Before the distinguished Senator leaves the Senate floor, Mr. Leahy, might I say that I was present while you spoke this afternoon. I was here when the distinguished chairman of the committee spoke. I commend both of you for the diligent…
Before the distinguished Senator leaves the Senate floor, Mr. Leahy, might I say that I was present while you spoke this afternoon. I was here when the distinguished chairman of the committee spoke. I commend both of you for the diligent and obviously hard work you put in on a very hard subject for the American people. I think we got off to a good start today. Your hearings set the right pace for Americans to begin to understand that immigration is a complicated issue but that it can be solved. I am much more optimistic than I was a couple of months ago that even with these timeframes which have been tough on you all, these mandates by our leader that you get things done by a time-certain, we have both been here long enough to know that maybe that is how you get it done.
Mr. President, I am going to speak today very personally because I don't think very many people know, certainly looking here at my good, new friend occupying the chair from the State of Oklahoma, I am quite certain he doesn't know that this Senator was born by a mother who unknowingly was an illegal alien. She happened to be Italian. We are now talking more about Hispanics, although not exclusively. But today in the Senate Hart Building, the Senator from New Mexico had before him on the floor of his office, and in the chairs that we had, about 30 Navajo young men and women--10th, 11th and 12th graders--with a few adults, and about 5 or 6 students from a completely different part of the State of New Mexico. They were sitting on the floor asking me if I would talk to them about myself. ``Who are you?'' they asked.
I started off by telling them who I was. I gave a little bit of a lesson on the Constitution, and about there being only two Senators from each State, and how lucky we are, because we have just as many Senators as New York has. Of course, they knew that. I told them that might not seem fair, but the Constitution makes it fair because it is the document of fairness.
Then we proceeded to talk about how I got here. I told them the story of how I ran for office on a dare and got elected. Then I talked about some dates in our State's history. I said, in 1912, New Mexico became a State. Before that, in 1906, 2 boys arrived at Ellis Island with an uncle. One of these boys with the last name Domenici had a strange first name, Cherubino. People wondered what that was. In Italy, that was a nice name that meant ``little angel.'' He was born the last child of that Domenici family because his mother died in childbirth, so they named him ``little angel.''
In 1906, Cherubino, who was my father, arrived at Ellis Island, having left a little town called Lucca, Italy. He arrives in Albuquerque, NM, I told these young Indian students. He went to work in a grocery store that, believe it or not, was named the Montezuma Mercantile Company, and it was owned by Italian immigrants. These Navajo young people were wondering in awe, what are you talking about? I said, well, that is the way America was then. They welcomed aliens. There were no illegal aliens. If you came from Europe during those times, they said, come, we want you. They didn't say you are automatically a citizen, but they said come. These two boys were brothers; my dad came with his brother. The reason why is something that should not take the Senate's time tonight, other than to say they planned to bring my father only, but he got scared to come without his brother, so he cried and his brother said I will go, and then my dad said I will go, too. He said if you go, I will go. So his father played Solomon and sent them both. They went to France and got on a boat and arrived in Albuquerque in 1906.
We became a State in 1912. If my math is right, that is 6 years later. Guess what. By then, my father had bought the grocery store. He never went to school, but you see, he was still able to buy the grocery store. He was an alien. He worked hard and guess what happened. The war came along. Don't get too far ahead of yourself. It was the First World War. He got drafted as an alien. They put him in the Corps of Engineers. He told me one day: They wanted to promote me, but I told them I didn't want another bar because I spoke English too poorly and I was embarrassed to drill the boys. He was a little older than some of them, but he turned down the little button, or whatever you get, because he didn't want to sound like an Italian instead of an American, so he did not take the promotion.
But he still came home from the war a hero. And because of his service, he was made a U.S. citizen. Guess what. He went to see the best lawyer in Albuquerque, NM, before he married my wonderful mother. He said: If I marry her, because she has not finished her paperwork for citizenship, will she be a citizen? The lawyer said: Oh, yes, sure, she will be a citizen. Now, you see, that was wrong legal advice. So here my mother bears four children to a wonderful citizen whose grocery store is growing. She becomes kind of everybody's leader, the Parent- Teacher Association president, raising all the money for the Catholic school, and guess what. She is an illegal alien.
