand compromise are not sensitive to the issue of immigration, are not willing to look and understand that there is a real, serious problem here which needs to be addressed. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, while I have substantial difficulty with the plan that is brought to the floor of the Senate--I think it is a flawed plan--I happen to think immigration is a very serious problem in this country.

The first and obvious answer to our immigration problem is to try to provide some real border security. We have about 12 million--perhaps more--people who have come into this country without legal authorization. Why? Most of them wanted to come to the United States of America to work. Most of them wanted to come here because they believe there is hope and opportunity here. They want a job here.

It would be wonderful if our country, having over a century lifted the middle class up with good wages and good jobs and benefits--it would be wonderful if we could say: We have created on this planet something very special here called the United States, and we would like to share it with everyone right now. We, of course, cannot do that. We would be overrun. We have immigration quotas. We allow 1.5 million people in our country every year legally. There is a legal process by which we do that.

But we are on a planet here that circles the Sun, and we have 6.4 billion neighbors. One-half of them live on less than $2 a day, one- half of them have never made a telephone call, and one-half of them do not have access on a regular basis to clean, potable water. It is a challenging planet. We have a lot of neighbors who live in great difficulty.

In this little spot on this planet which is labeled ``the United States of America,'' we have created something pretty special. I have described it at great length, how we did it and why we did it over the last century, lifting America up, providing good jobs that pay well. It is not surprising to me that on a little planet on which we all travel, where, if you are in India, the average hourly wage is 11 cents an hour--in China, it is 33 cents an hour; if you live in Honduras, the average hourly wage is 33 cents an hour; it is not surprising to me that people who are living in poverty in other countries, making a pittance for a long day's work, would like to come to the United States and find a job and improve their life and make a better life for them and their family. That is not surprising to me.

I would like it if we could say to them: You know what. Come on, join us. Just think for a moment if we decided we have a new immigration law in this country, that new immigration says: You know what, this country is wide open. You want to come join us from anywhere, anytime, anyplace? Come on. Come and live with us. Come and work with us. Come and be part of our country right now. No restrictions. Come and stay. Come and work.

We would be overrun. Millions and millions and millions of people would try to find their way to this wonderful country of ours because we have created an economy that lifted the standard and broadened the middle class.

We cannot do that. We instead have a process of legal immigration that allows about a million and a half people a year to come into this country. They apply. They are part of the quota from their country. They wait. They wait a year, they wait 5 years, they wait 10 years. If they are lucky, they reach the top of that list and they are able to come to this country through this legal system of immigration quotas.

Now, my colleagues have brought to the floor the ``grand compromise.'' And what they have said is this: Well, we do not have much border security. We have got a lot of people coming into this country illegally now, without legal authorization. So I will tell you what. They say: We will pass a piece of legislation that says anyone who came to this country by at least December 31 of last year--that includes, we think, 12 million--anyone who came here by December 31 of last year, you are going to be legal. We are going to decide that you are here legally and you get a work permit. You are no longer illegal; you are legal.

Now, we have people overseas in their home country who thought this was all

on the level. They applied to come to the country as part of the quota. They have waited 6, 7, 8 years. They discover they made a mistake. They should have come here last December 20 or December 31 and snuck across the border someplace because then they would be described by this bill, by the folks who created this grand compromise, then they would be described as legal citizens, not citizens as having legal status, I should say. Well, is that fair? No. No, it is not fair. Is it right? No.

But more than the issue of dealing with those 12 million, this legislation also says we should have more people who do not live in this country come into this country to assume jobs with something called temporary workers or guest workers. Now, I happen to be sensitive to this issue of those who have come here without legal authorization. Some have come here decades ago. There are people, I am sure, who have been here 20 years without legal authorization to be here.

They have probably raised a family. They have worked. They have been model citizens. They have been neighbors. They have been good people. Should we round them all up at this point and deport them? Of course not. But should we, on the other hand, decide: If you snuck across the border on December 31, good for you. You are now declared legal? I don't think so.

My colleague, Senator Webb, has an amendment that I think would move a long way toward addressing some of these issues in terms of the time that you have been here to try to be sensitive about those things which I support. But this legislation says: If you showed up last December 31, you are given legal status.

But the issue I raised last evening, and the amendment that I offered that prevailed by one vote was on the guest worker provision, temporary worker provision. My colleagues have said, the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Massachusetts have said, you know, we need to have a temporary worker provision because if we don't have a temporary worker provision to bring in people who are not now here to assume jobs in this country, they are going to come anyway. They are coming across anyway.

They will come in as illegal immigrants. Well, I said: I don't understand that. You say that this bill would strengthen our border, provide border security, and stop illegal immigration. Now you are saying that in order to stop illegal immigration you have to have a guest worker provision because, if we do not have a guest worker provision, they are going to come anyway. Maybe you are misrepresenting this issue of border security, are you not?

So the Congressional Budget Office comes out with a report. Guess what they said. This bill, the grand compromise, means those who come across the border illegally, 75 percent will keep coming under this bill; 75 percent will keep coming under this bill. Yet the proponents of the bill are out here with big banners and trumpeting that this is a big border security bill. It is not. It is not that.

I have raised the question about American workers because there is no discussion of American workers. You know they have a role in this debate. We are told, in fact, my colleague from New Hampshire said there are not enough workers in this country, so we need to bring in workers. There are not enough workers to assume the jobs that are available.

Well, that is a line that I understand. I don't agree with it, I understand it. I understand where it is coming from. We have got a lot of businesses in this country that have decided that workers are like wrenches. They are like wrenches. You just use them up and throw them away. Don't worry too much about them. Make sure you hire them for as little as possible. By the way, keep downward pressure on that income because workers are disposable.

If you wonder about that, by the way, just go back and read the paper from a few weeks ago when a company called Circuit City decided they were going to layoff 3,400 of their workers. Why? Were they bad workers? No. It was not that at all.

This is a company with a chief executive officer who made $10 million a year, and his workers made an average of, I believe, $11 an hour. They wanted to have a workforce that was paid lower than that. So they said to 3,400 of them: We are going to get rid of you because we want to rehire people at a lower rate.

So if you wonder about this wrench analogy, just check the newspaper one of these days. But we have a lot of people in this country who work at the bottom of the economic scale, bottom of the ladder.

I told a story yesterday about a company from Georgia. The story was from the Wall Street Journal. This was a poultry company. I believe they had roughly 700 workers. Three-fourths of them were illegal immigrants working in that company. They were paying them a pittance. I don't remember the exact wage, but they were paying them a small amount of money. Then they were raided by the immigration folks. It was discovered they had all of those illegal immigrant workers, so they had to get rid of them.

So then they had to hire other workers. Well, guess what. They went to the newspaper and put a help wanted ad in the newspaper. They said: We are now paying higher wages. Immediately they got a lot of applicants because they were paying better wages. So they filled those jobs.

A few years later they began, that same company, to contract with one of those temporary worker groups that was able to bring together illegal workers and package them and sell them to companies. They started doing the same thing one more time. Why? So they could push down wages.

Now, my point today and yesterday was, I think this is an interesting discussion about a serious problem, immigration. But I think there is a party that is not at the table, and that is the American workers. Nobody wants to talk about that. We are talking about 12 million people. What about 140 million people? What about the people, especially that part of our workforce who, this morning, got up with great hope, got dressed, went to work, worked hard, got paid the minimum wage, and then finished after 8 hours of back-breaking work and went to the second job and did another 6 or 8 hours at the minimum wage, and then went home exhausted because they are trying to make do with two jobs at the minimum wage for their family.

Increasingly, by the way, those workers are women. What about those workers? Do they matter? Does it matter when you bring in people through the back door who are willing to work for lower wages, that you then begin pressing down and pushing down wages in this country? Does that matter?

I have spoken at great length on this floor about the larger economic interests who want to export American jobs to China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Singapore and various parts of the world in order to search for lower wages.

I have spoken at length on the specific companies who left our country, why they left, where the jobs are. I have spoken at great length about Huffy bikes. Huffy bikes fired their workers, moved their production to China. I know where they make Huffy bikes. Yes, I know where they make them now. They don't make them in Ohio. They used to. All of those folks got fired. They make them in Shenzhen, China. They are made by people who make 30 cents an hour. They work 12 to 14 hours a day 7 days a week.

Why do I say that? Because exactly the same economic interests that are searching the globe for low wages, to move jobs to where they can find the lowest wage, are some of the same economic interests that want to bring cheap labor through the back door for the jobs that are left to put downward pressure on American wages.

Now, the American worker has been more productive. Productivity has increased substantially in the recent period. Yet their wages have not kept pace. The reason is obvious. There are all kinds of ways to put downward pressure on the wages of American workers.

Alan Blinder is no radical economist. He is a mainstream economist. He used to be Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. They all wear gray suits all the time. Alan Blinder is a guy who I am sure supports free trade--supports what is called free trade. That is kind of the mantra these days. But he wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs. Here is what he said, the former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He said

that there are over forty million American jobs that are tradeable, which means subject to being moved offshore in search of lower wages. He said not all of them will go. They won't. But even those that remain here are going to have downward pressure on their wages because they are competing with others in other parts of the world who are willing to work for less.

My point is simple. This immigration issue and guest worker issue is the reverse side of the same coin; the outmigration of American jobs and the inmigration of cheap labor. This is about money. It is about profits for big economic interests. It is sold as something else on the floor of the Senate. We are hearing about compassion. Boy, I don't lack compassion for anybody who is mistreated in the workplace. I know they are.

But for a moment, instead of just talking about the immigrant worker who came here without legal authorization, let me talk about the worker who is here. Let me talk about a woman who lives in a used trailer house with no running water, with an outdoor toilet, trying to raise four kids and walking to work for the minimum wage.

Do you know how they heat that trailer house? A wood stove with a pipe sticking out the window of the living room of a used trailer house. A wood stove, mind you.

You want to talk about deplorable conditions. There are plenty of them in this country for people at the bottom of the ladder struggling, just trying to get ahead, trying to get a better way, to be lifted up providing for their family. There is no discussion of that at all. This entire discussion is about another group, a group of immigrations who have came here without legal authorization.

Let me tell you, my ancestry came here from somewhere else. I am a product of immigrant ancestors. We all have these stories. I am very sensitive to them. I want people to be able to do well and to participate in this American dream of ours.

Let me describe one side of my ancestry who was a woman named Caroline who came from Norway. She came with her husband to the new country. She ended up homesteading 160 acres of land. What happened was they landed in Minneapolis-St. Paul as immigrants, and her husband died of a heart attack.

This Norwegian woman got on a train with six children, they went out to the prairies of North Dakota with six children, pitched a tent and homesteaded 160 acres and raised a family and ran a farm.

One can only think what must be in the inner strength of someone to do that alone in a new country. All of us have those stories. They are wonderful stories about immigrants. This is not pro- or anti-immigrant. This country is refreshed as a result of immigration. It has always been. That is why we have a process of legal immigration. A million and a half people come here every year, plus more for agricultural work. That is what this process is about.

The dilemma is this: When I described this spot on the planet called the United States, this spot on the planet is different. It is different because we created something very different. Starting about 100 years ago, we began to lift up this country, expand the middle class, provide worth to the workers of this country, understanding they were part of the productive capability that could lift this country's economy and provide opportunity for more Americans.

