Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am concerned about the increase in gasoline prices. They are indicative of other increases in natural gas and diesel fuel. It is an important national issue. A family that may have been paying $150 for a month for fuel, $200 a month, may be paying $50, $75 dollars more a month than they were several years ago. It is real money out of real working Americans' pockets. It is an issue we need to confront. We have talked about it on the floor for many years. Unfortunately, we have not done enough to confront the problem and deal with it in a way that actually makes a difference.

We did recently pass an energy bill that is better than most people realize, that did a lot of good things. For example, it took us from zero preliminary applications for a nuclear powerplant to now 18. Since last fall, we have had 18 or 19 applications which would reduce the demand for natural gas that we are using so much now to generate electricity. But we failed in a number of important issues.

It is surprising to me, but the strength of the economy and the increase in productivity of our workforce is such that we haven't seen a surge in inflation across the board as a result of these increasing energy prices. But it could happen. It could begin to happen and could affect our economy adversely. We went through the last spike without serious consequences. But when you absorb this much extra cost, it does have some impact.

Unfortunately, what I have been hearing on the floor is a lot of politics, a lot of blame game from people who oftentimes are the very ones who have blocked key decisions that we should have made that would have made our energy situation far better.

I see my colleague from Idaho. Few people--as a matter of fact, virtually no Senators--have steeped themselves in energy issues more than he. When he speaks on this issue, we should listen. He has historical perspective and knowledge of the issues. I compliment him and will follow up on some of the things he said.

There is some bipartisan work going on. I am part of the energy security caucus that believes we should treat energy as a national security issue and even take steps that might in the short run seem not to be economically as wise but in the long run will be wise and help our economy. I care about this. I believe we should work in a bipartisan way.

I want to push back a little bit and talk about how we got in this fix and what it is going to take to get out of it. A few months ago this bipartisan group and others were invited to the White House. We met with President Bush. He passionately argued and excited all of us, Republicans and Democrats, about his vision for ethanol and hydrogen and biodiesel. It was a good give-and-take session. He heard everybody's ideas. He is moving forward in many different ways. It is good to have the President engaged personally in these issues. He has a lot of things on his plate, but I am glad he has chosen--and has for several months now--to personally push the development of better energy supplies.

How did we get here? A number of things are important to note. I just saw a report about the world economy. The world economy is growing at a great rate, 4 or 5 percent internationally. This is so much better than the downturn that they suffered several years ago. I was recently in Peru and the Dominican Republic. Their growth rate has exceeded ours, although we have had the highest growth rate of any industrialized nation in the world, higher than any single European Nation, at least of the larger economies in Europe. But the Dominican Republic has exceeded our growth--9 percent growth. You know about China and India's sustained growth, and they are using more oil and gas in all these areas, and we are using more as a result of that economy. It has increased demand, and we do have political instability around the world.

We have had problems in Nigeria and problems with Venezuela. The lines are still open there, but that is an area which causes some problem. There is concern and speculation that we could have a shutoff from any number of areas in the Middle East. So those are things which have curtailed supply while demand has been increased.

I wish to talk about some of the key votes we have cast in the Senate--votes that are very important. I have to say that in the votes I will be talking about, my Democratic colleagues provided the bulk of the votes that blocked decisions that should have been made, some of which I think go beyond the pale. I have said that for years.

Let's talk about ANWR. We have heard that discussed time and time again. It was passed one time. President Clinton vetoed it. We came within a vote or two of passing it several times since. Ninety percent of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted against opening up ANWR to exploration. The ANWR region of Alaska is so large, it is as large as the State of South Carolina. The area they want to drill in, propose to drill in, where they have identified huge reserves of oil and gas, is the size of Dulles Airport. That is how small it is. With directional drilling and the scientific skills we have developed, we have a proven track record that oil can be produced safely in these kinds of regions. It is beyond my comprehension that we would deny our Nation these large amounts of oil in the ANWR region.

I will show you what we would have to move CAFE standards to, which is the mileage standards for automobiles, to equal the impact of the ANWR oil and gas. You would have to raise CAFE standards to 39 miles per gallon for cars and 29 miles for light trucks. The amount of oil there is equivalent to the energy that would be generated by a 3.7 million-acre wind farm. It would be the size of the entire States of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. That is how much energy we are talking about. Or solar energy from 448,000 acres of solar panels. A fifth of America's domestic oil could be produced out of ANWR by 2025.

We should have done this 10 years ago. It should be flowing today. We should hold companies and producers accountable and make sure there will be no spills. We are producing oil and gas so much safer than we ever have. We are not having a problem, frankly, anywhere with oil and gas spills.

I will say one more thing about this issue. It is very offensive to me when you say to those of us who have advocated ANWR drilling and other areas,

like in the gulf: Oh, you are for the oil companies. You are doing this for the oil companies.

Let me make one thing clear. My proposal to drill in ANWR and the gulf and other areas is for the American people. Now, the oil companies which own oil interests around the world--sometimes I think they don't have enough interest in finding new reserves. They have their reserves. They will sell it at whatever the market price is. If the supply is low and demand is high, they will charge every dime they can charge. That is what they have always done, and that is what they will always do. But when we deny our people the ability to produce oil and gas in our own country and keep that money at home--it has been estimated by union groups that support this drilling that 600,000 jobs would be created in America. Why would we not do that? Why would we send our money off to a foreign nation that is hostile to our interests, perhaps, and let them spend it and create jobs in their nation? You tell me why.

This is not a political issue. It has always been about accessibility of oil and gas for the American people. It is not for the oil companies, it is for the American people, to keep our wealth at home. You may say: We care about the environment. Do you care about Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela where they are drilling perhaps thousands of wells or the Persian Gulf--aren't those nice areas for the environment? What about the hundreds and thousands of wells in the Gulf of Mexico off of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas?

We have to get real here. Ninety percent of the votes cast to block the drilling in ANWR came from our Democratic colleagues. They are the very ones in this Chamber right now who are complaining and blaming President Bush because we don't have enough oil and gas and the price is going up. Let's just say that is what it is. That is a plain fact.

Now, Senator Larry Craig really talked about something I know a good bit about, just because of my location. I live in Mobile, on the Gulf of Mexico. This past weekend, I visited my brother-in-law, who has a house on Fort Morgan, out toward the peninsula there on Mobile Bay. Right off of his pier, in the bay, is a producing oil well. Friday, we got up early and went fishing; it was the first day of snapper season. We didn't catch any snapper. We caught some redfish. Where did we go? We went out a few miles into the gulf and fished around the oil well. There were four boats fishing around that oil well. We caught four nice redfish. We threw them back. That is where people fish. It provides good structures for fish.

Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama are providing the Nation a tremendous amount of production. Twenty percent of that production was lost as a result of Hurricane Katrina. They have shut off the valves, so if the rigs are damaged, the shutoff valve doesn't allow oil and gas to spill. Many of the rigs' valves are still shut off. They are not connected. But oil is not being spilled.

My point is that we lost 20 percent of our offshore production, and we have a 5-percent problem still as a result of Katrina's damage to refineries. The Senator from Mississippi knows that so well. So just those factors right there make a demand for oil and gas to exceed the supply. When that happens, the people who have the supplies can manipulate the price and can charge whatever they think they can get. That is what is happening. It has impacted us adversely. That is the way the world works. I am not prepared to try to fix the prices on this. I am willing to look at what has happened and ask tough questions of the oil companies, like: Do you really have enough interest in exploring new reservoirs and finding new reserves and bringing that on line? Maybe you do not have enough interest. Maybe you are happy to not confront the environmentalists or the Democratic obstructionists and sit on what you have, and if the price goes up, charge it. We are not getting enough production, in my view. A big part of the problem is political; it is Congress.

Let me show you a couple of things. ANWR is a big deal. I read off how much ANWR has. If I am not mistaken, ANWR is less than a half billion barrels of oil. The Gulf of Mexico, according to our best estimates, has about 3.65 billion barrels of oil, but they are under moratorium; we cannot drill there. This is a pocketbook issue, not a political issue. Whole regions of the gulf are not available for drilling today. What is happening? Fidel Castro in Cuba is partnering with China and is moving forward with plans that could allow him to drill within 50 miles of Florida, off the Florida coast. He can drill, but we cannot. He can take the money and fund his adventures around South and Central America and complain against the United States. And we are going to buy oil from him? Is that who we pay? And the Chinese company that produces it--is that what people would like to see?

This is reality. That is all I am saying. It is not a pleasant thought. It is unfortunate. I suggest that if we had moved forward out there, we may not be seeing such activities now.

I will show you another chart. This shows what Secretary of the Interior Norton said about Hurricane Katrina, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the United States:

Despite such intense winds and powerful waves offshore, we

experienced no significant spills from any offshore well on

the outer continental shelf.

See these dots on the chart? They represent oil platforms. There are hundreds and hundreds of them there, and we are getting a tremendous amount of oil and gas from them. It is important to the American economy. If we weren't buying it there, who would we be paying for it? Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria? So we have been getting it here in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Look over at this area of the gulf, where 3.65 billion barrels of reserve is expected to be, and there is a moratorium on that; we cannot drill out there. Why? Because somebody in Florida believes it might impact their coastline adversely. But we have had no impact, and they are drilling a mile off of our shores, in our bay, in little Mobile Bay right here, up in the bay, where there are wells. And there are wells off of the Texas and Louisiana coasts by the hundreds. We are not having oil spills. Do you think you would not see it on television if there were a spill? They would have it on the front pages, whether it was significant or not. We are just not seeing that. They have learned to do this in such a safe way that we have been able to avoid any significant spills.

So, as Senator Craig noted, right here on the chart there is a little lease area--some area we can drill in--and we are working on that now. Some are trying to block that. I want to repeat that the votes we have cast on the floor that deal with that issue have fundamentally involved party-line votes on so many of these issues--although not totally. Our Presiding Officer cares about this issue. He is from Florida, and I admire him so much. We just disagree on this issue. I fish around these rigs. I am not so much worried about it. I would like my Florida friends to get more comfortable with the wells, and they would be less concerned about them. So these wells are there, and we have an opportunity to drill a tremendous amount of them, and then that natural wealth will be returned again and again in our own economy so that we can keep it in our Nation instead of sending it to nations around the world, many of which are hostile to our political interests or to our national security interests. It is important. That is why we have a national security caucus, because we are concerned about the transfer of American wealth to nations whose interests are not harmonious with ours.

It is a big deal. I point out a story I told a year or so ago on the floor. My hometown of Mobile produces natural gas offshore, and there is a pipeline there. Our friends in Florida down in Tampa and other places on the beach have nice houses and they have to keep them cool. So they took our natural gas that we produce and put a pipeline all the way to Florida so they could generate electricity to cool their fine houses on the beach where they can have their mint juleps out there in the breeze. It is such a beautiful area down there.

I think they ought to start asking themselves: Would it hurt if we had some wells out in this area of the country? Would it help the American economy? Wouldn't it make us a healthier, stronger nation? I think so.

So we had some debates about this last year with the Energy bill and a modest proposal came up.

I will conclude with this, because I am pushing back a little bit at some of my colleagues who are screaming about the high price of oil and gas. Somebody came out with a proposal to survey the Atlantic Coast where we haven't surveyed to see if there is oil and gas out there. The religious crowd, the anti-oil production religious crowd opposed that. They opposed even doing a survey. Seventy percent of the votes against that amendment were provided by my colleagues on the other side.

I assure you, a good percentage of those who voted against even surveying our coastline to see if there is any more oil and gas available, if we ever decided to drill, are some of the same ones who are yelling the loudest about high oil prices.

I thank the Chair for this time. We need to move away from politics. We need to think through this issue carefully and see what we can do to improve the method of production, to improve conservation, and to deal with the scientific breakthroughs and accelerate those so we can confront the problems we face and reduce these high oil and gas prices.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me say the bill that came out of the committee, the Kennedy-McCain bill, was substituted there over the Specter bill. It lurched the bill even further toward amnesty than we already were heading. When it came up for a vote yesterday, it needed 60 votes to proceed. It got 60 votes against it--only 39 to proceed. It was defeated overwhelmingly.

Then they hatched a compromise among Members who already supported the Kennedy bill and they claimed they were producing a compromise that could be supported. But people who should have been involved in that compromise, who worked so hard on this, such as Senator Kyl, Senator Cornyn, Senator Feinstein, Senator Dorgan, Senator Nelson, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is here--I am not aware they were involved in it. So they bring that up now and expect us to support it.

Ninety-five percent of what was in the bill rejected yesterday is in this one and there is no substantial change in matters of amnesty. In fact, with regard to green cards, it increases significantly the number that would be granted over the bill we rejected yesterday. It is an unprincipled approach, in my view, and not a well thought out plan.

With regard to this question, who will say on the floor of this Senate that the enforcement provisions will be carried out and we will actually have enforcement on the border? That is why the Presiding Officer, Senator Isakson, had a perfectly important amendment. That was not allowed to be voted on. It would at least have taken a strong step toward ensuring that whatever we passed becomes law.

Finally, when asked what the cost was, nobody knew until last night and we find that the cost of this bill is $29 billion over 5 years. Nobody had even thought about it. That clearly is a budget-busting matter.

This bill is a dead horse, in my view. It should be rejected because amendments have not been allowed, and it should be rejected most importantly because it does not do what it purports to do.

I yield.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Leahy, ranking member on the Judiciary Committee.

I have received just this afternoon in my office some disturbing news in the form of correspondence from the Congressional Budget Office. It suggests a number of areas where the amendment we are talking about here today, No. 3424, the immigration so-called compromise, violates our budget and the rules of the Senate.

Let me read from the correspondence we have received. This is something, as you know, Mr. President, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, that we never discussed at all. It is not a matter we spent any time at all discussing as we moved forward with legislation which ultimately cleared that committee and came to the floor--legislation which I thought was not good legislation and which I opposed, and so did the Senator from Texas, who just relinquished the Chair. We didn't discuss the financial impact of the legislation before us.

One of the things our rules of the Senate require is that if a bill is on the floor that is in violation of a budget we have adopted, it is subject to a budget point of order. I am not going to make that budget point of order now because I am sure someone here would want to move to waive that budget point of order, but I am giving the heads up to those who are supporting this bill that it is a budget buster.

We have not yet begun to figure out how much this legislation will cost. I will be quoting from the Congressional Budget Office, which is the authoritative department to determine these matters. They have given us a preliminary report.

Let me read from the correspondence they have given and which I have just received.

CBO has estimated the cost of some--but not all--of the

provisions of the proposed Hagel-Martinez amendment to the

immigration bill. The version we are working with is labeled

O:/MDM/MDM06671 and was provided to us this morning.

One reason they got this this morning was that this so-called compromise which was hatched yesterday was not even printed until 10 o'clock last night.

We have been talking about these problems for weeks and we produced the bill that came out of committee--I don't know what name to put on it; the Specter-Kennedy-McCain amendment, the bill that came out of committee--and it was crushed on the floor of the Senate, with 60 people refusing to move to a final up-or-down vote on it, 60 to 39.

We have now the compromise desperately put together by people--well meaning, no doubt, but none of whom bring any particular experience, knowledge to the problem facing us. And I assure you, if in the 5 days of markup in Judiciary Committee we didn't discuss the actual cost of this program, I am sure, as they worked feverishly into the night last night, they didn't consider it either. They had no idea. But this was a political discussion about how to put a bill together that politically might pass around here regardless of the details of it.

Frankly, we are going to have to deal with the specifics of illegal immigration. It is too important to treat it at a superficial level.

There are bills which, when we come up to a recess, the leader has to push, and you always try to do those things, and people make compromises, and they pass. But this is not a normal bill at all. The American people care about it, and we owe them some things.

I don't think there are any Senators here who haven't been back to their States and made some commitments and stated some principles that they thought are critical to a good immigration bill, and I want them to be aware of what we are talking about.

The bill number which the Congressional Budget Office referenced is the pending amendment, No. 3424, to the Frist motion to commit.

Let me continue now with what we received from the Congressional Budget Office:

The figures in this e-mail do NOT include costs associated

with the conditional nonimmigrant provisions, which we are

still working on. They also do NOT include revenue losses and

outlays for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which we will be

getting from the Joint Tax Committee and which results

largely from the conditional non-immigrant provisions. Those

revenue losses and Earned Income Tax Credit outlays may be

significant.

I will talk about the average salary of most of the workers who are here illegally today and those workers who will be regularized, placed on permanent resident status, given a green card, and placed on a pathway to citizenship. As you look at those salaries, you will see that they fall in the classic earned income tax credit range.

I have had occasion for some time to wrestle with the earned income tax credit. A lot of people oppose it entirely. You file your tax return, and if you don't owe any taxes and you have a lower income, you get a tax rebate from the Government. You don't pay taxes; they give you an average rebate. I submit that salaries for these workers are going to be pretty close to the average recipient of the earned income tax credit benefit. The average recipient gets $2,400 a year by way of a tax credit. Persons who are working here illegally today are not currently getting the earned income tax credit, but if we regularize them and make them permanent residents, they will. That will cost us a lot of money.

The Congressional Budget Office is saying they haven't considered those numbers yet in the cost of this bill, but they are real and significant, as I say they, indeed, are.

They go on to say this:

With those important caveats, estimated outlays are about

$2 billion for the first 5 years--2007-2011--and $12 billion

for the first 10 years--2007-2016. The final figures will be

bigger than those. Most of those costs are for Medicaid and

Food Stamp programs.

They say those are not the final figures. The final figures will be bigger. It didn't include the earned income tax credit.

