Mike DeWine

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business for 15 minutes.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Here we are again. One more time, we find ourselves about to cast really a historic vote. In March 1995 the Senate failed by one vote to pass this measure, a measure that has been demanded by the American people, this measure that is absolutely necessary if we are going to rescue America from bankruptcy of our children's or our grandchildren's generation. It has been pointed out on this floor that the Federal debt is already more than $5 trillion, the figure that is hard to even comprehend. Next year Americans will pay about $240 billion just to meet the interest payment on that debt. That is almost $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in this great country. You know, it is really money for nothing. That money is not just to educate our children or fight the drug problem or find a cure for cancer. It is simply a transfer payment from the future to the past. We need to reduce those interest payments. We need to start investing in the future instead of the past. But until the annual budget is in fact balanced, all we are doing every day, every month, and every year is adding to the problem. Congresses of both parties, Presidents of both parties, all have compiled a spectacular record of failure in dealing with this fundamental issue. That is why I believe it is time to make a fundamental change in the way we deal with it. I am not one who thinks we should tamper with the Constitution. I do not like to amend the Constitution. But I believe in the age-old principle, ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' I think it is broke this time. I think we have a problem, and we have to have a fundamental fix. We have to change the way we do things. Mr. President, there are 5 trillion reasons convincing me that in this case our system is broken and it is time to fix it. The people of this country demand change. People of my home State of Ohio demand change. As I was thinking about this issue, I was reminded of the crusade that a former Member of this body who represented the State of Ohio for many, many years had to say about this. Frank Lausche was and remains a legend in Ohio politics and Ohio government. He served many terms as Governor of the State of Ohio and several terms as U.S. Senator. From the time he was Governor, throughout his career here in the Senate, one theme kept recurring, and that theme was fiscal responsibility. I remember, Mr. President, as a young boy hearing grown-ups talk about what Frank Lausche was doing as Governor. There was a little debate going on. One of them said, ``It is terrible. They are running a surplus. The Governor is running a surplus this year. He should be distributing that money. We have some projects and things that we need to have done.'' That was the kind of person Frank Lausche was. He was a person who believed in fiscal responsibility. Let me cite what Senator Lausche said in 1962 on this floor. In 1962, Frank Lausche rose in this Chamber, and this is what he told his colleagues. Remember, this is 1962. The sheer size of the extravagant Federal budget has made it impossible in the Chamber of the Senate to guard adequately against extravagant spending. The present debt is too high relative to our general assets. Instead of reducing the debt since World War II, we have raised it from $255 billion to a presently proposed $308 billion. The unabated increase in the national debt is a threat and danger to our security and to our freedom. That was Frank Lausche, U.S. Senator from Ohio, in 1962. Mr. President, the $308 billion that Senator Lausche was talking about was not the interest on the national debt; it was the total national debt in 1962. The distinguished Senator from Ohio, Senator Frank Lausche, was right. Unless we make fundamental changes, the problem is only going to get worse and worse and worse. It is time, long past time that we do something about it. And today is our opportunity to cast a vote that will change the direction of this country and to cast a vote that really will make a difference. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 8 minutes.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an American tragedy. First, Mr. President, too many children in this country are spending the most important formative years in a legal limbo, a legal limbo that denies them their chance to be adopted, that denies them what all children should have: the chance to be loved and cared for by parents. Second, we are sending many children in this country back to dangerous and abusive homes. We send them back to live with parents who are parents in name only, and to homes that are homes in name only. We send these children back to the custody of people who have already abused and tortured them. We send these children back to be abused, beaten, and, many times, killed. Mr. President, we are all too familiar with the statistics that demonstrate the tragedy that befalls these children. Every day in America--every day--three children actually die because of abuse and negligent at the hands of their parents or caregivers, over 1,200 children per year. Mr. President, almost half of these children, almost half of them, are killed after their tragic circumstances have already come to the attention of the local authorities. Tonight, Mr. President, almost 421,000 children will sleep in foster homes. Over a year's time, 659,000 will be in a foster home for at least part of the year. Shockingly, roughly 43 percent of the children in the foster care system at any one time will languish in foster care longer than 2 years. Mr. President, 10 percent will be in foster care longer than 5 years. Mr. President, the number of these foster children is rising. From 1986 to 1990, it rose almost 50 percent. In summary, Mr. President, too many of our children are not finding permanent homes. Too many of them are being hurt, and too many of them are dying. Mr. President, most Americans have probably heard of the tragedy that befell Elisa Izquierdo in New York City. Her mother used crack when she was pregnant with Elisa. A month before she was born, her half brother, Ruben, and her half sister, Cassie, had been removed from her mother's custody and placed into foster care. They had been neglected, unsupervised, and unfed for long periods of time. In other words, Mr. President, this woman left her children alone and simply did not feed them. But then, Mr. President, amazingly, the children were sent back to the same woman, and then Elisa was born. When Elisa was born, she tested positive for crack. She was taken from her mother and transferred to her father's custody. Tragically, in 1994, Elisa's father died. Elisa was then 5 years old. The director of Elisa's preschool warned officials about the mother's history of child abuse and drug abuse. Without any further investigation and without ordering any further monitoring of Elisa's home situation, a family court judge transferred Elisa back to her mother. In March 1995, when Elisa was 6 years old, she was admitted to the hospital with a shoulder fracture--a shoulder fracture, Mr. President. This is a little girl from a household with a history of child abuse, and she shows up at the hospital with a shoulder fracture. What did the hospital do? The hospital sent her back to her mother. Eight months later, in November 1995, she was battered to death by that same mother. You see, Elisa's mother was convinced that Elisa was possessed by the devil. She wanted to drive out the evil, so she forced Elisa to eat her own feces, mopped the floor with her head, and finally bashed her head against a concrete wall. On November 2, 1995, Elisa was found dead. Mr. President, this