We did that in a remarkable way, and it was not easy. I have spoken on the floor about James Fyler. James Fyler, I said, died of lead poisoning. Well, actually, you know, he was shot 54 times. That is probably lead poisoning. It is also being killed by 54 bullets.

You know why James Fyler was killed almost a century ago? He believed people who went underground in this country to mine for coal--hard work, dangerous work--he believed people who did that work--underground mining for coal--ought to be paid a decent wage, ought to be working in a safe coal mine. For that he gave his life, was shot 54 times.

Well, from James Fyler on forward, decade after decade after decade we made progress, demanded progress, safe workplaces, child labor laws, fair wages. We demanded progress--the right of workers to organize.

We lifted this country up because we expanded the middle class. More and more Americans had opportunity. From that opportunity came prosperity. That is a subject that has largely been ignored in the Senate in the last couple of weeks.

What is the impact of all of this? I asked the question yesterday about the American worker: Where is the American worker in this discussion? What is their interest? Who represents their interest? The answer is, the American worker is not a part of this discussion at all. The American worker is left behind. I described them the other day as those workers who understand seconds. They understand second mortgage, second shift, second job. They understand second place, all of them, struggling to make ends meet. Yet they are not a part of this discussion. But this discussion does impact this country in many ways, about working standards, standards of employment, wages, opportunities to continue to expand the middle class.

I think there are claims on the floor of the Senate that if you don't support this grand compromise, you just don't understand it, because it is a wonderful piece of work. It provides border security. It provides employment sanctions. It provides temporary workers to fill jobs for which there are no Americans available, we are told. Let's look at that.

Border security doesn't need new legislation. In 1986, the last reform bill passed on immigration said: We will have border security. They stood up and said: This is going to provide for border security. We are going to stop illegal immigration. The problem is, the mask is off the myth here as of yesterday, when the Congressional Budget Office says the bill they brought to the floor of the Senate is a bill that will allow 75 percent of the illegal immigration that now occurs to continue. What kind of security is that? Apparently not much.

How about employer sanctions? We have already done that as well. That is already the law. We don't need a new law for that. We have employer sanctions. In 2004, the Bush administration took action against four companies in the entire United States for hiring illegal workers. What does that tell you? That tells you they said: We surrender. We have no intention of administering this law. We have no intention of enforcing the law. We surrender.

We don't need a new law to do that. All we need is some determination that we are going to enforce employer sanctions.

With respect to temporary workers, that is the biggest ruse of all. The temporary worker provision in this legislation is simply a request for big business from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce saying: We will support this bill if you give us the opportunity to bring some cheap labor through the backdoor. That is what this is about. Don't take it from me. Go to some of the newspaper columns that describe this grand bargain and why the big economic interests have said: We will support this if you allow us to bring in some immigrant labor legally under the position of temporary workers. Apparently those who are part of the grand compromise said: We will do that. That is a fair thing.

How do they do it? In the worst possible way. Even if you were inclined to do it, you wouldn't do it this way. I am not inclined to believe we ought to do it. Most of the folks who are trumpeting this proposal are people who would talk about supply and demand. Let the marketplace govern. The marketplace; right? I used to teach a little economics. I know about the supply/demand curve. Except the marketplace doesn't work very well, does it, when in fact if you can't find a worker for a job, you might have to advertise that job at a little extra price, a little higher wage. People who are carrying the bedpans in the hospitals on the midnight shift, people making the beds in the motel early the next morning, people across the counter at the convenience store, maybe if you can't get them for the minimum wage, maybe you will have to pay an extra 50 cents an hour. That is the supply-and-demand relationship. But if you can bring someone else in who says, I am sorry, I will take that job, you don't have to pay anybody more, I will take that job for the very minimum, you can keep downward pressure on wages. And that is

the strategy here. That is what this is about. Apparently supply/demand is a good theory, but it doesn't work in a circumstance where the big economic interests want you to keep putting downward pressure on wages.

So you say: OK, let's bring in some temporary workers. Here is the way they did it. Follow this for a moment. They wanted 400,000 a year. Senator Bingaman reduced that to 200,000 a year. Here is the way it would work. You can bring in 200,000 the first year. They can stay for 2 years. They can bring their family, if they choose. Then they have to go home for a year and their family has to go with them. They can come back for a third year, stay for a fourth. They have to go home for a fifth. If they never brought their family at all, they can come back for a sixth and then a seventh year. And each year below that you can get another group of 200,000 coming. If you didn't understand that, you are not alone. No one understands that. That defies any kind of logic at all. Yet that is exactly what was stuck in this legislation.

I offered an amendment last evening that passed by a vote of 49 to 48. There are people here having an apoplectic seizure about that. They have spent most of their day gnashing their teeth and wiping their brow, trying to figure out how to deal with it. It was simple enough, it was a sunset after 5 years of the temporary worker program. We say after 5 years, let's take a look. It is a new a program, a new approach. Let's take a look and see what the impact is. What if we find out it has a tremendous depressing impact on wages, which it very likely will? What if we find out that 75 percent of those who were brought in under the temporary worker program refuse to go home and have stayed here illegally? Would you maybe want to make some adjustments? Why not sunset it in 5 years so you are required to evaluate that it doesn't work?

We are told: If you do that, you will be killing this legislation. This is a poison pill. We have locked arms on this grand compromise. You are going to kill this bill.

As I said yesterday, it is like the cheap sweater. Pull a thread, the arm falls off. God forbid, it is going to destroy everything we have done.

It is unbelievable. It is as if nobody else has an idea around here except those who were in a room someplace in the Capitol called the grand bargainers.

I have been here long enough to see many of these grand bargains. Sometimes there are two of them. Usually not two, because that wouldn't be called grand. But maybe six, sometimes 10, sometimes they call them a gang. It is a gang of 12 or a gang of whatever. Every time it happens, what you find as a result is terrible legislation. I guarantee you, you get a gang or a group or a gaggle or whatever it is who go into a room someplace and close the door and start developing this sense of self-importance pumped up by a little more helium or hydrogen, and all of a sudden, they get out here and they say: Here is the answer. And you may not change it. Because if you do, you destroy this carefully balanced work of ours.

So here we are--it is 7 o'clock at night--having to work 2 weeks on a piece of legislation that, A, won't secure our borders, unfortunately. I wish it would. I think we should. In fact, that is what we should be doing. What we ought to do is have a bill that deals with border security. Once we have done that, we come back, after we have border security, and say: Now the next step, which is as important but you do it next, is to provide for the status of those who are here without legal authorization. We should do that. I wouldn't do it by saying the people who came across December 31 of last year are given legal status and a work card. That is not how I would do it, but I would be sensitive to a lot of people who have contributed to this country for a long time, even without legal authorization to come here. But that is not the way this works. It is not what was brought to the floor of the Senate.

So now we will have a second cloture vote tonight. I don't know how that will work. Whatever the Senate will decide tonight on a second cloture vote, if cloture is invoked, then we have 30 hours postcloture. We will see. There are a good many amendments that have been prevented from being offered. I mentioned Senator Webb has one. Senator Webb has a very important amendment. He has been prevented from offering that amendment. I know Senator Tester has one. If we are in a postcloture period, my hope is we will relent and decide there are ideas in the Senate that exist at every desk, not just a couple of desks. If we believe that, maybe we will get the best of what each has to offer rather than the worst of what most have to offer.

I wanted to make a couple comments because I heard a substantial amount of discussion that we don't have enough Americans for the jobs here, so we need to bring people in, all these interesting, in some cases very convoluted, approaches to supporting legislation that is not just imperfect but falls far short of that which is necessary to address a very serious problem.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders) The Senator from Florida.

Darfur

Mr. President, what is the time? When are we going to have the Coburn vote, and when is the cloture vote? How much time are we allocated?

Mr. President, I am not sure we will need all of the 17 minutes. I think we had initially planned to vote close to the hour. I think that is very possible.

I thank Senator Coburn for raising these issues. These issues which are included in his amendment are not greatly dissimilar from the measures in terms of adding additional what we call ``triggers'' to the legislation.

Let me just go back a step and relate why we have real reservations about the Coburn amendment. When we examined the broken immigration system--and we have had scores of hearings in the immigration committee and the Judiciary Committee--what was offered on a number of different occasions said: We can solve our problem just by building a fence in the southwest border or just by having strong security in the southwest border. It is 1,800 miles down there, and we can fence off different areas and then use different kinds of technology, and that is going to solve the challenges we are facing with immigrants coming across the border.

As we continued on through the course of the hearings, we say that in and of itself will not work. As Governor Napolitano said, if we just put a fence down along the southwest border, you put a 40-foot fence in, there are going to be 41-foot ladders that are going to come over that.

What you need to do, as Governor Napolitano and others testified, including the Secretary of Homeland Security, who said: You need to have a comprehensive measure. You have to have a comprehensive measure if we are going to secure the borders. We need to have a comprehensive measure, which means we have to do all we possibly can to secure the borders by the latest in technology, and I will mention that in a moment. But, also, if we are going to secure those borders, we are going to have to recognize that there is going to be pressure even on those borders. So we have to organize and structure some kind of way for people to come in the front door. Otherwise, they are going to go over the back door, which means they are going to scale the various fences.

We say: No, we want to protect American workers. So we worked out an elaborate program to make sure that anyone who is going to come into the United States through the front door is not going to displace an American worker. We worked out a process and a system to make sure there are no American workers who want to take that job, there are only those who want to come in to be able to work in those areas. We have gone through that in the course of the debate.

But you need not only that--if you want to make sure you are not going to still have some leakage in there, you are going to have interior enforcement. You are going to have it in the employer situation. You have to have that. Otherwise, we are going to go back to what has been roundly criticized here, and legitimately so--1986. So you have to have important interior enforcement in the workplace. So we had to include those provisions in this legislation as well.

Then, if you are really going to have some kind of opportunity to make sure you are going to look out after the national security interests of the United States, you are going to have to know who is here, not that you are just going to have millions of people living in the shadows--we do not know their names, we do not know their addresses, we do not know where they are living--we have to bring them out. To bring them out, we cannot just do that, bring them out automatically, because they have broken the law. So we worked out a system where these individuals pay heavy fines, and effectively they will go to the back of the line. So anybody who has been trying to get in here legally will be able to do so before they will have any kind of opportunity to move ahead toward effectively normalizing their lives and moving on to the opportunity for a green card.

So it became very apparent that all of these elements work and work together, and if we accept the Coburn amendment, we are interrupting this whole kind of a process. What we have heard time and time again is that if you interrupt this process, then you have a breakdown in the whole kind of condition and you are going to be inundated with the undocumented aliens.

We want to stop the Border Patrol--highly trained, highly committed, highly dedicated individuals--from chasing after landscapers across the border. We want them to be looking after terrorists and the criminal element, right? Right. Therefore, you have to make sure you are going to have the other aspects of the security measures put in place. What does that mean? That means internal security. But the Coburn amendment suspends that program, suspends the interior security in terms of the employers hiring the undocumented aliens. With that, it is a continuation of a broken and a failed system.

