Floor Statements

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I shall not object, I wish to inquire of the majority leader: I have an amendment that is a change in the amendment by which we proposed to sunset the guest worker provision. That amendment failed by one vote. I have made a modification to that amendment and would intend to reoffer the amendment and have another debate on it and a vote on that amendment. I wonder if I could inquire of the Senator----

Mr. President, I have no objection.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I was listening to the description of the amendment by Senator Webb. I think

it is a good amendment, and I intend to be prepared to support it. This amendment is about the treatment of those who have come here without legal authorization. The underlying bill, by the way, was cobbled together by a group of people, including the White House, I guess, and they said anybody who shows up in this country without legal authorization by December 31 is deemed to then have been legal and will be given a work permit.

I think Senator Webb's approach is much more sensitive and much more realistic to our people who have been here 10, 15, 20 years without legal authorization but they have been model citizens, they raised families, have had jobs, have done things that would commend them to us for the future. He is suggesting a much more sensible way of dealing with that. I think that amendment makes a lot of sense.

I did want to say we had a vote on the guest worker or temporary worker provisions, and I offered an amendment, or 2 amendments, and the second amendment was to sunset that after 5 years. I lost that vote by one vote in the Senate, and I have filed an amendment at the desk and will attempt to have another vote on that. I have modified section 2 just a bit. But my hope is that the Senate would reconsider and pass the amendment that would sunset this temporary worker provision after 5 years. Again, the vote was 49 to 48 against my amendment, and we will have another opportunity to vote on it.

The reason I mention it is the Senator from Virginia mentioned that amendment and the other amendment I offered as well. I ask the Senator from Virginia if he doesn't think this piece of legislation, in addition to legalizing those who have come here as of December 31st of last year, saying you now have legal status--in addition to that-- saying we believe there are millions of people who don't live here at this point whom we want to be able to invite in to take American jobs-- I ask the Senator from Virginia whether that makes much sense in the scheme of trying to create economic opportunity for Americans at the lower economic scale in this country. There are a lot of people working at the bottom of the ladder here who want jobs, who can't find jobs, and find downward pressure on their income. I ask whether the Senator doesn't believe this temporary worker program displaces people in this country who need these jobs.

Mr. President, if the Senator would yield further for a question, there are some in this Chamber who say to us: The choice on immigration is between doing the wrong thing and doing nothing. That is not the choice at all. That is a false choice. They bring the wrong thing to the floor of the Senate and say: If you oppose this, then you are for nothing.

One of the things we are for is enforcing the law. We have a law in this country about employer sanctions, about illegal immigration, trying to stop it. All one would have to do would be to enforce the law. In 2004, there were four cases in the entire United States of America that were brought by the U.S. Justice Department against employers who were employing illegal workers, illegal aliens--four. What does that tell us? That tells us that the administration says: We surrender on the issue. We surrender.

The other point I wished to make is there is no discussion on the floor of the Senate in the construct of this bill, within the debate on this bill, about the American worker. I understand we have an immigration issue. I fully understand that, and we need to deal with that. But part and parcel of that, in my judgment, ought to be some discussion on the floor of the Senate about how this affects the American worker. We have a lot of workers in this country who aren't doing very well. It has been a long time since they have seen any increase in their income, despite their productivity rising. Where is the debate about the impact on the American worker? It is not selfish for us to believe that ought to be a part of this discussion.

So I ask the Senator from Virginia whether he believes as well that when you bring an immigration bill to the floor, you ought to have some discussion about what is the impact of this issue on the American worker, on the people who have a high school education or perhaps don't even have a high school education and who are at the bottom of the ladder, got up this morning and went to work and are working at minimum wage, struggling to get by to raise a family to do the best they can and discover at the end of the day: Oh, by the way, there is more downward pressure on your income because the employer can bring somebody through the back door that is able to be paid lower wages, they will work for less money, even as the bigger employers are exporting jobs out the front door to China and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

So I ask whether the American worker shouldn't play a bigger role in the debate on the floor of the Senate.

I thank my colleague.

Mr. President, this is a sunset of the temporary worker program in 5 years. It is a new bill, a new program, with more questions than answers. It seems to me that we ought to ask some questions at the end of 5 years.

In the fifth year, we will have 600,000 jobs assumed by temporary workers coming in; in the fourth year, 400,000 jobs, and on and on. So the question is, How many of them are going to leave? What if they do not leave? Are we going to come back to the floor with a new immigration bill, talking about illegal immigration? Why don't we sunset after 5 years to see if this has worked?

Let me make a final point as we vote. We have had a lot of discussion about immigration, but no one on the floor of the Senate is talking about the impact on American workers. All of these jobs the temporary workers will assume are going to compete with people at the bottom of the economic ladder in this country. They are called American workers as well.

Let us sunset this and evaluate what we are doing, what kind of contribution to illegal immigration this will amount to, and what impact it has on American workers. Let us sunset this at the end of 5 years.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, I listened to my colleague from Texas. I come to the floor to add a word about my friend whom we have lost, Senator Craig Thomas. Craig was from the State of Wyoming. He was from the northern Great Plains. Last evening, when I heard he had died, I spent a lot of time thinking about Craig and about this place.

Most Americans see the partisanship. This is actually a political body, so it is not unusual there would be some partisanship. What most Americans never have the opportunity to see is the friendship. This is a small community of 100 Members of the Senate, men and women who come from every part of our country who are elected to serve. There is a great deal of friendship that exists in this Chamber, even in the middle of all of the politics that exists in our political system.

Senator Craig Thomas was an interesting and a wonderful man. I have had, especially the last 6 months, an opportunity to work very closely with him. I knew him as a Member of the House of Representatives. I knew him as a Member of the Senate and a colleague in both the House and the Senate. But the last 6 months we worked together, I as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee and Craig Thomas as vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. We sat next to each other, hour after hour, hearing after hearing, and I got to know a lot about Craig Thomas that I had not previously known.

His word was his bond. He was quick with a smile. A quiet man in many ways, he cared deeply about his home State of Wyoming and cared deeply about the future of his country.

Craig was a proud son of the American West who never, ever forgot about the people he represented. His commitment to American Indians, and especially and particularly to those living on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, was evident as I worked side by side with him on the Indian Affairs Committee, as was his strong support for Indian health care and for all of the other services to Native Americans.

I was pleased to have the opportunity to work with him and to get to know him and to admire his work. In recent months, of course, Senator Thomas faced some very challenging health care issues with a very challenging illness. He met those challenges with courage and with grace. He never complained. I never heard him complain. In fact, it was just about 3 weeks ago at a hearing that I turned to him and said: You look great. You really look terrific. He said: I feel good. I feel great.

He was a person with that kind of attitude. What a wonderful contribution to the Senate. I think all of us here will miss a terrific friend.

Let me end as I started by saying this is a political body. I know most Americans see the evidence of that politics, so they see sometimes the politics and the partisanship. What most Americans never have the opportunity to see is the friendship that exists on the floor of the Senate. Yes, even between those who from time to time are adversaries in debate but who understand each other and are friends with each other.

I had the privilege of working with Senator Thomas for many years in the House and in the Senate, and particularly in the last 6 months as chairman and vice chairman of the committee. I will miss him dearly. I considered Senator Craig Thomas a friend. My thoughts and prayers today are with his wonderful family as well.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 10 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to consider the preparedness of Federal land management agencies for the 2007 wildfire season and to consider recent reports on the agencies' efforts to contain the costs of wildfire management activities.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining the Federal Role to Work with Communities to Prevent and Respond to Gang Violence: The Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2007'' on Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 10 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226.

Witness list

Panel I: The Honorable Barbara Boxer, United States Senator [D-CA].

Panel II: The Honorable Antonio R. Villaraigosa, Mayor, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; William J. Bratton, Chief of Police, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles, CA.

Panel III: Ms. Boni Gayle Driskill, Wings of Protection, Modesto, CA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing entitled ``Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys?--Part V'' on Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 2 p.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226.

Witness list

Panel I: Bradley J. Schlozman, Associate Counsel to the Director, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, Former Interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC

Panel II: Todd Graves, Former U.S. Attorney, Western District of Missouri, Kansas City, MO.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 9 a.m. for a hearing entitled ``Executive Stock Options: Should the IRS and Stockholders Be Given Different Information?''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 5, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak in morning business for such time as I may consume, and to the extent that exceeds the limit of the majority in morning business, I would ask that the minority be accorded the same amount of time if they so desire.

How much morning business remains on our side?

Mr. President, I ask to be recognized in morning business for as much time as I may consume. My understanding is we will be going to the bill as soon as I finish speaking.

It is my intention to speak for perhaps 20 minutes.

Mr. President, this issue of immigration is a very passionate issue and raises the passions in this country in a significant way. I understand all of that. I have described often on the floor of the Senate the circumstances of what has brought us to this point.

This country we live in is a remarkable country. If you have a globe in front of you, and spin the globe, and take a look at all the land that exists on your globe, you will see there is just one little spot called the United States of America, but it is a very different spot than much of the rest of the world.

We have raised incomes in this country, expanded the middle class, created a standard and a scale of living that is pretty unusual and pretty remarkable. Because of that, because we have dramatically expanded the middle class and have created a country that is very different than many other countries on this Earth, there are many who live on this planet who want to come here.

Last week, I described being in a helicopter, flying between Honduras and Nicaragua, up in the mountainous jungle areas some long while ago, and we ran out of gas. I discovered on a helicopter when you run out of gas, you are going to be landing very soon. We were not hurt, of course, but the red lights and the alarm bells were ringing and going off, and our pilots put us down in a clearing.

While we were there, I heard from some campesinos who came up to see who had landed in these helicopters. Through an interpreter, I visited with the campesinos. I heard from them what I have heard in virtually every part of the world in which I have traveled. I spoke with a young woman in her early twenties. She had three children with her. I asked her--after we visited--through an interpreter: What do you want for you and your children?

She said: Oh, I want to come to the United States of America.

That is not unusual. I have heard that all over the world: I want to come to the United States of America. I asked her why.

She said: Well, there is opportunity there--an opportunity for a better life for me and my children.

We have built something quite unusual in this country, and many from around this planet would like to come here. I understand that. Let me give you an example of why.

If you live in China, the average hourly wage for factory workers is 33 cents an hour. If you are in Bangladesh, 33 cents an hour is the average annual hourly wage, if you can find a factory job. If you are in Nicaragua, 37 cents an hour is the average annual hourly wage. In India, 11 cents an hour is the average wage. In Haiti, it is 30 cents an hour, if you can find a job. In Russia, it is 51 cents an hour. I could go on.

But my point is, there are people living in countries where, if they can find a job, they are going to be paid 30 cents an hour, 20 cents an hour, 11 cents an hour, and they take a look at this country, and they evaluate: Perhaps I need to go to the United States and be a part of that great country.

Well, because so many want to come here, we have immigration laws and quotas. We actually allow into this country, under legal quotas, a good many immigrants every single year. Well over 1 million people come into this country every single year legally as part of our immigration quota system. We have quotas for various countries and regions of the world, and we accept legal immigration from those countries. We would have had last year over 2 million people come into this country legally, with both agricultural workers and also under the legal immigration system.

But think for a moment if we decided to do it differently, after what we have spent well over the last century building in this country to expand opportunity, expand the middle class, and create an economy that is the wonder of the world--the real economic engine of the world is this economic engine of ours. Think of the consequences if, in fact, we said this: We have a new policy on immigration. Our policy is that anybody in this world who wants to come here--to stay here, to live here, to work here, to be part of the American experience--come right ahead, with no restrictions. Come into this country and be a part of our great Nation.

If we said that, if, in fact, that were our country's policy, we would be literally overrun by those who wish to come to be a part of this American experience--an America with opportunity, an America that offers hope to people living in squalid poverty, people working for 11 cents an hour. We would be overrun. As a result, what we do have is a series of immigration laws that provide for legal immigration. It restricts numbers who come in, but we still have a pretty substantial number who come in legally into this country.

Now, we are told we have a new immigration proposal put together by a group of Senators in the Senate with, I understand, the assistance of the White House--or at least the involvement of the White House--and brought to the floor of the Senate saying: Here is a new plan. It is 20 years after the last plan, which was in 1986. It was called Simpson- Mazzoli. It was the immigration plan of 1986. That was a plan that, back then, promised it would end the problem of illegal immigration by choking off the demand for illegal labor through tough enforcement and guest worker programs and also through amnesty of people who were then in the country at that point in time.

Let me read some quotes for what was done in 1986. Here are quotes in the Congressional Record. Quote:

The guts of immigration reform are here. All of it.

Employer sanctions, increased enforcement, worker

authorization system, verification systems, and legalization

is [all] there. . . .

That is what was promised 20 years ago. One Senator said:

This bill also . . . should help the Immigration and

Naturalization Service to increase Border Patrol personnel by

50 percent.

Border enforcement, employer sanctions--well, they said: We are going to ramp up border security, provide employer sanctions, so you don't have the lure of a job and, therefore, we, at the same time, will provide amnesty--this is 1986--to about 1 million illegal immigrants. When amnesty was in fact granted following that, it turns out there were 3 million or so. Everyone was pretty stunned to learn there was so little control over the borders then. But now, today--fast-forward 20 years--we have a bill on the floor of the Senate that promises almost exactly the same thing: tougher border enforcement, employer sanctions, guest workers, temporary workers--except now, 20 years later, after we solved the problem 20 years ago, we have 12 million--it is estimated 12 million--people who came here without legal authorization. We do not know that for sure. We think it is somewhere around 12 million people. So we have ``comprehensive immigration reform.''

Well, let me go back for a moment and show you that this issue of border enforcement and employer sanctions is all a matter of enforcement and will. I have just taken the period from 1999 to 2004. The current administration, as you can see, has had almost no worksite enforcement. In fact, in 2004 there were three cases in the entire Nation brought against employers who hired illegal aliens. Think of that. In the year 2000 there were 213 cases out of all of this country; out of the millions and millions of employers in this country, there were 213 cases. In 2004, it dropped to three, which meant there was no enforcement at all--no will, no interest, nothing.