story then was on the front page of the New York Times, and for days after that the story was covered. Millions of Americans were, understandably, shocked. But you know, Mr. President, what shocked me when I read the story, when I heard about it, was that anyone would be shocked at all, because the horrible truth is that while this horrible tragedy captured the attention of the country, the sad fact is that atrocities such as this are happening against children every single day in this country. Children are being reunited with brutal abusers. They are abused again and again, and, yes, sometimes they are killed. Here is another story. A Chicago woman had a lengthy history of mental illness. She ate batteries, she ate coat hangers, and she drank Drano. She stuck pop cans and light bulbs into herself. Twice she had to have surgery to have foreign objects removed from her body. Then when she was pregnant, she denied that the baby was hers. While pregnant, she set herself on fire. That is her idea of what being a parent is all about. On three occasions, her children were taken away from her by the department of children and family services, known as DCFS. One of her children was named Joseph. Joseph's second foster mother-- keep in mind that this was a child that was being pushed back and forth between foster homes, back and forth with his mother. Joseph's second foster mother reported to the DCFS officials that every time Joseph came back from visiting his mother, he had bruises. Yet, in 1993, all the children were returned to this mother--one last time. A month later, in April 1993, this mother hanged Joseph; she hanged her little boy. She hanged her 3-year-old son. Her comment to the police was, ``I just killed my child. I hung him.'' She stood him up on a chair and said, ``bye.'' He said, ``bye.'' Then he waved. And she pushed the chair away. She hanged this little boy. Mr. President, what kind of a person does something like that to a child? She told a policeman, ``DCFS was'' blankety-blank ``with me.'' Mr. President, why on Earth would anyone think we should keep trying to reunite that family? Another example. Last year in Brooklyn, NY, there were allegations that baby Cecia Williams and her three older siblings had been abandoned by their mother. As a result, they were temporarily removed from their mother's custody. It turned out they had not been abandoned by the mother. She had actually placed them in the care of an uncle, and he had abandoned the children. Later, Cecia and the other children were sent back home. Last month, after they were sent back home in New York, Cecia Williams died after being battered, bruised, and, possibly, sexually abused. Her mother and her boyfriend have been charged with the crime. Cecia was 9 months old. Cecia is dead today--a victim of blunt blows to her torso, and lacerations to her liver and small intestinal area. Another example. A young boy in New Jersey named Quintin McKenzie was admitted to a Newark hospital after a severe beating, for which his father was arrested. Quintin was placed in foster care. But when the charges were dropped, he was sent back to that family. In 1988, Quintin was 3\1/2\ years old when his mother killed him. She plunged him into scalding water because he had soiled his diapers. In Franklin County, OH, the local children services agency, in another case, was trying to help Kim Chandler deal with her children-- 7-year-old Quiana, 4-year-old Quincy, and 1-month-old Erica. In July 1992, they closed the case on her. On September 24, 1992, all three children were shot dead, and Kim Chandler was charged with the crime. In Rushville, OH, in March 1989, 4-year-old Christopher Engle died when his father dumped scalding water on him. Mr. President, we could go on and on and on. Tragically, there is not a Member of the Senate who could not cite examples from his or her own State of these tragedies. I could multiply example after example of households like these--households that look like families but are not, Mr. President; people who look like parents, but who are not; people who never, never should be allowed to be alone with any child. I do intend, in the months ahead, to discuss many of these stories on this floor, Mr. President. Why are atrocities like this happening? There are many factors contributing to this problem. In many cases, the abuse is caused by parents who were themselves abused as children. In other cases, the parent is deeply disturbed or mentally ill. Often, the parent is a teenager, who is emotionally unprepared for the responsibility of raising a child. All of these factors were present in earlier generations. What is different today is that too many of the young parents have no role models of good parenting. They did not have good parents themselves, so they have no idea how to be parents for their own children. Another major problem, Mr. President, is the decline of the extended family, the support system that used to do so much to make sure children were taken care of. In many cases, it just does not exist today. Add to all of this the relatively new phenomenon of crack. Since the late 1980's, we have seen an explosion of this new form of cocaine that is readily available, is cheap, and explosively addictive. Crack is so addictive that mothers have sold their children so they can get more of it. Someone said, when talking about crack, that crack is the only thing that has ever been invented by man that will cause a mother to behave not like a mother and abandon all the natural instincts that she might have--to leave that child, sell that child, to abuse that child. Mr. President, put all these factors together and we have a major social problem on our hands. Now, we ask social workers to try to patch up the wounded. But the social workers are underpaid and overworked. When I was an assistant county prosecutor over 20 years ago, and then when I was the county prosecutor in Greene County, OH, I worked closely with these dedicated, hard-working social welfare professionals. I have great respect and admiration for them. They are literally at the front line of our efforts to save children. We expect the impossible from them and, frankly, do not give them all the tools and resources they need to do their jobs. Often, the only options they have, and the only choices they have for these children, are all bad--no good options, no good choices. Many times, our social welfare agencies are simply overwhelmed. Some experts say that the social worker handling children ought to handle no more than 15 or 20 cases at a time. But the truth is that we have social workers today handling 50, 60, 70 cases. They do not have enough time or enough resources to solve the problems these kids have. In summary, Mr. President, there are many causes for the tragedies I have discussed. Further, there are many things that must change, many things that we can do to help these children. There are many things we can do, Mr. President, to lessen the time it takes for children to be adopted, and to lessen the time these poor kids have to spend in the legal limbo of the system. Further, there are many things we can do to lessen the odds of tragedies like the cases of Elisa Izquierdo and Joseph Wallace. Mr. President, I intend to keep working to find solutions to these problems, recognizing that their causes are multiple--and that to solve them, we must do many things. But today, I would like to focus on one of the causes of these tragedies, one that most people have not heard about. It is the unintended consequence of a small part of a law passed by the U.S. Congress. In 1980, Congress passed the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act--known as CWA. The Child Welfare Act has done a great deal of good. It increased