I would just say finally that this proposal, in terms of our security interests, may not be perfect, but it does provide the 20,000 additional agents, it does provide 200 miles of vehicle barriers, 370 miles of fencing, 70 ground-based radars and cameras, four unmanned aerial vehicles, detention rather than catch-and-release programs, and many other kind of features.

We have followed what has been recommended by the Department of Homeland Security to get the best security we could. But the idea that we are going to suspend some of those elements which have been intertwined--and as Secretary Chertoff said very eloquently: You need them all. I appreciate the fact that the good Senator from Oklahoma says: Well, let's hold certain parts back until we get everything in place. Our answer is: You better start getting everything in place if you really want to have a secure border.

I withhold the remainder of my time and yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Mississippi.

If the Senator would yield on my time, that is the intention of the leadership. What we would like to do is try to work out these groups of amendments with the Republican leadership. We intend to do that as soon as we get to the beginning of the vote. Rather than make that judgment at this particular time, we would ask if the Senator would defer. We will work those out. Obviously, we are going to work them out with the Republican leaders because we have been instructed to cooperate, to work and do as much as we possibly can during the day. I know our leader has given those assurances to the Senator.

I am just reluctant to shortchange the process now. But I will certainly work with the Senator during the course of these votes here and do the best we can, and he, obviously, can preserve his rights for later in the morning.

And a dinner too. I thank my friend from Mississippi, and I commend him for a constructive and positive attitude. Those of us who know him and respect him know that he is a fierce fighter for his values, but he also is an institutionalist. He understands the responsibilities of this institution in dealing with the Nation's challenges.

How much time remains?

Mr. President, there are going to be few issues that come before the Senate that are more important than immigration reform. Our immigration system is broken. This is a national security issue. It is an internal kind of security issue. It is basically also a fairness and humane issue about how we are going to treat each other. It involves all of these factors. We are going to have a cloture petition that is going to be filed. There is no sense or expectation that it will be a defining moment because we have heard now that it will not be achieved. But we have every intention of continuing today, Democrats and Republicans, working all day long and into the early evening responding to some of the questions and issues that have to be raised. We will do our very best, as we did until midnight last night, all through yesterday, to give opportunities for Members to introduce amendments and get an expression by the Senate because the country expects us to take action.

I am convinced with the goodwill that has been expressed this morning, we have a real opportunity to see the beginning of a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully, by late afternoon we will have a clear direction about where we are going.

I thank the leadership for all it has done. I hope the Senate will reject the Coburn amendment.

We will have the cloture rollcall now, and since we can certainly assume it will not be enacted, we will announce a series of votes, and we will continue to move forward on the legislation over the course of the day.

I yield back the remainder of my time. Is the vote on the Coburn amendment first?

I ask for the nays and yeas.

Mr. President, for those who have been interested in this legislation, as all of us are, and for those who have been wondering about what has been going on through the course of the afternoon, I think they probably have been seeing the intermediate actions which have been taken, the requests that have been made by the majority leader, and the response. Even as the time is moving along, there are efforts to try to sort of find some common ground in consideration of additional Republican amendments, as well as some of the additional Democratic amendments. We made remarkable progress, I thought, yesterday afternoon and last evening. We were very hopeful that we could move, this afternoon, in a similar way to consider both the Republican and Democratic amendments. I know and expect we are going to have a proposal that is going to be made by the majority leader in the near future to see if we can't get back on track. I am very hopeful that will be the case.

We have had good debates, good discussions over the last couple of weeks, and I think we have made good progress. We know there are still a number of outstanding issues for our colleagues. We had hoped we would be able to address a number of those during the course of the afternoon but, as we saw when the leader made the requests, there were objections to proceeding in that way. We are not giving up, and the leader is preparing now to make some additional requests. I myself find that his plan is virtually irresistible, but we will have to find out whether our colleagues on the other side feel that way as well.

I thought I would take a moment and just review some of the essential aspects.

Sure.

Mr. President, I thought I would just review how we got here with this legislation and basically the highlights of it. I think it is fairly familiar to the Members, but I think it is always useful to have an understanding about the nature of the challenge we are facing, the dramatic challenge we are facing in terms of our borders, in terms of our national security, and to briefly review for our colleagues what we have tried to do with this legislation.

So often during the last days, these debates are focused like a laser on a very specific aspect, and we lost the central thrust and the purpose of this legislation and perhaps even the need for urgent action.

There is a need for urgent action, and the need is now, the need is today, the need is tonight because of the kinds of conditions that threaten our national security and result in the exploitation of human beings and even deaths out in the desert and leave many millions of undocumented in fear of their future, and the conditions which threaten to undermine agreements that have been made in the AgJOBS area and the lost opportunities that would result for many of those who might be eligible for the DREAM Act. So I thought I would try to put this into some proportion and take a few moments to review again where we are.

I think one of the most dramatic statistics we see, as reflected in this chart, is deaths due to unauthorized border crossings. If you look at the period of the last 5 years, you will see these numbers continue to go up, they continue to escalate. The fact is, there are 425 men, women, and children, including infants, who die every single year on the border. That is a dramatic figure under any set of circumstances. The numbers are going to continue if we fail to take any action. Those numbers are going to continue to escalate. They reflect the number of deaths at the border. They don't reflect the several hundred thousand individuals who are able to come across the border.

What happens when these undocumented come across the border is that more often than not we find that these individuals, as the rest of the undocumented population, undergo extraordinary exploitation.

We have a picture showing a situation that took place in my own State in New Bedford fairly recently, several weeks ago. It is fairly typical. There have been these types of raids on these types of places in other parts of the country. This is replicated in scores of places all over this country. We find these undocumented, now estimated to be 12.5 million, 13 million of them, who suffer the exploitation we saw in New Bedford, MA. This photograph illustrates what is going on in this plant. These workers' rights were trampled on. These individuals were fined for going to the bathroom, denied overtime pay, docked 15 minutes' pay for every minute they were late to work, fired for talking while on the clock, forced to ration toilet paper, which typically ran out before 9 a.m.

Then we look at another industry. You can look here at the undocumented workers in the meatpacking industry who are exploited. One in ten workers is injured each year by the sharp hooks and knives. They suffer exhausting assembly-line speeds and painful damage from repetitive motions. That is the old ergonomics issue. Workers are subjected to chlorine mists that lead to bloody noses, vomiting, and headaches. Undocumented workers don't report their injuries because they live in fear that they will lose their jobs and be deported.

The life of fear that is taking place is replicated in communities all over this country. We have these several hundred thousand individuals coming across the border. We don't know who they are. We don't know their names. They are living in different places in our country. They are subject to this kind of exploitation, and they pose a national security issue and a national security problem. We have the exploitation of these workers. We have the deaths that take place in the desert, and we also have a national security problem with hundreds of thousands of people coming across. So this issue is a national security issue. It is a national security problem.

This gives us some idea of what we have included in this legislation. We have increased the Border Patrol to 18,000 agents, and with the Gregg amendment, it is more than 20,000 now. It has the border barriers, including 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 370 miles of fencing. It includes radar and camera towers, UAVs. For detention and apprehension, it provides the resources to detain up to 27,000 noncitizens per day rather than arrest and release. This will be for detention and apprehension. We have important workplace enforcement tools and processing applications of Z status. The Department of Homeland Security will process the applications in terms of security. So we are coming to the issue of law enforcement and security--national security, protecting our borders, and law enforcement. We are going to develop a process.

This legislation is about respect for the law--law at the border, law in employment, and law for those individuals who are here and are undocumented. They are going to have to live with this law which ensures that they are going to suffer a penalty if they expect to stay here and live here.

We have a virtual lawlessness out there on the border which is a threat to our security and a lawlessness in so many areas of employment which is promoting the exploitation of the human condition.

We have this extraordinary atmosphere of fear by the 12\1/2\ million individuals who live here; they are in fear because they are illegal. We are trying to legalize the process and get respect for the law and try to ensure our national security. So we do that, as I mentioned, at the border, which is important.

As I have mentioned during the course of these discussions, the one thing we have learned following hour after hour after hour of hearings on this matter is that just doing border protection is not enough. If you were able to put 1,800 miles of fencing along the Southwest border, as has been pointed out by Governor Napolitano, who is so familiar with this, along with others who have made their views very well known, you have to not only have a border, but no matter how tall your fence is going to be, the ladder will always be a little taller. You have to have strong law enforcement, but you are going to have to have internal employment enforcement as well, work site enforcement, as well as regularizing those here at the time. So we have the work site employment; employers must verify the identity of work authorization of all employees; there are increases in civil and criminal penalties against employers who hire unauthorized aliens knowingly, or with reckless disregard; and it includes measures to prevent identity theft and fraud.

It is dramatically different from the 1986 act. We here on the floor don't want to repeat 1986. That legislation was signed into law by President Reagan and enforced by a Republican administration from 1986 to 1992. I voted against that legislation for many of the reasons I am mentioning now. You had absolutely no workforce enforcement, none at all, virtually no requirements. We see the problems we had. We had abuse of that system.

We have in this legislation, as I pointed out previously, addressed those kinds of problems that lent themselves to fraud after 1986. We have tough enforcement in the workplace. We have inspectors, close to a thousand inspectors, who are going to go in and look at these employment sites and make sure the kinds of protections that are guaranteed under this legislation are respected. We are going to insist that with any kind of employment program, they are going to get the protections of the prevailing wage and those are not going to be taken by surveys that are done by the private sector; they will be done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We will have protections under OSHA, and workers compensation, and whistleblower protection is in this legislation for any individuals working in those sites. For the first time, whistleblower protections will be there for those individuals. We are going to have a thousand inspectors who will be inspecting the work sites to make sure that the rights of individuals who are going to come into this country will be preserved.

At the present time, we find out the differences. This chart shows how this process and system must work. If they are going to be in the temporary program, the employer must advertise before applying for a worker. The employer must hire any qualified American applicants before applying for a temporary worker. Temporary workers are restricted to areas with high unemployment, and employers cannot undercut American wages by paying less to temporary workers.

Now we know even for the temporary workers, they are to be treated under the labor laws, with those protections, and they are not now. The borders are broken. If we don't pass this legislation, that is going to continue. That is the alternative--the kind of exploitation that exists now in so many communities, the fear, the exploitation, the harassment, and the driving down of wages, which threatens American wages. All of that exists now.

So we are ensuring, again, respect for the law in coming into this country, the law at the border, the law at the work site, and the law in transition. This chart is a good explanation made by Secretary Chertoff:

Enforcement alone will not do the job of securing our

borders. Enforcement at the border will only be successful in

the long term if it is coupled with a more sensible approach

to the 10 to 12 million illegal aliens in the country today,

and the many more who will attempt to migrate into the United

States for economic reasons.

That is what we have heard from the Department of Homeland Security time in and time out--that there has to be a comprehensive approach to this issue. We have to bring people out of the shadows. They are going to have to pay a penalty. We insist that they pay a penalty. Then, rather than let them go to the front of the list, they have to go to the end of the list in order to begin a process--if they are able to demonstrate the payment of the penalty, if they demonstrate they can learn and are willing to learn English, if they are able to demonstrate they have long work experience, and if they can demonstrate they are not involved in criminal activity. We know 70,000 permanent resident aliens are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan since these wars started-- 70,000. So we know that so many of these families who are coming here-- why do they come? Basically, what are their values? What are the values we consider positive in the United States? We admire people who work hard. That is an important factor. That is essential in terms of the

achievement of the American dream. We admire people who are devoted to family and their children.