Is it surprising, then, that the employers in this country would decide: Why don't I just risk it, just hire illegal aliens because nobody is checking?

Here on this chart are the fines that have been levied with respect to employer sanctions. As you can see, $118,000 for the entire country. You can see what has happened under this administration. They apparently decided: We are not going to enforce this at all. The result is a dramatic increase across the border of illegal immigrants.

Now, I know some do not like the term, and I do not mean the term as a pejorative term, but it is what it is. We have immigrants who come into this country--some legally and some illegally. That is just a fact. So there has been virtually no enforcement by this administration or really any administration, although the previous administration did much better.

But now we are told this new plan has an ability to solve this problem. We are going to have employer sanctions, we are going to have border enforcement--sound familiar? Yes, it was 20 years ago that was promised--and we are going to have temporary workers. They now call them guest workers, but they are temporary workers.

Last week I was interested that some of my colleagues, when they defeated an amendment I had by a one-vote margin--an amendment I had that would deal with the temporary worker issue. First, I wanted to abolish it. That lost by a broader margin. Then I wanted to at least subset it, and that lost by one vote. Incidentally, there was a lot of arm twisting to get that

vote. I have not seen any casts or anything on arms, but I know there was a lot of arm twisting.

We were told during the debate on the guest worker provision the following: The manager of the bill and the manager on the minority side said the same thing. They said: Look, if you do not have a temporary worker provision to allow those who are not now in this country--even as we legalize 12 million who are here with a work permit immediately-- if you do not allow millions more to come in--600,000 a year; now 200,000 a year--if you do not allow additional people to come into this country, they will come anyway. They will come as illegals across the border.

So I asked the question: Wait a second. You are saying we have to have a temporary worker program to bring people into this country who are not now here and declare them legal to take American jobs because if we don't have a temporary worker program, they will come anyway? I thought you said you had border enforcement. What you appear to be saying is, you do not have border enforcement, so for those who would come illegally, let's just see if we can label them as legal under temporary workers.

You cannot have it both ways. There either is border enforcement or there is not. You cannot say to me we must put in a temporary worker program because if it is not there we will have illegal immigration, and then in the next breath--while thumbing your suspenders--say, and by the way, we really have effective border control. If you have effective border control, why then would you have illegal immigration that necessitates you to say there are millions who live outside this country who now must be allowed in? That is on top of the 12 million people who, under this underlying bill, will be declared legal, to have legal status.

Anyone who came across by December 31 of last year--across an ocean or across a river or across any border--anyone who entered this country by December 31 of last year would be told: You now have legal status in this country and will be able to work.

My colleague, a while ago, asked a very important question: What about the people in other parts of the world who thought this was all on the level and there was an immigration system and they applied through the quota system and have waited now 8 years to see if they would be allowed to come to this country and they are near the top of the list, but now they discover something that makes them feel as if they made a big mistake? What they discovered is, while they waited all of those years to get toward the top of the list under the legal immigration system we have, with the quotas we have, they should have snuck across the border on December 31 because those who did will have been declared, by this piece of legislation, as legal. And those who went through the process and have waited years--7 years, 8 years--and are near the top of the list are told: You are just out of luck.

That does not make any sense to me. It just does not make any sense. Let me describe some quotes from the week before last.

. . . this legislation has tough border security and tough

interior enforcement provisions.

Even if you have a secure border--we are hopeful of having

secure borders--it won't stop illegal immigration.

That is from a Senator on the floor of the Senate 2 weeks ago in support of this bill.

The fact of the matter is, some workers will come here

illegally, or legally, one way or the other they come in.

That is where the temporary worker program comes in . . .

if we eliminate this program, you will have those individuals

that will crawl across the desert . . . or you can say, come

through the front door and you will be given the opportunity

to work. . . .

That is unbelievable. This is from the architects of the proposal before the Senate who come here boasting it has real security on America's borders, and then say: By the way, if we do not allow--in addition to legalizing 12 million people who came here illegally--a substantial additional number of people who do not now live here to come and take American jobs, they will come anyway because they will come as illegal immigrants--which suggests to me, at least, there is not meaningful border protection or border security in this legislation.

Let me describe for a moment the guest worker provision. These are temporary workers--I do not know why you call them guests--but these are temporary workers who would come in and take jobs at the low end of the economic scale and, by and large, put downward pressure on income for American workers. But here is how it would work.

It seems to me, you could not sit down and think of what kind of an approach we could use to put together a guest worker provision and come up with this sort of Rube Goldberg scheme. There is just no way you could possibly put this together and believe it to be serious. Here is what they say. In the case of the original proposal, which was 600,000 a year, and now it is going to be 200,000 a year, it will amount to 1.2 million over the first 10 years, and here is what they say: You can come for the first 2 years; you can bring your family if you come for the first 2 years. Then you have to go home for a year and take your family with you, then come back for 2 more years. Then you leave again. If you never brought your family to begin with, you can then come back for 2 more years. So you can be here for a total of 6 years and you can only have your family here for 2 years and you all have to leave this country twice. That is unbelievable. Who on Earth can sit in a room and construct that sort of nonsense?

Aside from the fact that we shouldn't have that provision in the bill, we are told, this is the way it will work. How many believe you will have 1,200,000 people come for 2 years, with their families, if they wish, and then all of them will go home? Let's assume they all went home, they get to go home for a year and come back for 2 years and then again go home for a year and then come back for 2 years, how many of you believe they are all going to leave? They are not.

Let me emphasize that the guest worker program has nothing to do with agricultural work. These are nonagricultural workers. These will be in manufacturing and in other areas.

Also, the guest worker program applies in sectors of our economy where the vast majority of the jobs are done by U.S. citizens. That is a fact. They say this is necessary because you can't find U.S. workers to take these jobs. That is not the case. These jobs are not picking strawberries. Those jobs are in the agricultural worker provisions. But these temporary workers are in construction, manufacturing, transportation, all of which have a wide majority of U.S. workers--80, 90 percent of the workers are U.S. workers. So don't tell me you can't find U.S. workers to fill these jobs. In all of these cases-- construction, transportation, manufacturing--80 to 90 percent of them are already U.S. workers.

What does immigration do to American workers? One of the points I have made is this is a way of putting downward pressure on wages in our country. This is from Professor George Borjas, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He says, on average, the impact of 1980 through 2000 immigration on U.S. wages, on average, it has reduced wages by about 3.7 percent. I don't think there is much question that if you bring in a lot of people through the back door to compete for low-wage jobs, you are going to put downward pressure on wages. That is a fact.

Here is an example of my concern and one of the things that persuades me we ought to do better. Hurricane Katrina hit on the gulf coast and we had a lot of cleanup to do. When Hurricane Katrina devastated that gulf coast, FEMA and others began to let contracts to try to see how we could create this cleanup, and here is what happened October 22, 2005: Sam Smith was an electrician. He lost his house. He lost a lot during the hurricane. His house was in the ninth ward. It was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He was an electrician, age 55, who returned to the city for the cleanup, the promise of a $22-an-hour wage, and guaranteed work for 1 year, a qualified electrician. He lost his job within 3 weeks--within 3 weeks. Let me show you why these folks--Sam Smith lost his house, lost his job, and here is who the subcontractor brings in. Take a look at the barracks: Illegal workers brought in living in these squalid conditions. Can you get them to work for less? Sure, you can. Is it the right thing to do? No,

of course, it is not because an American worker who lost his house and then lost his job--Sam Smith--deserves better. But that is a small example of what we face with respect to the downward pressure on income for those who work at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Now, the Wall Street Journal ran a very interesting story in January of this year. It showed that in an area where there is a sudden drop in the availability of illegal immigrants, the wages for U.S. workers then rise. There was a series of raids by Federal immigration agents in Stillmore, GA, and this is again quoting from the Wall Street Journal:

A local poultry processing company called Crider Inc. lost

75 percent of its 900 member work force when they were found

to be illegal aliens--

Illegal workers. The company apparently, according to the story, had a pretty good idea that a good number of its workers had been illegal.

One worker--

It says in the story--

arrived at the plant in 2004. As she filled out an

application, she tried to use the Social Security number, a

tax payer identification number that started with the numeral

9. The company clerk stopped her and said valid Social

Security numbers never begin with a 9.

The clerk kept saying: Maybe you want to put down a 4 or a 6. So the illegal immigrant wrote down a 6, and of course the application was accepted.

After the raid, almost 75 percent of the workers were determined to have been illegal immigrants and the company decided it needed to find workers, so they decided to raise wages. An advertisement in the weekly newspaper titled ``Increased Wages'' at Crider, starting at $7 to $9 an hour. That was more than a dollar an hour above what the company had paid many immigrant workers. It began offering free transportation from nearby towns, free rooms in company-owned dormitories near the plant, and for the first time in years, the company aggressively sought workers from the area State-funded employment office, which is a key avenue for low-skilled workers to find jobs.

Continuing again to describe the Wall Street Journal article, it said: Hundreds of local workers, many of them minorities, accepted the higher wages and were happy to take these jobs. Pretty soon this Georgia company was apparently hiring back some additional illegal immigrant workers who had been previously caught up in the raid. They turned to a ``temporary labor provider'' who began to provide the company with the same illegal immigrant workers who had been caught in the first raid. So the immigration officials conducted a second raid and the company then finally agreed to stop working with temporary labor.

The point of this story is very simple: If you have substantial amounts of illegal immigrant labor coming in, it puts downward pressure on wages. Eliminate that illegal labor from the marketplace, and what happens is you raise wages at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Robert Samuelson wrote an editorial in the Washington Post some while ago. He said: It is simply a myth that the U.S. economy needs more poor immigrants. He pointed out that in March the unemployment rate for college graduates in this country was 1.8 percent. The unemployment rate for the 13 million U.S. workers without a high school diploma is over 7 percent. Those 13 million U.S. workers without a high school diploma compete directly with the immigrant workers who come here illegally and who do not have a high school diploma. That is what puts downward pressure on wages in this country.

This is, as I indicated earlier, a very difficult issue, filled with passion, and I understand that. I think there are a lot of immigrant families living in this country, perhaps many who came here without legal authorization, and many came here 5 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. They have lived model lives. They have gone to school here. They have gotten jobs. I understand all that. I think we should deal with that in a sensitive way. There are many who should not be expelled from this country. We are not going to round up 12 million people and deport them. We are not going to do that. So we need to find a way to deal appropriately with these issues. But that appropriate way does not say anyone who came across illegally into this country on December 31 of last year is deemed to have come here legally. That is not the right approach. You can't do that.

Second, you should not be oblivious to the needs in this country of the low-income workers. We have a whole lot of people today who got up this morning who are going to work hard all day long and come home with very little to show for it, in many cases two and three jobs. You know the people. They are the ones who know about being second. The people who know about secondhand, second mortgage, second job, second shift. They are always in second place. They are the ones who have the least opportunity in this country to get a decent wage because their productivity goes up and their wage does not. As long as there are employers who are able to bring in across the border--a border that leaks like a sieve when it comes to illegal immigrants--as long as there are employers who are willing to put downward pressure on income for American workers, we are going to see people at the bottom of the economic ladder in this country continuing to struggle. That is a fact.

The question is: Are we going to do something about it? When we deal with immigration, we ought to do 2 things. First and foremost, we ought to have a bill on the floor of the Senate that deals with border security. You can't deal with this issue without stopping illegal immigration. After all, we allow nearly a couple million people in this country every single year under a legal system. But if you don't stop at the border this unbelievable avalanche of illegal immigrants, you don't have any hope of dealing with this issue. First and foremost, you have to deal with border security. That ought to be the bill on the floor of the Senate. Then, after we have dealt with border security, we ought to deal with the question of the 12 million people who are here without legal authorization. I would be the first to join those who say let's be sensitive and let's be thoughtful about that. We are not going to round up 12 million people. There are some who have been here a long while and raised families here who have contributed to this country and we need to understand that. That is a different issue than the issue of border security. If we don't do border security and do it right, this is another way to say: Let's provide amnesty this time for 12 million people; we did it for 3 million people 12 years ago. By the way, let's meet again. In fact, let's set a date right now. We will meet again in 10 years, if, in fact, those who wrote this bill were telling me what they believe 2 weeks ago and that is if you don't have a temporary worker program, you are going to have people come here illegally anyway. What that means is they don't have real border security or the least bit of confidence in the border security and their bill. That is a fact.

There is a generous amount of discussion on the floor of this Senate about issues that are completely devoid of the well-being and the best interests of people in this country who work very hard and show very little for it. I would love to see a long discussion on the floor of this Senate about international trade and the $830 billion trade deficit, and American companies being given a tax break by this Congress and previous Congresses, American companies who shut their manufacturing plant, fire all their workers, and ship their jobs to Chinese or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka or Indonesia. They actually get a tax break for doing it. I have tried four times to shut it down. I have been unsuccessful. I would love to have a debate about that. In fact, it is the same coin, just the reverse side. Shipping American jobs overseas is the reverse side of the coin of bringing cheap labor through the back door. That is a fact.

I understand where the impulse comes from. It comes from many large enterprises, many big businesses who have convinced this Congress--or too many in this Congress--that you can't fill jobs with Americans, you have to bring in people from across the border or from around the world. There aren't enough Americans to assume these jobs.

I don't believe that. I believe as long as you keep a constant supply of cheap labor coming into this country, you keep downward pressure on wages, and the person across the convenience store counter, the person who made the bed

in your hotel room where you stayed last night, the person who works in all of those jobs at the lower end of the economic ladder, they will never, ever see a better income.

It took us nearly 10 years to pass an increase in the minimum wage in this Congress. One of the reasons for that is the same influence in this Chamber that exists in support of this bill. The biggest businesses in this country didn't want an increase in the minimum wage and they blocked it for nearly 10 years. The biggest interests in this country that want to shift jobs overseas, want to continue to bring cheap labor through the back door, and that is the genesis of this kind of legislation.