the resources available to struggling families. It increased the supervision of children in the foster care system. And it gave financial support to people to encourage them to adopt children with special needs. But while the law has done a great deal of good, many experts are coming to believe that this law has actually had some bad unintended consequences. Under the CWA, for a State to be eligible for Federal matching funds for foster care expenditures, the State must have a plan for the provision of child welfare services approved by the Secretary of HHS. The State plan must provide: . . . that, in each case, reasonable efforts will be made (A) prior to the placement of a child in foster care, to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of the child from his home, and (B) to make it possible for the child to return to his home. In other words, Mr. President, no matter what the particular circumstances of a household may be--the State must make reasonable efforts to keep it together, and to put it back together if it falls apart. What constitutes ``reasonable efforts''? Here is where maybe we have part of the problem. This has not been defined by Congress. Nor has it been defined by HHS. This failure to define what constitutes ``reasonable efforts'' has had a very important--and very damaging--practical result. There is strong evidence to suggest that in the absence of a definition, reasonable efforts have become--in some cases--extraordinary efforts. Efforts to keep families together at all costs. Mr. President, much of the national attention on the case of Elisa Izquierdo has focused on the many ways the social welfare agencies dropped the ball. It has been said that there were numerous points in the story when some agency could have and should have intervened to remove Elisa and her siblings from her mother's custody. I am not going to revisit that ground. Rather, my point is a broader one: Should our Federal law really push the envelope, so that extraordinary efforts are made to keep that family together--efforts that any of us in this Chamber or anyone listening would not consider reasonable? Throughout human history, the family has been recognized as the bedrock of civilization. The family is where values are transmitted. It is where children learn behavior--develop their character--and form their personality. Over the last couple of years, a remarkable convergence has occurred in American social thought. Liberals and conservatives are now in near- total agreement on the need to strengthen the family as an institution. Without stronger families, it will be impossible to avoid a social explosion in which troubled children turn into dysfunctional adults on a massive scale. But what we are confronting in the terrible stories I have just recounted are not families. They are households that look like families--but are not. If you look inside one of these households, you see some children. And you see some people who--superficially, at least--resemble parents. But this is not what you and I and most Americans mean when we talk about families. In this type of family when we have heard the horror stories, the children are beaten and abused and neglected. Mr. President, what do we, as a society, do about these households--these households that are not families? By 1980, the child welfare system in this country had come under some pretty strong criticism. That is why we have the bill. After many hearings, Congress concluded that abused and neglected children too often were unnecessarily removed from their parents--and very significantly that insufficient resources were devoted to the commendable task of preserving and reuniting families--and that children not able to return to their parents often drifted in foster care without ever finding a permanent home. That is how the CWA came to be enacted. The phenomenon known as foster care drift--children who get lost in a child welfare system that cannot or will not find them a permanent home--simply had to be faced and reversed. Let me interject at this point, Mr. President, that I had substantial experience on this issue before the passage of the CWA legislation in 1980. As long ago as 1973, I was serving as an assistant county prosecutor in Greene County, OH, and one of my duties was to represent the Greene County Children Services in cases where children were going to be removed from their parents' custody. I saw first hand that too many of these cases dragged on forever. The children end up getting trapped in temporary foster care placements, which often entail multiple moves from foster home to foster home to foster home, for years and years and years. Congress enacted the CWA to try to solve this very real problem. There were good reasons for the CWA, and the CWA has done a lot of good. There are some families that need a little help if they are going to stay together, and it is right for us to help them. Not only is it right--it is also clearly in the best interests of the child to reunite families when we can. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes, and I apologize to my colleague.

Mr. DeWINE. I thank my colleague. Again I apologize for taking his time and the Senate's time. But I would like to complete. It should not take any more than just a few more moments. We should not be in the position of taking children away just because the parents are too poor--or just because there is a problem in the family. If the problem can be fixed, we must try to keep the family together for the children's benefit. It is just that at some point, when it comes to cases of child abuse and child neglect, we have to step in and say: ``Enough is enough. The child comes first.'' And that is where we are now, in a lot of cases. Fifteen years after the passage of the CWA, I think we need to revisit this issue, and see how the system is working in practice. I believe we need to reemphasize what all of us agree on--the fact that the child ought to come first. We have to make the best interests of the child our top national priority. In many of the cases we have looked at, it looks like the CWA has been not been correctly interpreted. At least that is the way it appears. Try to imagine what the authors of the CWA--the people who stood on this Senate floor and the House floor in 1979 and 1980--what would they have said if they had been asked: ``Should Joseph Wallace be sent back to his mother? Should this little Joseph, this little boy, be sent back?'' I cannot believe that anyone would say he should have been sent back. And I cannot believe that it was the authors' intent that it would take place. I cannot believe that they would say, ``In that case, and in every case, the child must be reunited with the adult at all costs.'' No, I don't think so. Reasonable people agree, Mr. President, on one point: Nothing-- nothing--should take precedence over the best interests of the child. It is common sense. And I think we need to make sure the CWA is interpreted consistently--and correctly--to reflect that common sense. It is my hope that an important new book will spark the national debate that America need to have on this issue. The book is called ``The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives,'' by Richard J. Gelles. Dr. Gelles is the director of the Family Violence Research Program at the University of Rhode Island. For years, Dr. Gelles thought children should be permanently removed from their homes only as a last resort, even if it meant that the children may spend years moving back and forth between birth homes and foster homes. He now says--and I quote: It is a fiction to believe one can balance preservation and safety without tilting in favor of parents and placing children at risk. He believes that the system is weighted