We find so many of these undocumented, but why do they come here? It is because they want to have a better life for their children. How do we know that? Because there is more than $40 billion returned by these immigrants to the countries of Central and South America every single year. These are individuals who are making a total of $10,000, and $40 billion is returned to their countries. To whom? It is returned to their families and children. They work hard, they are devoted to their children and families and have an extraordinary dedication to their parents and grandparents, caring for them. Those are the positive qualities that all of us admire.

On the other hand, they have broken the law, so, therefore, they have to pay a penalty. Why did they break the law? It is because we have the magnet of the American economy drawing them here. That magnet doesn't pay any penalty. These people risk their lives to get in here. They suffer the risk of exploitation. And even through all of that, they return the resources back to their families. So it is the magnet of the American economy, but still we are making them pay--not the employer, the magnet, or the American economy, but they make an extraordinary contribution. Sure, there are some bad apples. But they make an extraordinary contribution--the immigrants--just as all of our parents and grandparents and forebears have made in terms of this country. This is what we have done. We have seen what happened at the border.

We have talked about what is happening in terms of the employment situation. We know what is going on, in terms of the kind of distinction between the past and present. Those individuals, the 12\1/ 2\ million people who are here--this is the explanation of what we call the Z visa eligibility: They entered the United States before January 2007. They remained employed and continuously present and not a national security threat. There has to be a review. They have to register--the 18 months--to make sure they are registered and are not any national security threat. There can be no serious criminal record in or out of the United States. We have outlined that. We have gone into detail and explanation in earlier kinds of considerations of amendments. If they have committed serious crimes, they are out; they don't come back. We have explained that and we have gone through that time and time again through the course of this debate.

They have to pay the processing fees of $1,500; State impact assistance fee, $500; and a penalty of $1,000. All of that--some $3,000--is not even getting you down the road toward a green card and citizenship. The $500 from 12 million people--$6 billion--goes to States that have the great impact to help them in terms of offsetting any of their additional burdens, in terms of health care and education. That is not an insignificant amount of resources. We went through during yesterday's discussion and debate how, by and large, these individuals are healthier, and we also went into about how they had utilized the health care system, and it shows that is effectively an incidental additional kind of expense. They must comply with the Selective Service Act, submit fingerprints and undergo a background check, and they must get in the back of the line for a green card. That means, for all of those who have been waiting in line, about 4 million people who have relatives here and have petitioned for them to come into the United States many, without this legislation, would have virtually no opportunity to do so.

They will have that opportunity to come into the United States over an 8-year period. Then, after that 8-year period, these individuals we have discussed here could begin to move, and depending on their work record and their participation and sense of community, they could get on path toward a green card. Then it takes 5 more years to become a citizen. The earliest is maybe 13 or 14 years before they would be able to have that opportunity for citizenship. It is more distant than that for the majority of the people. All the time they have to behave and follow the law and pay the kinds of penalties that will be included.

Mr. President, other colleagues wish to address the Senate, so I will be brief. I give credit to our friend and colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, who reminded us about the opportunities we have in creating an educational pathway for the children of the undocumented. We know the children who come in here are coming in through the action of their parents. We understand that. It is through the actions of the parents. The DREAM Act students are eligible for Z visas and permanent residence if the student came in as a child under age 16 and has good moral character, or attends college or enlists in the military for 2 years. I know, as chairman of the Education Committee, the challenge we have in terms of having those students--Hispanic students and others from other cultures and traditions, in terms of the education experience. Having a good education opportunity for those children in this country is key to our national security, key to the success of our economy, and key to the success of the hopes and dreams of these children.

Too often, half of the children from the Hispanic tradition drop out before they are ever able to be successful. But we know that others who complete the educational system and graduate--in my home State of Massachusetts, we have seen so many in Lowell, Lawrence, New Bedford, and other places who have children from undocumented families end up being valedictorians, class presidents, and extraordinary leaders. Then the opportunity comes for continued education and it is virtually closed down because they are denied that opportunity.

Under the DREAM Act, this gives them the opportunity for in-State help and assistance. That is what this bill is about, too. It is about hope in terms of the future. It is about hope. It is relieving the kinds of anxiety those 12 million or 13 million undocumented are experiencing this afternoon and will experience tonight when they have a knock on the door and wonder if ICE is coming there to arrest and deport them, separate their families, and send them back--even after they have been here for a number of years.

We don't hear much discussion about that. Everything seems to be pretty cut and dried around here. That is a major factor. How many of us have met some of these individuals, the undocumented? I did just 3 or 4 days ago, returning here at the airport. I talked to a person who has been here 28 years, as have his two brothers. The brothers have been able to get green cards, but he had not. He talked about the fear he and his family have at this time of being arrested and deported.

In this legislation is another extremely important provision. That is what we call the AgJOBS bill. I see the Senator from California here, Senator Feinstein, who has done an extraordinary job in helping to bring this part of the legislation before the Senate, with Senator Craig, whom I commend for his diligence. They have been the real leaders in this proposal.

For many of us, to go back to the time of the Bracero Program--I can remember being a member of our committee in the early 1960s when we had hearings in southern Texas and also in California about the Bracero Program. Few times in our history did we have the kind of exploitation of individuals--slavery certainly; slavery, yes; slavery first--but after that, the Bracero exploitation was one of the darkest sides of American history in the exploitation of individuals.

There are a number of blemishes out there. We can talk about those-- American Indians and others--but this was really one of the very worst. We took time to get rid of it, and we did get rid of that. Then we went through a long period of enormous tension between the workers and the growers. We all remember the extraordinary contribution of Cesar Chavez, the dignity he gave to so many of these farm workers. That kind of tension existed for years.

Now, finally, in recent years there has been an agreement between these two very strong groups who are committed in their own ways to their own views and philosophies. They have come together and have agreed on a pathway that will ensure success and give these workers the respect and dignity they have been denied. It is called the AgJOBS bill.

A great deal of credit goes to our colleague in the House, Howard Berman, who spent years working on this legislation. That legislation has had 65, 66

cosponsors, but we have been unable to get it before the Senate for ratification of that program. It is included in this legislation.

If this legislation passes, the message it sends to about 900,000 agricultural workers, who, again, have been exploited, and to their families, is the fact that over the next 8 years, they are going to have to work and continue to work hard. They can work in agriculture. They have some opportunity to work outside agriculture too. They have to play by the rules, demonstrate they are paying their taxes, work hard and pay the fines and penalties, but they have some opportunity to move forward after all these years, get a green card, and then 5 years later move forward. So it is an enormous period of hope for all those individuals.

This legislation is about dealing in a tough way with a tough problem at the border. We do that by taking the best advice, the best recommendations, the best suggestions from the best people who know about homeland security. We have done that and worked closely together. I don't think there are any differences on that point.

We need to have tough enforcement in the workplace, and we have achieved that. It can be improved further, but it has been achieved, and we have talked about it.

We have also provided a pathway for earned legalization after these individuals pay the fines, significant fines, in many ways, fines for an average family who makes about $10,000 to $12,000 a year, that represents years of work with their kinds of salaries. They have to go to the end of the line. They have to demonstrate good work experience. They have to earn, earn, earn, earn, earn the ability to adjust their relationship with our country.

We know these families. We have seen them in our churches. We have seen them in our shops. We have seen them in the Armed Forces of the United States of America, and they serve with great pride and dignity and they want to contribute and be a part of the American dream like everyone else. And we are giving them that opportunity.

If we vote no on this legislation, we are dampening and canceling that opportunity, and we are returning to the law of the jungle because that is what it is. It is a jungle on that border.

Every day we continue without this legislation, we have these well- trained, well-disciplined, highly motivated border guards chasing people across the desert who are landscapers. They ought to be looking for the terrorists, the smugglers, the lawbreakers. That is who they should be looking after. If we don't pass this legislation, they will continue to be looking out after the landscapers instead of the terrorists, instead of the smugglers, and instead of those who threaten the security of the people of this country.

That is it. Take your choice. Anyone can flyspeck this legislation. I am not accusing those who differ with me on particular proposals being necessarily flyspeckers, but sometimes we have to make a judgment. Sometimes we have to make a decision. Sometimes there has to be finality. We have debated this issue on the floor of the Senate for 2 weeks. We debated it last year for 2 weeks. We are not just coming at this legislation for the first time. We have debated just about every feature of this program, somewhat different from last year, but the themes are the same, the arguments are the same, the amendments are almost the same.

The only question is the will of this body and the will to make a judgment, a decision that we are going to clean up our borders, get a sense of law in terms of those borders and in the employment areas, get a respect for the law from those who have been undocumented; they are going to pay their price, give a sense of hope to the young people who can benefit, and give a sense of dignity and pride to those who work in the fields across this country in AgJOBS.

This is going to be an important vote this evening. If we are talking about a vote about America's future, this is it. This is it. This is it tonight. We can all find the excuses. We all can find the reasons to say no. We can all find different aspects of this legislation with which we differ, but underneath, this is a proposal that is deeply rooted in remedy, one of the great national challenges we have--broken borders and a broken immigration system.

This legislation is a downpayment that the American people are asking and demanding of the Senate of the United States that we move forward on. Let's not disappoint them.

Mr. President, we have worked long and hard on this piece of legislation. It is a very complicated bill, as it should be, because we have a complicated problem--that is immigration. We have come a long way since we started the debate on this matter. It is fresh in my mind what went on last year when we had the debate on an immigration bill that passed the Senate. Last year we worked long and hard. We had 23 rollcall votes prior to cloture. Seven amendments in addition to that were done by voice vote last year. Postcloture, we had 3 that went by voice, there were 11 that were voted on.

This year we have had 28 rollcall votes on amendments. We have had 14 amendments by voice, a total of 42 amendments. So we are way ahead of where we were last year.

I understand that people were concerned yesterday about not having enough amendments. I think everyone had an opportunity to offer amendments. But it is interesting--we had people who were saying: This amendment that passed is a deal breaker. On the other side: We had an amendment that passed that is a deal breaker. So I guess whether a bill is improved is in the eye of the beholder because there was certainly disagreement about what improved or didn't improve the bill. I also think it is interesting people agitated for amendments and then, when the vote didn't go their way, they were upset.

This is a bill we have pushed down the road a long way. I hope we can finish it. I spoke last night--I don't know what time it was, it was 4:30 a.m. European time. I called to see if Mr. Bolton, the President's Chief of Staff, was with the President. He was. I didn't want to disturb him at that time of day. But I did have a good long conversation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, Judge Chertoff. That was 10:30, 11 o'clock last night. I explained to him how this legislative process works. He asked me to go over it with him again because he wanted to make sure he understood it.

I told him, as much as any piece of legislation we have had here-- other than the supplemental appropriations bill this past 6 months-- this is the President's bill. He has worked long and hard. He has had Cabinet officers working with Democrats and Republicans to come up with a bill, the so-called compromise. Some call it a grand compromise, but it is at least a compromise. I told him the vast majority of Democrats want this legislation to move forward. I think someone should get word to the President that, if this bill goes down with the vast majority of the Democrats voting for this action to move forward--if the Republicans vote against it, he and I discussed what the headline is going to be. The headline is going to be: Democrats Vote To Continue This Bill, the Republicans Vote Against It--The President Fails Again.