I am not averse to resolving the status of the 12 million who are here without legal authorization, but I wouldn't do it this way. I certainly wouldn't point to December 31 and say: By the way, if you got here last December 31, good for you, we declare you to be legal. That is a thoughtless approach, not a thoughtful approach, to dealing with these issues.

Mr. President, one final point: It is the case that I come to the floor of the Senate on this issue concerned about a lot of people in this country who work hard and get little for it. We have seen a dramatic increase in the largesse of this country going to the top 1 percent of the income in this country--the top 1 percent, I should say, of the people who earn income in this country have seen dramatic increases in their income. Yet the bottom 20, bottom 40 percent, in many cases, have seen that they have not been able to increase their income at all.

I think an aggressive debate about how we improve the lot of all Americans would be helpful. But we don't improve the lot of Americans who have done the work they wanted to do, to go find a job and get educated, we don't do their bidding and help them by deciding we are going to keep downward pressure on their wages. This is exactly the wrong approach.

I know the Chair and the ranking member are here. They wish to get to the bill. I know there will be many amendments this week. Let me say this. I would be very interested in voting for a piece of legislation that I thought was on the level, that will provide real border security. That is the first and most important need in dealing with immigration. But 2 weeks ago, the very people who wrote this bill said if we don't have temporary workers coming in under the temporary worker program, they will come in illegally anyway.

I think that unmasks the fallacy of this bill. There is not border protection here that will work. There has not been a will to enforce it in the past. This legislation will continue to put downward pressure on the income for American workers. That is exactly the wrong thing for us to do.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I voted in favor of the Vitter amendment yesterday because I do not support a plan that tells those who came to this country illegally up until December 31 of last year that they are excused and now have legal status.

I think that is a mistake.

But I do want to state clearly that there are a fair number of those 12 million people who came in here without legal authorization whose status must be resolved in a sensitive way. I am talking about those who have been here for decades, who have raised families, worked hard, and been model citizens. I believe we should adjust their status and give them an opportunity to earn citizenship.

That same right, however, should not apply to someone who just last December decided that they were going to sneak into this country illegally.

My understanding is that we will have additional amendments that will be sensitive to the need to distinguish that difference and I intend to support the amendments that will provide the sensitivity to those immigrants who have been here leading productive lives for a long period of time.

Mr. President, my understanding is--I will wait for Senator Kennedy to appear on the floor--my understanding is there would be an agreement to allow me to offer my amendment at this point, which would require me to set aside whatever pending amendment exists. If that is acceptable, I will do that, offer my amendment, and then speak on my amendment.

So I ask whether that it is acceptable for me to ask consent to set aside the pending amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I may be able to offer an amendment that is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask for the amendment's immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Durbin be added as a cosponsor to the amendment.

Mr. President, this amendment is relatively simple. It is an amendment that would sunset the so-called guest worker or temporary worker provision.

As my colleagues know, I was on the floor the day before yesterday attempting to abolish the temporary or guest worker provision. I failed to do that. We had a vote and, regrettably, in the Senate they count the votes, and when they counted those votes, I was on the short end. I have felt very strongly about this issue, and I wish to describe why. But having lost that vote, what I next propose is that we sunset the temporary or guest worker provision.

Let me describe that even if we were not on the floor of the Senate talking about immigration today, we have a great deal of legal immigration in this country. We have a system by which there is a quota where we allow in people from other countries to become citizens of our country, to have a green card, to work, and then work toward citizenship.

Let me describe that even if we were not here with an immigration proposal, here is who would be coming to our country. The 2006 numbers, I believe, are: 1.2 million people--1,266,000 people--last year came to this country legally; 117,000 of them came from Africa; 422,000 came from Asia; 164,000 came from Europe; 414,000 came from various locations in North America, including the Caribbean, Central America, and other portions of North America; 138,000 came from South America.

Let me reiterate, the cumulation is 1.2 million people that came to this country legally, and received green cards last year. So it is not as if there is not immigration--legal immigration. We have a process by which we allow that to happen.

There are people, even as I speak this morning, who are in Africa or Europe or Asia or South America or Central America, and they have wanted to come to this country, and they have made application. They have waited 5 years, 7 years, 10 years, and perhaps they have risen to the top of the list or close to the top of the list to--under the legal process for coming to this country--be able to gain access to this country.

Then, they read we have a new proposal on immigration. No, it is not that immigration quota where you apply and you wait over a long period of time. It is that if you came into this country by December 31 of last year--snuck in, walked in, flew in--illegally, we, with this legislation, deem you to be here legally. We say: Yes, you came here illegally. You were among 12 million of them who came here illegally-- some of them walking across, I assume, on December 31, who crossed the southern border--and this legislation says: Oh, by the way, that does not matter. What we are going to do is describe you as being here legally, and we are going to give you a permit to go to work.

What does that say to people in Africa or Asia or Europe who have been waiting because they filed, they believed this was all on the level, there is a process by which you come to this country legally--it is quota--and they decided to go through that process? What does it say to them that now we have said: Do you know what. You would have been better off sneaking across the border on December 31 of last year because, with a magic wand, this legislation would say you are perfectly legal.

In addition to the 1.2 million people who came here legally, under this bill there would be another 1.5 million people coming to do agricultural jobs. There are also 12 million people who have come here illegally. Let me say quickly I understand there will be some of them who have been here 10 years, 20 years, and more, who came here--they didn't come legally, I understand that--but they have been here for two or three decades. They have raised their families here, they have been model citizens, they have worked. I understand we are not going to round them up and ship them out of this country. I understand that. There needs to be a sensitive, thoughtful way to address the status of those who have been here for a long period of time and who have been model citizens. This is different than deciding that those who walked across the border on December 31 of last year are going to be deemed legal. That is very different.

But in addition to those questions about the legal status of 12 million people who came here without legal authorization, the other question is: Should we decide to bring additional people into this country who aren't now here to take American jobs under a provision called the guest worker or temporary worker provision?

Now, you don't have to read many newspapers in the morning to see the next story about the company that closed its plant, fired its workers, and moved its jobs to China. You don't have to spend a lot of time looking for stories such as that. They are all around us, American companies exporting American jobs in search of cheap labor in China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and at exactly the same time, we see all of these stories about exporting American jobs. We now see the urgings of the biggest enterprises in this country, many of which do export these jobs in search of cheap labor. We see their urgings to allow them to bring in additional cheap labor from outside of this country into this country to assume jobs American workers now have. They say these workers are necessary because they can't find American workers to do those jobs. That is not true. They don't want to pay a decent wage for those jobs. The people across the counter at the convenience store, the people who make the beds in the morning at the hotels, if they paid a decent wage, they will get workers, but they don't want to have to do that. What they want to do is bring in cheap labor, and that is why we have a guest or a temporary worker provision.

I talked yesterday on the floor of the Senate about Circuit City, the story which reinforces all of this for me. Circuit City, a corporation all of us know, announced they have decided to fire 3,400 workers. The CEO of Circuit City, it says in the newspaper, makes $10 million a year. They announced they are going to fire 3,400 workers at Circuit City because they make $11 an hour and that is too much to pay a worker. They want to fire their workers and hire less experienced workers at a lower wage. This pernicious downward pressure on income in this country--fewer benefits, less retirement, less health care, lower income--is, in my judgment, initiated by the export of American jobs for low wages and the import of cheap labor for low wages, all of it coming together to say to the American worker: It is a different day for you and a different time for you. Don't expect the kind of wages you used to have. There is downward pressure on all of those wages, and that is part and parcel of what this proposal is: temporary guest workers.

Let me show you a graph I put up the other day, and this is a graph that has 200,000 temporary workers, because the proposal I tried to completely abolish was bringing in 400,000 temporary workers a year. That was cut by the Bingaman amendment to 200,000 a year. Let me describe how it works, because I am anxious to put a tape recorder on somebody and go listen to how they describe this at a town meeting, if they decide to vote for this.

Two hundred thousand foreign workers can come in as temporary or guest workers for 2 years. So these 200,000 come in for 2 years; then the second year another 200,000 can come in, so you have 400,000 the second year, but the 200,000 who come in can come in for 2 years, and they can bring their family if they wish. Then they have to go home for a year and take their family with them, and then they can come back for 2 more years. Or, they can come in for 2 years, not bring their family, go home for a year, and bring their family for another two years. Or, they can decide to come in for 2 years without a family, 2 years without a family, 2 years without a family, as long as they stay 1 year between each of the 2-year periods; as long as they stay 1 year outside of this country between those periods. It is the most Byzantine thing I have seen.

Now, what are the consequences of it? The consequences are this: This is cumulative, so what we have are these blocks of 200,000 workers who come and go, come and go. They stay 2 years, leave a year, bring their family, maybe don't bring their family. It is unbelievable. We are not talking about a few million people here. Add all these family members to these 200,000 workers who come for 2 years with their families and ask yourselves: What kind of immigration is this? By the way, where will they get jobs when they come to this country? We already have an agricultural provision that is in this legislation, so these are not farm workers. We are not talking about people who come and pick strawberries here. We are talking about people who will assume jobs--we are told--in manufacturing. Why? Because we don't have enough American workers in manufacturing? Are you kidding me?

I have described at length on the floor of the Senate the people who lost their jobs because their manufacturing jobs went to China for 20 cents an hour labor, 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. They want to know where to get people to work in manufacturing? Go find the people who were laid off--thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions laid off--because their company decided they were going to make their products in China. If they need hints, go back and read my previous speeches on the floor of the Senate. Fruit of the Loom underwear, a lot of folks worked there; not anymore. Levi's, not any more. Huffy Bicycles, no more. Radio Flyer, Little Red Wagon, no more. Fig Newton Cookies, no. All of those folks worked for all of those companies. Pennsylvania House Furniture.

My colleague from Pennsylvania is on the floor. Pennsylvania House Furniture is a great example of what has been happening, if you want to find some great workers, some real craftsmen. I know I have told this story before, and I will tell it again, because it is so important and so emblematic of what is going on.

Not many people know it, but Pennsylvania House Furniture, which is fine furniture--those folks in Pennsylvania who use Pennsylvania wood and were craftsmen to put together upper-end furniture, they all got fired because La-Z-Boy bought them and they decided they wanted to move Pennsylvania House Furniture to China, and they did. Now they ship the Pennsylvania wood to China, make the furniture and sell it back here as Pennsylvania furniture. But on the last day of work with the last piece of furniture these Pennsylvania House Furniture craftsmen produced--not many people know that they turned the last piece of furniture upside down, and as it came off the line, all of these craftsmen who for years have made some of the finest furniture in this country, decided to sign the bottom of that piece of furniture. Somebody in this country has a piece of furniture and they don't know it has the signatures of all the craftsmen at Pennsylvania House Furniture on the bottom of their piece of furniture. Do you know why they signed it? Because they understood how good they were. They didn't lose their jobs to China because they didn't do good work. They were wonderful craftsmen and they were proud of their work and

they wanted to sign that piece of furniture. Somebody has that piece of furniture today, but none of those craftsmen have a job today. If somebody is looking for a manufacturing worker, I can steer them in the right direction. We have plenty of people in this country who need these jobs.

We are told two things that are contradictory. We are told there is bona fide border security in this bill. I happen to think the way you deal with immigration, first and foremost, is to provide border security. If you don't have border security, you don't have immigration reform because all you will do is nick at the edges and continue to have a stream of illegal workers flowing into this country. So the first and most important step is to provide border security.

I was here in 1986, and I heard the promises of border security, but in fact, there wasn't border security. Employer sanctions. In fact, there were not employer sanctions that were enforced. No enforcement on the border of any consequence; no enforcement with respect to employer sanctions.

We are told a guest worker provision is necessary because we cannot provide border security. Several of those who have been involved with this compromise have said: Workers will come here illegally or legally; one way or another, they are going to come in. My colleague has a couple of times pointed to the Governor of Arizona--and I suspect she did say this; I don't contest that--the Governor of Arizona, Governor Napolitano, says: You know, if you build a 50-foot-high fence, those who want to come in will get a 51-foot ladder.

Well, if that is the case, if Governor Napolitano is correct, then I guess we are not going to have border security unless we cut the legs off 51-foot-ladders. The implication of that is: Illegal immigration is going to occur, like it or not. Therefore, let's have a temporary worker program, which means we will describe as legal those who come in illegally. That is the point. I mean, I don't understand this; I just don't.

So I lose the amendment fair and square to try to strike that temporary worker provision. I understand where the votes were on it. But I come to the floor suggesting let's do one additional thing. Let's at least sunset this provision.

Here is what will happen for 10 years under the temporary worker provision. This chart shows 10 years, 200,000 in the first year, 200,000 the second year. That first group of 200,000 will be on their second year, so as those 200,000 continue their work the second year, another 200,000 will join them, and then by the fourth year, we have 600,000. By the fifth year, we have 800,000.

My proposition is this: Why don't we decide to sunset this at the end of 5 years and take a look at it and see. We have plenty of experience with claims that have never borne fruit here on the floor of the Senate. Why don't we take a look at 5 years and see where the claims were made for the temporary worker provisions. Were they claims that turned out to have been accurate or not?

Now, my understanding is--and I was looking for a statement in the press that was reporting on a colleague who was part of the compromise, if I can find it. Let me read from Congress Daily, Wednesday, May 23, which would have been yesterday.

One change that might win over some would be a sunset

provision which Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat, North Dakota,

said he wanted to offer after his proposal to eliminate the

guest worker program failed.

Continuing to quote:

Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, who helped

negotiate the compromise immigration bill, said today he

would not consider the sunset proposal a deal breaker.

I am quoting now Senator Martinez from Congress Daily:

Labor conditions might change, Martinez said. I don't see

why in five years we shouldn't revisit what we have done.

Martinez is among a group of roughly a dozen Senators dubbed the ``grand bargainers,'' who have agreed to vote as a block to stop any amendments they believe would unravel the fragile immigration compromise on the Senate floor.