They go on to say this:

Outlays in the succeeding 10 years will be greater. The

bill would impose mandates on State and local governments

with costs that would exceed the threshold established in the

Unfunded Mandates Reform Act in at least 1 of the first 5

years after they would take effect.

I ask unanimous consent that this message from the Congressional Budget Office be printed in the Record so that my colleagues can begin to look at it and begin to understand that we have a budget problem with this bill, among other things.

Mr. President, the Senate Judiciary Committee, under the 2006 budget resolution, has only $6 million remaining. We are talking about a minimum of $2 billion in costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office, under the first 5 years of this immigration bill which is before us today, but the Judiciary Committee, under our budget resolution, has only $6 million remaining in its direct spending allocation for the next 5 years.

CBO's preliminary estimate, according to the Congressional Budget Office letter I just read, is that amendment No. 3224 will spend at least $2 billion during that period and likely much more over that period and the next 5 years. This far exceeds the $6 million--it might sound large to you, but in the scheme of things we discuss today, it is a paltry sum--allocated to the committee under the budget.

On this basis, we need to review what we should do as a Senate. I think it is appropriate and the right thing that the Senate confront the question and make a decision as to whether we should waive that point of order and go forward with this legislation or not waive it, in which case the bill would be subject to failure.

I note that the Budget Committee has responsibilities in this, and every aspect of that has not been completed to date, and it may be premature to move to make such a motion at this time. I am sharing this with everyone so they can be prepared to think through the consequences of this cost, which has not been discussed whatsoever. In fact, if you listen to some of the proponents of the legislation before us, if we just pass this bill, it is going to make us all rich, everybody is going to do better, for the first time people are going to pay taxes, the economy is going to improve, and the average guy is going to be fine. The reality is, that did not happen in 1986 and it is not going to happen this time because many of these benefits are such that they are not available to people here illegally. Under this law they will become legal.

We are going to see a rise in costs to our Government beyond that which is permitted by the budget we all voted on, we all agreed to, and we all said we need to stand by. I should not say ``all,'' but enough voted to pass the budget. The budget is a very significant and important document. Many of us take very seriously this cap we agreed to place on spending and agreed not to pass legislation that would break those caps, even if we like the underlying amendment or bill that would spend money. That violates the budget. On many occasions I have felt it my duty to vote ``no'' because I agreed to a budget number. This Congress and this Senate has agreed to budget caps. The very significant factor is that today we now know the Hagel-Martinez amendment violates that Budget Act. I am sure the committee bill also did, but it would appear this may be further along.

We have seen amnesty before in our country, in 1986, and the record is clear that American taxpayers did pay the cost of the fiscal deficit created by the 3 million beneficiaries under the 1986 amnesty. Of course, the original estimates were that 1 million, 1.5 million people would qualify for amnesty in 1986. Now they are estimating 12 million. But, in fact, 3 million showed up in 1986 and claimed the benefits of amnesty, many using documents that were dubious.

A 1997 study conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that the 3 million newly legalized aliens in the 1986 amnesty had generated a net fiscal deficit of $24 billion in the short decade that passed since their arrival. The 3 million cost the Government $24 billion. That is a very large sum of money.

Incidentally, when Congress passed the 1986 amnesty bill, it estimated only 1 million illegal aliens would qualify for that amnesty law and draw upon the Treasury. That is how the numbers were out of sync.

There is no doubt about it, American taxpayers will pay if this legislation passes. If this, what I consider to be fairly described as amnesty, passes, the American taxpayers will pay the cost of this amnesty and it will be a drain on our programs that are designed to provide health care and assistance to American citizens and those who came here lawfully to achieve legal permanent status.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center report from last year, the average family income in 2003 for unauthorized migrants in the country for less than 10 years was $25,700, while those who had been in the country a decade or more earned $29,000.

Given that the average family income for illegal immigrants is just above the 2006 Federal poverty line of $20,000, it is not surprising that many of these families will likely rely on social service programs to meet their basic needs. That is what we know will occur.

Though the exact cost of this new amnesty is impossible to absolutely determine, certainly CBO is providing a low figure that they can verify as of this date. We can learn a lot by looking at existing studies that give us a glimpse at the cost of illegal immigration to our social program. For example, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that in 2001, 31 percent of illegal households used at least one of four major welfare programs: Medicaid, SSI, TANF, which is temporary assistance for needy families, which is a basic welfare program, or food stamps. That is a very large number. It is not improbable considering the other numbers about the average income, knowing that there are so many below the poverty line.

The Urban Institute estimates in 2000, 47,000 families in the United States headed by one or two illegal aliens received TANF, the temporary assistance for needy families, on behalf of their children--47,000 is a pretty dramatic number.

Further, if each of these families received greater than $1,000 a year, the amount spent for a TANF household by illegal aliens could easily reach tens of millions of dollars.

I see others who wish to speak and I will follow up on this later. I am saying we have to deal with the reality. Unfortunately, we have not spent a lot of time thinking through the full consequences of our actions. We have not had economists, we have not had experts, we have not had Government officials, we have not had professors and scientists discuss with us the impact of this legislation and how we can pass legislation that would best help those who come here, and how we can do so in a way that does not adversely impact the Treasury of the United States.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, at 10:30 this morning, the proponents of what I would have to say is amnesty in the bill that came out of the committee, the Kennedy-McCain-Specter bill, or whatever name you want to give it, that bill was crushed in this body with 39 votes for and 60 votes against. It was pulled and removed from the docket and sent back to Committee. Then we had a group get together yesterday in an effort to develop what they call a compromise. They could see that there was a vote coming, and they thought they could put something together, and I don't blame them. It has been referred to as the Hagel compromise. But we have looked at the bill, and I have to tell my colleagues, if you voted against the Kennedy bill this morning, you need not support the Hagel compromise because it is fundamentally the same thing. I am going to talk about it and explain how it is essentially the same bill.

I wish it weren't the same thing. I wish it was something we could support. I would like to support good legislation. We have an opportunity--a real opportunity--to fix the problem with security and immigration in our country. Our Nation is at risk. Our borders are not under control. However, we have the capacity to do it. It is not that hard. I have said it before, and I have explained how we can do it.

T.J. Bonner, the head of the National Border Patrol Council said: It is real simple. You simply fix up the border. You remove the magnet of a job by having real workplace enforcement and, all of a sudden, things can go in the right direction.

This bill does none of that. It rewards bad behavior, it would encourage illegal behavior in the future, and we should not pass it. It is against what so many of us promised that we would

vote for and we don't have a lot of time. That bill was hatched yesterday after a few Senators met somewhere and thought they could waltz in and just fix it. They expected all of us to line up and vote for it. I don't believe people are going to line up and vote for it.

They produced this compromise and introduced it, and we didn't get a copy until 10 o'clock last night. This compromise that we got late last night is 525 pages long. What is in it? Ninety-five percent of what is in it, I have to tell you, is just what you voted against and rejected this morning. We rejected it because it was not a good piece of legislation. It did not do what we promised the American people we were going to do as individual Senators. If you look at the expressions of Senators as a group, time and again they say things that they believe are legitimate principles. These bills do not reflect those principles.

The President has said he is against an automatic path to citizenship, and he is against amnesty, both of which are in this bill. The President needs to read it. When you go out and campaign and tell people what you are going to do, you need to honor that commitment.

Let me tell you some of the things that are in this Hagel compromise. It triples--triples--the number of employment-based green cards available each year. This is not a committee that met yesterday. This is a group of people, ad hoc Senators got together and huddled. The Senator in the chair there, he has been in a huddle, Quarterback George Allen. They got in a huddle, and with very little time and effort to study the issues, they came up with this legislation. Ninety-five percent of it was what was in the bill we rejected just this morning. What does it do? One of the most significant things that we have given very little thought to is it triples the number of employment-based green cards available each year. It triples the number.

Currently, there are 140,000 available. Currently, spouses and children, if they come in, they count against the 140,000 cap. Under the Kennedy bill that we voted down this morning they jumped that number to 400,000, and spouses and children didn't count against the cap. This bill raises it to 450,000 annually, and spouses and children--we estimate about 540,000 more, family members--can come with them, and they do not count against the cap. That is pushing a million a year. That is a huge change.

I, personally, am of the view that if we can make our system lawful and have it work correctly, we can and will want to increase the number. But triple the number, and then increase that number again, by allowing spouses and children to come and not count against the cap? That is a sixfold increase. Without any hearings? Without any economists? Without listening to the labor unions? Without listening to business people tell us how many people we really need? Without any professors or scientists who understand the impact this kind of huge numbers would have? They propose we accept this compromise, and it goes beyond the Kennedy proposal that was rejected this morning.

It changes the amnesty process for the current number of people. These 450,000 plus family members are, for the most part people who live outside the country. They apply and can come in. So the total number who come in with a green card--which means you are a permanent resident citizen and you are on an automatic path to citizenship--this is supposed to be for those people.

The message is we want a guest worker program. That is what they said. We want a guest worker program. What does that sound like, if you are an American citizen trying to evaluate what your legislators are doing up here? I hope those American people who are watching are following this closely because these are not guest workers.

Somebody said let's not call it guest workers anymore, let's call it temporary workers. But they are not temporary workers either. They get a green card. They come in under this new H-2C program, and they are able then, on the petition of an employer, to get a green card within 1 year. If they don't have an employer petition for them, they can self- petition, which is not the rule now. Now these are supposed to be based on employment that is needed.

President Bush says a company that needs workers certifies they need you. Now you can self-certify and within 5 years you can be placed on an automatic path to citizenship. They never have to return home. That is all I am saying. Anybody who says this is a temporary worker program or guest worker program is not correct the way this language is in the bill.

These numbers do not include all that is in the bill. The AgJOBS bill came up on the floor a little over a year ago and was debated and blocked. Senator Saxby Chambliss, who chairs the Agriculture Committee, and a number of us raised objections to that bill. We blocked it. It did not go forward. It did not pass.

They blithely added the whole AgJOBS bill to the committee bill and it has now been made part of this compromise. There are 1.5 million who can come in under the AgJOBS bill.

People say we need the talented people. We still have limits on talented people who come into the country with high education levels, but there is virtually no limit on the number of unskilled workers who come into our country. That is not good public policy, I submit. That is probably not what you said when you have been out campaigning and talking to your constituents around the country.

Under the current law, before new legislation passes, the United States issues 1.1 million green cards a year. That is what we do today, and 140,000 of those green cards are available to aliens who are sponsored by employers. That is the working group. Under the Hagel- Martinez compromise bill, the United States would now issue between 2.2 million and 2.5 million green cards each year, 450,000 of which will be employment-based green cards during the years 2007 and 2016. That is triple the number of employment-based green cards we currently issue on an annual basis, triple the number we currently issue. Although the number would be curtailed after a few years, it is still 150,000 more than currently issued. After 2016, the number of green cards for employer-sponsored aliens would go back to double the current level, at 290,000.

They have also increased the employment-based green card cap--that is the total limit, over and above the 450,000 that would now be available each year under the compromise--by exempting spouses and children from counting against the cap. Spouses and children count against the cap today. So we triple the number, and we don't count spouses and children. Because an average of 1.2 family members accompany employment-based green card holders, we estimate that about 540,000 family members will also get employment-based green cards without counting against this cap. That is contrary to what we do today. It is contrary to our policy. This is a huge change is all I am saying.

Maybe after thorough debate we might want to go that far. I doubt it. I think we want to increase the number of legal workers who come to our country but surge these numbers this much without any discussion whatsoever? This means next year we could have 990,000--that is almost a million--employment-based green cards issued: 550,000 for the workers, 540,000 for the family members. That is equal to the total number of green cards we handed out this year for all categories, including employment-based, family-based, asylum, refugees, cancellation of removal, and so forth.

Using the estimate from our population chart, based on the CRS data and the Pew Hispanic data, the way the new amnesty categories would work is as follows. This is what is in the compromise.

If you are here for 5 or more years--and that includes 8.85 million of the 11.5 to 12 million people who are estimated to be here, or 75 percent of those who are estimated to be here today--what happens to you? You are treated just like you were under the Kennedy bill that was rejected this morning. You get to stay, work, apply for a green card from inside the United States.

Again, what does green card mean? It means you are a permanent resident, eligible for all the social welfare benefits that belong to American citizens, No. 1. No. 2, it puts you on a guaranteed path to citizenship. This is your

reward for violating the law by coming in illegally.

Under this bill, 75 percent of them, 8.85 million would get to stay and apply for green cards from inside the United States, just like the rejected bill earlier today provided for. And in addition, spouses and children would get those green cards as well. And they, spouses and children, would get green cards even if they are not in the United States.

So if the person came here to work temporarily, planned to go back to his family, didn't have a plan to stay here permanently and intended to go back to his country of origin, make a little extra money to help out the family, now we have encouraged them to go ahead and bring their family here. That would be a large number. That will impact more than the 1.1 million who are covered by the bill, according to the estimates.

They do not count against any family or employment caps or green cards. We do currently have a limit. We are supposed to have a limit on the total number who can come in as permanent workers on the path to citizenship so none of these would count against the caps, out of the 11 to 12 million.

So 75 percent of the 11.5 million are like that. What about those in the compromise? They say we are going to be a little different than the Kennedy bill for those 1.4 million people who have been here from 2 to 5 years. What happens to those that have only been here illegally for 2 to 5 years? You get to stay legally, and you are able to continue to work in the United States while you apply for a work visa if, within 3 years, at any time during that 3 years, you go across the border through a consular office and pick up a nonimmigrant visa that you can apply for from the United States. Although the Department of Homeland Security Secretary may waive the departure requirement. So you can go across the border, go to the office, pick up the thing and come right back the same day.

Spouses and children get the same status. If they came here illegally, they get the same green card status, but they don't have to go across the border to pick it up, they can get it right here at home. If they apply for the H-2C, a new work visa created under title IV, the employer can sponsor them for a green card the day they come back into the United States.

The employer can petition that day to get them a green card. Once you get that green card, you are a legal, permanent resident, entitled to the welfare and governmental benefits of our country.

What about those who are here for less than 2 years? That is not directly addressed in this compromise bill that we now have before us that is supposed to solve all of our problems. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve them.

The compromise sponsors will tell you that the people who have been here less than 2 years--that is about 1.2 to 1.7 million--will have to leave immediately or be deported.

First, let me ask how many people are being apprehended and deported today? Who is going to apprehend and deport these people who are here illegally in the last year?

I raise that as a practical question.

But under the bill language, you can qualify for the new H-2C worker program, even if you are unlawfully present in the United States.

My legal counsel is a smart reader of the law.

This is the way the bill explains it. It doesn't say that plainly. It says:

In determining the alien's admissibility as an H-2C

nonimmigrant. . . . paragraphs (5), (6)(A), (7), (9)(B) and

(9)(C) of section 212(a) may be waived for conduct that

occurred before the effective date.

What does all that mean?

If you do not have time to put aside the statute, the compromise bill, and go back and read the underlying statute, you don't know what it means, but if you do that, as my counsel did, you will see that is a pretty sneaky maneuver. As I noted, under the new H-2C program, 400,000 per year can get green cards as workers, and these people will qualify for that because those code sections refer to aliens who came here illegally and those who have been ordered removed but have come illegally will go back into the United States.

The last bunch, the 1.2 million that have been here less than 2 years, they are not going to leave this country.

First of all, nobody is going to come and get them. They are going to apply under the new visa program, the H-2C worker program that has these huge numbers that we have triple the numbers for. And it specifically says in the statute that they will qualify, even if they came here illegally or have been apprehended here illegally or removed--and removed from the United States--and they have come back illegally, they still get to qualify and stay here.

We don't need to vote for a bill such as that.

By the way, in reading the bill carefully, my fine staff discovered-- it is kind of hard to do all this when you get a bill last night at 10 p.m. which is 325 pages--that those here illegally, whom I just mentioned, in the last 2 years or have been removed and come back illegally, they do not even count against the cap. Why would we want to do that?

I say to you that whoever drafted the bill--I don't really say this to the sponsors because the sponsors of the compromise who met for a few hours and put this thing together didn't realize who all had worked on it. I guess it is the forces who believe that no illegal alien should be left behind. So everybody who is here illegally gets to stay in the country, and they don't even count against the cap for the green card.

I don't think we ought to welcome back into this country someone who has been apprehended, deported and removed from the country and they come back again illegally. They ought not to be allowed to stay, period, much less be given a permanent status and much less be put on a path to citizenship, which this compromise legislation will do.

We think somebody had to have intended this. Somebody who was involved in the writing of this knew what they were doing and definitely wanted to include everybody to make sure that they could say publicly: Well, if it is 5 years, you know you can stay, but if is less than 5 years, you could be removed. None will be removed unless they are convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors.

They basically said you wouldn't be eligible for citizenship if you came here after January of 2004. That is not true. The bill covers everybody. That is part of the compromise legislation and still part of it. It is part of the Kennedy bill that we roundly rejected this morning, and it is part of the compromise that is before us now.

Let me take a few minutes to run over some of the provisions in that 95 percent of the Kennedy bill that was rejected this morning that remains in the Hagel compromise.

Here are some of the difficulties with it.

Let us take loophole No. 1: Absconders and some individuals with felonies or 3 misdemeanors are not barred from getting amnesty.

An absconder is somebody who was apprehended by Border Patrol people, detained, they did not have time to take him or her out of the country, they were busy, they did not have jail space, detention space for them, so they release them on bail. That is what they do all over the country because we don't take this seriously, and they don't show up when they are supposed to be deported. Surprise. They abscond.

Absconders and some individuals with felonies or three misdemeanors are not barred from getting amnesty.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, different crimes make aliens ``inadmissible,'' ``deportable,'' or ``ineligible'' for specific benefits.