My mother hadn't been back to Italy since she was 3 years old. Remember, that is like some of our aliens in America. You know them, Senator Martinez. They have been here 30 years, they have never been back to their home countries, they live in the same neighborhood, they have children and
they marry Americans, just like my mother. One afternoon when I am about 9 or 10 years old, sitting in the backyard, guess who arrived? It was during the Second World War, 2 years before the end, or a year and a half. Who were we at war with? Italy. The immigration officers arrived in their big black cars. They pulled up to the house, and there was the Senator-to-be 45 years later--little Pete--with his sisters, and here they come. Of course, we think what happened was there was a flamboyant Italian man nearby that used to--excuse me--imbibe on weekends. They think he had a little too much imbibing and he was singing a song out the window of the third floor of a hotel, right on top of the grocery store, the Montezuma Grocery Store. Of course, singing Italian, he probably excited some American who was a supercitizen, right? He was worried about these illegal aliens. So the immigration officers set about to see who among us were illegal aliens, and there she was, my mother, Alda Domenici. They decided she had to be arrested because she was an illegal alien. So, sure enough, they came to do that and a neighbor had to come over to take care of us kids. I was about 9 or 10. I was pretty frightened. I remember that we had a nice Zenith radio, a standup, and it had an aerial in it that would permit you to get music and pick up noise from overseas. The agents disconnected the radio so we could not communicate with the enemy. Then my father arrived at home. But guess who else arrived. That lawyer who advised my parents on my mother's immigration status came because my father called him up. That great lawyer, whose son was later Governor of New Mexico, got there to the house and said: What is the matter with you guys? This is no lady to be arrested. She has been living here since she was 3. Look at all her kids, and her husband has been running this business. And the agents said: We have these orders that she has to be arrested. To make it short, the lawyer answered: Why don't you arrest me, too.
So they had to arrest the lawyer, too. They took him to wherever they were going--to Federal court, I suppose, and they took my dad's gun. A couple hours later they put up the bond and she came home. I don't know when--probably about 6 months later--she filled out all the forms to become a U.S. citizen.
Why do I tell you this story? I want everybody to know that I am a Republican. I don't want anybody to think that in order to understand what it is like to have things happen to you like what happened to me, you have to be a Democrat or a Republican; you just have to live in this country during these times, when things like this happen. They happen and you know exactly how people feel. They are like everybody else.
We talk about this whole issue of illegal aliens as if we are talking about hooligans and people who are drug addicts. Of course, when you have something as intricate as the border, which is where economics come into confrontation--the economics of poverty come into confrontation with the desire of adults to get ahead; that comes into confrontation with those who want to make money by taking advantage of that desire and charging people and becoming human smugglers--the thieves of human bodies; and that comes into confrontation with lying to and cheating Federal agents. You have this whole panorama of what is going on along our borders. Then we keep waiting for it to get solved, while all the time, day by day, thousands upon thousand of stories such as I have described are occurring.
There is no way to sit back, whether you are a competent, powerful radio announcer, newspaper article writer, editorial page writer, or local neighborhood noisemaker--there is no way you can properly capture the reality of what we have let happen to this country. I, for one, want it to be known that I think this problem is solvable. I believe we can tighten up our borders. I believe it will take time--I believe it is impossible to pass a law and 6 months later have a border that is as tight as a belt, as some people say. It is going to take a lot of equipment and manpower and a lot of machinery and technology to do that. It is also going to take the next 2 or 3 weeks in the Senate of human willpower built around a spirit that is American, that recognizes our country was built by people such as those I have described. And there happen to be not as many named Domenici as there were back then; more are named Martinez than Domenici today, and Salazar, and Chavez; and many of their first names are not like mine, which was Pietro, but they are Enrique and Carlos.
I think there is a willingness to work these issues of border security and immigration reform out. I want to suggest a couple of items. I believe the American people are going to understand before we are finished that we are going to do our very best to make the border such that it will not be penetrated every day by thousands of people who will be violating this new law we pass. I believe that is going to happen.
I do believe, however, one thing that has not been discussed enough is that we are going to have to get much more cooperation from Mexico to get that done, and I would like my friend Senator Martinez, who is here, to talk about that when he makes his comments.
The Mexican government and our Government must enter into an agreement, an accord, when this bill is finished that they are going to jointly see that our border security provisions get enforced. I have a provision requiring that in a bill that I introduced called the WISH Act. It has provisions saying that before the bill comes into force as far as benefits to Mexico, the Presidents of the two countries must enter into an agreement regarding enforcing our drug laws, human smuggling laws, and immigration laws; and also where Mexico will encourage their residents who live here to come forward and be recognized under the law. And, fellow Americans, what we put on paper and make our law is going to have to be significantly enticing enough for these millions of undocumented workers, some of whom have been living here a long time, to risk putting up their hands and saying: I will exchange the way I am living now for this new promise, this new proposal.
It better be good enough or they will continue living the way they are. So it has to have something in it that they want.
But it also has to say to the American people: We have this situation under control; it is not going to continue on after we pass this bill. And that gets back to the 10 million to 15 million undocumented workers who live here. We have called them all kinds of things. Let's just say the 10 million to 15 million aliens who live in the United States who are not citizens of the United States, some of whom came here totally illegally, some of whom came here under temporary permits--that group of human beings has to be addressed by this legislation in a humane way. They must be addressed in a way that recognizes that they are currently contributing significantly to the United States, that they probably are going to continue to contribute to our country, and that what we have in our minds about who they are and what they are is probably not what they really are. In our minds, we have pictures of them being leeches, people who are living off us instead of producing something we want or need.