too far toward giving the mother and father chance after chance after chance to put their life in order--putting the adults first, rather than putting the children first. Even some social-work professionals will tell you how true this is. Krista Grevious, a Kentucky social worker with 21 years of experience, says: I think it's probably one of the most dangerous things we have ever done for children. Patrick Murphy is the court-appointed lawyer for abused children in Cook County, Il. He says: Increasingly, people in this business do not look at things from the point of view of the child. But the child is the defenseless party here. We've forgotten that. In 1993, Murphy published an article in the New York Times that put the problem in historical context. I quote from his article: The family preservation system is a continuation of sloppy thinking of the 1960's and 1970's that holds, as an unquestionable truth, that society should never blame a victim. Of course, the children are not considered the victims here. Rather the abusive parents are considered victims of poverty and addiction. This attitude is not only patronizing, it endangers children. Marcia Robinson Lowry, head of the Children's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, sums it up. She says: We've oversold the fact that all families can be saved. All families can't be saved. Mr. President, let me make this absolutely clear. I think there is nothing wrong with giving parents another chance. But we have to make sure the child comes first. Is that child going to get a second chance at growing up? A second chance to be 4 years old--the age when a personality is already fundamentally shaped? Jann Heffner, the director of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, has a useful way of looking at this problem--the concept of ``kid days.'' When you are 3 years old, 1 month of experience does a lot to the formation of your personality. It is not a month that can be taken for granted, or treated as routine. One helpful way of looking at it is this: If you are 50 years old, 1 year is 2 percent of your life. If you are 3 years old, 1 year is one- third of your life. There is some important psychological activity going on with these children. And every day--every hour--really counts. Lynne Gallagher, director of the Arizona Governor's Office for Children, says: It's as though these people think we can put the kids in the deep freeze for awhile * * * and then pull them out when the parents are ready to parent. We all know how crucial those formative years can be. Let me return to the work of Dr. Gelles. He says: It is time to face up to the fact that some parents are not capable of being parents, cannot be changed, and should not continue to be allowed to care for children. He advocates changes in Federal laws to protect children. He also thinks that child-protection officials should move to terminate parental rights sooner, thus freeing children for adoption. I think the time is ripe for these changes. In New York City, Mayor Giuliani has pledged to shift the city's priorities away from family preservation--and toward protecting children from harm. But we need to examine how much of the problem we face is a consequence of Federal law--the lack of precision of the CWA legislation back in 1980. And this is truly a national problem that needs a national response. According to the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, child abuse fatalities have increased by 40 percent between 1985 and 1995. I think there is something the U.S. Congress should do about that. I think we should make it absolutely clear that the best interests of the child are the primary concern of social policy. We need to examine, Mr. President, whether in fact the 1980 Child Welfare Act has been misinterpreted--and whether we need to clarify it so there can be no misunderstanding of Congress' intent. While family reunification is a laudable goal, and should usually be attempted, the best interests of the child should always come first. This, Mr. President, was the intention of the drafters of the 1980 law. Congress should reaffirm this--by making whatever clarification is necessary in the law. To the extent that the 1980 law has been imprecise, ambiguous, and unclear, or just misinterpreted, it has contributed to the syndrome in which children move from child abuse to foster home to child abuse. It is time for us to break this cycle--to help children escape their abusers and find a permanent home before they have suffered absolutely irreparable physical and emotional damage. If we make explicit our commitment to putting the best interests of the child first, in almost all cases that will mean family reunification. The best interests of the child are almost always served by reuniting and preserving families. But in the cases where family reunification is not in the best interest of the child, in those cases we must protect the child. Federal law must be clearly on the side of the child. I intend to introduce--in the near future--legislation that will clarify once and for all the intent of Congress on this issue. Congress should stand with the highest values of the American people. And the mind and heart of America are crystal clear on this issue: The children come first. When they do not, we, as a society, as Americans, have every right to become outraged, to get mad--and demand change. I simply conclude by saying we need to look at the best interests of the child. We need to reexamine this law. We need to look at how it is actually working. I understand that this may be an uphill battle, that there is a reluctance to revisit this. But I think we should revisit it. I think we should look at it, keeping in mind only one thing, what really is in the best interests of children. I ask unanimous consent that four articles on this subject be printed in the Record.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I am pleased to take the floor today to recognize Tim Dove, a seventh grade teacher of Social Studies at the McCord Middle School in Worthington, Ohio. He has just been named Martha Holden Jennings Foundation Master Teacher for 1996. ``Teaching is Tim Dove's love and he excels at this vocation,'' wrote Jeanne Paliotto, principal of McCord Middle School where Tim teaches 7th grade Social Studies. Dr. Damon Asbury, superintendent of Worthington City Schools, included this description of Tim's work in his letter of nomination: ``When I think of a Master Teacher, four qualities stand out as being among the most important. The Master Teacher is one who (1) demonstrates superior performance as a teacher and as a learner; (2) inspires students to excel; (3) serves as a model and mentor for colleagues; and (4) deals effectively with the wide range of diverse abilities, needs, and background among students. Tim Dove meets and exceeds these high standards.'' A graduate of Miami University--Ohio--with the MA from the Ohio State University, Tim is currently completing a Ph.D. program in global educational curriculum and techniques.

Mr. DeWINE

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

Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I call up my amendment numbered 3835.

Mr. DeWINE. Will the Senator yield for 20 seconds? Let me, if I can, briefly respond to that. We did not have this flood of the old policy and the old law, and the fact is, even with this amendment, we will still have to prove the facts. Then once you have established the facts, those facts, those compelling facts, we would then deem that meets the law. So it is still a factual question that would have to be proved. The burden would still be there to prove. I am sure we will have another opportunity to talk about this in the future. I thank my colleague.