As written, the Specter substitute--it is included in this bill--only requires an alien to show they are not ``inadmissible'' to qualify for the amnesty contained in the bill. However, some felonies make an alien ``inadmissible,'' but some do not.

Absconders--aliens with final orders of removal who are currently watched by ICE immigration officers--should not be eligible for amnesty. They remain eligible for this amnesty. The Kyl-Cornyn amendment that was blocked by the other side so we couldn't get a vote on it, was designed to fix this loophole. It would keep aliens with felony convictions or three misdemeanors from being eligible for the new amnesty program. Surely, we agree on that. If we had a vote on it, I am sure it would pass.

But the leader on the other side has managed to block us from getting a vote.

Loophole No. 2: Aliens specifically barred from receiving immigration benefits for life because they filed a frivolous asylum application will also be able to receive amnesty. Under INA, section 208(d)(6), if the Attorney General determines that an alien knowingly filed a frivolous asylum application, the alien will be permanently ineligible for any benefits under the INA. This bill changes that. On page 333, it says: ``Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary shall adjust . . . '' an alien who meets the requirement of INN 245B. There is no provision that states that the alien is eligible for amnesty if they file a frivolous asylum application. It, therefore, gives benefits to aliens previously barred from all immigration benefits.

Loophole No. 3: All aliens who are subject to a final order of removal--for some reason you are brought up and the court has ordered you removed from the country--who failed to leave pursuant to a voluntary departure agreement, they entered into those agreements and oftentimes people promise to leave and never leave--or who are subject to the reinstatement of a final order of removal because they illegally reentered after being ordered removed from the United States are also eligible for amnesty.

I call on my colleagues to look at the bill. On page 353, line 3, the bill clearly states that any alien with a final order of removal can apply for amnesty. This means that the aliens who have already received their day in court have had their case fully litigated, and they have been ordered removed and have failed to depart will now be rewarded for not following the law and leaving like they were ordered to do. They will qualify for this amnesty.

This will include many of the 37,000 Chinese nationals that China has refused to take back. I understand maybe they have agreed to take them back in the last day or so, but they have been pretty recalcitrant on it. I will be surprised if they are all approved for repatriation.

But do you see how important this could be.

Loophole No. 4: Aliens who illegally entered the country multiple times are also eligible for amnesty. Page 334, line 8 requires continuous physical presence and states than an alien must not have departed from the United States before April 5, 2006, except for brief, casual or innocent departures. Every time the alien reenters the United States illegally, they are committing a criminal offense. But this bill rewards those aliens with amnesty also.

Loophole No. 5: This bill allows aliens who have persecuted anyone on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion get amnesty. It fails to make persecutors ineligible for amnesty.

I would have thought that was an oversight until I noticed on page 363, line 22, that the bill makes those heinous acts bar aliens here between 2 and 5 years from amnesty but not those who have been here longer. The same bar left out for the 8.8 million who have been here for more than 5 years. This will be interpreted as an intentional decision of Congress when we pass this bill.

That is not inadvertent. I don't know why they did that.

Loophole No. 6: There is no continuous presence or continuous work requirement for amnesty. To be eligible to adjust from illegal to legal statutes under the bill, the alien must simply have been ``physically present in the United States on April 5, 2001,'' and have been ``employed continuously in the United States'' for 3 of the 5 years ``since that date.''

The bill does not say ``employed continuously in the United States since that date,'' as some have said. It does not require that employment be full time. Which means that it will be interpreted by any fair court following the law to mean that the alien will be eligible for amnesty if they have been employed in the United States either full time, part time, seasonally, or self-employed.

The bill also allows the time of employment be shortened if the alien has attendance in a school. The employment requirement under the language, as written, is as broad as possible. Essentially, any alien who worked in the United States for 3 out of 5 years any time prior to April 5, 2006, will fulfill the eligibility requirements.

Loophole No. 7: The bill tells the Department of Homeland Security to accept ``just and reasonable inferences'' from day labor centers as evidence of an alien meeting the bill's work requirements.

Day labor centers--I am not sure how reliable those can be to make major decisions. Some of these are openly and notoriously promoting illegal workers.

Under the bill, an alien can ``conclusively establish'' that he was employed in the United States, and it can be either full time, part time, seasonally, or self-employed by presenting documents from Social Security, the Internal Revenue Service or an employer related to employment. The alien meets ``the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the alien has satisfied the requirements'' if the alien can demonstrate ``such employment as a matter of just reasonable inference.''

If you can just have a reasonable inference that you have worked, get a document from a day labor center, you meet the work requirements. Everybody will meet it. No illegal alien will be left behind.

The bill then states:

. . . it is the intent of Congress that the [work]

requirement . . . be interpreted and implemented in a manner

that recognizes and takes into account the difficulties

encountered by aliens in obtaining evidence of employment due

to the undocumented status of the alien.

The invitation is there to abuse the system. The invitation for fraud is clear.

Congress is telling the Department of Homeland Security to accept pretty much anything as proof of work, and if they don't take it, they will be sued and they will win in court because the bill we have written says anything goes as valid proof of work.

Loophole 8: The bill benefits only those who broke the law, not those who followed it and got work visas to come to the United States. That is a plain fact. If you were here legally on or before April 5, 2001, you will not get the benefit of this amnesty. This amnesty benefits you only if you came here illegally.

Loophole 9: The essential worker permanent immigration program for nonagriculture low-skilled workers leaves no illegal alien out. It is not limited to people outside the United States who want to come here to work in the future but includes illegal aliens currently present in the United States who do not qualify for the amnesty program in title VI, including aliens here for less than 2 years. Under the bill language, you can qualify for this new program to work as a low-skilled permanent immigrant even if you are unlawfully present in the United States.

The bill specifically states:

In determining the alien's admissibility as an H-2C . . .

The program is specifically intended to apply to absconders. There are 400,000 absconders out there now that we are trying to apprehend and trying to deport. They have been ordered deported yet they absconded; illegal aliens who were in removal proceedings and signed a voluntary departure agreement but never left, many of them did that, and illegal aliens already removed from the United States but who have come back.

Loophole No. 10: The annual numerical cap on this program is a completely artificial cap. If the 400,000 cap per year is reached, what happens then? The cap immediately adjusts itself to make more room under the cap. I kid you not. If the cap is reached, an additional 80,000 visas can be given out that year and the cap will go up automatically the next year as much as 20 percent. Even if the cap stays at 400,000 per year, we will have a minimum of 2.4 million low- skilled permanent--not part-time--immigrants in the first 6 years, the length of the H-2C visa if the individual did not file for a green card.

I see the Democratic leader. I have been going over some of the things in the bill that I think the American people and maybe our colleagues are not aware of. It is a breathtaking piece of legislation. It is something that jeopardizes our ability to be successful in the Senate in passing good legislation. The compromise will not deal with the problems I mentioned today. I am very disappointed.

I urge my colleagues, if you said you would not vote for amnesty, you should not vote for this compromise. If you voted against the Kennedy- Specter-McCain committee bill that came out today--and the vote was 60- 39 against it--you should not vote for this bill. It is essentially the same thing.

Mr. President, I agree with much of what Senator Craig said--particularly about the ineffectiveness at the border. Let's be real frank and honest about the bill we have today. The reason we are in trouble today, the reason we are not going to be able to pass this legislation is that the bill is a failure. It is a colossal failure. It is a dead horse. It has been lying out in the sun, and people have been having to look at it, and they are now able to smell it. A few amendments and a compromise is not going to revive this. It doesn't do what we want it to do. It has a huge surge in immigration.

The compromise is 95 percent of what was in the bill we just rejected this morning by a 60-vote margin--95 percent of it. And the others were supposed to make some big difference, but part of the changes in the bill increase the number of people who would come into the country, and there is not any restraint on the legislation. So the underlying bill that came out of committee was bad from the beginning.

Let me tell you what happened. We debated the bill. We spent 5 days in markup, and 4 of those days basically were on border control issues. We debated individual words. Then, all of a sudden, on the last day, when the majority leader said we had to have the bill out, about noon we got around to the amnesty for the 11 million people and what we were going to do about future immigration policies. And without any amendments--maybe no more than one or two--they were adopted in toto, without any real discussion, no expert testimony, no full understanding of the comprehensiveness of it. We just rushed it through. We passed this bill last Monday at about 6 or 7 o'clock at night. It hit the floor on Tuesday or Wednesday. The bill was not even printed until Wednesday night. We were devoting Wednesday all day to the bill, and it had not even been printed.

I ask my colleagues this: Should you not know how much the bill costs? Is anybody here prepared to stand up and say what this bill would cost, the compromise bill, if we pass it? How much will it cost? Does anybody know?

I made inquiry today and got back a letter from CBO that said it is clearly in violation of the Budget Act. Now, they said that was just a part of the cost; it was much more than that. They were still trying to run the numbers.

So within minutes, I got this e-mail from the Congressional Budget Office. It has a score on it. It says that CBO and Joint Tax estimate that direct spending outlays under this bill would total about $8 billion for the first 5

years. That is clearly in violation of the Budget Act.

What about revenues? Joint Tax and CBO--our two agencies we depend on to tell us what the cost and impact of the legislation will be-- estimate that the legislation would result in an on-budget revenue loss of $5 billion from 2007 to 2011 and $2 billion over the 2007-to-2016 period, largely because of lower tax payments by businesses.

Here is discretionary spending. Assuming the appropriation of a necessary sum, CBO estimates that outlays for those purposes would total at least $16 billion from 2007 to 2011 and more than $30 billion over 2007 to 2016. And they are in a governmental mandate. The bill would impose mandates on State and local governments with costs that would exceed the threshold established by the Unfunded Mandates Act and at least 1 of the first 5 years after they take effect, totaling $29 billion over 5 years.

Well, why am I saying that? First of all, that is a lot of money. We have Social Security in trouble, Medicaid in trouble, and we are going to add $29 billion more to our costs?

What is really troubling is that it is symptomatic of the lack of thought and serious evaluation that went into writing this bill to begin with. It is not a good piece of legislation. It has good intentions. It desires to do the right thing. Unfortunately, as I have studied it, having been on the Judiciary Committee, I have come to believe it cannot be amended. And we are going to have three amendments that are going to somehow fix this bill? It fundamentally needs to be reviewed. I really think so.

I will repeat that I am optimistic about our ability to make this work. I am optimistic that, with just a commitment of will and some resources, we can create secure borders and increase the number of people who come into our country legally. We can deal humanely and fairly with the 11 million to 12 million--or maybe even 20 million-- illegals who are here. We don't have to give them every single benefit we give to those who follow the law, but we can allow most to stay and work and live here, if that is what they have been doing and if that is possible. We can work out all those things. We can deal with those issues in an effective way. But this legislation doesn't do it, and it is too late to fix it.

We need to have some real hearings, get the best minds in America to tell us about this problem, and work out legislation that is not amnesty, that doesn't cost $27 billion, that creates a lawful system on our borders so people can enter and exit easily with biometric identifiers if they are lawful and those who try to come in unlawfully get apprehended. That can be done. This bill doesn't do it. The compromise legislation doesn't do it. It needs to be voted down.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, if I may ask a question of the Senator.

Madam President, I thank Senator Talent for his leadership on this important issue. As a person who lives in Mobile, AL, I am proud of Satchel Paige. I assume he will be in the museum.

Satchel Paige was denied the right to fully participate in American baseball until the very end of his career. That was a tragedy. It was really a tragedy. It is something our Nation cannot take pride in and should feel great sadness over. A number of other Negro Leagues players came from Mobile, which is a great bastion of baseball excellence, including Willie McCovey and Hank Aaron, among others, who developed out of that history of excellent baseball.

I thank the Senator from Missouri for his leadership. I think it will be an important addition to our national heritage to have this museum.

Madam President, I thank Senator Salazar. We did indeed have a most important trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey, and were able to delve into some of those matters that are so important to our national security and check on the quality of care our troops are receiving. I enjoyed that very much. He is a fine addition to our Senate. I think we have a lot of agreements on this legislation, and some disagreements. I appreciate the opportunity we have to discuss these issues.

This debate is often centered around whether we are dealing with amnesty here, and I believe this legislation, by all definitions, is amnesty. But first I want to ask the question: Why is this so? Why is it that people care about whether we use a word such as ``amnesty'' to describe what this legislation that is before us today is? Why is that important?

It is important because most of us, when we were out campaigning for election, promised not to do amnesty again. Many people in this body who voted for the 1986 amnesty bill agreed it was amnesty and said they wouldn't do it again. The President of the United States, President Bush, despite all of his intentions to try to enhance legal immigration in our country, has always said he did not favor amnesty. So that is the deal. I think the American people have a right to expect that those they elect to office will honor what a fair interpretation of the meaning of that word is. If you promise not to support amnesty, then you shouldn't support a bill that is amnesty.

You can redefine words to make them mean most anything you want. My definition of an activist judge is a person who redefines the meaning of words to have them say whatever he or she would like them to say so they can

accomplish a result they consider to be desirable. But words do have meaning. We can have some understanding of what these issues are about, and I want to discuss it in some detail.

Senator Kennedy said:

Many have called this adjusted status amnesty. I reject it.

Amnesty means forgiveness, not pardon.

Well, I don't know exactly what that means. He said: This bill is not amnesty.

He goes on to say: ``Amnesty is not a pardon.''

Senator Durbin, the assistant Democratic leader, said: ``Amnesty basically says, We forgive you.''

He goes on to say:

Amnesty, very simply, is if you have been charged and found

guilty of a crime, amnesty says, we forgive you. We are not

going to hold you responsible for your crime.

But only if you have been charged and found guilty, apparently.

Senator Feinstein says: ``Amnesty is instant forgiveness, with no conditions. And there are conditions,'' she says, ``on this'' bill.

Senator Specter said:

Amnesty is a code word to try to smear good-faith

legislation to deal with this problem. It is not amnesty

because the law-breakers have not been unconditionally

forgiven of their transgressions.

And Senator McCain said also:

There is no requirements. There must be no requirement

whatsoever to call this bill amnesty.

He said:

Amnesty is simply declaring people who entered this country

illegally citizens of the United States and imposing no other

requirements on them. That is not what we do, Mr. President.

So in an effort to redefine this situation to mean what they want it to mean, they have said unless there is no condition whatsoever, you can't have amnesty. But people agreed that 1986 was amnesty and placed quite a number of conditions--some more significant than the ones in this bill--on those who were given amnesty.

Those of us who are familiar with the law world--I served as a lawyer the best I could for a number of years, and I know Madam President is a lawyer--we know what Black's Law Dictionary is. It is a dictionary lawyers use to define words in their legal context. Black's Law Dictionary, as part of its definition of the word ``amnesty,'' says this:

The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided

amnesty for many undocumented aliens already present in the

country.

Black's Law Dictionary, the final definition of legal words, says the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided amnesty for people here. It had conditions on it. It had some conditions on it; it just didn't have many conditions on it. So everybody recognizes it as basically amnesty, and that is why they called it that.

Again, I am not trying to use a code word here. What I am saying is there is a systematic effort in this body to redefine the definition of amnesty so they can tell their voters back home that although they opposed amnesty, this bill is not amnesty, and that is why they voted for it. That, unfortunately, I would have to say, is where we are.

What does the Democratic leader in the Senate, Senator Harry Reid, say about what amnesty is? Does he say that 1986 was amnesty and it had quite a few restrictions on the movement to full benefits of citizenship in the United States? This is what the Democratic leader says. This is what he said on September 20, 1993, when making a speech on the floor in the Senate; it is part of the Congressional Record. He said:

In 1986 we granted amnesty, and I voted against that

provision in law. We granted amnesty to 3.2 million illegal

immigrants. After being in this country for 10 years, the

average amnesty recipient had a sixth-grade education, earned

less than $6 an hour, and presently qualifies for the earned-

income tax credit.

The earned income tax credit is if you don't make enough money to pay income taxes and don't pay income taxes, not only do you not have to pay them but they give you money back. The average benefit for a person who qualifies for the earned-income tax credit, I would say parenthetically if anybody is interested, is $2,400 per year.

So that is what Senator Reid had to say about it in 1993, that the 1986 law was amnesty. I don't think anybody disputes that 1986 was amnesty.

He made another speech. We have a chart and I want to refer to it because I want to drive this point home. On March 10 of 1994, the Democratic leader in this body today, Senator Reid, said this:

In 1986, Congress gave amnesty and legal status to 3.1

million individuals not lawfully residing here. . . . Even

after Congress has passed massive legalization programs,

millions of individuals do not lawfully reside in the United

States today.

That was true in 1994, a mere 8 years after the bill passed.

He continues:

And many more continue to cheat the rules and continue to

enter unlawfully.

That is a true statement, I submit, this very day.

So did the Democratic leader have any doubt that 1986 was an amnesty law? I don't think so. In fact, everybody knows it was. That is what we defined it as.

I want to go over some of the provisions in that act and compare it to the provisions in today's act. Let's talk honestly here. There is no mystery here. I would submit, as several of the proponents of this legislation have tried to do, that you only have amnesty if you put no condition whatsoever on the person who is here illegally--and they put some conditions on those persons. Therefore, they say, Oh, no, I know we promised not to pass amnesty, but this isn't amnesty because there are conditions on the people who are here illegally. So there is no way to do this but go over it truthfully and analyze it and see what the facts are.

This was passed in 1986. What did it require, this amnesty of 1986? It required continuous unlawful residence in the United States before January 1, 1982. That is 4 years before the passage of the 1986 act-- more than 4 years, because I am sure it didn't pass January 1. So for more than 4 years you had to be here unlawfully before this act applied to you. That is a restriction, isn't it, on amnesty, under the definition of those who want to say the current act is not amnesty?