I hope I get a chance to give another few comments later. I have some very valuable information about the economic contribution of these people. It is a very big contribution, in the billions of dollars in commerce coming from these people living in our country. There are billions of dollars in GDP contributions.
What kind of jobs are these people we are talking about currently doing? Some of us speak about them as if the only jobs they have are kind of trashy old jobs that nobody else wants. That is some misinformation, too. They are taking some menial jobs. We constantly say: Why don't we let them come here because they will take those jobs that nobody else wants? But they are also engaged in some very good jobs. There are carpenters and automobile mechanics in certain cities. They have moved their skills upward beyond that temporary permit they have, and they are in another category, but they can't move up into that new category under current law, to represent the new kind of lifestyle they live.
Also, about half of them have lived here a short period of time, and about
half of them have lived here a long time. So I am just going to describe what maybe is the way we get the issue of undocumented workers solved. Let's consider drawing a line at those who have lived here longer than 5 years. It seems to me that this is an important consideration, an important issue to look at because if one lives here for several years, that person certainly has a different relationship with the community and probably a different relationship all the way around than somebody who just arrived last week or even somebody who works 3 months and goes home. If someone has lived here for 5 years and has been working and maybe is just like that lady I described, my mother, who is living with an American and has children and has been here 10 years but is not a citizen, we have to figure out how we are going to handle that.
I believe the President of the United States deserves enormous credit for sticking with this issue for a long time. People have said: Where is the plan? He was the only big voice in America for the last 3 or 4 years that has constantly said we have to do something about this problem, and it is not just buttoning up the border. He said we have to go beyond that and provide something for those who want to live and work here--we must give them a chance to live here under humane circumstances with the kind of grace and opportunity that is a privilege of living in America. I think he is still saying that.
I am hopeful that before we finish this debate, the solution is going to come from a White House-Senate-House melding of ideas along the lines of giving some special treatment to those who have lived here for a longer period of time--different and better treatment, easier access to the U.S., perhaps easier access to a higher level of status than what they had when they came here.
That is the essence of a proposal that I put in what I call the WISH bill. Workers who are here less than 5 years under my proposal can apply for and get a visa without leaving the United States. If they are unemployed for no more than 30 consecutive days, they get a renewal of that 3 year visa two more times. Then they have to leave America for at least three years. That proposal is for people who have been here less than 5 years.
One would say that is not so good. But what we are talking about is giving these people 9 full years to do their best to arrange things and have whatever successes they can make. So that is one approach to one portion of these people who are undocumented workers.
I suggest we split this group of people so that those who have been here for longer than 5 years--which they can prove that with workers' affidavits and the like--start by obtaining the same visa I just discussed, but after 5 years, they can apply for another visa or a change of status, except permanent residency, without leaving the United States. We would have no caps on the number of visas for these change-of-status grants.
It would appear to this Senator that this could be the beginnings of a compromise built around something that is understandable, realistic, and should be given due consideration by this body.
Not having had the burden--or the luxury--of serving on the Judiciary Committee, I have told Senator Kyl, who has worked very hard on this issue, that I am willing to work with him, and to the best of my staff's ability they will work with him, to see if we can't come up with some kind of a better approach than has been forthcoming heretofore.
I notice Senator Kennedy is present. Senator Martinez has asked if he could speak next, and he has been waiting for quite a while. I assume that is satisfactory.
In the absence of the Senator from Massachusetts, I spoke about the fact that frequently we get legislation done when we are told we must do it under a deadline. There is still a lot to do on this bill, but I can tell the Senator, there are a lot of people pulling for a solution and who want to be helpful.
This is, indeed, a true turning point in modern American domestic policy history. It is a big opportunity. We solve it or we have some of the worst problems confronting the American people that we can imagine. It has almost gone beyond the solvable, but not quite because we are pretty sanguine and willing to work.
Just as Senator Kennedy and his family have their roots in Ireland, I had an opportunity to speak this afternoon about a very strange incident of how this Senator happened to be born to a woman who thought she was American but was not. So I lived in a family for quite a while with a father who became a citizen only because he served in the First World War. He married a woman who he was told would be an American if he married her. He was told that erroneously by a lawyer, and she was arrested during the Second World War--taken right out of our household. So I understand this whole idea of a household with a father who is American and a mother who is not, but they are living, working, and getting ahead and driving their business. I understand that they are just like every other family in America. There is nothing different. They have the same love, same hope, same will, and same aspirations as those of us who were born here have.
I am here to be helpful. I thank the Senate for listening, and I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for listening to me again the last 5 minutes. My wife is going to give me a note saying that my face is getting red, and it is time to sit down. I yield the floor.