Mr. DeWINE. I ask unanimous consent to set aside for a moment the pending business.

Mr. DeWINE. May I inquire as to the pending business?

Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, as we discuss far-reaching immigration reform, I think it behooves us to try to make our immigration laws as just and as fair as absolutely possible. If there are terrible injustices going on, we should definitely make use of this rare opportunity--a fundamental reform effort on the floor of the U.S. Senate, going on now--make use of this opportunity to correct those injustices. Madam President, there is a provision in current immigration practice--not in law but in practice--that must, in my opinion, in the interests of justice, be changed. There are women in repressive countries who are forced to undergo coerced abortions and sterilizations. Until 1994, these women were offered asylum under the same standard as others fleeing persecutions. However, starting in 1994 and since that date, they have been forced to meet a tougher standard, as if the procedures they face somehow did not qualify as prima facie evidence of persecution. That is just wrong. My amendment is very simple. It would change the policy back to what it was before 1994. My amendment is not controversial. It is supported by groups on the right and groups on the left, by pro-choice groups and pro-life groups. It is supported by the Clinton administration, and it was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. However, because the specific issue I am discussing is not mentioned in the bill we are considering, my amendment would, of course, be ruled nongermane under standard postcloture procedures. If no Senator objected to proceeding with this amendment, a unanimous consent would override the germaneness issue and allow us to move on the amendment. This amendment, I might add, is supported by Amnesty International, it is supported by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, it is supported by the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Council of Jewish Federations, by the National Right to Life Committee--the list goes on and on and on. But the Senator from Wyoming said on the floor earlier today that he would object to consideration of this amendment. Certainly this is his right to do this, and I fully understand that under the rules of the Senate the point of order of the Senator from Wyoming would be sustained because the amendment is, in fact, not germane. I will, therefore, in a moment, withdraw my amendment. But before I do, I would like to spend just a few minutes discussing a problem that I believe it would solve if we were allowed to go forward. Think of a college teacher in China who is forced to have not one, two, three, but four abortions by her government. Many of her coworkers were forced to have six or seven abortions. That is a true story. It was told in compelling testimony at a hearing last year in the House Committee on International Relations, a hearing on the subject of ``Coercive Population Control in China.'' I have the transcript of that right here. That is the story, a true story. That woman, under current procedure, would not be considered as having a per se reason to fear persecution. Madam President, I am not alone in believing that this is unjust. All the groups I have mentioned, from the Catholic Conference to abortion rights advocates, all of them agree that when a woman is forced by her government to undergo these procedures, her human rights are being violated. That is not a tough call. That is a fact. How hard would it be, in practical terms, for us to recognize this fact in our national policy? Would it mean, as some have suggested, that we would face a deluge of millions of people flooding our shores? No, Madam President, it would not. The number of people granted asylum under the old policy, which we are asking to go back to, the policy my amendment would simply restore, that number of people who were granted asylum was actually very small every year. The number of people we let in because they were protesting China's coerced population control policy was averaging between 100 and 150 people every year. Each applicant of the kind we are discussing would not suddenly move to the front of the line. She would not get automatic asylum. She would not ever get special treatment. All she would get is the same chance as all other asylum seekers, the same judicial process and the same set of rules--what I would call simple, basic human justice. Think of a woman who has just had her second child; another example. She gets a notice from her local commune sterilization committee, saying she has to report in and get sterilized. Think of a woman who sees a baby girl, 7 days old, lying abandoned on the road. None of the bystanders want to rescue the baby. They are afraid of the government. The woman takes the baby home herself, and sure enough, then the sterilization police show up and see the new baby girl. They say this woman has too many children and she has to be sterilized, even though the new baby girl is not her own child. She has to escape to a distant and barren place to get away from the sterilizers. Even years later--this is a true story--she was brave enough to go home, and she was sterilized. This is a true story, Madam President, yet another story that emerged in the hearings held by the House Committee on International Relations. It is a story of barbaric persecution in our own day and times; a crime against women and a crime against our common humanity. I am not seeking, with this amendment, a special break for these women. All I ask is they receive the same treatment as anyone else who comes to America to seek asylum. Here is what my amendment, a noncontroversial amendment based on the people who support it, this is what it says--and then I will conclude because I know our time for a vote is shortly at hand. Let me read it. For purposes of determinations under this Act, a person who has been forced to abort a pregnancy, or to undergo [involuntary sterilization or who has been persecuted for failure or refusal to undergo such a procedure] or for other resistance to a coercive population control program, shall be deemed to have been persecuted on account of political opinion, and a person who has a well founded fear that he or she will be forced to undergo such a procedure or subjected to persecution for such failure, refusal, or resistance, shall be deemed to have a well founded fear of persecution on account of political opinion. That is the substance of this amendment. It is supported by the Clinton administration, it was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, and it will be an issue in the conference. Madam President, at this time I do withdraw my amendment. I appreciate the courtesy of my colleague from Wyoming for the time. The amendment (No. 3835) was withdrawn.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Wyoming, and I agree with him that we have had a very spirited debate and, I think, a very good debate--a debate that has covered, I think, most of the issues that we are going to cover here today. Let me just state, on a couple of related subjects, the following. We have, again, confirmed, I say to the Members of the Senate, this afternoon that this amendment is supported by the National Conference of State Legislators, the National Association of Counties, and by the National League of Cities. All three organizations support this amendment. Again, they emphasize they support it on the basis of cost-- cost to them as local units of government--and they also support it on the basis of the whole question of preemption. Once again, that is the Federal Government coming in and, frankly, telling them exactly what to do. Let me just make a couple of additional comments in regard to the issue my colleague from Wyoming was talking a moment ago about, which is birth certificates. To me, it is almost shocking when we think of the implications of what this bill, as currently written, would do. I have given the example here on the floor that when you turn 65, you are hopefully going to get Social Security and Medicare; at 16, in most States, a driver's license, or try to get your driver's license; or you will get married. For any of those purposes, you will have to get a birth certificate, and your old birth certificate is no longer going to be any good for that purpose. Let your imagination run. You can think of all the other reasons why during your lifetime you might need a birth certificate. Everybody can just about figure 270 million Americans are at some point in time going to need their birth certificates. I suppose if you are over 65 and already on Social Security, and you are not traveling, I suppose some folks never are going to have to use this new birth certificate and are never going to have to do what tens of millions of Americans are now going to have to do under