But what does the 2006 act say? Physically present and employed in the United States before January 7, 2004--employed in the U.S. since January 7, 2004; continuous employment is not required. So the key date here is that you have to have been in the country before January 7, 2004. So we are requiring under this bill that you have to live in the country illegally for 2 years before you get on this amnesty track.

Under the previous law, they required 4 years. So with regard to 1986, I think it is a tougher standard, I submit, than we have in today's standard. I don't think anybody can dispute that.

Then you have a fee. They say they are paying a fine, a big fine. Well, in the 1986 act, they say there will be a $185 fee for the principal applicant, $50 for each child, a $420 family cap. Now we have a $1,000 fine, but it does not apply to anybody under 21 years of age; they don't pay anything. They paid $50 per child back in 1986. They don't pay anything. I submit that is about a wash. There is a little difference in money. You had an inflation rate; what difference is $1,000 to $420?

Both of them say you should meet admissibility criteria. That means, I suppose, that you are not a felon. That is one of the main criteria. Both of them said that. Surely we are not going to be taking in felons into the country. In fact, regarding this bill to which Senator Kyl and Cornyn have offered an amendment--which apparently is being blocked by Democratic Leader Reid from ever getting a vote--they are contending that this criminality requirement is not in this bill. In fact, this bill is weaker than the 1986 bill on the question of that issue of whether you have a criminal record.

In 1986, people were worried about welfare claims and so forth, so they put in language that said you are ineligible for most public benefits for 5 years after your application. They said if you are going to come here to be a citizen of the United States, we do not want you come here to claim welfare. We are going to prohibit you from claiming welfare for at least 5 years. After that, if you get in trouble and you need help, we will help you. But you have to come here not with a desire to gain welfare benefits in our country which exceed the annual income of most people in a

lot of areas of the world. So they put that in. There is no such requirement in our bill. None of that. You can immediately go on welfare, presumably, under the legislation that is before us now.

It does require a background check and fingerprinting, but presumably that was done in 1986, also. But it focuses really on the crimes a person may have committed while they were in the United States. I don't think it has a mechanism under this act to actually go back to the country of origin--whether it is Brazil or Canada or Mexico--to see if they have a criminal history there. That is a weakness in the system. But even if it does, those systems are so immature and nonexistent, it would not be very effective, I suggest.

This requires an 18-month residency period. This one authorizes immediately a 6-year stay in the country. So they said you have to stay 18 months before you make your application for adjustment to permanent resident status. In this bill, you have to stay 6 years, so that is tougher. And you have to work. What are people here for if not to work? Spouses and children don't have to work. People are here to work. It is only a minimal work requirement--not continuous employment--and the proof level is very weak. Regardless, presumably the people who are here want to work, and they ought to be able to prove that they have.

Then you adjust to permanent resident status. That is the green card. In 1986, it required English language and civics. So, in 2006, it is English language and civics, a medical exam, payment of taxes--really? Presumably the people are paying their taxes. And Selective Service registration. So you earn your right to stay in this country by coming into the country illegally and paying your taxes. Thanks a lot.

Then the final step is, in 1986, you paid an $80 fee, $240 for a family. In this bill, it is a $1,000 fee and an application fee.

All I am saying is, if you add those up, I don't think a principled case can be made that 2006, in terms of conditions of entry and amnesty in our country, requires any more stringent requirements on them than in 1986, which Senator Reid and everybody else, including ``Black's Law Dictionary,'' have concluded was amnesty.

I say to my colleagues, I would be very dubious of someone who comes up to you and says: Now, Senator, I know you promised in your campaign repeatedly, just as President Bush did, that you would not support amnesty. Don't worry about it. This bill is not amnesty.

I am telling you, the American people are pretty fairminded, and they know perfection is not possible for any of us. But this has not been an issue which has not been discussed. Everybody has talked about the failure of the 1986 bill. As a result, we wanted to do something different. We said we were not going to do that again and we were not going to grant amnesty. I submit this bill does. I wish it were not so.

We can pass legislation that will work. I have repeatedly said we can pass legislation that has good enforcement. We can pass legislation that provides fair treatment to the millions of people who are here. They are not all going to have to be removed from our country and be arrested and prosecuted. That is not so. That is not part of any plan here. But we do need to recognize that we should not give every single benefit to someone who came illegally that we give to those who follow the law and come legally.

Senator Leahy, who says this bill is not amnesty, even admits this is amnesty in 1986. He says:

Opponents of a fair comprehensive approach are quick to

claim that anything but the most punitive provisions are

amnesty.

I am not claiming that.

They are wrong. We had an amnesty bill. President Reagan

signed an amnesty bill in 1986.

I suppose he voted for it.

This is not an amnesty bill. Our bill is more properly

called what it is, a smart, tough bill. The amnesty bill was

signed by President Reagan in 1986, and this is different.

But it is not different. Fundamentally, it is the same thing. I submit that is indisputable, and that is why we have a difficulty here. Some of those masters of the universe, sitting up in those glass towers who write editorials, and the Chamber of Commerce, they don't understand what it is like to campaign for office, look your voters in the eye, and discuss directly with them the issues facing our country, and to make commitments to them about what you are going to do once you get elected. They can redefine the meaning of words and think that is just fine. They can just say whatever they want to and then write their editorials. But they don't have to answer to the people they looked in the eye and directly told they would not support amnesty.

In fact, the President, despite his drive to fix immigration and to enhance the flow of immigration into our country, has said a direct path to citizenship--by Scott McClellan, just less than 2 weeks ago. Scott McClellan said a direct path to citizenship and amnesty are two things they don't favor.

Why is this important? After 1986, we ended up with a big problem. Things were not working well in our country. So 6 years after this happened, in 1992, we did an evaluation by an independent commission of that part of the act which dealt with agricultural workers as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act. That was the name of it, the ``Immigration Reform and Control Act.'' We told American voters--or those in the Congress at that time did--that we are going to control the immigration system.

The congressionally created Commission on Agricultural Workers issued a report to Congress that studied the effects of the 1986 agricultural amnesty on the agricultural industry. They did a study on it because Congress wanted to find out what had really happened with regard to that legislation they had passed. One of the first things the Commission acknowledged was that the number of workers given amnesty under the bill had been severely underestimated. They said this:

The SAW program legalized many more farm workers than

expected. It appears that the number of undocumented workers

who had worked in seasonal agricultural services prior to the

Immigration Reform and Control Act was generally

underestimated.

That is page 1 and 2 of their report, the executive summary.

What else did the Commission find? Did it tell us that the 1986 amnesty of 3 million farm workers solved our agricultural labor problems? Was that the fix that people thought it would be? How did it work?

No, their answer was this:

Six years after the IRCA was signed into law, the problems

within the system of agricultural labor continue to exist. In

most areas, an increasing number of newly arriving,

unauthorized [illegal] workers compete for available jobs,

reducing the number of work hours available to all harvest

workers and contributing to lower annual earnings.

That is page 1 of the Report of the Commission of Agricultural Workers, executive summary.

What did the Commission recommend that Congress do? What did they recommend, this independent, bipartisan Commission? Did the Commission recommend that we pass a second legalization program such as the one for agricultural jobs that has been made a part of this bill, offered in committee and is now part of the committee bill that is on the floor? Did they recommend that as a second program to solve the illegal alien agricultural workforce dilemma that was still in existence in 1992, 6 years after the amnesty that was supposed to end all amnesties occurred?

No, the Commission concluded just the opposite. They found:

The worker-specific and industry-specific legalization

programs as contained in the Immigration Reform and Control

Act should not be the basis for future immigration policy.

That is page 6 of their report.

What did the Commission suggest that Congress should do? They concluded that the only way to have a structured and stable agricultural market was to increase enforcement of our immigration laws, including employer sanctions, and to reduce illegal immigration.

You talk to anybody on the street, and they will tell you the same thing. You talk to Americans. Overwhelmingly, 80 percent believe we are not enforcing the laws effectively on our borders, and any legalization today without an effective enforcement program in the future will bring us back to an amnesty situation just like we face now, just like they faced in 1986.

The Commission said this:

Illegal immigration must be curtailed. This should be

accomplished with more effective border controls, better

internal apprehension mechanisms, and enhanced enforcement of

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

better employment eligibility and identification system.

This was 1993, 13 years ago. What has been done about it? Let me repeat that. We need to establish a:

. . . better employment eligibility and identification

system, including a fraud-proof work authorization document

for all persons legally authorized to work in the United

States so that employer sanctions can more effectively deter

the employment of unauthorized workers.

What a commonsense statement that is. Wasn't that what they promised back in 1986 when we were going to have an amnesty to end all amnesties? Remember that they said this would be a one-time amnesty and we were going to fix the enforcement system and therefore the American people would go with us on that. We are going to do this one-time fix and be generous to those who violated our laws. But trust us, we are going to fix the enforcement system in the future. That is what happened.

We have known that for 14 years--that the key to securing our borders and ending illegal immigration includes more border enforcement, more interior enforcement, and a foolproof worksite verification system. Still, we are not prepared to do that. We are told we should do the same thing we did in 1986 on a much larger scale.

I note that in 1986, we estimated there were 1 million people here who would claim amnesty. That is what people were told when the bill passed. After the bill passed, how many showed up? Three-point-one million people, three times as many.

I don't know where they are saying 12 million people, and that is how many will be given amnesty now, not 1 million. They are saying there will be 11 million and that those would all be given a direct path to citizenship.

Let me point this out. When you adjust to permanent resident status, you get a green card. You are able to stay here permanently, as long as you live here, and after a period of time--5 years--you can make application and you become a citizen. If you haven't been convicted of a felony in the meantime, presumably if you don't pay your taxes and don't get caught for it or don't get convicted of it, you can still do so. Presumably you are drawing welfare or Medicare benefits and those things, you can still make application.

We added up the years. Maybe about 11 years in this process, 10 years, maybe, in the 1986 act, and about 11 years in process. They are saying it takes 11 years for you to become a citizen. That is what it took for anyone who came here in the first amnesty and became a permanent resident. They didn't get to become a citizen the next day; they had to go through the same process as this amnesty requires.

Let me explain why 1986 was a failure and why we can have every expectation that 2006 will be a failure. I am going to be frank with our Members. I don't believe this is an extreme statement. I am prepared to defend it. I believe everyone here who is honest about it will admit it.

In 1986, we passed amnesty, and it became law as soon as that bill was signed. Those people were eligible to be made legal immediately in our country and placed on a track to citizenship that day--the day the bill was signed. What did we have about enforcement? We had a promise that we were going to enforce the law in the future. We are going to fix this border, and we are going to have workplace enforcement.

That was a mere promise. It never happened because I don't think any President wanted it to happen. We went back to the problem when President Carter was here, President Reagan, President Bush, President Clinton, and this President Bush. None of them have demonstrated that they actually intend to enforce our border laws.

I used to be a Federal prosecutor. I used to deal with law enforcement issues. I actually prosecuted one day--I think when I was an assistant U.S. attorney--an immigration case, a stowaway on a ship. A bunch of them stowed away on a ship. I know a little bit about it.

But those actions which are necessary to make the legal system work were never taken by our Chief Executives. We in Congress can study the problem at the border, we can see what those problems are, and then we can pass a law to try to fix it. We can say we want more border patrol, we want more fencing, we want more UAVs, a virtual fence. We can pass those things, but unless the executive branch really wants it to succeed, then--even then, we may not get the thing to work.

The truth is, they should be coming to us. President Bush comes to us and says what he needs to win the war in Iraq, and we give it to him. If he came to this Congress--I hate to say it because I think he is a great President and a great person, and I support him on so many things. But he has never come to our Congress and said: Congress, this border is out of control; I need A, B, C, and D, and I will get it under control. So now he wants us to grant blanket amnesty to 11 million people, and after you do that: Trust me, I will get the border under control. That is a sad fact. Securing the border is the President's responsibility.

What about Congress? We were in committee and we were debating the bill. I offered an amendment to add 10,000 detention beds for the Border Patrol. I do not know how many they need. I think that is not enough. We are at 1.1 people coming into our country illegally every year. The number of people other than Mexicans who really need to be detained, sometimes for an extended period of time, has surged. We need the detention spaces to make the system work. Do you know what they all said, Democrats and Republicans? Fine. We accept that amendment. Senator Feinstein and I offered an amendment to speed up the hiring of new Border Patrol agents. They accepted that. Then it hit me. All who have been in this body for some time know the difference between authorization and spending the money, appropriations. In this body, people authorize all the time.

I just left one of the finest groups of people you would every want to meet outside--national forensic science leaders from around the country. They came to see me because I supported a bill, and we passed it, the Paul Coverdell forensic sciences bill. It was to add $100 million to help jump-start forensic sciences in America. Do you think that $100 million was ever appropriated? Certainly not. I think we may have gotten to $20 million one year. Because you authorize money to be spent for forensic sciences or for immigration enforcement does not mean that it is ever going to get spent. It has to go through the appropriations process. Maybe they want to spend it on a project back home. Maybe they decided we need more money for Katrina, health issues, education, whatever. At the end of the day, you don't get the money. So we have at least two major problems: One, will it ever be appropriated and two, if the money is appropriated, will the President actually use it effectively?

I admit that this Congress authorized a budget that set forth a projected expenditure for immigration enforcement that is larger than the President requested, but it remains to be seen if it will ever be funded.

Those are the things which cause us great concern. So I would challenge quite directly the people who support this bill and say this is going to be different than 1986 to come down on the floor of this Senate, look at their colleagues and people who may be watching back home directly in the eye, and assure them that we are going to have the money and we are going to have the will to enforce this legislation.

I was on a radio talk show earlier today. I was asked about enforcement actions that were taken against certain big businesses recently. They all called their Congressmen and complained, and the enforcement sort of went away. You have heard those stories. Do we have the will to actually make this happen? I think we could. I am not hopeless about this. I think we could, but I don't get the sense that we are there yet.

I have compared it to leaping across a 10-foot chasm but leaping only 8 feet, and like the Coyote and the Roadrunner, you fall to the bottom of the pit. That is where we are. We have some things in this bill which make enforcement much more likely to occur, but it does not all get there yet. We need to do a number of things.

For example, employment: The workplace law and provisions in the bill are

not effective and do not cover all employees of an employer. It is a critical step. You have heard it said that this bill has fencing in it. It is the most minimal amount of fencing; it is nothing like a legitimate fencing.

I wish to say this: Good fences make good neighbors. There is nothing wrong with a fence. There is nothing in the Scripture that says you can't build a fence. You have thousands of people coming across the border in a given area, and you have just a few Border Patrol officers, and they are trying to do their duty every day. And you say it is somehow offensive or improper or against the Lord's will to build a fence to try to contain it so you can maximize the capabilities of the limited number of Border Patrol agents who are out there putting their lives at risk this very day to try to enforce these laws? They arrest 1.1 million a year. What possible objection could we have to legitimate fencing?

They built one in San Diego; it was an unqualified success. They said it could be breached. I am told the one in San Diego has never been breached. What happened on both sides of the fence, where lawlessness, crime, gangs, and drugs were disrupting entire neighborhoods? Those neighborhoods have been restored. They have come back strong. They are prospering. The property values are up as a result of bringing some lawfulness to a lawless area.

Let me say this. Why is it that there has been such an aversion to fences? I will tell you why. Because those who want to have open borders, who have no desire to see the laws enforced, know, first of all, that it will work; and second of all, they have used it to twist the argument and to say that anybody who favors a fence wants no immigration, they want to stop all immigration, they just want to build a fence around America--totally mischaracterizing the need for a barrier on our borders. That is not fair. That is wrong.

The amendment I offered would have increased substantially the number of border-crossing points, so lawful people could come back and forth far easier and at less expense with a biometric card. They could enter and exit the country with it. This could work. We can make this work. We need more legal exit and entry points, and we need to block the illegal entry points. If we do that and we send a message throughout the world that the border is now closed and no longer open to those who want to come illegally, I think we will have a lot less people wandering off in the desert, being abused by those who transport them, and putting their lives at risk and many of them dying.

That is what you need to do. I am prepared to support any legislation that would increase legal immigration. When we end illegal immigration, we are going to need to increase the opportunity for people in numbers to come here lawfully, and we need to increase the exit and entry points.

Another thing. I mentioned this biometric card and entering and exiting the country. Let me tell you why some of us are concerned about promises in the future.

We passed, 10 years ago, the US-VISIT program. It is supposed to do just what I said. A person comes to this country legally, comes with a card. It is a computer-read card, and the person is then approved for entry. They need a biometric identifier, a fingerprint, and it can read that. You are allowed to come in. It also calculates when you leave, so people who do not leave can be identified and removed because they didn't comply with the law.

Well, 10 years after passing that bill, we still don't have that system up and running. They tell us that this summer, we will have some pilot program which can actually identify those when they exit in certain border places, which, of course, means it is no system at all.

We authorized 10 years ago a perfectly logical, sensible system to monitor the legal entry of people into our country, monitor their exit. What we have learned, particularly after September 11, is that many of the terrorists were overstays. They came lawfully, but they did not exit on time.

We need additional bed space. This is so basic. Not an unlimited number of beds, but we need more. What is happening is, people come across the border, and particularly those other-than-Mexicans cannot be readily taken back across the border and dumped if they are from Brazil, Russia, or China. What do we do with these people? They need to be held and they need to be transported back. We are doing that, to some degree.

But what happens when we do not have the bed space? This is what happens. I read a newspaper article in the committee a couple of months ago on this very subject. People come in from foreign countries. They come into the border, enter illegally, head off across the desert, they see a border patrol officer and they are told to go up to the border patrol officer and turn themselves in.