So at least one of the grand bargainers, Senator Martinez, has told Congress Daily that the amendment I offer is not a deal breaker. He says:

I think it is perfectly reasonable.

Again quoting him:

I don't see why in five years we should not revisit what we

have done.

So I would say to my colleagues, at least one of the ``grand bargainers,'' so described by Congress Daily, has said the amendment that I offer with Senator Boxer and Senator Durbin to provide a sunset after 5 years to the temporary or guest worker provision would not be a deal breaker.

We have passed a lot of legislation in the Congress that represents important policy choices and a number of those pieces of legislation have sunset provisions. The farm bill. The farm bill has sunset provisions in it. The Energy bill, the bankruptcy reform bill, the intelligence reform bill, all have sunset provisions. The purpose: Let's find out what happened and then determine what we do next. A sunset clause doesn't mean a piece of legislation will not get reauthorized. It might. If all of the claims that buttress the original passage turn out to be accurate, then you might well want to reauthorize it. But with other pieces of legislation, we have sunsetted key provisions. Why wouldn't we want to do the same with respect to temporary workers, which will open the gate and say come into this country.

This immigration bill that we have, with 12 million people being deemed legal, who came without legal authorization, that is not enough. We need more. I know we had discussion yesterday about chicken pluckers on the floor of the Senate. How much money will chicken pluckers make? Well, I will tell you one thing about chicken pluckers and those who do that kind of work. They are never going to make the money they used to make because of downward pressure on wages. That downward pressure in that sector comes directly from a massive quantity of cheap labor that has come into this country. That may be all right if you are not plucking chickens.

If you are working in one of those plants and you see what happened to wage standards and wage rates, it is very hard to say we are making progress on behalf of the American worker. We are not. That is what brings me to the floor of the Senate. I regret that I disagree with some very good friends in the Congress on these issues. But the fact is that this is very important public policy. This public policy and things that attend to it and relate to it determine what kind of jobs we are going to have in the future, what kind of economic expansion we will have, and what can the middle-income families expect for themselves and their kids and their lives.

I am not going to speak much longer, but I wish to say this. I remind all my colleagues where we have been. Almost a century ago, there was a man who was killed. I wrote about him and said he died of lead poisoning. He actually was shot 54 times--James Fyler. The reason he was shot 54 times almost a century ago is he was one of these people who decided to fight for workers' rights in this country. He believed that people who were coal miners and went into a coal mine ought to be able to expect, one, a fair wage; two, they ought to expect to be able to work in a safe workplace; they ought to have the right to organize and fight for those things. For that, he was shot 54 times.

For over a century, beginning with that, we dramatically, and through great difficulty, improved standards in this country. We demanded safe workplaces, fair labor standards, and all these things that would raise people up. We expended the middle class and created a country that is extraordinary, a middle class in which they could find good jobs that paid well and had decent fringe benefits. They negotiated for decent health care and retirement benefits. We did something extraordinary in this country. That didn't happen by accident.

At this point, all around the country, with middle-income workers, they see a retraction of those things, a downward pressure on their income, much less job security, and too many workers being treated akin to wrenches--use them up and throw them away. If you pay $11 an hour, that is too much. You find workers for $8 an hour, with no experience. Terrific. Or you can pay 30 cents an hour in China; that is even better.

You may say, what does that have to do with this bill? A lot, in my judgment. That is what pushes me to come to the floor on these amendments--not because I wish to hear myself talk or because I wish to take on friends but because I think the direction we are headed in is wrong. Yes, we have an immigration problem. I accept that and I understand that. I believe the first step to resolving it is border security because, otherwise, 10 or 15 years from now, we will be back with another immigration problem, and we will understand there was not border security. Those who tell us there is border security are the same ones who tell us, as Janet Napolitano says, that if we build a 50- foot fence, they will get a 51-foot ladder. You can't stop it, so declare it legal. Illegal immigration is going to occur, like it or not; therefore, let's have a temporary worker program. I disagree with that.

The fact is, I don't know all the nuances of what happened this week. I know this: The price for the support of the national Chamber of Commerce in the last bill brought to the Senate--the price for the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was to allow them to bring in this cheap labor in the form of guest or temporary workers. I didn't support it then; I don't support it now.

We have 1.2 million people who came in legally last year. I support that process. That is a quota system. The process works. We refresh and nurture this country with immigrants. So 1.2 million were allowed in under the legal immigration system last year. That doesn't count the agricultural workers who would come in under the AgJobs program in this bill. That is another 1 million-plus people.

I also understand the urging and the interest to try to be sensitive in resolving the status of people who have been here a long time. Yes, they came without legal authorization, but they have been model citizens. They have lived up the block, down the street, and on the farm, and they have been among us and raised their families and gone to school; they have good jobs. Should we resolve their status with some sensitivity? Of course, I fully support that. But you do not resolve that, in my judgment, by pointing to December 31 of last year and saying, by the way, anybody who came across December 31 of last year and prior to that is considered to have legal status in our country. That is the wrong way to resolve it.

Let me do two things. Let me urge my colleagues to support a 5-year sunset on this legislation. Let me say a second time to those with whom I disagree, I respect their views. I disagree strongly with them. I mean no disrespect on the floor of the Senate about the views they hold. They perhaps hold them as strongly as I hold my views. I believe in my heart, when you look at people who got up this morning and got dressed and went to work, many of whom packed a lunch bucket, they came home and took a shower after work because they work hard and sweat, those people want something better for their lives in this country. They want the ability to get ahead and to get a decent wage for their work.

Regrettably, all too often, that is being denied them by a strategy that says this country values cheap labor.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, of course I will yield.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, Senator Durbin will ask to speak for 10 minutes, and we will do that in addition to the 10 minutes I will want to speak before my vote, if that is acceptable.

Prior to my vote.

Mr. President, my colleague from Arizona used the dreaded words ``killer amendment.'' It is like killer bees and killer whales. On the Senate floor, it is ``killer amendment.'' Pass this amendment, and we will kill the bill, we are told.

I said yesterday that it is like the loose thread on a cheap sweater: You pull the thread, and the arm falls off or, God forbid, the whole thing comes apart. It is not just this bill. This happens every single time a group of people bring a bill to the floor of the Senate. If you amend it, if you change our work, then somehow you kill what we have done. Of course, that is not the case at all.

Let me talk about a couple of the items that have been raised. Worker protection. The workers in New Bedford, MA. Let me describe to you a worker in the Gulf of Mexico just after Hurricane Katrina hit. His name is Sam Smith. Sam Smith was an electrician. Just after Katrina hit, he knew there was going to be a lot of reconstruction work. Sam Smith was a skilled craftsman, an electrician. He was told by an employer that he could come back and take a $22 an hour job--$22 an hour--for work as an electrician. The job would last 1 year. It only lasted a couple weeks. I don't have the picture to show you, but I have had it here on the floor before to show what Sam Smith faced, and it was a picture very similar to New Bedford, MA. Those who came into this country, presumably illegally, living in squalid conditions, being given very low wages to take the work Sam Smith was promised.

What is the solution? Well, the fact is, in New Bedford, MA, and in this case, the employer is guilty, in my judgment, of mistreating its workers. We have worker protection laws in this country. We have worker protections. If an employer abuses them in New Bedford, MA, or New Orleans, LA, that employer is responsible. Law enforcement is responsible to investigate and prosecute.

That is not what this bill is about. My colleague says, well, the way to resolve the situation in New Bedford, MA, is to make the illegal immigrants working there legal. Just describe them as legal. Would that be the way you would handle it in New Orleans, LA, to say, well, the people who came in to take Sam's job should be deemed legal? I don't think so. Why not punish the employer for abusing the rights of these immigrant workers and why not restore those jobs to those who were the victims of the hurricane in the first place? Is the principle here that we describe the problem as mistreatment of workers who are illegal immigrants, and therefore what we will do is deem them legal to hold those jobs and therefore expect some other kind of behavior by the employer? I don't think so. So that is a specious argument, frankly. We have worker protection laws. They ought to be enforced. If they are not enforced, there is something wrong with the system.

Now, one of my colleagues says there is no doubt that we need additional workers. Oh yes, there is doubt--probably not in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. There is no doubt they want additional cheap labor. But there is plenty of doubt.

My colleague says there is an economist from Harvard who says this raises the GDP, this bringing in of immigrant labor, presumably illegal labor, determining that they are then legal once they have come across illegally. It raises the GDP. Well, you can get a Harvard economist to say anything you want. We all know that.

Let me describe my Harvard economist--my Harvard economist, Professor George Borjas. Here is what he says. The impact of immigration between 1980 and 2000 on U.S. wages is lower wages in this country, and he describes which ethnic group is hurt the worst. Hispanics are hurt the worst and Blacks next.

My colleague says that his Harvard economist states that one of the benefits of bringing in this additional labor from outside of our country is lower costs. Well, in my hometown, I understand what lower costs means. It means they are going to pay less to the people making it. That is called lower wages. And that is exactly what my Harvard professor says is the case.

Mr. President, I profoundly misunderstood the unanimous consent request. That is my fault, not the Presiding Officer's. I will ask consent, of course, to speak after the break for the luncheons, and I guess we have in order 10 minutes for me and 10 minutes for Senator Durbin prior to the vote on my amendment; is that correct?

One of the things I am good at is wrapping up. So let me wrap up in 2 minutes by going through this grid so that we would then recognize Senator Coleman for the time he has been given.

Mr. President, I will yield the floor to the Senator from Minnesota. I will have time to wrap up. If we are in a time requirement, I will yield the floor and find time elsewhere.

Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer.

I yield an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, there is no social program in this country as important as a good job that pays well. That is just a fact. Having a job that pays well, with some job security, is the way we expand opportunity in this country and allow someone to be able to take care of their family.

We are told by those who offer this legislation that there are jobs Americans won't take, that we don't have enough workers and we should bring in workers from outside of our country. Well, it is true there are jobs, for example, at the lower end of the economic scale where businesses that offer those jobs don't want to pay anything for those jobs, and so they do not have people rushing to beat down the door to get those jobs. They do not have to pay a decent wage for those jobs if they can keep bringing in cheap labor. That is what is at work here in the guest worker program. I thought supply and demand was something that was cherished and embraced by the people who most strongly support this. Supply and demand. So if you are having trouble finding workers for a job, you raise the price, you raise the wage.

Do my colleagues know what is happening to workers in this country? Their productivity has gone way up. We have had dramatic gains in productivity by workers. Has their income gone up? No, not at all, especially those at the bottom. There is downward pressure on their income. Why? Because we are told we can have an almost inexhaustible supply of cheap labor coming into this country.

Even if this bill were not on the floor, we bring in 1.2 million people per year under the legal process by which people come to this country. So it is not as if there is not going to be immigration. On top of that, there will be well over a million people coming in for agricultural jobs without this bill. But this bill says that is not enough, that we need additional workers to come in because we need more of those workers, particularly unskilled workers, at the bottom.

Here is what this group has put together as a plan. It is hard for me to see how you could come up with a plan such as this, but this is the plan. It used to be 400,000, but now it is 200,000. In the first year, we bring in 200,000 people from outside of this country to come in and take American jobs--200,000 people come on in. They can stay for 2 years, by the way, and bring their family, if they want. Then they go home for a year, come back for 2, go home for a year, and come back for 2 more years. If they bring their family, they can only come twice, with a year in between.

So here is the way it works: 200,000 come in the first year. They stay here for the second year. That is 200,000. Another 200,000 come in, perhaps their families come in. Let's go through year 10. What you have, for example, in year 10 is you have 1,200,000 people here in year 10; 11, 1,200,000 people; in year 8, you have 1,200,000 people. We are not talking about 200,000 people; we are talking about millions of people, including their families, coming in during this period of time for the sole and exclusive purpose of taking American jobs--jobs which we offer in this country and which we are told Americans will not perform.

That is simply not true, by the way. Americans will perform these jobs if there are decent wages. But you don't have to pay decent wages if you can bring in people from elsewhere who are used to working for 50 cents an hour or from Asia where they are used to working for 20 cents an hour and working 7 days a week, 12 and 14 hours per day. If you dispute that, go to Xianxian, China, and check any of the factories there and find out the conditions and the wages.

Well, my point is this: We will get these millions of people into this country on top of the 1.2 million who will already come in legally. Plus we will say to the 12 million who came in illegally that you, too, now are deemed to be legal and given a work permit. On top of that, we want to bring in additional guest or temporary workers. I ask this question: Of these millions of people--millions of people--how many of them are going to leave and go back home?

My colleague yesterday said that the Governor of Arizona, who probably knows as much about this as any other Member of the Senate, has pointed out that you can build the fence down there--talking about the southern border--but if it is 49 feet high, they will have a 50- foot ladder. Talk to the Arizona Governor, he says. It is a matter of fact that some workers will still come here illegally or legally, but one way or another, they will come in. So much for the proposition that the bill brought to the floor of the Senate solves the immigration problem.

We are told we need a guest worker or temporary worker provision here because they are going to come anyway. Apparently, we are saying: OK, they are going to come in illegally anyway because we can't stop them-- we don't have a provision in the bill to stop them--so we will very cleverly say they are guest workers and give them a permit as they come in. That is the bottom line here.

My amendment is very simple. I lost the amendment to strip out the guest worker provision, a provision we don't need and shouldn't need. It is a provision that is the price paid to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for their support for this bill even as they export good American jobs through the front door, mostly to Asia. We don't need and should not support this provision. I lost my amendment the day before yesterday to strike this provision. This amendment I offer today says at least--at least let us sunset this provision in 5 years so we can take a look at whether any of these promises have made any sense.

I was here in the Congress in 1986. I heard all the promises of the Simpson-

Mazzoli Act. None of them were true, and 3 million people got amnesty. There was no border security to speak of, no employer sanctions to speak of, and there was no enforcement. Now, all these years later, we have 12 million people in this country without legal authorization. What do we do? We bring a new bill to the floor with border security, with employer sanctions, and a guest worker provision. Nirvana.

The fact is, it is not going to work, regrettably, and this is the worst possible provision in this bill, in my judgment.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve my time.