the provisions of this bill, which is to go and get new birth certificates. Again, what we are saying in this bill and with this amendment, what we are saying to 270 million Americans is, ``Yes, your birth certificate is still valid, but you really just cannot use it much for anything. You will have to get a new one.'' That, to me, is onerous, whether you travel overseas--how many of us have had occasion as Members of the Senate or the House to get the frantic call from someone who says, ``I am supposed to be going overseas and I had this passport. I cannot find it. I found out today it is expired. I am leaving in 5 days, or 4 days.'' What if you had to add to all of the problems they have to go through now, with the red tape, one more thing--you have to go back and get a new birth certificate because that birth certificate which you have had all of these years will not work anymore. That might be acceptable. At least, it would not be for me. I do not think it would be. If we could make the case that the reissuance of a new birth certificate on this tamperproof paper, with all of the bells and whistles prescribed by the Federal bureaucrats, if that would deal with the problem--but maybe I am missing something in this discussion. I believe my colleague from Wyoming when he says it is the breeder document. I trust him on it. He has had enough experience on this. He has talked about this problem. But it still is going to be a problem, and, in fact, it may be even worse of a problem, more of a problem. There are States--and Ohio is one, but Ohio is not the only one-- where you can get anybody's birth certificate. Let me repeat that: You can get anybody's birth certificate. You walk into the county, and if someone was born there, you can get their birth certificate. You put down $7; you can get 5, 20, or as many birth certificates as you want as long as you know the name of the people. You can get them. They are public records. What we are now saying is, instead of the old birth certificate copy, these are going to be new ones. Obviously, they are more expensive-- tamperproof, bells and whistles--with all of the things the printers told us when we tried to find out what the cost would be, and they will have them. So what? What is the protection? What is the protection if I have walked in and Mike DeWine, at the age of 49, went in and got somebody else's who is 49 and might look the same? I now have a birth certificate. I do not see what has been accomplished. I do not see what we have done in regard to this, even in States where it is more difficult. Again, instead of the breeder document, instead of the father document or the mother document, this may be the son, or the granddaughter. This may be two generations away. It may be an illegal license, as my colleague still has displayed in the Senate here, maybe an illegal license that is the breeder document. I do not know. Again, this is not going to solve the problem. My friend talks about now the provision is in the bill that States should, if they know it, stamp on this birth certificate if the person is deceased. We can imagine how accurate that is going to be, or what percentage of these birth certificates is going to ever be stamped with the deceased on them. It may be a great idea. But, again, it is going to be a very, very small percentage where the local clerk of the county is going to know that someone is deceased. In some cases, they will, but in a great majority of the cases, they will not. We live in a very mobile society, Mr. President. This, I do not think, is going to help a great deal. If you really want to make these tamperproof, what you are going to do is require people to go in and, face to face, get their new birth certificate. I do not think we are going to do that. I do not think we are going to say to a retiree who lives in North Carolina or who lives in Florida or lives in California, ``You have to go back to Cincinnati, OH, you have to drive back and get a new birth certificate.'' I do not think anyone is going to make them do that. I do not think it is a serious idea. But yet, if you are going to make it tamperproof, you at least have to do that, not allowing it to be by U.S. mail and getting anybody's birth certificate. I think it is very onerous, but I think it is not going to be effective. It is going to be no good at all. In thinking about this, we ought to learn from our past mistakes. We ought to learn from what this Congress has done in the past that we have regretted. I have cast votes that I have regretted. I have cast votes where I looked around and said later on that I was wrong. This is not the first time we have tried in this Congress within recent memory to deal with a specific targeted problem by putting an onerous burden on everybody. We have a finite problem. It is important. But the way we deal with it, the way we would deal with it, without this amendment, is to put the burden on absolutely everyone, to say to 270 million Americans that ``your birth certificate no longer is any good. You will have to go get a new one.'' If you ever want to use it, you will have to say to every employer in this country that if you, in fact, want to hire someone, you will have to call a 1-800 number. You will have to seek permission from the Federal Government. I know there has been comment on the floor about that not being the right terminology. That is what it is. You will have to check the person out and to do it by how the Federal bureaucracy tells you how to do it. As an employee, you are going to be in the situation of arguing with a computer. Again, I have had some experience in dealing with the criminal records system. Anybody who has dealt with any kind of big data base knows the problems. Someone gets turned down for a job or someone is told after they have been hired that we have a problem. You need to get this problem straightened out with the INS. You need to get this problem straightened out with the computer data base. How many of us in this world today enjoy dealing with computers, particularly in regard to one of the most important things in our lives, how to make our livelihood? So this is not the first time Congress has spread a burden among every single American to deal with a few people. If history tells us anything, it tells us that people in this country ultimately will not put up with this. Let me give you a couple of examples. Remember contemporaneous recordkeeping for people who used their car in business? Remember when we passed that? We did it because some people cheated on their taxes when calculating the business use of their car. Because of that fact, because some people cheated, Congress made all of the people who used their car in business to keep very detailed daily records. I was in the House when that happened. I was in the House when we started getting calls. I was in the House when I would go out and have office hours and be flooded by people who said, ``What is this? I do not keep records every single day just because a few people cheat.'' What did we do, Mr. President? We did what we always do: We repealed it. It was a mistake. Remember section 89 because some businesses discriminated in setting up the benefit plans for their employees? Congress made all businesses comply with detailed recordkeeping to prove they were not discriminating. We did that. The public did not stand for that either. And, again, it was repealed. It happens every single time that we spread the burden among everyone for a very specific problem. In fact, I do not think Congress has ever had a provision as burdensome or really as broad as this particular provision. This provision applies to everyone who wants to use a birth certificate or a driver's license--to everyone. I submit, Mr. President, that we do this at our own peril. The public ultimately is not going to stand for it. I think it is a very, very serious mistake. Therefore, again, I urge my colleagues to pass the Abraham-Feingold amendment. It is an amendment that is supported by a broad group of Senators, certainly across the political spectrum. At this point, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, this bill says to 270 million Americans that your birth certificate is still valid, but if you ever want to use it, you have to go back to the origin, the place you were born, and get a new federally prescribed birth certificate that this Congress is going to tell all 50 States they have to reissue. If you get a driver's license at age 16, when you turn 65 and you want Social Security or Medicare, or you get married, or you want a passport, you are going to need your birth certificate, and that birth certificate that you have had all these years no longer is going to be valid for that purpose. It is very costly. It is a hidden tax, and it is going to be a major, major mistake. It will be something I think, if we vote for it, will come back and we will be very, very sorry.