Why would they do that? The border patrol officer puts them in the van or his vehicle and he takes them another 100 miles inside the border to the Customs and Border Protection Office and they are taken before an administrative officer. What does the administrative officer do? He does not have any beds or place to put them, so he says we will have a hearing on whether you are legally here. We will have a hearing and we will set it in 30 days. I will release you on bail; come back in 30 days.

How many do you think come back? The newspaper reporter said at the place he examined, 95 percent did not show up. So all we have done is send the border patrol agents out to pick them up and transport people into the country illegally. That does not make sense. We have to have a certain amount of detention space.

We have an insufficient number of Border Patrol agents. There are just not enough. We need to get to that tipping point where people realize it is not going to work if they try to enter illegally. We added some Border Patrol agents in committee, but they say it takes years to hire them. That is why we passed, 5 years ago, legislation to add increased numbers of Border Patrol agents. Senator Kyl got that through. Being on the Arizona border, he knew the problem. What happened? They still have just now been hired 5 years later. They say it is hard to hire enough people.

I was reading recently a book on World War I. When World War I started, we had 130,000 people in our Army, and 18 months later we had 4 million people in uniform, 2 million of them in France. To say we cannot add 10,000 trained Border Patrol agents and get them trained in a prompt period of time is not credible. There has been a lack of will to see this occur. Who is to say if we pass this legislation we will have a renewed will in the future? The American people have a right.

We had a hearing on Monday in the Judiciary Committee. It dealt with the problem of the appeals being filed by people who object to being returned to their country. Since 2001, 4 years, we have had a 600- percent increase in appeals to the Federal court, court of appeals. You can legitimately appeal a determination you are in the country illegally, but a sixfold increase in 4 years? What has that resulted in? It has resulted in a 27-month delay before your case is heard.

What does this tell an immigration lawyer who is meeting with a person who has been apprehended and who has an appeal pending about being deported and the guy or the woman does not want to leave the country and says, if you appeal, even if it is frivolous, it will be 27 months before anyone ever reads it or makes a decision. That is why we are having this surge. That system is broken.

Senator Specter, Judiciary Committee chairman, had legislation in his bill in the Judiciary Committee to help fix it--not completely, I didn't think--that made a substantial step toward fixing this broken system. They offered an amendment in committee to strip that language and it passed. So not only did we not improve the bill and have not improved the bill with regard to fixing the broken system, but we stripped language that would have made a good step forward in fixing.

What does that say about the intent of the Members of this Congress to actually see the immigration law be enforced?

I repeat once again, our nation is a nation of immigrants. We believe in immigration. We have been enriched by immigration. But our Nation is a sovereign nation and it has a right to decide how many people come and what kind of skill sets they bring. Once it makes that decision, it should create a

legal system that will make sure that occurs. We have not done that.

As a result, in 1986 we provided amnesty, which no one disputes. Not Senator Leahy, not Senator Reid. We gave amnesty in 1986, thinking we could fix it once and for all. And 20 years later we end up with not 3 million people here illegally but at least 11 million people here illegally and no enforcement mechanism close to being in place that would actually work. I encourage my colleagues to think carefully. We can fix our border enforcement. We can increase the number of people who come here illegally. We can tighten up the workforce workplace very easily. We can make this system work.

As we tighten up the border, we eliminate the magnet of the workplace, we can reach that magic tipping point where all of a sudden the message is going out around the world that if you want to come to America, the border is closed. You better wait in line and file your application and come lawfully because if you come unlawfully, it won't work. Then we will have a massive flip. We will not see so many bed spaces. We may not even need as many Border Patrol agents as we have today. But that message is not out there. In fact, the opposite is out there. If we pass this bill, it will be business as usual. We should not do it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment to the underlying bill.

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

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to hold a hearing on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. to consider the following nominations pending before the Committee: Richard Capka to be Administrator, Federal Highway Administration; James Gulliford to be an Assistant Administrator, EPA; and William Wehrum to be an Assistant Administrator, EPA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 10 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to consider the nomination of Mr. W. Ralph Basham, of Virginia, to be Commissioner of Customs, Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on U.S.-India Atomic Energy Cooperation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 10 a.m. for a hearing titled, ``The Future of Port Security: The GreenLane Maritime Cargo Security Act.''

Mr President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on The Problem of Methamphetamine in Indian Country.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 5, 2006 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed business meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness, be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at 10 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 5, 2006, at 9:30 a.m., to receive testimony on the Department of Defense's role in combating terrorism, in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2007 and the Future Years Defense Program.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on European Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on Islamist Extremism in Europe.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. for a hearing regarding ``Federal Funding of Museums.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Global Climate Change and Impacts be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 2:30 p.m., on The Current and Future Role of Science in the Asia Pacific Partnership.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 5 at 2:30 p.m. The purpose of the hearings is to review the 2005 Wildfire Season and the Federal Management Agencies' preparations for the 2006 Wildfire Season.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 5, 2006 at 3 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on improving contractor incentives in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2007.

Mr. President, I would like to make some remarks today about a committed and pioneering individual, Dr. Carl Taylor, the assistant dean and director of the Center for Strategic Health Innovation at the University of South Alabama. Dr. Taylor earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Marshall University, a juris doctor from the University of Miami, and is a Fellow at the Royal Institution in London. He serves on the State of Alabama's Department of Public Health bioterrorism advisory board and has been the principal investigator on nearly a dozen disaster related grants, including the grant that developed the Alabama incident management software system which he superbly presented recently to the Senate Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness.

This software system, referred to as AIMS, is an online hospital surge capacity and surge capability management tool used to support public health efforts during large-scale disaster response. This easy- to-use system shows which hospitals have available beds, staff, and equipment in real time while allowing hospitals to request help or offer assistance to one another. During Hurricane Katrina, AIMS was the software tool used by the Alabama Department of Public Health to manage information from 83 hospitals and 7 medical needs shelters. AIMS was vital to Alabama's outstanding performance in delivering quality medical care to vulnerable individuals in a time of crisis.

I commend Dr. Taylor for his leadership and creativity in developing this system that has application for the entire country. His work has the potential to save lives and reduce cost. This spirit of ingenuity is what keeps America strong.

Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator will answer a question. We put in this bill--and Senator Mikulski offered a sense of this amendment last year and it won--to extend for 1 year these provisions. I thought in the bill that came out of committee we were dealing with it when we added 400,000 per year--more than doubling the number who would come in to work--who could be covered, I think, by this category. My question is, has the Senator been able to ascertain whether this would be in addition to the 400,000 who would be approved under the Judiciary Committee mark?

In effect, it would not continue as an addition on top of the expanded immigration provisions in the committee mark?

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, we had a very fine hearing this morning. I think five Federal judges, and the Department of Justice represented, and a professor, to deal with a problem in our immigration system. Senator Cornyn has rightly said a bill is a bill is a bill, but what does it say? In Chairman Specter's mark, he dealt with a crisis in appeals in immigration. During the course of our committee markup, an amendment was offered that said that wasn't good and whatever, and we struck that reform. So the bill that would be the Judiciary markup bill on the floor does not have any action whatsoever to deal with this problem.

Since 2001, we have had a 601-percent increase in appeals, Bureau of Appeals, immigration appeals cases. Six times they have increased since the year 2000.

It now takes, on average, 27 months for one of those cases to be handled because of the backlog.

Judge Bea of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who has one of the biggest backlogs in that circuit, said this this morning:

Second, as petitioners and attorneys see appeals piling up

in the circuit courts, they realize their appeals will be

delayed. During the period of delay, events may change the

alien's chances of staying in the country. Those changes may

be personal, such as a marriage to a U.S. citizen or the

birth of a child, or any number of other conditions that

might affect their removability. Or those changes may be

political, such as change in country conditions in the

alien's home country, or legislative and administrative, such

as immigration reform in the country, giving the alien new

hopes to remain here. Even if the appeal lacks all merit, the

backlog of cases in the circuit court provides an incentive

to appeal by almost guaranteeing a delay in deportation, now

on an average of 27 months.

What I would say to my colleagues is, If we are going to do something--and we should--we have to confront the problem of those who are here illegally and handle that in a humane and fair and decent way. But if the promise at the same time is we are going to fix the system that is broken today--Senator Harry Reid said he was down on the border and he said it was chaos and the laws are unenforceable. These are some of the examples of it. Senator Specter had language in to fix it. The language was stripped out. There is nothing in this bill before us that would deal with this problem. It is an example of some of the gaping holes that remain in this legislation.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we have been talking about the immigration challenge that is facing this country. It is one that needs to be faced and dealt with, and I believe it is possible for us to achieve comprehensive reform. Unfortunately, the legislation before us today will not do the job. It will not be consistent with what I have heard from my Alabama voters or with what we have been telling our voters all over the country that we would do in immigration legislation.

Let me make a couple of points about this issue.

There are two aspects, I guess one can say. One aspect is what to do about those people who are here illegally and how should they be treated, which ones should be allowed to stay and which ones should not be allowed to stay and under what conditions.

Those are all very important matters for us to discuss in some depth and, frankly, we have not done that, not in any effective way. We passed that portion of the immigration bill last Monday after about 3 hours of debate, at 6 o'clock, and the bill was on the floor the next day or Wednesday, and what we actually passed out of committee was printed Wednesday night. So there was very little serious discussion about the bill.

It is a tremendous problem. We are dealing with 1.1 million people entering

the country illegally being arrested each year by our Border Patrol agency--1.1 million. This is huge. We have a system, I heard the Democratic leader say earlier today, that is lawless and it is chaos. If we are going to deal comprehensively with the human situation we are facing, ought we not also deal with the challenges of the legal system and try to make our borders a lawful place instead of chaos?

First, I want to say, we can do this. It is not that difficult. We simply have to take down the ``come on in'' sign that is there, that ``come on in illegally and sooner or later we are going to make you legal'' sign. We need to create enforcement on the border and create good enforcement at the workplace, and then we can reach that tipping point where people find that it is better to get that biometric card and come to the right border crossing and go there and present it and go right in. And you can go right back home when you want to go home. It would work. It can be made to work.

Let me tell you the challenges that are in existence and why I think we haven't met those challenges. We have 1.1 million arrests. I think it is possible that if we get serious and send that clear message to the world that you have to come lawfully, we might see a lot fewer people attempt to come illegally. As a matter of fact, I am confident of that.

Another problem we have is those who are ``other than Mexicans.'' It has been referred to now consistently as the catch-and-release policy. This is the deal: If you apprehend someone who is a Mexican, they can easily be taken back across the border, maybe that day or within a day or two. But what if someone is caught coming across the border from Brazil or the islands or China or someplace like that? It is a much more difficult problem. We have not done a good job of confronting it, and what has happened is, those people have been arrested at the border and many times they just turn themselves in to the agents. They take them 100 or so miles further inside the border, and they are released on bail and they are asked to come back to this hearing to explain why they are here illegally. Well, they don't come back. In fact, in one district, in one area, 95 percent of the people released after being caught didn't show up for their hearing.

Does that not make a mockery of the law? And they are not even putting their names into the National Crime Information Center--they haven't been. They say they are, but still only a small number are getting in the system so that if they are apprehended somewhere else in the country, they will be picked up. If you skip on a DUI charge, they put your name in the NCIC, and if you are stopped in Maryland or Virginia or New York or California, you will get a hit that you are wanted for a DUI somewhere. We are not doing that. That indicates a lack of interest in seeing that the law works. So that has to be fixed. They say they are going to fix it, but it hasn't been fixed.

In the appellate process--we had a hearing this morning--and Senator Specter had language in the bill that is before us today that would take a good step toward fixing the problem with appeals. In the committee, however, somebody offered an amendment to take it out, and it was taken out. This is the problem: In 4 years, there has been a 600-percent increase in the number of appeals in immigration cases. As a result, we have created a large backlog. This backlog has resulted in the unbelievable situation by which it takes 27 months now to get a decision. So we have a 600-percent increase and 27 months before you get an appeal decision out of the courts. Some of that is getting the transcript ready; some of that has been delays in the court system. So we had a proposal to fix that. It obviously has to be fixed if we are going to transition from a chaotic system to a lawful system. Wouldn't everybody agree with that? But that was taken out.

We are going to have to have jails and we are going to have to have increased Border Patrol agents and we are going to have to have increased barriers. This is so simple as to be without dispute, it seems to me. Good fences make good neighbors. Good fences make good neighbors, they say. When you have large numbers of people, in the millions, coming across--many of them coming across a specific area--a fence can make a huge difference. It made a huge difference in San Diego. I don't think anybody has breached that fence. Both sides of the fence now are growing and prospering terrifically. The property values have gone up, crime and violence and smuggling have all gone down, and it is so much better there. Nobody would want to take that fence down.

So I don't understand this idea in opposition to the fencing or any barriers whatsoever. It is something you can't talk about. The reason that is so is because people want to make those who believe fencing and barriers are legitimate are against any immigration. They want you to say that there shouldn't be any immigration. But the amendment I have offered that would deal with expanding fences similar to what the House of Representatives passed by a large vote would increase substantially the number of legal entry points. I am not trying to keep people from coming lawfully or to put up a barrier that says: America doesn't allow immigration anymore. That is not what we are doing. We are trying to tilt it from an unlawful to a lawful system.

Another thing that is very important is our local law enforcement officers. We have 600,000--750,000 State and local law enforcement officers in America. They have basically been told they should not contribute to the effort to deal with those who are here illegally. If they capture someone who is speeding or DUI or committing some other minor offense and they find out they are here illegally, nobody wants to come and get them and won't authorize the officers or encourage them even to participate and help. I do not believe we should mandate State and local officers to do anything they don't desire to do. They have plenty of choices to make in how they apply their resources. But if an officer is out doing his daily duties and he apprehends someone who is in this country illegally, why shouldn't the Federal Government come and get them? Why shouldn't they be thanked for it?

The opposition to that indicates to me--and the nature of it and the kind of resistance and pushback we are getting for that--indicates to me that there are a large number of people who say they want law enforcement in America but really don't. They don't have the will to see this thing through and make sure the system works.

Finally, let me tell you, it is very easy indeed for this Nation to get control of the workplace. This can be done and can be done very easily. American corporations obey the law, in general. There are some who don't, but most of them obey the law. What they have been told is they can't ask for people's identification today, they can't ask to find out whether they are legal or illegal, or they will be sued for some sort of civil rights violation, and they quit doing it. In fact, they are not required to do it, apparently, because they have never been punished for that.

In 2004, we had only four companies that were assessed a fine for hiring illegal workers in this country. Only four. Isn't that amazing? It indicates that there has been zero enforcement, zero will to make sure there is a lawful process occurring at the workplace.

What we need is clear language in our legislation and a clear commitment by this administration and the Department of Justice to take the law that we pass that clarifies all of this confusion that is out there and make sure there is a clear message to our businesses and, if they violate the law, to prosecute them or fine them. That can be done, and as soon as it starts being done, other businesses will clean up their act. They will not do it. You are not going to have to prosecute every company that is today hiring illegal workers because as soon as they know that it is not acceptable, that they will be prosecuted for it and fined for it, they will quit. That matter can be ended.

T.J. Bonner, the head of the Border Patrol employees group, says you need two things to make this system work, and he believes it absolutely can work. One is increased enforcement at the border, and two is to eliminate what he called the ``magnet of the job.'' It is the job magnet that draws people across the border. Both of those can be eliminated very easily.

So what do we have in our bill, the bill that is on the floor today? We have legislation that will place each one of the 11 million people here, virtually every one of them, on a direct path to citizenship. They say: Well, it is not automatic; they have to earn their way. They are supposed to work. How many hours? Well, 150 days. How much work do you have to do each day? Well, 1 hour. So you work 150 hours a year, and that qualifies you as a working person. But either way, that is what people come here for, to work. So what kind of earning is that? That is the benefit. That is why people come. That is the magnet.

So they say that because they work, they earned the right to gain their complete citizenship by violating the American law, by coming here illegally, and then they are rewarded with every benefit this Nation can give them. They are rewarded with every social benefit, every welfare benefit, every medical care benefit, every legal benefit--even citizenship--rewarding them for coming in ahead of the line, ahead of those who stayed and waited their turn.

So my point about that is this: Let's keep focusing on that. Let's figure out what the right thing to do is for these people. I am just saying that those who come illegally should not get every single benefit that those who come legally do.

It is a myth that somehow a person here who is not a citizen is somehow mistreated and not appropriately treated. I had the great honor--and I have the great honor--to know Professor Harald Rohlig at the college I attended. He is in his eighties. He came here from Germany right after World War II. He is a great organ master. He has performed and recorded the entire work of Bach. He is one of the most delightful people I have ever had the pleasure to know, and a decent person. His wife died, and before that, she had decided she didn't want to become a citizen. But he decided--he always wanted to be a citizen. He wanted to be a citizen. He was in his eighties. Now, here he was, the head of the music department, recorded the entire works of Bach, and had done so many other wonderful things and was loved throughout the whole area, but he wasn't a citizen. He came in legally and was qualified and he, in his eighties, decided to become a citizen. The point of that story is you can be a great participant in America and have many wonderful things available to you, even if you are not a citizen.

My next point is this: We are moving toward one of the most historic and generous proimmigration pieces of legislation this Nation has ever had. As we study the numbers, assuming that those who qualify are only 11 million to 12 million, we are looking at the numbers that come in legally on top of that--on top of the ones who come now, we are going to have 400,000 per year. And they are supposedly guest workers. So we are told there are 400,000 guest workers, but they come in for 3 years with the automatic ability to apply for another 3 years. It is my understanding that if an employer desires an alien to get a green card, the employer can apply on behalf of the alien almost as soon as the alien begins work. And for the first time we have made it so that the guest workers, after 4 years, can apply for a green card themselves.