How much time remains?

I will reserve the 17 seconds unless the Senator from Massachusetts is ready to yield back, and then I will yield back and we can vote.

I yield my time.

Mr. President, I am pleased today to join my colleague from New Mexico in introducing legislation to reauthorize two very important efforts to address diabetes prevention and treatment and research: the Special Diabetes Program for Indians, which is administered by the Indian Health Service's Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention, and the Special Diabetes Programs for Children with Type I Diabetes Research, which is administered by the National Institutes of Health.

The Indian Affairs Committee held an oversight hearing on diabetes in Indian country this past February. Diabetes is an illness that afflicts Native Americans more than any other ethnic/racial group in the United States, and some tribes have the onerous distinction of having the highest diabetes rate in the world. Indian people are 318 percent more likely to die from diabetes than the general population.

The Special Diabetes Program for Indians is recognized as the most comprehensive rural system of care for diabetes in the United States. Grants under this program have been awarded by the Indian Health Service to nearly 400 IHS, tribal and urban Indian programs within the 12 IHS Areas in 35 States. The program serves approximately 116,000 Native American people with various prevention and treatment services.

While each of the Special Diabetes Program grants reflects the unique tribal community that conducts the program, here are some examples of the kinds of activities the program provides: teaching Indians living with diabetes how to examine and take care of their feet; helping young mothers learn how to eat healthy using commodity foods issued under the USDA's Food Distribution Program on Indian reservations, and how to learn the value of breastfeeding their babies to reduce the incidence of diabetes as the children grow older; enabling diabetics to have access to regular eye screening exams; helping Native Americans know the connection between eating healthy and preventing diabetes by adapting materials of the National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial, called the Diabetes Prevention Program, to be culturally- appropriate; promoting physical activity in the reservation environment, such as building walking trails and displaying signs that say, ``Walk, don't take the elevator;'' and enabling Indian Health Service, tribal and urban Indian health programs to offer new medications for diabetes, such as glitazone, which helps increase insulin sensitivity.

Reauthorization of the Special Diabetes Program for Indians is both a legislative and a medical priority for Indian country. I urge my colleagues to support the measure that we are introducing today.

Mr. President, I am pleased today to join my colleague from New Mexico in introducing legislation to reauthorize two very important efforts to address diabetes prevention and treatment and research: the Special Diabetes Program for Indians, which is administered by the Indian Health Service's Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention, and the Special Diabetes Programs for Children with Type I Diabetes Research, which is administered by the National Institutes of Health.

The Indian Affairs Committee held an oversight hearing on diabetes in Indian country this past February. Diabetes is an illness that afflicts Native Americans more than any other ethnic/racial group in the United States, and some tribes have the onerous distinction of having the highest diabetes rate in the world. Indian people are 318 percent more likely to die from diabetes than the general population.

The Special Diabetes Program for Indians is recognized as the most comprehensive rural system of care for diabetes in the United States. Grants under this program have been awarded by the Indian Health Service to nearly 400 IHS, tribal and urban Indian programs within the 12 IHS Areas in 35 States. The program serves approximately 116,000 Native American people with various prevention and treatment services.

While each of the Special Diabetes Program grants reflects the unique tribal community that conducts the program, here are some examples of the kinds of activities the program provides: teaching Indians living with diabetes how to examine and take care of their feet; helping young mothers learn how to eat healthy using commodity foods issued under the USDA's Food Distribution Program on Indian reservations, and how to learn the value of breastfeeding their babies to reduce the incidence of diabetes as the children grow older; enabling diabetics to have access to regular eye screening exams; helping Native Americans know the connection between eating healthy and preventing diabetes by adapting materials of the National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial, called the Diabetes Prevention Program, to be culturally- appropriate; promoting physical activity in the reservation environment, such as building walking trails and displaying signs that say, ``Walk, don't take the elevator;'' and enabling Indian Health Service, tribal and urban Indian health programs to offer new medications for diabetes, such as glitazone, which helps increase insulin sensitivity.

Reauthorization of the Special Diabetes Program for Indians is both a legislative and a medical priority for Indian country. I urge my colleagues to support the measure that we are introducing today.

Madam President, the Senator from Texas asked a question. I think the answer is probably fairly obvious. What is the message we send to people around the world who applied for status to come to this country through the immigration quota process? There is a process that is our legal immigration process. What is the message to those folks who, perhaps 3 years ago, 5 years ago, 9 years ago, filed a petition only to discover that if they had walked across the border on December 31 of last year, they would, with this legislation, be deemed to have been here legally? That is the message. It is sort of a Byzantine message as far as I am concerned.

Yesterday something happened that was quite interesting. I attempted to eliminate the so-called guest worker program or the temporary worker program by which millions of additional people who do not now live in this country would be invited in to take American jobs. I attempted to eliminate that. I failed to do that. I will next offer an amendment at some point, perhaps tomorrow morning, that will sunset the temporary worker program. If we cannot eliminate it, at least let's put an end to it--put a sunset on it.

During the debate yesterday, something fascinating happened. We are told repeatedly on the floor of the Senate that this bill is a piece of legislation that provides border security because most of us know that when you start dealing with immigration, the first step, the first baby step is to provide border security. If you do not do that, all you do is set up, another 10 or 15 years from now, exactly the same debate and provide amnesty for another 10 or 15 million people.

We have done that before, in 1986. We have heard exactly the same arguments: We are going to have border security, we are going to have employer sanctions, we are going to shut down illegal immigration, and we are going to have nirvana. The fact is, none of that worked. We have done this before.

What happened yesterday was fascinating to me. In an attempt to shut down the temporary worker provision, I was told by the people who constructed this proposal that if you shut down the temporary worker provision by which we will bring people into this country who are not now here to take American jobs--if you shut down the temporary worker provisions, what will happen, they said, is people will come across illegally anyway.

I said: I don't understand your point. First, you said you have written a bill that provides border security and stops illegal immigration. Now you are saying if we get rid of the temporary worker provision, what will happen is we will have illegal immigration anyway. You can't have it both ways. Either this bill does what is advertised and provides real border security or it doesn't.

Those who put the bill together told us yesterday it doesn't have that border security because they believe they have to designate those who are coming across as legal, therefore, temporary workers, because if they did not do that, they would come across and we would call them illegal. That is the most unbelievable thing I ever heard.

They cobbled together this proposal. I said yesterday it reminds me of the old saying that a camel is a horse produced by a committee. They have cobbled together this camel of policy here with several different pieces, saying, first, because I believe they understand the politics of it that requires them to say this, we have provided for border security when, in fact, they have not. That is not the case. All they have done is created the same promises I heard 21 years ago.

Then they say, but we must, even as we decide to say to this 12 million who are here, including those who came across the last week of December last year: By the way, you are now legal and given a work permit--we must, in addition to that, allow millions more to come in.

Yes, you get millions more when you do 400,000 a year for 2 years, have them go back for a year, come back 2 more years, have them go back a year, and have 2 more years and accumulate that, and you have at the very least, without even counting families, 12 million workers in a few years. They say we have to do that--invite others to come in to take American jobs--because if we don't, they will come across the border anyway. That is a serious admission of failure, in my judgment, in the bill that is brought to the floor of the Senate.

I didn't intend to come here to say anything, but I heard my colleague from Texas ask, What is the message? The message is a Byzantine message to those who believed there was a legal way to try to come to this country, a legal process by which we have immigration quotas from various countries and they, thinking it was all on the level, actually made application to say I would like to come to the United States of America and I am willing to wait. I waited 5 years or 7 years, they say, only to discover that as of today, if this bill passes, we say you should have come across on December 28 or so into this country. You could have gotten on a plane on a visitor's visa with a full intention of never going back, or walked across the border someplace, and this Congress with this legislation would say to you: We have a great surprise for you. You came across illegally and we now desire to say to you: You are legal, you have legal status and a work permit.

What kind of message? We know the answer to that. It is a Byzantine message that makes no sense at all.

Is immigration an issue? Yes, it is. But this bill will not solve it. I intend to offer an amendment in the morning that will establish a sunset on the provision called the temporary worker provision. But even that will not solve the problems of this legislation.

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

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

Madam President, I think there is a previous unanimous consent agreement by which I will be recognized for the purposes of offering an amendment. The Senator from Georgia has asked if he could be recognized in morning business for 10 minutes. I have no objection to that, providing that I be recognized following the presentation by the Senator from Georgia so that I might offer my amendment.

Madam President, I am going to offer an amendment. I believe by a previous unanimous consent agreement, I will be recognized for offering an amendment. I don't know whether my amendment is at the desk.

I believe my amendment is at the desk, and I will offer that amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Boxer, who is a cosponsor of that amendment.

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

Madam President, we will hear ample discussion today--and we heard it yesterday and we will hear it the rest of this week and perhaps another week going into the month of June--about this issue of immigration. It is not an insignificant issue; it is a very significant issue with great policy implications for our country. We will hear that it is a moral imperative that we deal with the issue of immigration.

We have a lot of moral imperatives in this country, and particularly in this Chamber of the Senate. I don't disagree that the issue of immigration is one of them. There are people living among us in this country who have been here 10, 20, 25 years who came across the border decades ago. They found work here, raised a family here. They were model citizens. I understand that we are not going to round up people who have been here for 2\1/2\ decades and deport them to say: You have come illegally and therefore you are not entitled to stay. That is a different sensitivity, however, than what is in the underlying bill that says: By the way, if you came here by December 31 of last year, we will deem you to be here legally.

I think there are serious problems with that approach. What about someone overseas who has been waiting to come to this country and they know that we have a legal method of coming to this country. There are quotas for each country, and we allow people to sign up and make application and then over a period of time their name comes to the top of the list and they are able to come to this country under their immigration quota. Some, perhaps, have waited 5 years, some 10 years and are now near the top of the list.

What they discover today is they would not have had to wait 5 or 10 years for a legal mechanism by which to come into this country. They could have come across the border at the end of last December, and by this legislation would have been deemed to be legal, would have been deemed to have been here legally.

I understand this country is a magnet for people from across the globe who would like to come to this country. I was flying via helicopter one day some time ago between Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Regrettably, the helicopter I was flying in on ran out of gas. I learned one of the beautiful laws of the air that afternoon. That is, when you are in a flying machine and it runs out of fuel, you will be landing very quickly.

We landed, and we were safe, but, nonetheless, in the mountains and jungles, somewhere--we were not sure where--in an Army helicopter. We were there 4 or 5 hours before other helicopters found us and pulled us out. While there, the campesinos came walking to see who had come down in these helicopters. So I had a chance with some hours to talk to the campesinos, the poor people from around the area.

I recall visiting with one woman, a young woman in her early twenties. She told me she had only three children. She seemed disappointed by that fact. It was explained to me later that because they have no social security system in her country, you have as many children as you can in your childbearing years, hoping that enough of them will survive, and if you are lucky enough to grow old, you will have enough children to provide for your support. That was a form of family social security. Only three children, she said.

I said: What do you aspire for yourself and your children?

Oh, that is easy, she said through an interpreter. To come to America, to come to the United States of America.

I asked why.

She said: The United States of America, that is a country with opportunity and hope for me and my children. Standing there in the clearing near the helicopters, this young woman was telling me what people would tell you in many parts of the world. They would aspire to come to the United States because this is the land of opportunity.

Ask yourself what would happen were this country to have no immigration quotas, no immigration restrictions, no border security of any type, and instead a public policy that said the following: To those of you who live on this planet, let us say we welcome you. Come to America. See the United States. Stay here. Live here. Work here. We welcome you. We welcome any number.

I ask the question: How many people would migrate to the United States and from where? Before you answer, let me explain that this wonderful planet we live on circles the Sun, and on this planet there are, I believe, close to 6.5 billion neighbors, many of them living in very difficult conditions. Half of them have never made a telephone call, one-half of them live on less than $2 a day, and 1.5 billion do not have access to clean, potable water on a daily basis. It is a challenging planet on which we live.

So if the United States of America, this great beacon of hope and opportunity, said to the rest of the world: Times have changed, we no longer have any immigration laws, come here, join us, live here, be a part of the American experience, we would, I venture to say, have tens and tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people journeying to this great country. Why? Because many live in abject poverty. Many, if they can find work, are working for 10 cents or 20 cents an hour in unsafe plants, in unsafe working conditions, in circumstances where they would be put in prison if they decided to organize the workplace. That is a fact of life in many parts of the world. We would be overrun by those who wish to come to this country.

As a result, what we have done is understand that immigration is good for our country. It refreshes and nurtures a country such as ours. So we have a process by which legal immigration occurs, with quota systems from various countries around the world, and immigrants come to live in this country.

I venture to say that almost every Member of the Senate found their way to this country or found their way at least to this Senate by looking back in the rearview mirror and seeing some unbelievable ancestors--mine were the same--people who came to this country with nothing.

One of my ancestors was a woman named Caroline. She came to this country with her husband. Her husband died of a heart attack, and with six children--think of this, six children and virtually no assets at all--she got on a train and went to the southwest corner of North Dakota and pitched a tent on the prairie to homestead. She, from that tent, built a house, raised a family, and operated a family farm. Think of the strength and courage of that Norwegian woman who decided: I am going to do this.

All of us have that story in our backgrounds. So we understand the value of immigration, the value of immigrants, and we provide for it in a quota system by which we accept people from around the world.

Last year, nearly 1.5 million people came into this country through that system. In addition, there were other people who came in as agricultural workers. In addition to that, there were people who came in illegally. So here we are on the floor of the Senate saying: Now we have about 12 million people who have decided to come to this country, no, not through the process by which we accept immigration on a legal basis but come to this country in other ways--get a visitor's visa, come in, get dropped off by an airplane, never go home, stay here illegally, or they come across the border, walk across the border without a visitor's visa and decide they are going to stay here without legal authorization. So we have, some say, 12 million people who are in that status.