Mr. DeWINE. I thank the Chair. I rise today to support this amendment. The Senator from Michigan has discussed very eloquently the problems that we see with the employer verification section of the bill. I am going to talk in a moment about a related problem, a problem that we see in the part of the bill that will require for the first time, in essence, a national birth certificate, a national driver's license. Before we discuss these parts of the bill, however, let me start by congratulating my colleague from Wyoming. He said something about an hour ago on this floor that is absolutely correct. We are going to pass an illegal immigration bill, and after we have had our way with the amendments, one way or the other, we are going to pass a bill. It is going to be a good bill, and it is going to be a real tribute to his work over the years and his work on this particular bill. Make no mistake about it: This bill has very, very strong provisions, strong provisions that are targeted directly at the problem of illegal immigration. The bill that the Senator reported from the subcommittee, because of his great work and the other members of the subcommittee, is a strong bill targeted at illegal immigration, targeted at those who break the law. The bill that the committee reported out is a good bill as well. There are, however, several provisions in this bill--and this amendment deals with these provisions--we believe, frankly, are misguided and that are targeted and will have the undue burden not on the lawbreakers but we believe will have an undue burden, unfair burden on the other law-abiding citizens in this country. Let me discuss these at this point. My colleague from Michigan has talked about the employer verification system. What is now in the bill is a pilot project. I am going to discuss this at greater length later on in this debate, but let me state at this point my experience in this area comes from a different but related field, and that is the area of criminal record systems. I started my career as a county prosecutor, and I became involved in the problem with the criminal record system. In fact, I discussed this at length with the current occupant of the chair. I have seen, as other Members have, how difficult it is to bring our criminal record system up to date, to make sure that it is accurate. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in this country to try to bring our criminal record system up to snuff so that when a police officer or parole officer or the judge setting bond makes a life and death decision--that is what it is many times--about whether to turn someone out or not turn them out, they have good, reliable information. We have improved our system and we are getting it better, but we still have a long, long way to go. If, when the stakes are so high in the criminal system, and that is a finite system--we are dealing with a relatively small number of people--if we have such a difficult time getting it right in that system, can you imagine how difficult it is going to be for us to create an entirely new database, a much, much larger database? How many millions are we going to have to spend to do that and what are the chances we are going to get it right, and get it right in a short period of time? So I support the comments of my colleague from Michigan in regard to this national database, in regard to this national verification system. Let me now turn to another part of this bill, a part that is addressed also by this same amendment we are now debating. This section has to do with the creation, for the first time, of a federally prescribed birth certificate and the creation for the first time of a federally prescribed driver's license. Under the bill as currently written, on the floor now, all birth certificates and all driver's licenses would have to meet Federal standards. For the first time in our history, Washington, this Congress, would tell States how they produce documents to identify their own citizens. Let me read, if I could, directly from the law, or the bill as it has been introduced and as it is in front of us today. Then in a moment I am going to have a chart, but let me read from the bill. My colleagues who are in the Chamber, my colleagues who are in their offices watching on TV, I ask them to listen to the words because I think, frankly, they are going to be very surprised. No Federal agency, including but not limited to the Social Security Administration and the Department of State and no State agency that issues driver's licenses or identification documents may accept for any official purpose a copy of a birth certificate as defined in paragraph 5 unless it is issued by a State or local authorized custodian of records and it conforms to standards prescribed in paragraph B. Paragraph B, then, basically is the Federal prescribed standards. The bureaucracy will issue those regulations. Again, we are saying no Federal agency could issue this, and ``No State agency that issues driver's licenses or identification documents may accept for any official purpose.'' Those are the key words. Let me turn to what I consider to be the first problem connected with this language. It is a States rights issue. We hear a lot of discussion on this floor about States rights. This seems to be the time and the year when we are trying to return power to the local jurisdictions, return power to the people. It is ironic that the language of this bill as it is currently written goes in just the opposite direction. Although we oftentimes talk about the 10th amendment, I cannot think of a more clear violation of the 10th amendment than the language that we have in front of us today. This is the language that pertains directly to the States. . . . no State agency that issues driver's licenses or identification documents, may accept for any official purpose a copy of a birth certificate . . . unless it is issued by a State or local government registrar and it conforms to standards . . . promulgated by the Federal agency designated by the President. . . . Listen to the language, ``No State agency that issues driver's licenses or identification documents, may accept for any official purpose. * * * '' We are telling a State in one of the basic functions of government, one of their oldest functions, the issuance of birth certificates, and other functions we rely on States to do, issuing driver's licenses, we are turning to them and saying you cannot accept documents except as prescribed by the Federal Government. We are telling that agency, we are telling that State, what they can and cannot accept. This, I think, is going in the wrong direction. I am not a constitutional scholar but I think it has clear problems with the 10th amendment if anything has any problems with the 