So within 4 years, anybody who comes in under this 400,000 per year, they will be allowed to get a green card, and a green card, of course, is an automatic step toward citizenship. It is just a matter of time after that--additionally, being able to speak English and not having been convicted of a felony or a serious crime--a felony.

We need to make sure. When we go through this tremendous move to regularize, it is what we calculate to be 30 million people in the next 10 years. Counting the ones who are not here now, counting the ones who are coming in, plus the 10 or 12 million who are here, we are talking about 30 million people. Are we certain? Will anyone come on this floor to explain and say with confidence: ``Jeff, after we do all that, don't worry about illegal immigration, we have the border system under control now; we are not going to have any''? I don't think they can. I don't think they will. Because it is not secure under the legislation that is before us.

Second, many of the things in the legislation that are good, that call for increased Border Patrol officers or increased detention space, are not funded. We have not appropriated the money. When this legislation passes, which gives legal status to millions, we have no guarantee that any Congress will ever fund border control and security adequately. They have not yet. We have had that opportunity since 1986--20 years--and we haven't done it. I believe the American people have a right to be concerned about the bait and switch. It is like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

In 1986, I think that is basically what happened. We did the amnesty. We didn't mind calling it amnesty then. We acknowledged it was amnesty. This bill does exactly the same thing we did in 1986 in all significant and important respects, but they didn't get the enforcement at the border. Now, instead of 3 million people as we had in 1986, here illegally, we have 11 million.

By the way, I would note that in 1986, they estimated this would be 1 million to 1.5 million people claiming amnesty. When they opened it up and let people qualify, 3 million qualified, twice the number that was expected.

Some think we have 20 million people in our country illegally, and we could see quite a large number there move up.

I would say to my colleagues, we do not need to move forward with this legislation. A few tinkering amendments is not going to do the trick. What we need to do is decide what we are going to do about the people who are here, how we are going to handle them in a fair and just way that is consistent with our law. Second, we need to assure the American people in a confident and effective way that our borders will be fixed; we will have the computers, the aerial vehicles, the fencing, the barriers, the ability to deport people who do not live on our borders--so-called ``other than Mexicans,'' OTMs--to China and Brazil and Ecuador and Haiti and El Salvador, that we are going to deal with those criminal gangs which are here.

Once we can do that with confidence, I think maybe we can reach an agreement and accord. It is within our grasp to do so. But I have not sensed the will to see it done.

We hear a lot of talk. I urge my colleagues, my citizens, to listen to the remarks that are made on the floor by those who want to justify how we have allowed this system to get out of control. Listen carefully to their promises to fix it. If you examine them carefully, I think you will find that they are not substantial enough and we are going to end up, again, as we did in 1986, getting the legalization without getting the enforcement.

I hope a lot of talk will continue in the days ahead. We will have a lot of debate on amendments on the floor, and as we move forward, I hope we get to the point where a bill could be passed such that we could go home to our constituents and with integrity say we have done something worthwhile--we have improved the situation.

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

Mr. President, I express my sincerest appreciation for the leadership of Senator John Cornyn as we have attempted in the Judiciary Committee--of which we are both members--to try and help produce a bill that will actually work, that will allow legal immigration to be formal, effective, and allow more people to come into our country legally while ending the disarray which now exists. He is so knowledgeable as a former justice on the Supreme Court of Texas and former attorney general of Texas. He understands it so well, being a Member from a State that deals with this in such a consistent and continuous way. I thank the Senator for his excellent work.

One of the aspects that is most troubling to me about the process--as it has gone along, I have become even more concerned about it--is that it indicates a lack of serious thought about what we are going to do as a nation to deal with those who are here illegally now. We know there are a lot of good

people here. What are we going to do in the future?

Let me report how things went in the Judiciary Committee. We had the Alito hearings, we had the Roberts hearings, we had the PATRIOT Act debate, and we had the asbestos debate. We have been as busy as any committee has ever been on a host of important issues facing our country all year. It seems as if that is about all I do, and I am on the Armed Services Committee at a time when we are a nation at war. We have a lot of things going on, and we have worked very hard.

At the beginning of the process, I expressed concern asked that we not rush the committee into something before it was ready. The majority leader set this time for this bill to come to the floor, and he said he expected us to complete a bill if we wanted a Judiciary Committee bill to be the vehicle on the floor. So the committee tried to do it. But there was not enough time. We did not give enough thought to it, in my view. We met for 6 days in the Judiciary Committee attempting to mark up Chairman Specter's immigration legislation, a mark that he put out which is considerably better, in my view, then what is currently on the floor. His was not acceptable in some ways, but it is better than the one we produced. He put his mark out for debate in Committee.

We began to discuss it. We met on March 2, March 8, March 9, March 15, 16, and 27. Six days may sound like a lot in the committee process, but this bill is 400 pages involving tremendous national issues which many people feel strongly about and which deserve real discussion.

During the first day, we basically just talked about the bill. No amendments were offered during the markup. During the next 3 days, we talked about the enforcement provisions of the bill and simply accepted by unanimous consent noncontroversial amendments to the first two titles of the bill, two of the seven titles. We accepted some amendments.

Then we get to day four. We did not have a single vote on any amendment during those first four days of hearings. On the fifth day, we once again in committee talked about how best to proceed. No amendments were offered, and none were voted on.

During the 5 days, we did not vote on a single amendment. All the controversial issues got pushed off to Monday. We are not normally here on Monday, but we showed up on Monday because the leader said we had to have a bill out Monday night or he would bring up his own bill.

During the morning session on Monday, we spent 3\1/2\ hours talking about amendments on the enforcement provisions of the bill. We spent a good bit of time on the enforcement provisions and made some progress. I got optimistic to the point that I have said if we did just a few more things, we could create an enforcement system that would work. So we spent a little time on enforcement. But we are still now talking about title II of the seven titles in the bill.

After lunch on Monday of this week, we met for another 3\1/2\ hours and ran through the remaining five titles, five sections of the bill, with little discussion and less understanding of what the amendments were and what they amounted to. We voted on several amendments without even having language to review. In only 3\1/2\ hours on Monday, we voted on four amnesty provisions and increased the chairman's mark by over 100 pages.

Let me make this clear. We spent 5 days talking about the enforcement issues with little controversy there. In contrast, we spent 3\1/2\ hours passing out the massive amnesty provisions in the bill that is now in the Senate that will attempt to legalize and put on an automatic path, virtually, to citizenship.

We also passed legislation that increases the legal immigration in our country by at least double--probably more than that--to 400,000 per year, with little discussion of who and how that should be done. It just was offered and passed.

I believe this Senate needs to slow down and think about where we are. It is very important.

Members of this Senate have expressed deep concern that the border has become a major gateway for terrorists to have access to the United States. Senator Feinstein expressed that. Clearly, she is from California. We are pleased to have three Senators--Senator Feinstein from California, Senator Kyl from Arizona, and Senator Cornyn from Texas--who live on the border and know about it and understand it in many ways, far better than the rest of us. I share her concern and believe it can only be remedied by focusing on fixing our immigration system as a whole. It is something we can do. This is within our grasp at this point, but we are not there yet.

Securing our borders and being able to keep track of the people who come in and out of our country is essential to our security. We know that countries without secure immigration policies are a natural fit for bad actors who seek to live anonymously within their borders. A country that does not protect its borders and does not know the identity of those who come in and out of the country is laying out the welcome mat for criminals and even terrorists.

I have visited a number of times with troops and other government officials in Afghanistan. I have had the honor to meet with General Jones, our commander in Europe, General Abizaid, our commander in Central Command, and they have expressed exceedingly great concern to me about unregulated border areas. They have emphasized that there are a number of places around the globe, border areas of countries that are not very effective countries, in which criminals can gather and nobody does anything about it. It gets worse and worse, and terrorists nest there. The most dramatic example of that, of course, is this very long and very large border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where many think Osama bin Laden hides out today. Some ask why isn't it possible for us to find him? It is a very large area. It is basically an area that has not been controlled effectively by the Governments of Pakistan or Afghanistan, and as a result, it is far more difficult.

I just came from there last week and had a briefing on this specific area. If anyone heard the briefing I had, there would be a far greater understanding of how difficult it is to control these areas.

A great nation like the United States has to do better. We cannot allow that tendency to occur in our country. I believe we can say with some integrity and honesty that tends to be what is happening here on our border.

Last night, I had an exchange with Senator Kyl in the Senate, and he talked about the increasing number of people who are involved in crime on the Arizona-Mexico border. Many are not from Mexico. Many are from further south, from other countries, who come into Mexico, but it is an area in which they operate, move drugs, extort, carry people, and it is not a healthy situation at all. It is something a great nation, if we care about the people who want to live here and come into our country legally, should be very concerned about.

The United States felt the sharp consequences of open borders and lax enforcement when our ineffective immigration policies enabled 19 terrorists to obtain visas into the United States on September 11. September 11 was not the only act of terrorism on U.S. soil, though, that has resulted from poor immigration policies.

Let's talk about the Brooklyn subway plot. People may have forgotten that. Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer was caught by the Border Patrol agents three times while trying to illegally cross the Canadian border. After a third apprehension, Canada would not take him back. Because the United States suffers from a severe lack of detention space for illegal aliens like Mezer, what happened to him? Canada would not take him back. He was released into the country on bail with a promise that he would show up for a hearing at which he would be deported. So he wants to come to this country, he is apprehended for the third time, Canada will not let him come back, and they release him on a promise that he will show up for a hearing on whether he should be deported. It sounds like, based on those facts, he probably was confident he would be. While waiting for his hearing, Mezer busied himself by plotting to bomb the Brooklyn subway.

Mohammad Salameh, one of the World Trade Center bombing coconspirators in the first World Trade

Center bombing attempt in 1993--more than an attempt; an explosion that did not bring down the building applied for a tourist visa to the United States. Although Mohammad Salameh overcame the presumption that he was required to overcome as a single male, young, and received a visa, he overstayed the visa and remained illegally in the United States. We passed amnesty. He applied then to be a permanent resident. It was rejected. Somebody caught it somehow and saw something there. What did he do? He applies for amnesty under the 1986 act, and they reject it. So what does that mean? Was he sent home? No, he just simply remained in the United States. Nobody bothered to come and look for him. He continued living and working here because there was no enforcement mechanism in place allowing authorities to detain and remove rejected green card applicants.

Mahmud Abouhalima, a leader of the 1993 trade bombing, was legalized as a part of the 1986 amnesty, also. It was only after he was legalized that he was able to travel outside the United States. The trips he took after being granted amnesty included several to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he received the training he used in the bombing.

Most people who seek to stay in our country are good and decent people. They are not terrorists. We know that. But we have an increasing number of criminals from around the world seeking to enter this country, and we have the terrorist problem.

Abounalima took advantage of the amnesty. He got approved. Proper background checks apparently were not conducted, and he then, as a permanent legal resident, green card holder, was free to travel back and forth around the world and go to Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is where he got his training for the 1993 bombing.

The mastermind of the 1993 bombing was Ramzi Yousef. He did not waste time applying for a visa to come to the United States. Upon his arrival at JFK Airport, he simply applied for asylum, saying he was persecuted. There was a lack of detention space while they were trying to determine his status. They said to this man who illegally appeared at John F. Kennedy Airport--You are here illegally; we will arrest you. And he says: I claim asylum; I am here because I have been run out of my country. So he is entitled, now, to a trial or a hearing on that. But they cannot do it that day, and they do not have any place to put him, so they release him. They parole him into the country until a hearing can be held on his asylum claim. Yousef then used that time inside the United States to plan the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Tower.

Not only have our amnesty, visa issuance, and asylum policies brought terrorists into the United States, our programs have also served as a conduit for criminals and terrorists.

Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, murdered two people at the El Al counter at Los Angeles International Airport in July 2002. Less than a year after 9/11, Hadayet conducted that attack at the airport which resulted in the murder of two people.

He received legal status through the diversity lottery visa in this fashion: In 2002, Hadayet was a visa overstayer. He got a visa, came here, but he stayed illegally beyond the time he was supposed to stay. In his asylum claim, when they confronted him about it, he claimed that he was entitled to asylum, too. That is a good thing to say because that stops the works. So he claimed asylum. But a hearing was held, and the determination was that he was not entitled to asylum. It was rejected.

But with no mechanism, no will and no capacity to tell the truth, to remove him, he just stayed in the United States with his wife. Then Hadayet's wife won the diversity visa lottery. She got a green card and she was able to get one for her husband. So both of them were legalized. That is how he got into the country--not a way it should have happened. Once his asylum had been rejected, he should have been removed.

Now, we have been reading in the paper about Zacarias Moussaoui, who just confessed, apparently, to his intent to participate in the September 11 bombings in plane attacks in our country. He entered the country under the visa waiver program, and he just confessed that he was to fly a plane into the White House.

I would like to share a few more things about the ineffectiveness of our system. Most of the people who come here are not criminals. Most of the people who come here have legitimate reasons. They ought to wait until we are able to check their records and verify they are an appropriate person to come in our country. That is how the system is supposed to work. But the truth is, we are seeing a larger number of criminals coming in than we ever have before.

Criminals from other countries, and those who would commit crimes, also use the immigration system against us.

On December of 2005, Secretary Chertoff, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, testified that the Border Patrol encountered 1.1 million illegal aliens attempting to cross the southwest border between the legitimate ports of entry illegally.

Just a few weeks ago, a Department of Homeland Security employee told us that approximately 12 percent--12 percent--of the people apprehended already had criminal records. That is 139,000 people. So for those they apprehended, they did a background check on them, and they found that 12 percent of those had a criminal record already, totaling 139,000 people.

In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security deported over 88,000 criminal aliens. Those removals accounted for over 40 percent of the people who were removed. Now, these are not simple immigration violations. They are serious offenses: fraud, drugs, extortion, or violence.

If we catch one criminal entering the country, each year, for every criminal entering the country we do not catch--and some say that is about correct--it is highly likely the United States received a net gain, in 2004, of 51,000 criminals, none of whom should have been allowed in the country if an appropriate system were operating.

A great nation does not have to accept everybody who wants to come. No nation does--not everybody. So we set standards. One of the standards is, people are not allowed in the country who have criminal records or charges are pending against them.

Now, the numbers of criminal aliens in the country is startling, I have to tell you. I wish it were not so, but I am just telling you what the numbers are. Criminal aliens now constitute a large percent of all the Federal prisoners in Federal prisons today. How many? What percent would you suspect? I will have to tell you, it is an astounding 27 percent. Twenty-seven percent of the Federal prisoners today are illegal aliens, criminal aliens.

In 2003, that means 44,000 criminal aliens were serving sentences in Federal jails. This is just the Federal jails, which probably represent 10 percent of all the prisoners in the United States. I believe those percentages could be even higher in State and local prisons. And I understand in some States it may be even higher, like in California and others.

An April of 2005 a GAO, Government Accountability Office, report found that the number of criminal aliens incarcerated in the United States increased 15 percent from 2001 to 2004. That is a steady and substantial increase.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens totaled approximately $1.2 billion in 2004.

Now, again, I am not saying that we need to reject people and stop immigration and never allow anybody into our country because we are having an increasing number of people who attempt to come here who are criminals. What I am saying is, we need to make our system work so we can identify those people who have criminal histories and not allow them in and allow the good and decent people in. Isn't that what it is all about? It is a very important point.

Criminal aliens are also having a severely negative impact at the State and local level. Recently, an ICE agent--those are the immigration enforcement officers--in Alabama contacted me to tell me there is an enormous, growing problem with aliens trafficking drugs across north Alabama. Who would think that? He informed me that all of the green card holders he arrests for criminal convictions for trafficking dope were once illegal aliens but have been granted amnesty somewhere along the way.

To quote him directly, he said--this is what he told me:

[It is] because they had no respect for the law when they

jumped the river, worked illegally, and used fake documents

with false names.

That is what he said. Who can say there is no truth to that? I think there is some truth to that. Simply giving an illegal alien a green card does not suddenly make that person a law-abiding citizen. We need to make sure we have ascertained, when a person applies to come into our country by visa, or to obtain a green card, that they are law- abiding citizens who are going to contribute positively to our country.

I like to tell my friends in Texas the whole story about Alabama. Perhaps Georgia has a spin on it. It probably has a little spin on it, I say to the Presiding Officer. But the story was: If somebody got in trouble with the law in Alabama, and you went to their house, they would have ``GTT'' on the door. What did that stand for? ``Gone To Texas.'' In the old days, they did not have many prisons, and basically if you got out of town, that was fine.

I am wondering, sometimes, if people who are getting in trouble in their home countries are not finding it easier than being arrested and put in jail in their own country to just leave town. And if they leave town, maybe the local police and constabularies are happy to have them go and do not mind what happens to them. I am afraid some of that may be occurring here. I suspect in the early days, Georgia sent their people to Alabama, Mr. President. I don't know. Of course, your State was founded--I will not get into that story.

The next story from Alabama ICE agents was surprising to me. In December of last year, in the past few months, they arrested, in the north Alabama area, a leader of the MS-13 street gang--that is basically an El Salvadorian violent street gang--for possessing a stolen firearm. ICE had to release the gang member from custody a couple months later because the judge determined that he derived U.S. citizenship from his father who received amnesty in the 1990s and was naturalized when the gang member was 17. Normally, as a noncitizen, being charged with this offense, he would be deported.