I don't think that is good. I think we need to show we have the ability to work with the White House.

I know there are some people who would like us to stay on immigration for the rest of this work period. We have 3 weeks left. It would make some people as happy as larks to be able to spend the rest of this work period on immigration. Why? Because some don't want us to go to the next two matters we are going to have to deal with.

No. 1 is energy. When we went home during the Memorial Day break, there were two things people wanted to talk to me about. One of them wasn't immigration. The Iraq war and gas prices, that is what people wanted to talk about wherever I went. I spent a lot of time in Nevada, but I traveled to other places in the country. It was the same there: Iraq, end this war, and do something about these gas prices.

We are going to take up energy. That will be what we do after we do the immigration bill. So I know some people don't want us to go there. After we finish that, we have the obligation to do, for our military and our country, a Defense authorization bill. Again, there will be a debate on Iraq. I am sure some will want to talk about timelines. I am sure some will want to talk about readiness. I am sure there will be people wanting to talk about transitioning the mission. Maybe there will be some efforts to do away with the original authorization of the war. I don't know for sure. That is an issue some people would just as soon we stay away from.

I know people would like us to stay on this forever, but the question is, When is enough enough?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote be delayed to occur today at 5 p.m.

Mr. President, I am disappointed because, as I indicated, last year we had 14 votes postcloture. But I have learned a little bit about this place, that sometimes you have to do indirectly what you cannot do directly. It makes so much sense that, if people want more amendments, it would be wise to agree to our suggestion that we put over the cloture vote to later this evening. We could process amendments during that time and have a cloture vote tonight.

I understand there is going to be an objection, but I am going to do indirectly what I can't do directly. That is, everyone should know, if cloture is not invoked this morning--if the Republican leader says he is going to recommend to all his folks that they vote no on cloture, I am sure cloture will not be invoked. But everyone should know, we are going to have another cloture vote this early evening. We are going to process as many amendments, in the meantime, as we can. I hope there could be some more work done on what other amendments postcloture; that is, germane amendments. I know of a couple that are germane. I have told people they can have votes on those. I repeat what I have said on this floor several times, what I have told the managers of the bill and I have told individual Senators: We are not going to block, as we can do, procedurally, votes on the germane amendments that are postcloture. We are going to go ahead and process as many of those as we can reasonably do. If we have to spend the 30 hours doing it, we will. Otherwise, we will get a list of amendments that the Parliamentarian will determine are germane, and we will set up a period of time to vote on those and move on.

So I would hope that everyone understands that if cloture is not invoked, we are going to go ahead, and I will get on the right side of the issue, as we have to do here procedurally, to have the ability to bring this up early evening time. During that period of time, I hope the people who feel they have not had enough amendments are assuaged and we can go ahead and have a cloture vote and move forward. I had a member of our caucus explain it this way, Mr. President. She said: It is like running a marathon. I told her afterward that I was envious that she had thought of this and I hadn't because I have run a few marathons. She described it so well. It was Senator Cantwell from Washington. She said: You know, about the 22nd-mile mark, you are really tired, and you think, maybe I should have quit earlier. But I can see the end up here now, and I am going to go ahead and finish the race.

That is how I feel. There are times during this debate that I feel we would all be better off having walked away from it. It was hard. All of these phone calls coming into our offices, people accosting you as you walk out of the building, lobbying groups for and against this. But we have withstood that. Now, as Senator Cantwell said, I think we may be about at the 24-mile mark.

As with a marathon, Mr. President, there are times when you are running a marathon that you feel euphoric--I feel so strong, I am out here alone, I am able to travel those miles--and then, just like that, it can change. Well, the euphoria is gone. The determination is here. I think we need to complete this marathon. So I am disappointed we are not going to have cloture today. But everyone should know we will have cloture again later on in the day.

I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, that the cloture vote on the bill be delayed to occur only if the substitute amendment is agreed to.

I know the manager of the bill is here. The two leaders have used a lot of time. If you would like us to extend the time--OK. We can go right to the amendments. Thank you for being so patient.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided before the cloture vote.

Mr. President, I think the distinguished Republican leader has outlined the problem, the problem that exists with the Republicans in the Senate.

The reason there weren't a lot of cloture motions filed in the last Congress is, as the distinguished Republican leader has pointed out, we believed in legislating, not delaying. Most of the motions that have been filed regarding cloture have been on motions to proceed to bills-- dilatory tactics by the Republicans--and it is very frustrating to them that in spite of that--in spite of that--we have been able to accomplish much, including ethics lobbying reform, minimum wage, 9/11 Commission recommendations. We did the budget. We were able to do the continuing resolution. We did stem cell research. We have done some very good work, and we are going to continue to do that.

We have spent a lot of time on the Republicans delaying what the American people want us to do, and that is legislate. In spite of that, we were able to move on and do some significant legislating, as we are going to continue to do.

As I said this morning, we want to finish this legislation in a positive vein. The minority said they wanted more amendments. They got more amendments. We don't know if there is a magic number, but we will work and make sure--I think we are in the process now of lining up four amendments on each side. We should dispose of those fairly quickly. I have indicated that we are willing to do whatever is necessary postcloture to take care of as many of the postcloture germane amendments as we can. We are happy to do that. This is very important.

I spoke last night to the Secretary of Homeland Security, one of the people who represented the President in these negotiations. This bill that is on the Senate floor is not a Democratic bill. It is a bill that has been worked on by Democrats and Republicans in cooperation with the President of the United States and his people. My message to Secretary Chertoff last night was that--it seems a little unusual to me when we have worked so hard and we have offered opportunities for all of these amendments, and we are going to offer more. My message to him is, why in the world would anyone object to delaying the cloture vote? But that is what has happened.

I think that is unfortunate because I told the Secretary of Homeland Security, Judge Chertoff, the message in the newspaper is going to be: Democrats Support Cloture to Continue Debate on Immigration; Republicans Oppose It--President Bush Fails Again.

Let's have some successes around here. We need to work with the President. He needs to work with us. Here is a way that it can be done.

I know there are people who want us to stay on this bill for the rest of this work period, but we have other things we need to do that some do not want us to work on. When we went home for our Memorial Day break, what were the issues people talked about more than anything else? Ending the war in Iraq and gas prices. So when we finish this, we are going to move on to energy--gas prices. When we finish that, we are going to move to the Defense authorization and again have a debate on ending the Iraq war. I know people don't want us to do that, but we need to do that. That is what the American people want us to do.

So I cannot accomplish directly what I think should be done, and that is have a cloture vote that is successful right now. But I can do indirectly what I can't do directly. If the cloture vote doesn't succeed, I will change my vote so I will be on the winning side, and I will bring up the cloture vote later today. We are going to continue working this bill.

As my friend, the distinguished junior Senator from Washington said this morning in a caucus we had, she said: You know, what we have done here is like a marathon. When you run a marathon, you run 22 miles, you have 4 miles more to go, and you look back and think of all the times you wanted to quit, but right now, as tired as you are from running a marathon, you can see the end.

The race is up there and we need to continue. This is a marathon. We owe it to the American people to move forward on this legislation to improve a broken system. That is what we are trying to do. I hope my Republican colleagues vote for cloture. If they don't, they will have another opportunity later today and, hopefully, we can process some amendments in the interim.

Mr. President, I have a lot to say about the failed Attorney Generalship of Alberto Gonzales, but this is not the time to do that. I may not have that opportunity because the only issue that will be before the Senate is a simple vote on a motion to proceed. If the minority does not wish to proceed to have a vote of confidence on him, it will not happen. If there were ever an opportunity for a legislative body to speak about what is going on in the administrative branch of Government, it is with what is happening in that Justice Department.

All you need to do is read the newspaper today to find out what is going on in that Justice Department. Should we have confidence in Alberto Gonzales? I don't think so.

But we are on immigration. This is a day for getting along. I am going to do the best I can to get along, and I hope everyone will do that and continue to work on a bipartisan basis to move forward on immigration.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote on which cloture was not invoked.

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

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

I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized at any time today when I return to the floor.

So it doesn't frighten people, the only reason I intend to do that is because we are working on a unanimous consent agreement now, and Senator Dodd can speak or Senator Sessions can speak or whoever wants to talk--they can do that. At least we can get the consent done. What we are working on now is to have three Republican amendments, three Democratic amendments. I hope we can get that done very quickly.

I say to my friend, we have a unanimous consent request we want the Senator to look at. It lines up a number of Republican votes and Democratic votes. We need the Senator to sign off on it.

Mr. President, I would sure like to be able to get this unanimous consent agreement. We keep changing things around and have decided we don't need to have an equal number of Democrats with Republicans. Let's get what we can. We have three Republicans lined up. They are all important amendments that the Republicans and Democrats have. I hope we can get this done.

We have a vote at about 3 o'clock. We changed the time to 10 minutes each, I say to my friend from Alabama, because people have had the opportunity to speak already, except for Senator Webb.

Mr. WEBB addressed the Chair.

If the Senator will withhold.

Is it OK that we do this?

Mr. President, we have been told that the Republicans are interested in more amendments. We finished the vote approximately 2 hours 15 minutes ago. We have been trying for that period of time to get up some Republican amendments. We had four and four, and they would not agree to that request. We had three and three, and they would not agree with that request. Then three Republican amendments, two Democratic amendments, and they would not agree to that request.

I repeat, it is time for the President and his folks to get involved in this matter. This is the President's bill. This isn't a bill we came up with. Democrats and Republicans working in unison with the administration came up with a bill. We want to help. No one has worked harder on the President's bill than Senators Kennedy, Feinstein, and Salazar. I would sure hope we get some help. We can't have Republican members vote on it if they won't let us call up amendments.

The distinguished Senator from Alabama is interested in this bill. We know that. He has spoken long and hard about his opposition to this legislation. But it is just not appropriate that the minority can have it both ways. They want these amendments but don't allow us to call them up. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Come the end of the day, when we have a cloture vote, they will say: You didn't give us any more amendments. They didn't get more amendments because they wouldn't let us call up more amendments. And they have control over that.

So, Mr. President, I think we need to have the record reflect that this bill isn't going anyplace, but it is not our fault. I repeat: This is a bill which was negotiated in good faith by Democrats and Republicans, and it is the President's bill. He says he wants this. Why can't we get this agreement?

Here are my friends. I see on the floor my distinguished friend from Alabama. I have told him personally, and I will tell him publicly--and I have said this before--there are times I don't agree with him, but with Jeff Sessions, you never have to guess where he stands on an issue, and I appreciate that. We know where he stands on this issue of immigration. But having said that, can we do this agreement?

Well, he is part of the deal here.

If I could say, through the Chair, to my distinguished friend, we did have this set up so we could vote at 3 o'clock. Senator Dodd has already spoken; Senator Webb has already spoken. He is part of the agreement. Senators Grassley, Coleman, and Brownback have not spoken, so we have put 15 minutes in here for those three Senators. It should be equally divided, but we can make it----

Be happy to.

Mr. President, it is obvious we are not going to be able to complete the President's legislation based on the request of my friend from Alabama. I took math at Searchlight, NV, Elementary School, where 1 teacher taught all 8 grades, but I can still figure out what 5 times 45 is, and it is a long time--hours. It is approximately 4 hours.