The underlying bill says: Let's decide, as a matter of course, we say to all who came into this country or those who came to this country up until and through December 31 of last year: OK, you are no longer an illegal immigrant. You entered without legal authorization, but as of this day forward, when this legislation passes, you have legal authorization to stay. We will give you an opportunity to work and an opportunity to gain citizenship.

In addition to that, which is the ingredient of a compromise that was created in the last week, this legislation says we wish to add something called guest workers or temporary workers. I will talk at some length about those temporary workers. The issue of temporary workers is an important one because we live in a time in this country where there is downward pressure on income for American families.

This morning, Tuesday, a whole lot of people, millions of people got up this morning to put on clothes and go to work. When they got to work, they discovered, as they do every day these days, that there is no opportunity for upward mobility at their job. In fact, every day their employers are trying to find ways to push down wages, eliminate retirement, and eliminate health care.

What has happened in this country, with what is called the ``new global economy,'' is dramatic downward pressure on income for American workers.

I couldn't help but notice a story recently--I mentioned this on the floor of the Senate a while back--that Circuit City, a corporation most people know about, decided they were going to fire 3,400 of their workers. Those folks got up in the morning, went to work that morning, probably kissed their spouse goodbye and said: Honey, I will see you this evening. I love my job. I do a good job. I have been there 8 years. I know my business. But they found out when they got there that the corporation that has a chief executive officer who makes $10 million a year decided they are going to eliminate 3,400 of these people. We are going to fire them. Why? Because they make $11 an hour, and we want to rehire people at a lower wage. So 3,400 people came home that night and said to their families: I lost my job. No, it wasn't because I did something wrong, it wasn't because I was a bad worker, it wasn't because of performance. My company told me that $11 an hour was too much money, and they want to replace me with someone with less experience and someone to whom they can pay a lower wage.

There is dramatic downward pressure on income all across this country for American workers, and that is especially true for workers at the bottom of the economic ladder.

I don't need to go through all the data, but it is unbelievable when you take a look at what is happening in this country. Those at the very top are getting wealthier, much wealthier, and those at the very bottom are being squeezed with substantially less income.

Incidentally, the bill that has been offered--this document--has been put on all our desks a few minutes ago, or in the last hour or so. This is the immigration bill. I think I can speak with certainty that no Member of the Senate has read this. It just became available. So I assume everyone will have their evening reading going through a bill that size and a bill of such importance.

Earlier, I stated that if we had no immigration quotas and no restrictions, we would have massive numbers of people who live and work in poverty, who in many cases can't find a job at all in other parts of the world, who are experiencing famine and war, pestilence and disease, who would want to find their way to this country.

It is interesting. You can now go to your computer and Google ``Earth.'' If you haven't done that, I encourage people to do that. Google ``Earth,'' and you can, from the air, come down and find out what is happening on Earth--any spot on the Earth. So if you Google ``Earth'' and try to evaluate what is happening on this planet, the United States doesn't look so much different than anyplace else. It is just a piece of property on this planet of ours. But it is a very different piece of property, a very unusual piece of property. It was born and nurtured by those who wrote a Constitution starting with the words ``We the people'' that has created the most affluent country on Earth, with a dramatic expansion of the middle class and opportunity that is universal opportunity--universal education, saying that every child can become whatever their God-given talents allow them to become in this country of ours.

What a great place we have created. But given what is happening on this planet, we have had to at least provide some order and some limitation with respect to immigration into this country because so many would want to come. So we have a legal system of import quotas. That is a system that many have used. They have waited for years to be at the top of the list to come to this country. But it is a system that many have ignored, instead deciding they wanted to get a visiting visa, jump on an airplane, and when it lands, disappear into the populace, never to be seen again, and stay here illegally, or others have come across on foot, across the Rio Grande or from other areas, deciding to remain here without legal authorization.

Border security has become very important. It was something discussed at great length in the year 1986, when the Simpson-Mazzoli bill was passed by the Congress. That was a period of time when we had an immigration crisis. The Simpson-Mazzoli bill was designed to address the immigration crisis. It was going to shut down employment opportunities for illegal immigrants by providing employer sanctions. It was going to provide for border security, employer sanctions, and it was going to shut down this system and, therefore, we were going to solve the immigration problem. Even as that bill was passed, it provided for amnesty for 3 million people at that point who had come here illegally.

Well, we know that since 1986 that didn't work. All the promises that were offered then have been promises that were not kept. So we find ourselves, from 1986 to 2001, with Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others associated with al-Qaida deciding to launch an attack on our country and murder a good number of Americans, thousands of Americans, on that fateful day of 9/11/2001. All of a sudden, we have another spurt of interest in border security. Not with respect to specifically the issue of immigration but border security with respect to keeping terrorists out of our country. Because if you don't control your border, if you don't know who is coming in and keep track of them, you have unbelievable security problems for this country.

So we, at various times, have had these spurts of interest with respect to border security. Now we come to the year 2007, and the issue again is a comprehensive immigration bill--but as a portion of it, border security. Of course, border security ought to be, should be, some say will be, but certainly must be the first and foremost important element of any immigration reform. If you can't provide for border security, let us not spend a lot of time thinking about how we are going to keep people out if you can't keep them out. Border security is first and foremost the responsibility of any immigration reform plan--border security that works.

Yes, it is important for terrorism; it is also important with respect to this bill dealing with immigration. If border security is important, and I believe it is the most important issue at this moment, then other issues--if you have solved the border security issue, and I don't believe this piece of legislation has--other issues are also important as well, one of which is the issue I came to talk about, and that is the issue of the guest worker amendment.

The guest worker amendment in this compromise on immigration provides that 400,000 people who are not in this country now, who are living outside of our country, will be able to come in to assume jobs in our country per year--400,000 a year. The bill says there are 12 million people who came here illegally who will be given status to stay here and to work here. That is what the bill says. So it gives us 12 million people who will have legal status. It says to someone who came across December 30, 2006: You are going to be deemed to be here legally, or at least have legal status to stay, and we will give you an opportunity to work. So we have 12 million in that circumstance.

In addition, there is a provision dealing with guest workers. My understanding is that provision comes at the request of the Chamber of Commerce and big business that want an opportunity to continue the flow of cheap labor. That is not the way they would describe it, that is the way I am describing it. This is a country in which we are seeing more and more jobs being outsourced in search of cheap labor overseas, particularly to China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, and the same interests that wanted to move American jobs overseas in search of cheap labor, enjoy the opportunity to bring, through the back door, cheap labor from other countries.

So we have what is called a guest worker or temporary worker provision. Here is how it works. I don't know how one can construct something this Byzantine, but it nonetheless got done. Here is how this system will work. A so-called guest or temporary worker will be able to come in, and 400,000 of them will come in the first year. They are able to stay for 2 years. They are able to bring their family, if they choose. Then they have to go home for 1 year, take their family home with them, and then they are able to come back 2 years later. So they are here 2 years working, then they go home for 1 year; then they can come back for 2 years, then they have to go home for 1 year; then they get to come back for 2 years. That is the case with 400,000 a year.

This grid shows you what it looks like and what it adds up to do. If you talk about the years of employment, you are talking about 18, 19 man-years of employment here with respect to this grid. It is a kind of Byzantine proposition. We say: Come here and work, bring your family and stay here 2 years. Then you all go back and stay where you came from for 1 year. Then everyone is welcome back for 2 more years, but you have to leave again and stay back 1 year and then come back for 2 more years.

I guess there is a provision that if you bring your family one of the first 2 years, which is your choice, then you only get to come back twice for 2 years. I don't know how you concoct something like that. It makes no sense at all. But aside from the merits of deciding that we don't have enough workers in this country so we need to import cheap labor, aside from that, how on Earth would you construct this approach to importing cheap labor?

I wish to make some comments about this suggestion that we don't have enough people in this country to assume jobs and, therefore, we must have a temporary worker or a guest worker program. There are plenty of big businesses, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that take that position: We need to bring in people who aren't here now to assume American jobs. I mentioned earlier we are suggesting that is the case at a time when a whole lot of people at the bottom of the economic ladder in this country are trying to keep up and not doing well at all.

This chart shows from 1979 to 2003--and this is from the Congressional Budget Office--what has happened with

respect to income for the various income groups. Look at what has happened to the top 1 percent. A 129-percent increase in income in nearly a quarter of a century.

Look what has happened to the bottom fifth in a quarter of a century. In a quarter of a century, these folks who are going to work every day, the people you don't see very often, they are the people who pass the coffee to you across the counter or help out at the gas station and do those kinds of jobs, they get a 4-percent increase in 25 years. Unbelievable.

In that circumstance, in an economic circumstance where the people at the top are doing well, where there is substantial inequality of income with greater income going to the people at the top and much less income going to the people at the bottom, we are told we need to bring in additional workers from overseas.

We are told they are to be brought in because, for example, in the area of food preparation jobs, we just can't find enough American workers. There are just not enough people, we are told, in food service.

Let's look at food service jobs: 86 percent of the people working in food service in this country are legal citizens, U.S. citizens, or legal immigrants. We are told these are jobs Americans will not take, so let's bring in some guest workers. Explain this. Explain how it is that, at least in food preparation, 86 percent of the people working in those areas are Americans or people here legally.

If you want to bring in people at the bottom of the economic ladder, low-wage workers, you know what that does to the other 86 percent. It pushes down. It puts downward pressure on income. We don't have to debate about that. That debate is over. That is exactly what that does.

We are told we have other industries like that, such as the construction industry. We can't find enough people in the construction industry. But 88 percent of the people in the construction industry in this country are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. Once again, we have people who would love to bring in low-wage workers at the bottom to put downward pressure on wages. But it is simply not true that we need low- wage workers to come in, more workers to come in because we cannot find Americans to do this job.

I understand those who support the temporary worker provisions by and large want lower incomes. I am talking about the interests outside of this Chamber. There are plenty of them who want to pay less income. Transportation jobs--93 percent of the workers in transportation are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. Is someone going to debate this issue, that we cannot find Americans to work in these jobs? Clearly, that is not the case.

I understand there are those who have these jobs who do not want to pay a decent wage for them. There are a whole lot of companies that do not want to pay a decent wage. They want to strip the retirement benefits away, they want to strip health care benefits if they ever gave them in the first place, and then they want to try to depress the income to the extent they can. I understand that. But it is not the right thing.

What is the moral imperative in this country? We have a moral imperative to stand up for all of the people in this country who get up in the morning and go to work and do a good job and hope at the end of the day they get a fair day's pay. Productivity is on the rise in this country. Productivity increases but workers' incomes do not increase. Why? Those who hire them do not have to increase those incomes even as workers become more productive because they have a supply of cheap labor coming in.

Transportation jobs--you can't find Americans to do them? Not true.

Manufacturing jobs--94 percent of manufacturing jobs are jobs that are performed by American citizens or legal immigrants.

I have made the point before that there is no one in this Chamber who has lost their job because of a job being outsourced. But there are so many Americans who understand this. There is a man named Blinder. He used to be the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He is a mainstream economist. With respect to the outsourcing of American jobs to China and other areas of low wages, he says there are 44 million to 52 million jobs that are able to be outsourced or tradable. He says not all of them will leave our country. But, he says, even those that stay will have downward pressure on their income because they will be competing with 1.5 billion people in the rest of the world, many of whom work for pennies an hour.

As American workers confront that issue, we are told we can't find enough workers in manufacturing and we need to bring in temporary workers who do not now live here. That is not true. Most of the workers in manufacturing are U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.

If someone wants more workers, I will tell you where you can get them. Go find the people who used to work for Levis. They don't make Levis in this country anymore. They got fired. Find the people who used to work for Fruit of the Loom underwear. They got fired, too. They must have some opportunity for some manufacturing jobs if you can find them. Find the people who used to work for Huffy bicycle. Their jobs went to China. They got fired. Go find the people who worked for Radio Flyer Little Red Wagon. They got fired. Go find the people who worked for Fig Newton cookies. They got fired. Their jobs went to Mexico.

I could talk at great length about where you might find American workers who lost their jobs because they couldn't compete with 20-cent- an-hour labor in China.

In my State of North Dakota, last week we received some pretty somber news. The Imation Corporation decided they were shutting down their plant in Wahpeton, ND, with 390 workers. After I pried it out of them, I discovered that slightly less than half of those people are going to lose their jobs because the product of their work is going to go to Juarez, Mexico, where you can pay 1/10 the wage. That is what is facing the American worker, that downward pressure on income.

Now we are told in this bill, let's ignore that. What we need is to bring in some more temporary workers to assume jobs Americans will not take. Again, how about paying a decent wage in this country? How about paying a decent wage? You will find plenty of people to take these jobs.

There is a study by Professor George Borjas at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and he talks about the impact of immigration from 1980 to 2000, 20 years, on U.S. wages by ethnicity of workers. Over the last 20 years, as a result of immigration--that is low-wage workers coming into this country and putting downward pressure on wages--the average wage is down 3.7 percent; for the average Asian, 3.1; average White, 3.5; average Black, 4.5; Hispanic, minus 5 percent in wages. The fact is, it doesn't require a huge study to understand the consequences of that. We all understand that would be the result of bringing in a low-wage workforce. That is not unusual at all.

Let me be clear. None of the discussions we are having now have anything to do with agricultural workers. In addition to the temporary worker program, there is a separate program dealing with agricultural workers. So you have three things: You have legal immigration through import quotas and so on; then you have agricultural workers, well over 1 million of them, I believe 1.5 million in legal immigration; and then you have a temporary worker permit which, if you add up with the chart I have shown you, you are talking about millions of jobs. We are told, no, this doesn't matter much because, frankly, businesses say they just can't find Americans to take these jobs.

I believe that is not the case. I understand what is really at work. What is at work, in my judgment, is the handprints of those who want to bring in additional cheap labor. I do not support it.

The amendment I have offered is an amendment that is simple on its face. It addresses that provision, that title in this immigration bill that deals with temporary workers. I am not talking about the status of the 12 million people. I am talking about the creation of a status for people who are not in this country now, for people who live outside of this country who, as a result of this bill, are going to be told: You come on in to this country. We will give you a temporary worker status.