A few weeks ago, just 30 days after being released from custody, the gang leader was again arrested, this time for firing eight rounds out of a car at a rival gang member in the town of Pelham, AL. Because he received citizenship through amnesty, Alabama will not see him deported.

The guy the gang leader shot at is the area leader of the Brown Pride 13 street gang, which is another street gang. ICE tells me this gang leader is also a once-illegal alien who received amnesty and a green card.

Now, we want to give amnesty to the people who deserve it. But we need to create a system that when we do that we have examined them to make sure they are the kind of people who would make good citizens. That is what we tell the American people we are going to do. That is what we tell them we are going to do. We tell them this bill sets up a lawful system for people to apply to immigrate to our country and that before they are allowed to immigrate and become a citizen, get a permanent status to stay here permanently, that we have checked them out. I am saying to you, too often we fail to do that. It is a hollow promise. ICE, in dealing with this gang leader, must wait for him to be convicted of a crime for him to be arrested.

Unlike any of us, these Federal agents are in the trenches every day working hard to enforce the law, of which most of us only hear about on the news. As this ICE agent told me, he gets aggravated that people do not realize that yet another amnesty or allowance for adjustment of status will only ensure that the Government rubberstamps more criminals into our country and allows them to receive green cards. He is worried about that.

I think if we took care and did it right, that might not be the case. I believe we can do it. But we have to be fully aware and take intentional steps or his prediction will be correct. And based on what he has seen in his experience, I have no doubt that he is somewhat cynical about the willingness of our Congress to take the necessary steps to make sure it does not happen.

Around the country we are seeing an increase in the number of illegal criminal aliens who are being apprehended, some with access to critical infrastructure and information pertaining to national security interests.

Jerry Seper of the Washington Post has written about these issues for some time. I have noted with some interest his accounts that demonstrate the gaping holes in our immigration enforcement and security policies. Let's share some examples of what he reported.

In May of 2004, John Torres, Deputy Director for Smuggling and Public Safety, of ICE, the Immigration Service, testified before the House Judiciary Committee that criminal organizations worldwide make over $9.5 billion a year smuggling foreign nationals. This is his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, the Government official at ICE, that these criminal organizations make over $9.5 billion a year smuggling foreign nationals, illicit drugs, and weapons into the United States.

This smuggling includes as many as 17,500 people forced to work as prostitutes. We have heard about the sex slave prostitution problem. He says it includes as many as 17,500 sweatshop laborers and domestic servants. Mr. Torres testified that these well-established smuggling and trafficking pipelines serve as conduits for illegal immigrants and criminals seeking entry into the country. Many of these people are easily exploited by terrorists and extremist organizations. It is these people who will be granted amnesty under many of the proposals currently pending on the floor. This is a prime example of why we must focus on enforcement and border protection before anything else.

That is what the House decided to do. People say the House bill is harsh. The House bill is not harsh in the sense that it simply examined our enforcement procedures and found them totally lacking. They concluded the most honest way to deal with the problem was to confront border laxity and our enforcement mechanisms and get that under control. Once we have done that, then we could go to the American people with a plan to determine how many people will come in in the future, how many people are here, and how to handle those people who are here, many of them as fine and decent a people as anybody would ever want to know, working hard every day, contributing to our country. We do owe them fair and humane treatment. I will not support any bill that does not give them that. But the House said, as a first step, let's do that.

We spent most of our time in the Judiciary Committee marking up the enforcement protections in the bill. But at the last day, this Monday, we dumped in about 100 pages or more of this issue, the more serious and complex issue of the people who are here, how to handle them, and who to allow in in the future. That is why we are a bit rushed. As a matter of fact, that bill was not even printed and received by the committee members. We did not know what the language was until it was finally printed Wednesday night at 8. Now they want us to pass this legislation dealing with the historic challenges in immigration going beyond improving enforcement to the entire philosophy and policy of our Nation for many years to come. We are not ready to do that. Certainly if we are, this bill is not the vehicle to do so.

Last year in an isolated incident in Virginia, ICE agents arrested nine criminal aliens, six of whom had been previously convicted on aggravated felony charges, including child molestation, drug possession, and sexual assault. These aliens should have been deported on conviction. That is what the law says. These aliens were identified during an investigation that found they had attempted to obtain immigration benefits through the CIS, the immigration services agency, including work permits and permanent resident status. These are nine of the estimated 85,000 criminal aliens walking our streets today.

Last March, ICE agents deported 37 criminal aliens rounded up in the Washington area, two of whom had ties to MS-13, the Salvadoran gang which operates within the region. This group of criminal aliens were people convicted of theft, assault, burglary, sexual battery, and malicious wounding. From the Washington area alone in

2004, ICE deported 819 criminal aliens. MS-13 has an estimated 2,000 members in northern Virginia alone. This is not your ordinary street gang. It is a malicious, violent gang involving alien and weapons smuggling, murder, robberies, burglaries, carjacking, extortion, rape, and aggravated assault.

In May of 2005, ICE arrested 60 illegal aliens working as contract employees at a dozen critical U.S. infrastructure sites nationwide, including seven petrochemical refineries, very much potential targets, three powerplants, a national air cargo facility, and a pipeline company. What these things demonstrate, when I talk about Alabama or northern Virginia, is that the system currently is not working. We can make it work. It is not that hard. We are pretty close to getting there. We have jumped 8 feet, but the ravine we need to jump across is 10 feet wide. Let's go the extra 2 feet. Let's get out there and create a legitimate enforcement mechanism that will guarantee that we are as open and friendly as we have always been to those who want to come to this country but with a system that does not allow criminals to take advantage of us, does not allow terrorists to take advantage of us. In fact, this bill fails to prohibit the entry into our country of criminals in an effective way. That is why Senator Kyl and Senator Cornyn have offered their amendment dealing with this particular issue. It absolutely needs to be a part of it. I was pleased that Senator Cornyn talked about the similarity between the bill we are moving today and the one we passed in 1986, which everybody agreed was amnesty. Black's Law Dictionary even defines amnesty by referring to the 1986 bill in their definition. Everybody admitted in 1986, it was amnesty. People have said we are not for amnesty. We have campaigned on it. Virtually every Senator, every leader, even the President has said we are not for amnesty. But anything you try to do, they say: That is not amnesty.

Is it not an automatic path to a green card and citizenship? Why isn't it automatic? Well, they have to pay $1,000. They have to pay their income taxes. Don't you have to pay your income taxes? What is this? You have to have a job. What do they come here for? To have a job. And then only the most part-time job with the most minimal proof would establish the work requirement. Basically it guarantees anybody here a path to citizenship as long as they don't get convicted of a felony. If you get convicted of a felony before you are deported today, the chances are very good you can maneuver your way out on bail and never be deported.

A good system would take a person directly from the incarceration facility and move them directly out of the country. That is what we say we are going to do, but we don't.

I have many more examples of situations in which we have not managed our immigration system well. As a result, illegal aliens have been caught working in nuclear plants and military bases in highly secret and sensitive areas of our country. We can do better than that. We absolutely can and we must do better than that.

I join with my colleagues Senators Kyl and Cornyn in saying: We definitely need to fix this omission in the bill that came out of committee that fails to properly deal with those who would come into the country illegally who have a criminal record and who could be put on a path to amnesty if we don't work it correctly.

I urge my colleagues, let's keep an open mind on the legislation. Let's remember that our Nation has some of the finest people you could ever want living and working here, but we need to deal with them fairly and humanely. We don't need to build a barrier around our country if it does not allow people to come here lawfully. We are a nation of immigrants and we always will and should welcome immigrants into the country, but we need to gain control of our borders. That includes physical barriers, virtual fences, improved enforcement, additional detention space, technology, and also workplace areas. If we eliminate the magnet of the workplace, if we take firm, effective steps on the border, we can reach that tipping point where people move from coming illegally into our country and we don't know then whether they are criminals. We move those people from the illegal path to entry into our country to a legal path. Isn't that what we want? Isn't that what we promised the American people time and again, when we have been asked about it in our States and on interview programs? We have all said that.

The legislation before us won't get us there. If we vote for that and tell our people that it will do the job, I do not believe we will be correct. Let's fix it. Let's improve it. Then we can make it work.

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

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

Mr. President, I want to express my support for the Senator's view that we need to certify that we have the enforcement system working for the immigration system before we make these other changes that allow people to be given amnesty or be given a right to stay here in some lawful way.

The reason that is important is this: To boil it down in 1 minute before I yield the floor, the reason that is important is that once we pass the policies--the amnesty that is in this bill, or whatever policies we eventually pass--to deal with new immigration for years to come or to deal with those already here, that becomes law then. The problem has been that no President whom I know of--Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, or Bush--has ever taken it as a personal interest to ensure that what happens on our borders actually works. So they have not asked for more money, more people or asked sufficiently for technology for it to work. And the Congress, as the Senator said, often doesn't fund it.

So what are we saying? Fundamentally, what happened in 1986, I believe, was that amnesty was granted and the promise to create a legal system in the future never developed. We have a very rightful responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen again. I think that is the intent of the Senator's amendment. I look forward to studying it, and I thank him for offering it.

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

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Well, just for a question. I want to first say how much I value the insights of the Senator from Arizona into this important issue. On the Judiciary Committee he is one of the Senate's most knowledgeable members on immigration issues, and one of the best lawyers here. I think he has raised a very troubling point.

This is part of the legislation that is moving forward, for reasons I am not quite sure of. But it does seem to have moved too fast, and it has a lot of real problems--almost anybody would agree.

But this deal about crime is a very important issue. I have had the sense that we may be seeing more criminality on the border. Sheriffs from Arizona and Texas came up and told us about the rising crime rate, the increased number of assaults on their people and Federal people.

I recall a recent trip I just took with the Armed Services Committee to Europe. I met with General Jones, who has Africa. He talks about the border areas that tend to be the areas that are the most dangerous.

Is the Senator concerned that we are creating areas in the country, as a result of lack of enforcement around the borders, that are really more dangerous than other parts of his State?

That is good. I wanted to follow up because the Senator mentioned methamphetamine. I had an opportunity today to meet with the executive director of the Alabama District Attorneys Association. Through Alabama laws and the Federal law we passed pseudoephedrine is not so available now, from which methamphetamine is being made in the United States. He just told me casually this morning, now all the methamphetamine is coming in from Mexico.

You are on that border. Do you sense that there is a growing problem with methamphetamine being brought in across the unsecure border?

One more question because I think this is very important for all of us here who strive to be responsible to the citizens we serve, and that is, we have had some amendments, some of which were accepted that I offered, that would increase bed space or increase Border Patrol agents and that kind of thing to improve enforcement. That is part of the bill that is before us. But I have been here long enough to get a little bit dubious about some of these things and learn the ropes around here.

One of the things that I have learned is, just because you put something in an authorization bill, that you authorize a barrier, you authorize more patrol officers, you authorize more detention space, does not mean it will actually be created and done.

That is the committee you serve on, Judiciary, the authorizing committee, and that I serve on.

Isn't it a Federal responsibility?

Mr. President, I believe Senator Kyl has the floor. I was asking a question.

Mr. President, I ask the Senator, isn't that in fact what happened in 1986? We passed the amnesty bill, and the American people were told this would be a one-time thing, it would solve this problem, and we are going to have enforcement on the border. That was promised. But, in fact, it never occurred. The monies were never appropriated. The President never aggressively asked for the resources necessary to make this occur, and we ended up not enforcing the law.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I wish to make a few comments.

I see Senator McCain. Maybe there is time he wants to use.

I seek recognition from the Chair.

Mr. President, this is a very real concern Senator Kyl and I have talked about. The concern is we are basically telling the American people that in good faith we are going to recognize that somehow we failed to follow the law, that we failed to enforce the law and create a workable system. The last time in 1986 we said we had a million people here illegally, and we admitted we were going to give them amnesty, and that we were going to try to create a system in the future that would not lead to these kinds of problems again.

What happened was 3 million people showed up--not 1 million--and they claimed amnesty. We never enforced the borders. Here we are 20 years later, and we have an estimated 11 million people, although I think one of the survey firms in the country said there may be 20 million people here. We will find out, I guess, when this passes.

But the question is, What will we do to ensure with this implied promise we are making to the American people that won't happen again?

The truth is, President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush, the former, President Clinton, and this President Bush have not come to the Congress and said, Congress, we are not getting the job done on the border. Give us more money and we will fix it. We have this problem. We need a computer. The employers are telling us they can't ask the proper questions because of this law or that law. The employment enforcement is not working. Help us change the law, Congress, so we can create a workable system. They never asked for it. They never did anything to suggest that. The system has gotten completely out of control.

How do we know, when we pass this legislation and immediately provide for the benefit of those who come illegally new rights and privileges and a path that would lead them straight to citizenship, how do we know we are not going to have the problem again?

That is all I am asking. I don't know how you can do it.

You could say, Well, this law won't take effect until we have a border system that works. Is that the way we will do it? I am not sure.

But the American people have every right to be skeptical. They have every right to be skeptical. They have a right to wonder if we are at all serious about what we are saying here.

I was a Federal prosecutor for 15 years. That is what I have done the biggest part of my professional life. I tell you it breaks my heart to see a legal system so ineffective. What has been going on here is a mockery of law.

Time and again we come back and we admit we haven't enforced the law. What good is the law if it is not enforced, let me ask you. You can't make everybody happy. You can't do everything for everybody.

I believe very strongly that this Nation is a nation of immigrants. I am perfectly prepared to approve allowing quite an additional number of people to come into this country legally. But in exchange for that, I think we have to have the balancing act of a legal system that works so we do not continue to see the large numbers of people coming in illegally.

I will summarize again what I have said before. I think we can do it. This is not that difficult. We increase border security, we use barriers, we use the virtual fence concept, we use computer systems and biometric identifiers, the United States VISIT Program, which needs to be completed, and then we use enforcement in the workplace.

As C.J. Bonner--people who have followed this heard him speak out before. He represents the Border Patrol agents. He said that absolutely we can do this. It is not going to cost a fortune and it is not going to break the Treasury of the United States, but it is going to cost some money.

If we will step it up and do these things, we can create a tipping point where people come into the country legally instead of illegally. That is it.

Right now, they come illegally. Why? It is easier to come illegally, that is why. People do what they are allowed to do.

I believe we can make this system better. I believe the legislation that came out of committee moved far more aggressively to the amnesty direction in the bill that Chairman Specter started out with.

The legislation that is pending before the Senate today does not represent the settled opinion of the American people. Once they find out about it, they will not be as happy as we would like them to be.

It is time to slow down, listen carefully to what is occurring, make sure we have a plan in place that will guarantee enforcement on the border, that will guarantee workplace enforcement and a plan that will allow more people to come in a legal way, an effective way, using a biometric identifier so they can come through the border and maybe go back and forth every weekend if that works for them and create a system by which this country can decide how many workers and what category we need so that if we have a downturn in our economy, we are not driving Americans out of work in large numbers. Those are things that a rational country would do.

This legislation, as presently configured, does not do it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize and pay tribute to

GEN Lance W. Lord, commander of Air Force Space Command, and his wife Beccy for their lifetime of service and unfaltering dedication to the U.S. Air Force and our great country.

As both an airman and leader, spanning 37 years of military service, General Lord's contributions to our Nation's strategic deterrence and space missions were critical to the warfighter, global economy, and the safety of our families. General Lord's leadership was an essential element in winning the Cold War and vital to Air Force Space Command's support of combat operations around the world to include Operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and the global war on terrorism.

General Lord prepared for his illustrious Air Force career by graduating from Otterbein College and its Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1968. In January of 1969, General Lord was introduced to the Air Force through Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, ICBM, operational readiness and combat crew missile training. This training led to his first assignment to North Dakota as a Minuteman II combat crewmember. General Lord's Air Force journey would take him and Beccy through a series of Air Staff and Department of Defense assignments relating to space and strategic and tactical missile systems. He was assigned as the military assistant to the director of Net Assessment and directed the Ground-Launched Cruise Missile Program in Europe. He served as the commander of the 10th Strategic Missile Squadron in Montana, vice commander of the 351st Strategic Missile Wing in Missouri, and later commanded two ICBM wings in Wyoming and North Dakota. In California, General Lord commanded the 30th Space Wing responsible for satellite launch and ballistic missile test launch operations. Leading professional development and educational programs was a hallmark of General Lord's career. He led Air Force's education and training programs as commandant of Squadron Officer School, commander of Second Air Force in Mississippi, and commander of Air University in Alabama. Prior to assuming his current position, General Lord served as the assistant vice chief of staff for Headquarters, U.S. Air Force.

During General Lord's tenure as commander, Air Force Space Command, he provided inspirational leadership to over 39,000 service men and women responsible for a global network of satellite command and control, communications, missile warning, space launch, and ensured the combat readiness of America's ICBM force. General Lord guided the command to a number of historic firsts: 44 successful consecutive operational space launches, establishment of National Security Space Institute, the launch of the last Titan IV, and transition to the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, deactivation of the Peacekeeper ICBM weapon system, and the establishment of the quarterly High Frontier, Air Force Space Command's first scholarly space and missile journal. General Lord has been a stellar Air Force advocate for the creation of the Space Power Caucus, orchestrated the ``50 Years of Air Force Space and Missiles'' celebration, and developed the Space Professional Development Strategy. Most recently, he answered the President's call to service with the creation of the High Frontier Adventures, a program designed to inspire students to explore space, mathematics, science, engineering and technology.

General Lord's impeccable service is characterized by his Command Space Badge, Space Professional Level III certification, operational space experience in nuclear operations and spacelift, weapon systems expertise in the Minuteman II, Minuteman III, and Peacekeeper ICBMs, and the Atlas E, Delta II, Titan II, and Titan IV Boosters. General Lord is the recipient of numerous prestigious recognitions: Space Champion Award, General Bernard A. Schriever Award, General Jimmy Doolittle Fellow Award, General James V. Hartinger Award, and the General Thomas D. White Space Trophy.