Be happy to yield for a request of my friend.

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

Mr. President, it has been now 2\1/2\ hours. We have tried every possible way of getting an amendment up to vote on it. We have tried this. We have tried that. We have tried this. We have tried that. We have tried everything.

There are individuals who don't like this bill. The Senate being as it is, they have a right to object to what we do.

And they are objecting; that is for sure. The objections have been nonpublic to this point, but it is frustrating because the people who want to move this bill forward, Democrats and Republicans, are being thwarted in their effort to do so.

As I have said before, we need to make sure the record is clear we are not trying to impede the offering of amendments. There have been some who oppose the legislation and are concerned there hasn't been the ability to call up amendments and have them pending. But until we disposed of the 14 pending amendments yesterday, it was thought by most to be inappropriate to call up more amendments and have, instead of 14 pending amendment, 28 pending amendments. I am going to ask unanimous consent in a minute that we vote on five amendments. Originally, we started the day with four on each side. Then we had three Republican and three Democratic. There was objection to both of those. So I said: Fine, let's have three Republican and two Democratic. There was objection.

We thought we had it worked out once, and then the time for debating these was a lot of time, which is another indication there are some who, no matter what we do, we can't move forward on this legislation.

I know I am being repetitive, but this is not a Democratic bill. The Democrats have helped get this bill to where it is.

The main proponents of this legislation on the Democratic side have been Senators Kennedy, Feinstein, and Salazar. On the Republican side, we have had a number of people work very hard: Senator Specter, Senator Kyl, and others. I appreciate how hard they have worked. This is a bill that is bipartisan in nature, supported by the President of the United States. I wish to help the President. I am not always in a position to do that. I think I am in a position to do that now, and I have done everything I can with this piece of legislation to do that. So I will ask consent that we have a series of votes set up. When I finish that consent, I will call up some amendments and have them set aside.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 4:15 p.m. today be for debate with respect to the following amendments; that the time run concurrently and there be whatever the allocated time is from now until 4:15 of debate with respect to each amendment, equally divided and controlled in the usual form, with no amendment to be in order to any of the amendments covered under this agreement prior to a vote; that at 4:15 p.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to each amendment in the order listed here; that once this agreement is entered, the amendments that are not pending be reported by number; and that prior to each vote there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled; and after the first vote in the sequence, the remaining votes be 10 minutes in duration.

I would also say, to show what we are trying to do in good faith, when there was a request on the other side to have a large block of time, on this side we agreed, 30 minutes, 5 minutes. We want to try to move this along. Thirty minutes for the proponents and 5 minutes for those opposed. The amendments are Dodd 1199; Brownback 1160; Webb 1313; Grassley-Baucus 1441; and Coleman 1473.

Madam President, is there an objection?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up and set aside: Sessions 1323, Thune 1174, Baucus-Tester 1236, Menendez 1317, and Sanders 1332.

I am sorry. I ask my friend, does he object to calling up these amendments?

I would only say to my friend, and those within the sound of my voice, I didn't come up with these amendments or the numbers. These were done by the Republicans and the floor staff of the Republicans, indicating the ones Senators had been waiting on for a while. We are happy to have a number of other pending amendments, and we will work with the two managers to see if we can get others. We thought this was a good place to start. But obviously, some do not believe it is a good place to start. I am sorry we are not able to move along. I say in the most positive way, there is good faith on both sides of the aisle to move this legislation. I, of course, was disappointed in the earlier cloture vote, but I was told before the cloture vote took place what was going to happen because there was a genuine need on the other side for more amendments. I understand that. I accept that. I am not the judge of what is to be enough. We have tried hard, and I will keep trying, but I do say everything we have tried doesn't work. There are people in years past who know more about Senate floor procedures than I, but I know a little bit. I don't know of anything I have missed to try to bring up other amendments in a bipartisan way. There is no one at this stage trying to take advantage of anyone else.

This is an effort by Democrats and Republicans who want to help the President get a bill he believes in, for which I have publicly said I appreciate the President doing this. For me to say this, after all the battles the President and I have had, is good for the President and for me. I wish to do something to move this along. The American public needs the cooperation of Democrats and Republicans, with the President joining in.

I apologize to everyone for whom we have not been able to figure out a different way to go forward. We are going to continue to try.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

First of all, Mr. President, let me tell everyone within the sound of my voice, no tricks. What I am doing is trying to protect those people who feel it would be to the advantage of the country and the Senate if we got a bill. This doesn't change any of the things I have said privately to Senators or publicly. Basically, what I am going to do is send a couple of amendments to the desk so there is some control over amendments that are offered. This will allow those of us who feel there should be a bill some control over the next amendment that is offered.

Again, no tricks. I have alerted everyone the best that I can what I was going to do, and I hope this works out well. I am confident we are doing the right thing.

Amendment No. 1492 to Amendment No. 1235

Mr. President, I call up a second-degree amendment, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, I ask for the regular order with respect to the Dodd amendment.

Mr. President, I call up the amendment that is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, I will be seated in a brief period of time, but I wished to let everyone know we have people working in different rooms in this building trying to come up with some way for us to move forward. We have tried on a number of occasions this afternoon to have amendments. We started at noon--6\1/2\ hours ago. We have been thwarted at every attempt. So we are arriving at a point now where I hope there can be agreement as to how we proceed. If not, we will proceed anyway in a manner I hope will be in keeping with the intent of the Democrats and the Republicans and the White House.

I do say in this interim this afternoon that I have had some interesting calls from people who care a great deal about this bill. One of the choice experiences of my life was a year ago, in my office, right back here, on a Saturday. We were debating immigration. I had the good fortune to meet for the first time Cardinal McCarrick and Cardinal Mahony, and they were very interested in doing something that would help the immigration problems they see on a daily basis.

I had the good fortune to speak to those good men during the past hour or two. The reason I mention the meeting of that Saturday is that some people know I am not a member of the Catholic faith. I have the greatest respect in the world for Catholics. The best friend I ever had in my life was a devout Catholic. He went to church every day. He was Governor of the State of Nevada and I was Lieutenant Governor. He taught me how to fight. He was my best friend. He taught me in high school. He died in church. He went to church every day, and he went to church one morning, put his head on his shoulder, and died.

For someone who set such a great example for Christianity and goodness, there couldn't be a better way for this good man, Michael Callahan, to die. But the reason I mention that is that as the meeting was breaking up, and there was some staff there, I said, I have the good fortune of being able to meet with prominent people on occasion, but this is a special meeting for me. I would like to be able to tell my children and grandchildren about this meeting. So before we go out to the press, could we say a prayer together?

We gathered there in my conference room and Cardinal Mahony said a prayer for our country. When he finished, Cardinal McCarrick said a prayer for me. That was one of the highlights of my life. When it was over, Cardinal McCarrick said: Well, I am not going to be able to tell my children and grandchildren about this, but I can tell my nieces and grand nieces about this.

So during the 6\1/2\ hours we have been away from the floor, there have been a lot of good people working on a way to finalize this legislation, and I hope that everyone understands the efforts I have made now. It is not an effort to trick anybody or deceive anyone. It is an effort to try to move this legislation forward.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Georgia be allowed to speak for up to 12 minutes.

Mr. President, I move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to request the attendance of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I am going to move briefly to proceed to a motion to reconsider, but I wanted to tell all Members that this vote is not going to be a 20-minute vote. There are people coming from all over the country, both Democrats and Republicans. I don't think it matters. This is going to be the last vote of the night, anyway, but this vote will go a little longer.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to proceed to the motion to reconsider the failed cloture vote on the substitute be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be agreed to, and the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Kennedy-Specter substitute amendment No. 1150.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Cloture Motion

Madam President, before I say a word on immigration reform, I would like to add a closing word to the comments of the Senator from Washington and the Senator from Iowa.

Just as Senator Murray has talked about her own family experiences with her dad and mom and all, my own mom passed away about 2 years ago. She had had Alzheimer's disease for a number of years. Her mother had Alzheimer's, her grandmother had Alzheimer's, and last year my mother's younger sister, 10 years her junior, was admitted to a residential facility in Huntington, VA, where she has Alzheimer's disease as well. This is one that strikes close to the heart for us and our family as it does for you and literally for millions of families across the country. Thank you for your great leadership and that of Senator Harkin and Mike Castle, my own Congressman, who has been a stalwart in these efforts.

I would like to return to an issue we have been focused on in the Senate in the last couple weeks and that is what we do to secure our borders, what to do to make sure employers are not knowingly hiring illegal aliens, at least not without penalty if they do, and what are we going to do about the 12 million or so people here undocumented, roughly 60 percent of whom came here illegally. What are we going to do about all of that?

For a while this afternoon, it looked like we might not do anything. For a while this afternoon, it looked like we may basically finish up without taking any kind of definitive action and having debated these issues for a couple of weeks, as we did last year for several weeks, to go home without having taken definitive steps. I am told that negotiations are going on, even as I speak, which would allow us to come back into session, for our Republican friends to offer 10 more amendments, for our side to offer 10 more on top of the 45 or so that already have been offered and voted on. That would take us to 65 amendments. That is a lot of amendments on any piece of legislation. I realize this is a contentious one, but at some point in time I think it is fair to say we have had an opportunity for people to say this is what I think we should do and for people to offer their countervailing views, but I think it is time to move on.

My view is the worst thing we can do is, frankly, do nothing. I don't believe the status quo is acceptable, the status quo, which last summer found as many as 10,000 people coming across our borders illegally every week, mostly coming for work. Some could have been criminals, who knows? Maybe there was a terrorist or two in those numbers. But for us to go home not having dealt definitively with that problem, with that challenge, is a big mistake.

A country such as ours--any country but especially a country such as ours--has to be able to secure our borders. I read some information provided by some folks in Washington, a think tank in Washington, who looked back at the number of employers who were sanctioned for knowingly hiring illegal aliens in the last several years. The comment was made--I don't know if the Presiding Officer saw this--the comment was made that a person in the last several years had a greater chance of being eaten by an alligator in this country than, if you were an employer hiring illegal aliens, being caught.

That may sound like a stretch, but it is not much of a stretch. We actually saw the number of people prosecuted under the law in the last 6 years dropping by some 30 percent below what it was in the last decade.

We were not enforcing the laws against employers. We need to do that. There are sanctions in laws and they need to be applied. Those laws need to be enforced.

Sort of a question remains: How about all those people who are here without--who are not here legally? They may have come here legally and their visas expired and they stayed on. But when you add those to the folks who came across the borders illegally, it totals some 12 million people. I can understand the views of some folks in my State, and maybe in Minnesota and other places around this country--Washington, Iowa-- that we ought to simply put them all on buses and send them home. I can understand how people would feel that way.

I would say I don't know how realistic that is. But the idea of providing some way for them to stay here and work, under a condition of probation, to be able to work over a number of years toward a legal status--before we countenance doing that, before we go down that path, I believe it is critical that, No. 1, we enforce and secure our borders.

Second, that we make sure those folks who are knowingly hiring illegal aliens, that we prosecute them with every ounce of energy we have under the law.