You can come for 2 years at a time, 3 times, a total of 6 years. I do not understand the urgency of putting a provision like this in this bill.

I am told again, as we are always told, if you offer an amendment that is successful, you will kill this bill because it is a fragile compromise. It is the old argument. It is about the loose thread on a cheap sweater. You pull the thread and the arm falls off. God forbid if you pass an amendment, it is going to destroy this compromise.

In my judgment, part of offering amendments and getting amendments agreed to to improve this legislation should be beneficial even to those who represented a part of this compromise.

I say clearly that I think immigration has, for as long as this country has existed, refreshed and nurtured this country. I support immigration through the legal means of immigration quotas each year. I also support, at this point, strong, assertive border enforcement, border security. Let me describe why we have failed so miserably.

Here is a chart. When you talk about the need for border security and employer sanctions, here is a chart that shows what has happened in the last 6 or 7 years with respect to enforcement. As you see, there is a decline in the worksite enforcement to almost zero. It has gone back up a little bit. I haven't put the last 2 years on there. But you will see enforcement with respect to employer sanctions and worksite enforcement has gone down to almost zero. This administration didn't do anything with respect to worksite enforcement.

Let me describe what has happened with respect to fines that have been levied. In 1986 they passed an immigration bill and said we are going to impose fines if someone would hire illegal workers. Here is what has happened with the fines. It was $3.6 million nationally, across the whole country in 1999. It is down to $118,000 in 2004. That is pathetic enforcement. That is not enforcement, that is just looking the other way.

Yet we come to this floor with an urgent problem with immigration, and the compromisers say: Let's put all these things together to legalize 12 million people, up to those who came across on December 31, and let's decide, as well, we are going to bring additional people in who do not now live here. That doesn't make any sense to me.

One of the moral imperatives, as I indicated, is to stand up for the interests of workers in this country yes, all workers in this country.

Let me conclude. There is so much to say, but let me conclude by telling a story about a piece I saw in the New York Times one day. It was just a small piece. It was a few years ago. It was about a New Yorker who died. I thought it was a curious piece, so I asked a staff person: Can you track down and see what this little news item in the New York Times is? They did.

It was a man named Stanley Newberg who died in New York City. Stanley Newberg, my staff discovered, was a man who came to this country with his parents to flee the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis. Stanley Newberg and his parents landed in this country as new immigrants. Stanley was a little boy, and he followed his dad around the lower east side, apparently, peddling fish. This young boy walked with his dad peddling fish in New York City as a very young man.

As his parents made a living peddling fish, Stanley learned English. Then Stanley went off to school and Stanley became a pretty good student. Then Stanley graduated from school, he went to college, he graduated from college and then got a job in an aluminum company. He worked in this aluminum company, did really well, was a good worker, and he rose up to manage the aluminum company and then eventually he was able to buy the aluminum company.

So here was Stanley Newberg, this young boy who came with his father and mother to this new country and walked in the lower east side of New York peddling fish and now owns an aluminum company in this country. It is a very wonderful American success story.

Then Stanley Newberg died. They opened his will and that became the subject of a very small item in the New York Times. Stanley Newberg's will left $5.7 million to the United States of America. He said ``with deep gratitude for the privilege of living in this great country.''

This little boy who followed his daddy peddling fish, who went to school, became a successful businessman and then died, wanted in his will to remember this country and left $5.7 million to the United States of America ``with deep gratitude for the privilege of living in this great country.''

This country did not become this great country by accident. ``We the people,'' the framework of our Government, a wonderful Constitution, a series of initiatives that created a body of law, initiatives in the private sector, the genius and the entrepreneurship of inventors and investors and business men and women--it is a wonderful place.

But we have obligations. As I indicated earlier, if we had no immigration quotas we would be overrun by millions, tens of millions of people who want to move from where they are on this planet to this spot because this is the land of opportunity.

We have a process of legal immigration. That process needs to work. First and foremost, we need border security. Second, it seems to me, we need to be sensitive to find a way to deal with the status of those who have been here a long while. Third, and most importantly, we ought not decide to bring legislation to the floor of the Senate that says: On behalf of those big interests, big economic interests that want to hire cheap labor through the back door--even as they export good American jobs through the front door--we ought to say this provision needs to be stricken.

My amendment is very simple. On behalf of myself and Senator Boxer, I offer an amendment to say: Strike this provision.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tester.) The Senator from Arizona.

Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Vermont will yield for a question.

Mr. President, on that point, I was thinking of something our colleague from Arizona said a few minutes ago. He talked about the fact they are going to provide substantial border security, No. 1. Then later he said the reason we have to allow guest or temporary workers-- 400,000 of them--to come into this country is if we do not let them come in, there will be more tension for illegal immigration. Well, where is the illegal immigration going to come from if you have secured the border? If you have not secured the border, isn't it the case that what you have simply done is said we are going to have 400,000 people come across the border or come into this country and assume jobs? Do you know what we will do? Let's just call them legal. Isn't there an inherit contradiction in what we just heard--and we will hear again, I am sure--the proposition that we have to have temporary workers because if we do not, people will come in illegally? How will they come in illegally if you have secured the border? And shouldn't you first secure the border in a way that is credible?

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield further, this is another piece of evidence that in this kind of discussion in the Congress, you never have to be right; all you have to have is a new idea--and you just keep coming up with new ideas that are wrong.

The Senator is perfectly correct with respect to NAFTA. In fact, the same economists who were giving all this advice about NAFTA, who were fundamentally wrong, are now giving us advice on this issue and telling us how they are going to create new jobs and all of these related issues.

The fact is, at its roots, isn't it the case that what this kind of temporary worker provision does is put downward pressure on the income for American workers and bring in low-wage workers to assume American jobs? Isn't that the case?

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Does the Senator from Pennsylvania wish to make his statement at this point?

Let me be recognized and ask I be notified when I have 5 minutes remaining. It will be my intention to close debate on my amendment.

Mr. President, this is a Byzantine argument. This has been interesting to listen to. It reminded me, sitting here, of Will Rogers. He once said:

It's not what they know that bothers me, it's what they say

they know for sure that just ain't so.

I am listening to this, and I am hearing, first of all, we have border security in this bill. We are going to beef up border security. We have it fixed.

Then I hear this: We have to have a guest worker provision. We have to have temporary workers come in because: One way or another those immigrants are coming across the border. You try to close that door, it is not going to work.

This from the people who wrote the bill. Two of them have said it. It seems to me what they are saying is we can't stop illegal immigration so let's try to figure out who is coming across and call them legal. That is what this looks like to me.

Let me say it again. Those who put this bill together say: One way or another, these people are coming in. We are not going to stop them. You can't close that door. It would not work. The solution? Make them legal.

What does that say to people across the world who have decided they want to come to the United States of America, and there is a quota by which their country can allow some people to come in, we will accept them. They put their name on the list 8 years ago and they have been waiting patiently to be able to come to our country legally. Now they discover that on the floor of the Senate some people put together a plan that says: It is true you waited for 8 years and you are still not here and you may be near the top of the list, but all those who came here through December 31 of last year, we will now declare that they are here legally.

What does that say to a lot of people around the world who thought this was on the level, that our immigration quotas were real quotas?

If this amendment fails, the one that says let's get rid of the temporary worker provision which will bring millions of additional people into this country at the bottom of the economic ladder--if this amendment fails, it doesn't mean we are not going to have immigrant workers. There will be a million and a half who come in legally with the quota system and the relatives and so on; and there will be over a million a year who come in working in agriculture, because this is not about agriculture. You are talking about over 2 million a year, even if my amendment fails.

But we are told: No, this amendment has to fail. We have to keep this temporary worker provision in the bill because if it is not in the bill, we have this finely structured, crafted bill that is not perfect--everybody who worked on it said it is not perfect. We get that. We knew that when we saw it. But if you pass this amendment, that changes this bill and the whole stool collapses.

There has been no talk about American workers today. This is about immigration. I understand that. But we have a whole lot of folks at the bottom of the economic ladder who went to work this morning struggling, trying to make ends meet. It has been 9 years since we increased the minimum wage in this country, 9 years for those American workers out there struggling at the bottom of the ladder.

I mentioned a while ago what is happening to American workers. You know it. Read the paper. Circuit City says: You know what, we have decided we are going to fire 3,400 of our workers. Because they are bad workers? Oh, no. They are making too much money. The chief executive officer of Circuit City makes $10 million a year. The average worker was making $11 an hour. So we decided we are going to get rid of them. They have too much experience and we don't want to pay $11 an hour, so 3,400 people get fired.

Bo Anderson, the top executive agent for General Motors in purchasing, calls in all the companies making parts for General Motors. Here is what he said to them: You need to outsource your jobs to China to reduce costs. Get those American jobs moving to China right now.

Pennsylvania House Furniture--I have told this story before. Governor Rendell told me about that. Fine furniture made by Pennsylvania House, top-of-the-line furniture with Pennsylvania wood and craftsmen who made great pieces of furniture. La-Z-Boy bought it and said: You know what, we will move all those jobs to China. We will ship Pennsylvania wood to China, bring it back, and we will still call it Pennsylvania House Furniture.

On the last day of work, when all those craftsmen lost their jobs, the last piece of furniture to come off that line they turned upside down and all those workers, those craftsmen at Pennsylvania House Furniture, signed the bottom of that piece of furniture, knowing it was the last piece of furniture they were going to make as American workers, craftsmen who knew their jobs and made great furniture. The last piece--they all signed it.

Somebody in this country has a piece of fine furniture called Pennsylvania House, signed by all the craftsmen who got fired because those jobs went searching for 20-cent and 30-cent-an-hour labor.

I am telling you, the same economic interests, the same corporate interests that are finding ways and searching for ways to ship American jobs overseas in search of 20-cent and 30-cent-an-hour labor are the ones pushing this provision through the back door.

I have heard precious little discussion today about the plight of the American worker. They say we don't have enough workers, can't find workers. One of my colleagues said we have jobs in America that Americans will not do at a competitive wage.

Oh, really? Is that the case? Or is it the case they are not paying a competitive wage and don't want to have to pay a competitive wage? I thought maybe we would have some people here who studied economics 101, about supply and demand. You are having trouble finding workers? Maybe increase

the price of that job a little bit, increase the wage offer a little bit. You know these people who work in the hospital corridors keeping it clean at night, the people who make the motel beds, the people who are across the counter of the convenience store. You can't find workers? Maybe you better pay a little better wage. That is supply and demand, isn't it? But you don't have to do that if you can bring in people at the bottom of the economic ladder, bring in millions of them.

This Byzantine plan, let me tell you what it is: 40,000 temporary workers a year, they can stay for 2 years, they can bring their family for 2 years if they wish. Then they have to go home for a year and they have to take their family with them. Then they can come back for 2 years. Then they have to go home for a year, can come back for 2 additional years, but if they brought their family either during the first or second stay, they can only come back twice for 2 years. You think that is goofy? That is the plan. I am telling you, if you can read, open it up and read it and ask yourself whether that makes any sense at all.

Do American workers have a stake in this plan? You are damn right they do. American workers have a big stake in this issue, and I hear precious little attention to the plight of the American workers. People say they can't find them. I will tell you what, go read the newspaper and figure out who is throwing them out of work today. These jobs migrate to China. I can stand here for 15 minutes and tell you the name of companies that have laid off thousands, tens of thousands, in fact, 3 million and counting more jobs in search of cheap labor overseas. You want to go find somebody to do your work? Find the people who got laid off because their job got outsourced to cheap labor. You don't have to bring in millions of additional people--no, not 400,000 a year. Add that up over 10 years, 400,000 a year, plus an escalator, plus stay for 2 years, go home for a year, come back 2 years, go home for a year, come back for 2 years, do that every year and you are talking about millions of low-wage workers coming in to assume low-wage jobs in this country.

I wish to put in the record at this point letters from folks who run some of the labor organizations in our country: Terry O'Sullivan, Laborers International Union of North America; Joe Hansen, United Food and Commercial Workers, the presidents of those unions; James Hoffa, president, Brotherhood of Teamsters; Newton Jones, international president, Boilermakers Union; Bill Samuel, director of the AFL-CIO; Ed Sullivan, president of Building and Construction Trades--they all say exactly the same thing, support this amendment.

I ask unanimous consent the letters be printed in the Record and I reserve the remainder of my time and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Mr. President, I will be happy to yield 4 minutes to my colleague from Virginia.

Mr. President, as I indicated, as the sponsor of the amendment, I would prefer to conclude the debate. So if Senator Kennedy has additional time remaining, my hope is that he would take that time so I may conclude.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, would the Chair advise me when I have 30 seconds remaining?

Mr. President, let me stand up and say a word on behalf of chicken pluckers. I had no idea that was the debate. But they will never get $15 an hour as long as we bring in cheap labor through the back door to pluck chickens.

I am more interested in the issue of manufacturing. I am interested in people who got up this morning and packed a lunch pail and they are going to have to shower after work because they work hard and they sweat and they do not get paid very much. They have waited for 9 years for an increased minimum wage; it has not come. They are worried about whether they are going to be there. They are worried whether they are going to be called into a meeting someday and be told: Your job is gone. We are either moving your job to China or we are bringing in someone from the back door to take your job at much lower pay.

That is what workers face now. No one in this Chamber will face it. Nobody. We all get up and put on a white shirt and a blue suit. We come here and talk. No one is going to lose their job. None of it is going to be outsourced, and no one who comes through the back door is going to jeopardize a job in this Chamber. It is not going to happen on an editorial board in a newspaper. It is just the folks this morning who got up and had an aspiration of going to their job and working hard and providing for their families. They are the ones who are wondering: What is my future?

Now, let me make a very important point. The assumption is that if we defeat the temporary worker program we are not going to have immigration. The fact is, we are going to have a million and a half people coming into this country under legal immigration having nothing to do with this program. We are going to have over a million people coming into this country for agricultural jobs having nothing to do with this program. Oh, we will have immigration. It is just that those who wrote this said: That is not enough. We want more.

