John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I will yield to the gentleman, with pleasure.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlelady from Texas, a senior member of Judiciary, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, we have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 6602 makes revisions in title 36 to the United States Code that are necessary to keep the title current, as well as to make technical corrections and improvements. H.R. 6602 was prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel as part of its ongoing responsibility under 2 U.S.C., section 285b, to prepare and submit to the Committee on the Judiciary one title at a time a complete compilation, restatement, and revision of the general and permanent laws of the United States. This legislation gathers provisions relating to patriotic and national observances and ceremonies, patriotic and national organizations, and treaty obligation organizations under the current title 36. The amendments strike the existing abbreviated table of contents of the title and insert a more comprehensive title-wide table of contents, update the format of the chapter headings of reserved chapters, and make other necessary technical corrections. H.R. 6602 is not intended to make any substantive changes to the law. As is typical with the codification process, a number of nonsubstantive revisions are made, including the reorganization of sections into a more coherent overall structure, but these changes are not intended to have any substantive effect. I am pleased again to have worked with Chairman Lamar Smith to draft this legislation, and I thank him for moving it to the House floor and urge my colleagues to support this measure. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. To our colleagues, this measure before us now, H.R. 6605, is a noncontroversial bill that makes a single technical correction to the U.S. Code. Under the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010, the Department of Justice conducts an annual review of statutory reporting requirements that are outdated, duplicative, or otherwise no longer useful to Congress. After conducting that review, the Department recommended we eliminate two reports, both related to programs that have not received funding from Congress for the better part of a decade. Last September, with the support of Chairman Lamar Smith, Congress passed H.R. 6189, the Reporting Efficiency Improvement Act, to remove these two reporting requirements from the Federal code. President Obama signed H.R. 6189 into law on October 5 of this year. The bill before us today makes a single technical correction to the Federal code in order to reflect the changes we made earlier this year. Specifically, the legislation eliminates a cross-reference to a report that, after the enactment of H.R. 6189, no longer exists. This bill is a housekeeping measure and nothing more. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gentlelady 1 additional minute.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gentlewoman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. I want to begin by pointing out that the same poison pill that defeated this bill on suspension is now being brought up again with the same poison pill that pits immigrant and minority communities against one another and makes the legislation, therefore, unworkable. Rather than simply creating green cards for STEM graduates, the majority insists that we must pay for the new visas by completely eliminating Diversity Visas, a longstanding legal immigration program. The elimination of the Diversity Visa program will drastically reduce immigration from African nations because immigrants from Africa normally comprise half the Diversity Visa program's annual beneficiaries. Rather than reaching out to minority and immigrant communities, the majority is for some reason steamrolling through a bill that we otherwise agree with that cuts visas for minorities and signals their continued support for a Grover Norquist-style ``no new green cards'' pledge that says you can't create a green card for one person without taking one away from someone else. Even worse, it is shamefully designed to reduce the overall level of legal immigration. Under current law, unused visas in one immigration category roll over to immigrants in other categories who are stuck in decades-long green card backlogs. But H.R. 6429 doesn't do this, thereby ensuring that unused visas are wasted and legal immigrants must continue to suffer in long backlogs. This is a naked attempt to satisfy anti-immigrant groups that have long lobbied for reduced levels of legal immigration. If this is a new strategy on immigration, it sure looks a lot like the old one. A zero-sum rule means our immigration system can never be fixed. We would not be able to craft solutions for the DREAMers who were brought here as children, for the agricultural workers growing the food on our tables, or for the American families whose loved ones are stuck in decades-long green card backlogs. We're not fooled by the majority's assertion that this latest version of the bill actually helps families. In reality, the provision that the majority touts is a step backwards from the LIFE Act enacted under a Republican Congress in 2000. Under that act, undocumented spouses and children of lawful permanent residents were able to obtain V visas and eventually adjust their status to lawful permanent residents. The bill offered such family members protection from removal and explicitly granted work authorization. In contrast, the provision that my colleagues herald this morning as helping families grants certain spouses and children who have already waited abroad for over a year temporary V visas. There is no work authorization, and undocumented family members would be excluded altogether from participating in this program. While the majority bill provides permanent green cards for businesses, it provides nuclear families with nothing more than temporary visas without work authorization--and then, only after a 1- year separation. And to undocumented children and spouses of lawful permanent residents, the bill offers nothing at all. So I regret that this legislation was brought to the floor without any committee process, without any opportunity for amendment, and without any input from those on this side of the aisle. I hope that in the coming Congress the majority will cast aside this political theater and join me in the hard work of finding workable bipartisan solutions to fix our immigration system. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield 3 minutes to a member of the Judiciary Committee, the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 5 minutes to the ranking member of the Immigration Subcommittee, who represents the place where many of these techs come from, Silicon Valley, Ms. Zoe Lofgren.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gentlelady an additional 1 minute.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 5 minutes to a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, no one's worked harder on this issue than Mr. Gutierrez, the gentleman from Illinois; and I am pleased to yield him 3 minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York, who's worked on this issue, Congressman Jose Serrano.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 30 seconds to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, we're prepared to close on this side, if the gentleman on the other side is ready.

Mr. CONYERS. I am pleased to yield our remaining time to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez).

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I thank the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lofgren) and yield her such time as she may consume.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I would now proudly yield 3 minutes to our distinguished whip, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).