With respect to the enforcement of our borders and the securing of our borders, let me just mention a couple of things that this legislation requires us to do and to question whether that makes sense, whether that is sufficient. We have thousands of Border Patrol personnel arrayed on the Nation's borders, from the Pacific coast, west coast, San Diego, all the way across to the gulf coast, a couple- thousand-mile border.

The legislation that is before us today basically says we are going to double the number of Border Patrol personnel. They have to be better trained and better equipped. Today we are supplementing their numbers with the National Guard. And as an old Governor who once was commander in chief of our National Guard in Delaware, I am all for continuing to deploy those assets as well to secure our borders, to supplement our Border Patrol personnel.

However, those Border Patrol personnel have to be better trained. They have to be better equipped. We have technology today that, frankly, we did not have 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago to deploy along the borders. We have unmanned aircraft that can be flown, aircraft that can see for miles, aircraft that can see in good weather like today, aircraft that can see when people are moving on the ground when it is nighttime, aircraft that can see when it is foggy, aircraft that can see through the rain. We have that capability today. We did not have it then.

We have the capability with surveillance cameras to look long distances, in all kinds of weather conditions, day and night, to detect the movement of people toward our borders. We have the equipment. This legislation says we have to deploy it and we have to use it and we have to fund it. We have the ability to provide ID, identification, for people applying for jobs in this country, identification that is largely tamper proof. Ten years ago we may not have had the capability. We have the capability today. If I were an employer, I would take great solace in knowing that the identification being presented to me was genuine, was real, had not been tampered with, and to know that I could trust the technology. This legislation seeks to make sure that employers have that confidence.

I believe one of the major problems in this country in recent years that has led to a greater influx of folks coming here illegally is, when we catch them at the border, if they happen to be from Mexico, frequently our Border Patrol personnel take those people back to the border across into Mexico.

However, if the folks we catch at the border, if they are not from Mexico--Guatemala, Honduras, other countries to the south, if we capture those people, we take them to a detention center. We have been taking them to detention centers for several years. If we have ample space in the detention center, bed capacity, if you will, the folks are basically registered, charged, and have the opportunity to argue whether they are here as refugees, whether they are being politically persecuted, persecuted for their religious beliefs.

However, for too long when we have captured people not from Mexico and we take them to detention centers, they do not have enough beds. They cannot book these folks, hold them, retain them in custody because they just do not have the capacity. So what do we do? Well, we basically register them, find out who they are, as best we can, and then we essentially release them on their own recognizance and say: Come back in 2 months, 3 months for a hearing. Surprise, surprise. We never see them again. They just disappear. They melt into the fabric of the communities across this country.

For the most part they get jobs and go to work, stay out of trouble. But the idea that people can come in illegally like that, and once captured not be detained, for us not to find out if they are here as refugees, that is wrong. It is especially wrong if you happen to be somebody who is trying to come here legally, not for a couple of months but for years waiting in line patiently, abiding by the law.

Meanwhile other folks come into this country whom we capture and essentially release to become workers in this country. That is wrong. In terms of equity, that is basically unfair. It says to people trying to play by the rules: You're foolish. You're foolish. It sends absolutely the wrong message.

That is one of the reasons amnesty is not the answer either. It sends the same kind of message to people who have been waiting to come here for a long time. It says: You are foolish for playing by the rules. It is why amnesty is no good. And the idea of us simply releasing people on their own recognizance because we do not have bed capacity in these detention centers makes no sense as well.

With respect to employers knowingly hiring illegal aliens and our not prosecuting them under the law--unacceptable. When we have employers who know that the man or woman they are hiring is not here legally, that the documentation paperwork that is being presented to them is false, it is unacceptable that that employer is allowed to do that, to continue to do that, week after week, month after month, year after year. That think tank which told me recently that the chances of a person being eaten by an alligator were greater than a person being prosecuted under the law, whether that is true or not, we know this: Too few employers have been prosecuted.

One of the best ways to send a chilling message back home to folks who are thinking about coming here is, one, make sure if they get caught they go to a detention center. If they are not here as a refugee, they are going to go home. And the time they serve in the detention center is not going to be pleasant.

The best way to deter, to put a chilling effect on those who come across illegally is to make sure that employers know if they hire folks, they are going to pay a severe price. That sends a strong message to those who otherwise would take a chance and come here.

The last thing I would mention is what to do about all of those people here who are undocumented. If there are 12 million, if some 60 percent of them are folks who came across the border illegally, if the other 40 percent who are people who came here legally stayed beyond the time they were allowed to stay here, and now they are here illegally, although they came legally in the first place, what do we do with all of those people?

The legislation we have before us that we are debating and we have been amending for the last 2 weeks says: If you came here legally and stayed beyond your time, or if you came here illegally, we want you to step out of the shadows. You have to register with the Government. You have basically one chance to do that. If you do that, take advantage of this opportunity, and you are willing to meet the conditions--I think, tough conditions, a multiyear period of what I would call probation-- those people can work their way toward legal status. It might take 8 years, it might take more. But for folks who have been here for a while, they have worked, they have been good workers, they have paid taxes, they have stayed out of trouble with the law, under this legislation if they are willing to continue to work, continue to pay taxes, pay any back taxes that are owed, pay a very significant fine, thousands of dollars in fines, learn English, learn about the history of our country, and so forth, if they are willing to do those things, they have a chance to work toward a legal status not in 8 weeks, not in 8 months, but in as long as 8 years.

If they are not willing to live by the conditions that are laid out in this legislation, they are out of luck. They will not have a chance to ever have the kind of legal status that they otherwise would have.

Let me close, if I can, by saying I do not know if the Presiding Officer remembers this, but during orientation for new Senators last November, when I was privileged to spend some time with our newly elected Senators, I mentioned one of the things we do in my Senate office back home is we try to do a good job on constituent service.

We actually keep track. I get reports every week on how we are doing on constituent services. We do a monthly survey for the people we serve through constituent services. They can evaluate our services: excellent, good, fair, poor. And I have a great staff. They get, for the most part, excellent and good marks. About 95 percent of them are excellent and good. We are very proud of the work they do.

In the weekly reports I have received for weeks now, actually for months

now, each weekly report from my head of constituent services starts off with an update on a person who came to this country legally, I think from Greece, who was an older woman, I think in her midseventies, who came here to see, I think, her son, maybe a daughter-in-law, who apparently has dementia, who ended up being hospitalized, essentially abandoned by her son, and ended up in a hospital for treatment.

She needed hospitalization and treatment for less than a week for her condition. Less than a week. Unfortunately, no one was there to take care of her, to look after her, to be responsible for her. She stayed in that hospital not for a couple of days, not for a week, more than a month--actually I think for more than 2 months.

How much did it cost? It cost that hospital about a quarter of a million dollars because that hospital in Dover, DE, essentially had to eat the cost of that hospitalization.

The last week or so I understand that the daughter-in-law has stepped forward. This woman who has her documentation, apparently arrangements have been made with folks back in Greece to take her back. The hospital has bought tickets, and I am told they are going to fly this elderly woman back to Greece. Her daughter-in-law is going to take her. Hopefully the paperwork is being arranged for the woman to be received by her own family back in Greece.

I would like to say that is probably the only time that has happened in this country this year or last year or the year before. Unfortunately, it is not. And it is unfortunate that a lot of times it is a failure of us at the Federal level to enforce our borders, to secure our borders, as in this case, when people stay beyond their limited period of time, has led to a situation that has cost this hospital a ton of money. There are probably other hospital facilities that it has cost a lot of money.

It is being borne by other people in my State who paid for their health care, and oftentimes State and local governments end up picking up the tab for what really is a failure at the Federal level. It is not right. It is unfair. This legislation would begin to address that.

Let me close with this thought. Last year, when we debated for a long time immigration reform, passed from here a pretty good bill for immigration reform, I remember when I talked about the legislation, I always used the words, ``tough,'' ``smart,'' ``comprehensive.'' That is what I believed and said again and again and again that that is what we needed to do in terms of our work on immigration reform--tough, smart, comprehensive.

I still think that applies. I would add to that maybe a couple of other terms. One of those is ``fair.'' The ``fair'' that I am thinking of is the ``fair'' to taxpayers in this country. What we pass here ought to be fair to taxpayers, not just Federal taxpayers but State and local folks, including hospitals, and people who are running hospitals and funding hospitals around this country; fair to American workers.

The idea that people are coming here and taking away jobs in some instances, too many instances, from people who are willing and able to do the work is not acceptable. The idea of having a large guest worker program like the President has envisioned, in my view, is not acceptable.

We obviously are going to have some kind of guest worker program, but not on the magnitude that this President has sought, but tough, smart, comprehensive, and fair--fair to taxpayers, fair to American workers.

The last point I would add is practical. As I said earlier in my comments, as much as I can understand the desire to round up 12 million people who are here undocumented, put them in planes, buses, whatever, and send them home, I can understand the rationale, the feeling to do that, but, my friends, it is just not practical. What we have to do is find a way for them to come out of the shadows. If they do not abide by the law, take them home. But if they are willing to work hard, pay taxes, stay out of trouble, learn English, learn our customs and our laws, they can have a chance over time, for a long period of time, multiple periods of years to work toward a documented legal status. I think that is the right approach. And, hopefully, sometime in the next hour or two we will reconvene on the Senate floor, and those Senators who have amendments on the Republican side and the Democratic side will have the opportunity to offer even more than the 45 that we already offered and disposed of.

Once we have done that, sometime maybe tonight we will have an opportunity to vote to begin to draw to an end the debate on this legislation.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank the Chair.

In a moment, I want to talk about an amendment I will be offering with Senator Grassley to the immigration reform bill. That is amendment No. 1332. I should mention this amendment has been endorsed by the AFL- CIO. It was endorsed by the Programmers Guild and by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Before I speak about the amendment, it is important, as we debate the immigration bill, to talk about what is happening to the lives of Americans who live in the middle class and the working families of the country. I fear that in this long and complicated immigration bill, sometimes we lose track of the impact of this bill on the lives of American workers. This bill deals in a reasonable way in terms of dealing with the very serious problem of illegal immigration. It says we must strengthen our borders and not allow people to so easily come into the country. That is long overdue, and it is absolutely right. It says finally we must begin to hold employers accountable for the illegal immigrants they are hiring, something the Bush administration has been very reluctant to do. That is extremely important.

This bill also carves out a path to citizenship which, frankly, is the right thing to do. But also what this bill does not do is analyze effectively the impact of various aspects of this legislation--the guest worker program, H-1B program--on the lives of American workers. The basic premise under which this bill operates in those areas is a false one. What it says is there are

jobs out there, large numbers of jobs, that American workers won't take. I think that is true to some degree, but this bill grossly exaggerates that problem. Because the truth is, if employers paid living wages for jobs, we would be very surprised at the number of people in this country who would be delighted to hold those jobs. But if people are going to pay starvation wages and not provide health care or other benefits, yes, it is true American workers may not gravitate to those jobs.

The truth is, over the last many years, there has been a war going on in this country, and that is not the war in Iraq. It is not the war in Afghanistan. It is the war being waged against the American middle class, the American standard of living, and, indeed, the American dream itself. This is an issue, unfortunately, we do not discuss enough on the floor of the Senate. It is not discussed enough in the corporate media.