Now, my colleagues keep saying: Well, if we dump this thing called temporary workers, they are just going to

come here anyway. They are going to be illegal.

Wait a second. I thought you were going to provide border security. Now you are telling me there is no border security because if you do not decide to call them legal, they are going to come anyway. If that is the case, point to the area of this bill that says that you provided border security. You know, this is like Groundhog Day. We have been here once before, 1986. We are going to secure the border. Twenty years later, 12 million people are here without legal authorization. Now we are going to secure the border.

But now we are told at this hour, just before the vote on my amendment: Oh, by the way, if we don't provide for temporary workers to call those coming in legal, if we do not do that, they will come in illegally anyway. So, then, where is the border security? Is that a false promise? One of these two options is the case. You either have border security, and people are not going to come here by the hundreds and thousands because they can't, or you have no border security so you have decided we will just name them all legal and call them temporary workers.

My colleague cited a Harvard economist. Many of these economists cannot remember their home phone number, and they are giving us their thoughts on what is going to happen 5 years from now.

This one, Professor George Borjas from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, said: Here is what has happened to U.S. workers. U.S. workers have lost income in the 20 years as a result of immigration. That is not disputable. Is anybody here disputing that? I don't think so. We have had downward pressure on U.S. income as a result.

This proposition in this bill says: You know what. That may be the experience, but we have not had enough of it. We want more. We want more of it.

Again, finally, if you decide to vote against my amendment, I want you to have a town meeting and explain it.

We allow 400,000 workers in the first year. They can come for 2 years. They can bring their family, if they wish. Then they have to go home for a year and take their family with them. They can come back after going home for a year, for 2 more years. Then they have to go home for another year. Then they can come back for 2 more years unless they decided to bring their family with them in the first place. In that case, they get two stays for 2 years, with 1 year back home in between. We will do that cumulatively, and what you have here in 10 years is roughly 12 million man-years of work by people who come in, leave, come in, leave. By the way, how many of you think these people are going to leave?

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, this amendment is very simple. It strikes the temporary worker provision. It does not mean there won't be immigration coming into this country. We will have 2.5 million people coming in under legal channels, agricultural work, so on. This is extra. We are told that 2.5 million is not enough. When you cast this vote, cast this vote on behalf of American workers who want American jobs that pay well, and that has been all too hard to find recently.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I was listening to the description of these offshore tax havens. Senator Conrad and I have worked on these issues for some while. It is interesting, with respect to the revenue stream into this country, that if we close down some of these tax shelters, the result would be increased revenues for the Federal Government and a requirement that those who benefit from the opportunities of being an American company, that they would start paying taxes.

Now, we have had example after example--the Senator used a chart showing a building called the Ugland House, a quiet little 4-story building on Church Street in the Cayman Islands which 12,748 corporations call home. Of course none of them are home there. If you go there--there is an enterprising reporter named David Evans who worked on that particular issue. He went there, and there is nobody there. There are just some windows in a building, and it is quiet in the lobby. Nothing is going on. This is a legal fiction created by lawyers for the purposes of allowing companies to avoid paying their U.S. taxes. It is not just that building, though. That building is an example of the unbelievable abuse of the creation of massive offshore tax shelters. There are hundreds and hundreds of tax shelters.

I asked the Senator to yield to make a point. When I chaired the hearings on the Enron scandal, when I had Ken Lay come by and raise his hand and take an oath and then refuse to testify, and then Jeffrey Skilling, whom you couldn't hardly get to stop talking--he is now in prison. But the fact is, the Enron Corporation, in addition to all of the other things--and part of that we understand now is a criminal enterprise; the evidence exists for that--in addition, they have hundreds of offshore entities. Why? For the purpose of avoiding taxes. That is the purpose of offshore entities and tax havens.

No one runs to these countries like the Cayman Islands for the purposes of creating a big manufacturing plant and saying: That is where we want to move our business. It seems to me what they do is they hire a lawyer to create a legal fiction saying: We now want to be a resident of a tax-haven country because we don't like the obligation of paying taxes to the Federal Government.

I would just ask the Senator, isn't it the case that the Senator's proposition, and mine, the one I have introduced with legislation, is very simple? It says: If you are going to be an American company, why don't you simply decide to pay taxes to this country? If you move your operation somewhere else, we understand that. We don't support that-- there ought not be a tax incentive for it--but if you are creating a legal fiction through lawyers telling us you are moving, we are going to treat you for tax purposes as if you were right here, an American company that is required to pay its appropriate taxes.

I know the Senator is probably also going to talk about the sale and leaseback of sewer systems and trolley cars and all the nonsense that is going on. I would just commend Senator Conrad for doing this, for finally saying in this budget that we are going to shut all this down. Those of you who want to get the revenue in order to move us toward fiscal sanity here, if you really want to help us get the revenue, then join us in shutting these tax scams down, shutting down these tax havens.

I am sorry I took more time for this lengthy question, which turns out not to be much of a question after all, but I did want to point out that I believe this is a very important part of this budget agreement, and I commend Senator Conrad and those who have put this together because this significantly benefits our country.

Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator yielding.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, that was a clever question from our colleague from New Hampshire. I would observe that the discussion I just had about the Enron Corporation--I think the largest financial supporter of the current occupant of the White House for his first run for the Presidency--it was a corporation that had hundreds of offshore tax-haven subsidiaries. It is also the case that it is not new for us to try to shut these down. As we have tried to shut these down, it is not new, either, to find that the current White House by and large opposes the legislation on the floor of the Senate to shut down these tax scams.

I hope that perhaps we can get some support to do what Senator Conrad and I and others believe ought to be done, to shut down these kinds of tax scams.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, regarding the first chart the Senator used, which showed the steps of additional debt, I was intrigued, as I was walking through the Chamber, to hear our colleague from New Hampshire say, ``This is your money.'' I understand the origin of that comment. The implication is we don't have to fund schools and roads and law enforcement and defense, and so on.

We all have some responsibility to the country, so part of the money has to go to the Federal Government or State governments to pay for that. But when he says, ``This is your money,'' should he not also, when you hold up that chart, say to the American people: This is your debt? Isn't it the case that in the years in which they ratcheted up that debt by spending money and not asking for the revenue for it, they are saying to the American people: We will load you up with some debt, and by the way, this is your debt. You pay it later. We will probably be done, but you pay it later. Shouldn't that be the second verse to that song?

Twelve or fourteen minutes.

I thank my colleague for his leadership. I don't know where to start with the issues of the pig in the poke and the hog rules and all these issues. But I will talk a little about issues that are probably close to something I called the hog rule.

First, let me say this: Mark Twain once said, when asked if he would engage in a debate, he said: Sure, as long as I can take the negative side. They said: We haven't told you what the subject is. He said: It doesn't matter. The negative side will take no preparation. It is easy to oppose. That takes no preparation.

We have brought a budget to the floor of the Senate and have kind of broken tradition. We haven't had a budget on the floor that got passed for a year. Under the leadership of Senator Conrad, we are going to have a budget today. That is a pretty big step forward.

Let me say that with all the budget talk, we went to war a few years ago and we sent soldiers halfway around the world to go to war. The country didn't go to war. This Congress didn't go to war. Every single dollar we have used to fight that war has been borrowed. We say to the soldiers: Go, fight, put on America's uniform, go represent your country. But the fact is, the President says: I want emergency supplemental appropriations for it all, and we will add it all to the debt. It is an unbelievable fiscal policy. Send the soldiers to war; Americans, go shopping. That is what we were told to do by the President. By the way, let's not ask anybody to sacrifice.

We see significant fiscal policy problems. This budget begins to start to try to deal with them. They have been growing now for about 6 or 7 years. This administration inherited a surplus and very quickly turned it into a large budget deficit.

This is a budget. Someone once asked the question, if you were asked to write an obituary about someone and knew nothing about the person, had never met the person but only had their checkbook registry as a frame of reference, what kind of obituary would you write? You would probably be able to take a look at what they spent their money on and tell a little something about their value system, what did they think was important, what did

they treasure, what did they value. You can do the same thing with this country's budget.

It is true that 100 years from now we will all be dead. But history will record what we have done. They can look at the budget we passed, and they can see what we believed were the priorities for this Nation.

The President sends us a proposal and says: Here are my priorities. Let's propose spending in a way that loses ground on the issue of funding the National Institutes of Health and making the investments in needed cancer research and research into other dread diseases. Let's cut back on Head Start relative to the money that is needed to continue Head Start for young children. Let's decide that energy efficiency and renewable energy are not as important. These are priorities from the President. I could go on at some great length.

I disagree with that. I think many of these things represent investments in the country's future. My colleague and those who work with him on the Budget Committee have put together a different set of priorities. It is a better set of priorities that says: Yes, there are some areas that are just spending money. There are other areas that represent an investment in the future. That is why I think this budget is a good document. I am pleased today to support it.

Let me go to one other piece because I feel so strongly about it. I have offered amendment after amendment on this subject. My colleague has included proposed revenues in this budget from those who are not now paying their fair share. Some say that is a mirage, that is a shell game. You know what is happening. We have a pernicious tax break that says: Shut down your manufacturing plants in America, fire your workers, move your jobs overseas, and we will give you a big tax cut. I can't believe anything quite as foolish as that, but we have it. We have voted on it four times here. I am going to offer an amendment this year again that says: Let's not subsidize moving jobs overseas with a tax cut for those who do it.

Even more than that, I have used this on many occasions for 2 years now. This is the Ugland House. It sits on a quiet little street in the Cayman Islands called Church Street. It is a 5-story building, home to 12,748 corporations. Thanks to some enterprising reporting by David Evans from Bloomberg----

I regret I don't have the time.

Let me finish my comments. If I have time, I will be happy to engage. This represents a legal fiction, 12,748 corporations say that this is their home. No, it is not. This is a playhouse for tax avoidance. That is what this is about. They get to run their income through here so they don't to have pay taxes to the U.S. Government. They want all the opportunities that come with being an American except the responsibility to pay taxes.

Thousands of companies take up residence in tax haven countries for the purpose of avoiding taxes. Many other companies use entirely different, yet legal, tax avoidance schemes. One example is the sale of a German sewage system in Bochum, Germany, that nets Wachovia Bank $175 million in tax savings. I don't even understand how the transaction works. Does someone walk into an investment banking firm and say: Do you have a sewer section here, or do you have a sewer specialist I could talk to? Because I would like to avoid taxes by investing in a German sewer system. Maybe the receptionist says: We have a section over here in our investment banking firm that actually specializes in foreign sewers. Wachovia apparently found one. They saved $175 million. Does that mean they used the sewage system? No. Does it mean they actually have a need for it? Does it actually change hands? No, it is still underground in Germany. What it does is, it allows this company to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

How about an American company leasing a city hall in Germany? This is a town hall in Germany, leased by an American company. For what purpose? To avoid paying U.S. taxes. Wouldn't it be great if folks down the block or up the street or out on the farm who have to pay taxes in this country could say: You know what, I have a new idea. You and I are going to buy a sewage system in England. People would say: Are you nuts? That is what is happening in corporate boardrooms.

Another example is leasing transaction involving streetcars in Germany. An American corporation wants to operate German streetcars. Why? Because they enjoy riding in streetcars? No. They will never get in them. It is because they particularly want to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

In Chicago, they put together something called a 911 emergency call system. They put that together. Guess what: When Chicago shoppers hunted for bargains a few days after Christmas last year, two big financial firms landed their own sweet deal. FleetBoston Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking bought Chicago's 911 emergency call system. No, Chicago was not in the throes of privatization, the story says from the Wall Street Journal. This was companies again deciding: We would like to buy assets we have no need for that belong to the public, and what we would like to do is use them to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

That is unbelievable to me. I would think every single Member of the Senate would look at this and say: That makes me sick, and it has to stop--not tomorrow; no, we are not going to begin to wean off this system--but, right now, we are going to say that nobody is going to be able to buy a foreign sewer system in order to decide they are not going to pay U.S. taxes.

Go to any restaurant in this country, any small town cafe in this country, and sit around and order a cup of coffee and ask the folks you are sitting with: Do you think this should be allowed? They would look at you and say: Are you out of your mind?

Well, the reason I talk about this is because this is in this budget to be shut down. Senator Conrad has said--and I have offered amendments on the floor of the Senate--we are going to shut this kind of thing down. The other side kind of laughs and scoffs at this and says: Well, you can't shut that down.

I know, in fact, no one will stand up, if I ask: Will someone today come over to the floor of the Senate and stand up and say: Do you know what? Count me in. I am a big fan of having U.S. companies buy foreign sewer systems. Sign my name to it. Give me credit for it. Nobody will do that. It is kind of in the dark of the night that all this tax policy gets made.

That is what my colleague says in this budget: Let's begin to shut that down. Let's begin to collect the revenues, reduce the Federal deficits.

These deficits--at some point somebody is going to have to pay them. This administration inherited a very large budget surplus. I stood on the floor of the Senate and said maybe we ought to be a little conservative here, and the President and his minions said: No, no, no. Let's decide that we want to give it all back, despite the fact we did not have it yet. It was 10 years of projected surplus.

Guess what. In a matter of months, we found out we were in a recession. Then we had 9/11. Then we had a war in Afghanistan. Then we had a war in Iraq. Huge surpluses were turned into huge deficits and much more spending for a war, for which the President said: Oh, by the way, we are not going to pay for that. We are going to ask that all of it be funded with zero requests in the budget because we are going to send you emergency requests, and you can add it to the deficit. So we send soldiers to war, and when they come back, they can help pay the cost of the war because we are not going to do it.

That is what is wrong with this fiscal policy. We were on a road to nowhere and a road to real trouble, and finally we have a budget that begins to force change. Is it going to happen overnight? No. It is going to take some time. But this budget is a budget that moves us finally in the right direction.

I commend Senator Conrad and all those who worked on it. I am proud to be part of it and will be proud to vote for it.

Madam President, how much time remains?

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, May 17, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on law enforcement in Indian Country.

Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 224-2251.

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