Today, I have mentioned but a few of GEN Lance W. Lord's many achievements. General Lord is a visionary, steadfast military leader, and honorable man. I know my colleagues join me in paying tribute to him and his wife Beccy and their two sons, Jason and Joshua, for the years they have dedicated to our country and to the betterment of the U.S. Armed Forces. As a distinguished space pioneer, General Lord widely proclaimed the mandate, ``If you're not in space, you're not in the race.'' General Lord, we wish you well.

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

Mr. President, the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted out a historic and monumental immigration bill. The work was intense and fast, and we spent less than, perhaps, half a day dealing with the entire area of the bill that is referred to as guest workers or what to do with those who are here today illegally--perhaps 11 million to 20 million individuals.

I have reached a conclusion, having been in law enforcement for the most part of my professional career, that the enforcement provisions are not going to be adequate--although there are some good ones there, some steps forward--and our approach to those who are here and those who wish to come here in the future has been poorly thought out and unprincipled.

I strongly believe that America has a tremendous opportunity to fix a broken immigration system. The system as it operates today makes a mockery of law, and we all know that. It rewards bad behavior. It places bureaucratic hurdles and delays in front of those who want to do the right thing in coming here.

The list of the ways the current system does not work, frankly, is almost endless. We have had hearings and discussions, and you have read in the newspapers so many of the things that are disturbing about why our system does not work. Our failure to develop a lawful system has had a number of perverse consequences. But one little-noted consequence is that many Americans, even those in this Senate, have come to believe that it cannot be fixed, that it is hopeless, that we cannot get control of our borders, that it is just a natural thing we should accept, that we go through the motions of doing something about it, but it really will never be fixed.

But the good news is that is not true. The failure of our current system is the result of identifiable defects, defects that can be fixed. It is not impossible. Fixing these deficiencies is not all that difficult. Although it will cost real money, it is affordable. So what we really need is the will to do it, the belief and the will and the determination to go forward and make this system work.

T.J. Bonner, who heads the National Border Control Council and who has repeatedly expressed the frustrations of our Border Patrol agents-- he represents them--told us, at our Judiciary Committee, how to make the system work. He said: First, control the borders. Second: Workplace enforcement needs to be effectually carried out; that is, to make sure people who are not legal do not get jobs because the jobs are the magnets. A third and connected step is to make our entry and exit system biometric and easier to use. That is part of the concept that would be necessary to move us to an effective legal system.

Such actions, in my view, based on my study and the hearings I have attended, will allow us to quickly reach the magic ``tipping point.'' That is the point where those who want to come to this country will receive a clear message. And that message is this: It makes far more sense to enter our country legally rather than illegally.

Now, at this time, the opposite is true. Those who desire to enter America would rather pay a fee to some transporter, some ``coyote,'' to cross illegally rather than enter lawfully. The situation is so bad that while we apprehended 1.1 million last year entering our country illegally--think of that, 1.1 million--the number who have arrived successfully has surged to almost 12 million, according to the best estimates. Many say more. How bad is that? That is not good. This is not a policy which we can take pride in or have any confidence in, that we have almost as many people illegally as legally coming.

So what do we do to fix it? You say: Sessions, what are you going to do about it? What do you propose? There are some steps we can do. Unfortunately, because the system has been broken for so long, we are going to have to work very hard at first to get to that tipping point, to tip from illegality to legality.

But you see what happens when that occurs, when you reach that tipping point? Then the stress on the agents, who are out arresting thousands every night, is so much less because they have fewer to apprehend. You have fewer in our deportation centers. You have much less of a problem for those who are deported--other than Mexicans, who cannot readily be deported to their country--because fewer are coming because they know if they come they are likely to be apprehended and they will be immediately sent back to whatever country they came from.

It begins to work in a way that a lot of people do not think is possible, but it is absolutely possible, and that is, once we make clear you are not going to successfully be able to enter our country illegally, that you must wait in line to come legally, we will have far fewer people come here. Right now the word is out that we are open for anyone who desires to come, even if they don't desire to come legally. That is what is causing so much problem.

One of the things we learned in the 1986 amnesty was not to give amnesty again. You want to do the right thing, and we are going to do the right thing about the people who have come here illegally. We need to spend some time on it. We need to care about every single one of them. They are human beings with dreams and hopes, creatures of our Heavenly Father. Each one of them is entitled to respect, but they are not entitled to the same benefits a lawful entrant into our country has. Who would suggest that? I don't think that is a principled approach we can defend.

We learned in 1986 that we should not give amnesty. It failed. No serious commentator believes the amnesty of 1986 worked. It was widely held to encourage illegal entry. There was a commission appointed by the Congress, a bipartisan commission, 6 years after 1986 to review what happened when the legislation passed that created amnesty at that time. They said it failed. It should not be done again.

By any standard of the definition of the word ``amnesty,'' the bill that came out of committee is that. That is a loaded word. I don't want to be a demagogue with the word ``amnesty.'' But if amnesty has any meaning, it is that people who came illegally are given an opportunity to receive every single benefit, including citizenship, as a result of their illegal act. That is how we have always meant it. That is what was done in 1986. That is what was determined to be a failure.

Secondly, we must deal with and eliminate, as T. J. Bonner said, the magnet of jobs for illegals. It will not be hard to stop the hiring of illegals by requiring biometric identifiers of foreign workers. It will be easy. Most businesses will comply with what they understand to be the plain law. If they are told they should require identification and it should be checked through the computer system that is being set up and will be set up to determine whether this is a lawful applicant, they will do so. It will not be easy to prosecute those cases. We have learned, however, that in 2004, only three cases of fines were assessed against an employer for bringing people into the country or hiring people who were here illegally. So it has never been enforced. It is a mockery of the law. You have it on the books, but nobody has ever enforced it.

Businesses will comply. We will not have to prosecute all of them. As soon as they realize this is not the policy of the United States anymore, that the policy of the United States is you should check your workers before you hire them and make sure they are here legally, they will do so. All of a sudden, this magnet can be eliminated. Again, therefore, if you want to come to the United States to work lawfully, you are tipped into the idea of waiting in line, take your time, come and have your background check done to make sure you don't have terrorist connections and don't have a criminal record,

those kinds of things, and then you can come in.

Border enforcement is not easy. We have 1,900 miles on the border. People say we should not have a fence; it is something deeply wrong with that. I don't find anything wrong with that. I always heard the slogan ``good fences make good neighbors.'' It certainly has worked in San Diego. But in the most busy areas where illegal entry is occurring, that is a perfectly normal and natural thing. If we don't do that, it is an indication that we lack the will to see the matter through.

The House has a bill that deals with this issue. It proposes up to 700 miles of fencing in the worst areas. It has worked in the San Diego area. It can work here. So it is a test. Are we committed to the enforcement question?

The committee bill did deal with some important steps on enforcement, however. It had some important steps. I don't want to diminish that. I have used a metaphor to say, unfortunately, that it is like making an 8-foot leap across a 10-foot ravine. We are almost there, but we are not there. If we do a few more things, including barriers, including biometrics, including workplace enforcement and detention, not having anymore catch-and-release programs, those kinds of things, we could get there more quickly and more easily than most people think. We have made progress, but we are not there yet.

I have discovered, as a former attorney general and prosecutor, U.S. attorney, from my local police officers in Alabama that they are not welcomed to even voluntarily contribute their abilities in immigration enforcement. For example, there is a clear message told to local law enforcement--and I meet with groups of law enforcement officers whenever I am in the State and enjoy that. I ask them how their drug laws are going, what are they seeing on the streets, what problems do they have. And I usually ask them about immigration. The standard answer is, they have been told by the immigration enforcement officers that unless they have 15 people illegally they have apprehended, don't bother to call. They won't come and pick them up. They are not interested. What does that say about our intention to have a lawful system as opposed to an unlawful one?

I saw the front page of the Washington Times a few days ago. It had an article about an officer in the Midwest or the West who apprehended 15 illegal aliens. He called the immigration people and they said: Don't bother. Don't call us.

This has been going on for years. It is the standard policy out there. So this indicates to me we are not serious about having a lawful system.

It is absolutely possible for us to reverse this trend, to allow large numbers of people to come to our country to work, people who we know are not connected to terrorism or are not criminal elements, drug gangs and organizations of that kind. We absolutely can do that. But I am afraid the legislation we have moved forward does not do so. We are going to have some discussion about the majority leader's bill, the Frist bill. It is more focused on the enforcement question. It does not attempt to settle the huge, difficult human issue of how to handle in a humane and lawful way those who are already here unlawfully. That is a big deal, and we will have to spend some time on that. But I don't understand the purpose of it. We will spend a day or so on that and then apparently go to the committee bill.

It came out of committee with a pretty large vote, six ``no'' votes on the committee. The Judiciary Committee has produced their legislation. It is on the floor now, and it will be the main part of the debate as we go forward. The only thing about which I will express concern to my colleagues is that we haven't read it yet. I see the Presiding Officer, such an extraordinarily valuable member of our committee who cares about this issue deeply. We haven't even seen it printed yet. We passed amendments, and we agreed to amendments on the floor. We passed the agriculture jobs bill that was up here a year or so ago that got blocked. We passed it in a 5-minute discussion. I think it was maybe 50 or 100 pages. This bill is over 300 pages. We substituted the Kennedy-McCain bill for the chairman's mark and passed that. Who has read that?

Then they said: Well, it wasn't quite the same as everything you have heard about our bill. We have made improvements on it. What improvements? What does it say?

I urge my colleagues to not announce too quickly that they are in support of the legislation that came out of our committee because they don't know what is in it yet. I don't know what is in it, and I am on the committee.

We are dealing with one of the most momentous challenges of our time. We need to do it in the right way. We can do it in the right way. What I believe we should do is follow the lead of the House of Representatives. People say that is a harsh bill. It is not a harsh bill. It is a bill designed to make the legal system work. What is harsh about that? Unless you believe lawlessness is the appropriate way to handle business in America, unless you don't respect the rule of law. It is not harsh to create a legal system. They have concluded that the proper response to the crisis we face, with due respect to the concerns of the American people, is to, first, demonstrate that we can create an immigration system that actually works. That is what the House decided to do. That is what they focused on, and that is what they passed. They did not attempt, with a few hours debate, to deal with the colossal issue of human concerns of those who are here and to develop an architecture for who we want to allow to come in in the future and under what conditions.

That is what we should do. That is what most of our hearings in the committee have been focused on. Then we will have some credibility with the American people.

Let me share a couple of additional thoughts about matters I believe are important. The Judiciary bill--I don't want to call it Chairman Specter's mark because it was so altered and changed. It had quite a bit of difference. But the bill that came out of committee did a number of different things. One, it would immediately legalize the 12 to, some say, 20 million people who are here illegally. It would give them a green card in a relatively short period. It would then put them on an automatic path to citizenship. Once they become a citizen, they are able to bring in family members and even brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. It would double the number of legal visas, I think, to 400,000. Each one of those would not be as though you have a visa to come in. These visas are not just to come in to work for 6 months or a year and go back to your home country. This 400,000 will allow you to stay up to 6 years and then allow you, at the end of 4 years, to apply for a green card. And once you get that permanent green card, you can apply for citizenship. So it will be about another 400,000.

We think, conservatively speaking, this bill would add 30 million people to our Nation in the next 10 years. We ought to spend some time talking about that. That is a big deal. That is a 10-percent increase in our population, and we ought to be thinking about what is in it. We spent very little time and we have spent very little national discussion in which the American people have had an opportunity to listen on this issue. It is hugely important. We want to do the right thing about it.

Let me share this: The enforcement mechanisms we passed in committee--many of which are good, some of which failed that were needed--are only a promise.

This is why the American people have a right to be cynical, they have a right to be nervous, they have a right to watch this Congress like a hawk because that is what happened in 1986. Once you pass the guest worker part of the bill--which is what it is being called, and I am not sure that is a very good description of it--that becomes law; the people become legalized; they put in for citizenship, and we double the number of people coming, et cetera, and that becomes our law right now.

What about the enforcement? We authorized UAV, the virtual fence. Virtual reality is all that is. That UAV is to see if somebody is out there, but that is of very little value if you don't have somebody go out and pick them up. Anyway, we increase the bed spaces and increase some Border Patrol officers by authorization. All the Judiciary Committee bill can do is authorize those actions to be made. They have no ability whatsoever to fund them and to make sure they get carried out.

What we learned after 1986 is that Congress hasn't funded the things necessary to make the border secure, and the Presidents--every one of them since that time--seem to have little interest in making sure it gets enforced. They don't come before Congress and say we have a problem at the border; we need more money, more agents, more detention space, and more barriers. They let it go. So this is a dangerous thing. I am not going to vote for any bill that is a ``let me see one hand and not the other.'' In other words, we are going to have one vote that will be a permanent decision about how to deal with those who are here illegally. But we will not be able to have any guarantee that the enforcement system is going to be made workable. That is why the House believes they should complete the enforcement mechanisms first, which is a good principle that we should be concerned about.

The stress on our system is going to be incredible. Some in the immigration system say, when they think what this will mean, they cannot imagine how this will ever work. They have a huge backlog on applications to come into the country. Our immigration service is expected to make some background checks to make sure we are not allowing criminals and terrorists to come into the country. If we more than double the number that are allowed to apply and enter, then their workload is going to be incredibly heavy. It is not working now. We can do better.

Finally, a lot of people have been unhappy with President Bush. They say he has been too much for amnesty. They say he is not serious about the border, and they have complained about that and so have I. I felt that he has not been sufficiently concerned about creating a legal system that works. But I have to tell you, the bill that came out of committee is way past that. Please know that, Senators. I heard Scott McClellan on the radio today, from the press conference he gave yesterday, and he stated the principles of the President. One of them is that those who come here illegally are not put on an automatic path to citizenship. That is what the President defines as amnesty. That is what he says he is not for.

But that is what this bill does. The bill puts the people who came here unlawfully on an automatic path to citizenship. If that is not amnesty, what is? The President does not support what is here. It is beyond what he wants to do. He has a very generous idea about immigration. He wants to do the right thing. All of us do, but we cannot defend the principle of granting amnesty because we know what happened in 1986. It did not work. The independent commissions have said that.

I will conclude by urging my colleagues to recognize how important this issue is to get right, how important it is that we do the right thing, so that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, we can be proud of what we did. And we can get there; we absolutely can. But this bill is not the vehicle to do it. We should not pass it in its present form. I say that with the caveat that nobody has seen the bill we will have on the floor. It hasn't even been printed yet. That is a pretty sad case, if you want to know the truth. It was so complex and rushed through our committee in such a hasty way.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair and my colleagues for giving me a chance to share these thoughts. I urge each and every one of them to spend some time on this issue. Let's study this legislation and let's don't be stampeded by politics or protests or that kind of thing. Let's try to do the right thing and make sure that whatever we do is something we can be proud of and our children can be proud of.

How much time remains?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These requirements are very broad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why would we want to do that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only future conduct or a criminal conviction removes these protections.

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

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

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

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

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

They say this is a guest worker program.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

turned into ``an alien lawfully admitted for temporary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

of abiding by, rather than ignoring, our laws.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Farmers in the southern United States are opposed to S.

1645--

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

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

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

Please oppose this legislation.

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

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

Ag JOBS is nothing more than a veiled amnesty.

I am reading this letter from the farmers themselves.

Ag JOBS is nothing more than a veiled amnesty. While

everyone, it seems, agrees that the H2A program desperately

needs reform, this legislation does not fix the two most

onerous problems with the program--the adverse effect wage

rate and the overwhelming litigation brought by legal

services groups against the farmers using the H2A program.

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

The Craig-Kennedy-Berman reform package provides a private

right of action provision that goes far beyond legitimate

worker protections and expands legal services attorneys

ability to sue growers in several critical areas. These

lawyers, who have harassed program users with meritless

lawsuits for years, will continue to attack small farmers

under the new statute. Supporters of the Craig-Berman

legislation have endorsed this alleged reform, believing, in

a misguided fashion, that it will bring stability to the

agricultural labor market. It will not. It will create

greater instability. As the illegal farm workers earn

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

industries. Many of the attached signatories have been

actively involved in negotiations surrounding this

legislation. The following groups have broken ranks with the

American Farm Bureau, the National Council of Agricultural

Employers, the Agricultural Coalition for Immigration Reform,

and the American

Nursery and Landscape Association to oppose the legislation

because those groups have decided an amnesty is more

important than legitimate H2A reform. You are likely to hear

that the majority of agriculture supports this bill. The

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

the amnesty granted under the Immigration Reform and Control

Act of 1986 was a dismal failure for agriculture employers.

Farm workers abandoned agricultural employment shortly after

gaining amnesty and secured jobs in other industries.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The legalization program was not amnesty, but a targeted

program that balanced the offer of legalization with

stringent requirements.

This is how they defended this problem.

Legalization of applicants had to: prove to INS

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

1, 1982--

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

pay a $185 fee--

We upped it to $1,000--

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

family cap; accept ineligibility for most public benefits for

5 years after application--

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

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

that, and only after successfully completing an English

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

window--

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

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

family cap) they were eligible to apply for permanent

residency. In exchange, the applicant would be authorized to

work, travel, and after becoming a permanent resident,

petition for the immigration of certain family members.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that George Ward, who is serving on my staff for the course of this immigration debate, be granted floor privileges for the full course of the debate on S. 2454, Senator Frist's border security bill.