The American public understands that since President George Bush has been in office, over 5.4 million more Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. The American people understand that nearly 7 million more Americans have lost their health insurance, and we are now almost at the level of 47 million Americans without health insurance. The American people understand that for the average American family, their income has fallen by over $1,200 and 3 million more Americans have lost their pensions.

What does all of this have to do with the immigration bill? It has everything to do with the immigration bill, because we have to take a hard look at what various aspects of this bill do in terms of bringing workers into this country and what it means to people who are struggling on $8 or $9 an hour or, in fact, what it means to young people who someday aspire to hold a professional position. That is an issue we have not focused enough attention on.

Some people say: Yes, it is true, poverty is increasing. Yes, it is true, there are millions of people working at the minimum wage or near. But if you have a college degree, you don't have to worry. There are plenty of these good professional jobs out there that pay people good wages. The truth is, even college graduates in today's economy are not getting ahead. From the years 2000 through 2004, we have seen the wages of college graduates decline by 5 percent. According to a new study by researchers at MIT, earnings of the average American worker with an undergraduate degree have not kept up with gains in productivity over the last 25 years. In other words, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity over the past 30 years, millions of American workers, including college graduates, are working longer hours for lower wages. In America today, the personal savings rate is below zero. People are spending more than is coming in. That has not happened since the Great Depression. Home foreclosures are at their highest level in nearly four decades.

What I fear the most is if we keep going in the direction in which we are moving now economically, what we are going to see is our children are going to have a lower standard of living than we do. In fact, according to a recent joint study by the Pew Charitable Trust and Brookings Institute, men in their thirties earned on average 12 percent less in 2004 than their fathers did in 1974, after adjusting for inflation. Incredibly, men today are earning less than their fathers did despite a huge explosion in technology and worker productivity.

In addition, it is important to note that over the last 6 years, this country has lost more than 3 million good-paying manufacturing jobs.

Why do I raise that within the context of an immigration bill? I raise that because the argument of all the large corporations that are supporting this legislation is: My goodness, we have a crisis in America. It is that wages are going down. It is not that more and more Americans are losing their health care and their pensions. The crisis is, supposedly, there are all these jobs out there--jobs in teaching, psychology, nursing, hotels, restaurants--and we cannot find American workers to do those jobs.

Let me tell the business community: Raise wages, provide decent benefits, and you are going to have all kinds of people flocking to those jobs.

During the debate over NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China--which I participated in as a Member of the House of Representatives--we were told by all the corporate interests who pushed that legislation on the Congress not to worry about the blue-collar jobs we would lose. I remember it distinctly. They said: Well, yes, it is true. If we open up our markets, yes, it is true we are going to lose a lot of these factory jobs. They are going to go to China, Mexico, whatever. But don't worry because if your kid does well in school, becomes computer proficient, your kid is going to have a great job out there at good wages. That is the future of America. Don't worry about the blue-color jobs. You have all these white-color information technology jobs.

Well, guess what is happening. From January of 2001 to January of 2006, we have lost 644,000 information sector jobs. Alan Blinder, the former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has told us between 30 and 40 million jobs in this country are in danger of being shipped overseas.

The middle class of this country is being squeezed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

When Americans get up in the morning and they take their kids to daycare, they find the cost of childcare is unaffordable. That is certainly true in Vermont. It is true all over this country. Working families cannot afford quality childcare.

When they drive to work, and they stop at the gas station to fill up their gas tanks, what they are paying in Vermont now is $3.10 a gallon for gas, and in other parts of the country it is even higher. ExxonMobil earns record-breaking profits and manages to find $400 million for a retirement settlement for their former CEO.

When workers go to their jobs, they are being squeezed as often as not by their employer who is cutting back on their health care and pension benefits. Then, if workers stand up for their jobs, they want to form a union, they are told that those jobs could go to China: So take your cutbacks.

When workers come home, they open up their mailbox only to find that the interest on their mortgage payments and their credit cards in some cases is doubling or tripling. There are working people in this country who are paying--if you can believe it--27, 28, 29 percent in interest rates, while big banks are making record-breaking profits.

When Americans go to the hospital, they are told by their insurance companies their premiums and copays will be going up or, even worse, they are not covered for the medical procedures they need.

When they want to send their kids to college, they look at the cost of tuition, and they find colleges costing $30,000, $35,000, $40,000, $45,000 a year, and people are making $30,000 a year. We are seeing kids in this country now--low-income kids--not going to college and others coming out deeply in debt.

Now, in the midst of all of that, we have this immigration bill, a bill that would allow employers to hire hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of workers from other countries in both low-skilled jobs and high-skilled jobs.

It is important to note--and this point has not been made often enough, but it is important to note many of the same corporate groups that supported NAFTA, that supported PNTR with China, and other disastrous trade agreements, that these same businesses that fought against an increase in the minimum wage, saying: Hey, $5.15 an hour, we don't have to go higher than that; these same companies that have outsourced hundreds of thousands of jobs to China, to Mexico, to Vietnam, to India, to other low-wage countries, these same companies are supporting this legislation.

Let's understand that, and let us ask why that is the case. Why are companies that opposed the minimum wage, that oppose the right of workers to form unions, that oppose anything that makes sense for the American middle class supporting this legislation?

Some of those groups are the National Restaurant Association, the Business Roundtable, the American Hotel & Lodging Association. These are all groups that opposed raising the minimum wage above $5.15 an hour, and they are sitting here saying: Well, we think this immigration bill is a good bill for us.

High-tech companies that have sent hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas, they think this legislation is good. Why? Why do they think it is good legislation? Well, if you listen to them, they will tell you two things: First, in terms of low-skilled jobs, they say they need foreign workers to do the jobs Americans will not do. In terms of high- skilled jobs, they say they cannot find enough Americans who are smart enough, who are skilled enough, who are well educated enough to be engineers, to be scientists, to be mathematicians, et cetera.

In other words, corporate America tells us they need a new guest worker program because they cannot find any Americans for construction jobs, for manufacturing jobs, hotel jobs, restaurant jobs. Then they tell us they need more foreign agricultural workers because no American is willing to break their back working in the fields, picking strawberries or lettuce for poverty-level wages and no health care.

Then--this is what gets me--they tell us they need more H-1B visas because Americans are not smart enough to be computer professionals; engineers; university professors, they cannot find anybody to be a university professor; accountants--I guess Americans do not add very well--we cannot do that work; financial analysts; nurses, I guess we do not have the capability of producing nurses; psychologists, Americans, I guess, cannot do that; lawyers--lawyers--lawyers--my God, if there is anything the United States is capable of producing it is lawyers, but I guess we need more lawyers to come into this country; and elementary school teachers, I guess the young people who graduate from college in America are not quite qualified to be school teachers.

Now, if Americans will not take low-skilled jobs that pay poverty- level wages and, presumably, if they are not smart enough to do high- skilled jobs, I think the question we have to ask is: What kind of jobs are going to be available for the American people? Can't do low-skilled jobs; can't do high-skilled jobs. Hey, what is there for us?

I happen to think the Congress should be spending a lot more time discussing this issue and making it easier for us to create decent- paying jobs for American workers instead of allowing corporate interests to drive wages down by importing more and more people to do the work Americans should be doing and, conversely, exporting and outsourcing a lot of decent jobs.

As someone who, as a young man, worked in a hotel and worked in a restaurant, I can tell you the guest worker provisions, for the most part, have nothing to do with a shortage of workers but have everything to do with a concerted effort by corporate America to drive down wages for our people.

Now, one of the largest corporations that is involved in an association in support of this legislation is Wal-Mart. I made this point yesterday, but I think it is worth repeating. Wal-Mart says, being a part of this association, that apparently there is a shortage of Americans willing to work at Wal-Marts. Well, let's take a look at that.

Two years ago, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a new store in Oakland, CA, 11,000 people filled out applications for 400 jobs. I think most Americans know that Wal-Mart is not a great employer. Wages are low. In many instances, they do not provide 40 hours a week; health care benefits are not particularly good.

Oakland, CA: For 400 jobs, 11,000 people filled out applications. More recently, in January of 2006, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a store in Evergreen Park outside Chicago, over 24,000 people applied for 325 jobs at that store. What does that tell us? It tells us that even in low-paying jobs, such as at Wal-Mart, when given the opportunity, Americans want those jobs. They want to make a living for their families.

So the idea Wal-Mart and other similar-type companies would say: Gee, we can't find workers to do that work, is just plain wrong. What they want to do is have a surplus of workers coming into this country so wages do not go up. So instead of having to raise wages and benefits, in order to attract workers and retain workers, what you do is simply open the door and you bring in more and more cheap labor. That enables them to keep wages low.

Then we have the situation with high-skilled jobs, with our professional jobs. Again, we have associations and organizations made up of different corporate groups that are strongly supporting this immigration bill, and they include, among others, companies such as Motorola, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, and Boeing, to name a few. These are corporations with a main argument that we cannot find Americans to do this work, and we need to go all over the world to bring in people.

Well, I find it interesting that many of these same companies that tell us they cannot find workers in the United States are exactly the same companies that have recently announced major layoffs of thousands of American workers: We can't find workers. Oh, by the way, you are fired. We need more workers from abroad. Five hundred workers are gone. We are laying you off. It does not make a whole lot of sense to me.

Let me give you a few examples. A few days ago, the Los Angeles Times reported Dell would be eliminating 10 percent of its workforce, slashing 8,800 jobs. But Dell, last year, applied for nearly 400 H-1B visas to bring people into this country--at the same time they lay off 8,800 workers. Maybe they might want to retrain some of those 8,800 workers for these new positions, if possible, rather than simply bringing in new employees from abroad.

Dell is not alone. The Financial Times, on May 31, reported Motorola would be cutting 4,000 jobs, on top of an earlier 3,500 job reduction, designed to generate savings of $400 million. Yet last year, Motorola received 760 H-1B visas. The list goes on and on. It is IBM. It is Citigroup--companies bringing in foreign professional workers at the same time they are laying off American workers.

So we have a situation where, on one hand, these companies say they cannot find highly skilled American workers while, on the other hand, they are eliminating thousands of American jobs.

What upsets me is how our young people feel about this situation. These are kids who go to school--sometimes they borrow a lot of money to go to college--they work hard, and what they are looking forward to, whether through a BA or a BS or an MA or a Ph.D., is a good, secure, challenging, meaningful job with a decent income. What they are seeing is companies saying: We do not want you. We want somebody from abroad who will work at lower wages than you. I think that must be very discouraging for so many of our young people.

Madam President, the amendment I am offering today, along with Senator Grassley, is a pretty simple amendment. What it would do is it would prohibit companies that have announced mass layoffs from receiving new visas of any kind, unless these companies could prove that overall employment at their companies would not be reduced by these layoffs. In other words, we are calling their bluff, and we are saying: You can't lay off large numbers of American workers and then tell us you desperately need workers, professionals from abroad. Those companies which are truly experiencing labor shortages would not be impacted by this amendment and could continue to receive increases in foreign workers, but companies that are reducing their U.S. workforce by laying off thousands of Americans would be prevented from importing workers from abroad.

The bottom line is, the companies that are laying off thousands of Americans shouldn't be allowed to import workers from overseas. Let us stand up for the American people. Let us stand up for American workers. Let us support this amendment.