10th amendment. You tell the State what they can accept and what they cannot accept for their own purposes. Let me move, if I could, to another problem that I see with this provision. The second problem, I will call it sort of a nonmonetary problem, the nonmonetary cost. This bill as currently written, going to the national driver's license, going to a national birth certificate, is going to cause a tremendous amount of anguish and tremendous amount of inconvenience for the American people. It is the American people who are abiding by the law who are really going to be punished by this. This is, in essence, what the bill says. It says to the approximately 260-some million Americans, each presumably who has a birth certificate somewhere, that your birth certificate is still valid, it is still valid, you just cannot use it for anything, or almost anything. If you want to use that birth certificate, you have to get a new one. You have to get a new one that conforms to what the bureaucracy has said the new birth certificate must conform to. Your old birth certificate is no good. You can keep it at home, you can keep it stored in your closet or wherever you have it, that is OK, it is still valid, but if you want to use it to get a passport or you want to use it for any purpose, you cannot do that. You have to go back and get a new birth certificate. What am I talking about in the real world where we all live and our constituents live? Let me give three examples, real world examples of inconvenience and problems that this is going to cause. Every year, millions of Americans get married and many of them change their names. To have a name change legally accepted by Social Security--this is the law today--today, to have a name change legally accepted by Social Security or by the IRS, today you must show a marriage certificate plus birth certificate. That is the law today. This amendment will not change that. But here is how it will affect it. If this bill becomes law, the birth certificate you currently have is no good and you will not be able to use it for this purpose. You are going to have to go back to your origin, the place of your birth. You are going to have to do as Mary and Joseph did, you are going to have to go back to where you came from, where you were born, or at least you are going to have to do this by mail, or in some way contact that county where you were born, because the birth certificate they gave your parents 20 years ago, 25 years ago, you cannot use that anymore, because that is what this bill says. They are going to have to issue you a new one and you are going to have to go back and get that new birth certificate. I think that is going to be a shock to many people when they decide they want to get married. June is historically the most popular month, we are told, for weddings. My wife Fran and I were married in June so I guess we are average, with a number of million other Americans. If this bill passes, I do not think it is too much to say that June will not only be known as the month of weddings, people getting married, it will also be the month where people will have to stand in line, because that is really what people are going to have to do. It is one more step back to get a new birth certificate for them. How many people get married each year? I do not know, but each one of these people will be affected. Let me give a second example. What happens when you turn 16 years of age? You ask any teenager. They will tell you that in most States at least they get the opportunity to try to get a driver's license. How many of us have had that experience, gone down with their child or, if we remember that long ago, ourselves, trying to get a driver's license? How many people had to stand in line? I do not think it is unique to my experience, or the experience of my friends. You go and stand in line and it takes a while. Imagine your constituent or my constituent, our family members going down with our child at the age of 16, standing in line at the DMV. We get to the head of the line. You have a birth certificate. And the clerk looks at you and says, ``Sorry.'' You say, ``What's wrong? I have this birth certificate.'' They say, ``No, we are sorry. This is not one of the new federally prescribed birth certificates. This was issued 16 years ago. This doesn't conform. It doesn't work. The Federal law says we cannot accept that birth certificate.'' You then leave and either go back to the place your child was born or write to the place your child was born and you get that birth certificate. We live in a very mobile society. I always relate things to my own experience. In the case of our children, that means we would have to go back to Hamilton, OH; we would have to go back, for one of them, to Lima, OH; one to Springfield, OH; one to Springfield, VA, a couple to Xenia, OH. You would have to go back in each case to where that child was born and go back to the health department or whatever the issuing agency was of the State to get that birth certificate. Once you got the birth certificate, you then have to get in line at the DMV. That is how it is going to work in the real world. Let me give one more example. When people turn 65 in this country, they have an opportunity to receive Social Security and they have the opportunity to get Medicare. One of the things you have to do, obviously, is prove your age. How many people, Mr. President, who turn 65 in 1996, live in the same county they lived in when they were born? I suspect not too many. How shocked they are going to be when they go in to Social Security and they present a birth certificate and Social Security says, ``Sorry. Yeah, you waited in line for half an hour; sorry, we can't take this birth certificate.'' ``Why not? I have had this certificate for 65 years.'' ``No, Congress passed a law 2, 3 years ago. You can't use this birth certificate anymore. You have to go get a new one.'' Imagine the complaints we are going to get in regard to that. Getting married, turning 16 and getting a driver's license, wanting to go on Social Security--these are just three examples of how this is going to work in the real world. I think it is important to remember that this is an attempt to deal with a problem not created by the people who we are, in essence, punishing by this language, not created by the teenager or his or her parents who turned 16, not created by the senior citizen who turned 65 and wants Social Security. How many times are we going to have people call us saying, ``I certainly hope you didn't vote for that bill, Senator.'' ``I certainly hope, Congressman, you didn't vote for that bill.'' Let me turn to another cost, because this is a costly thing, and we will talk just for a moment about the costs incurred in the whole reissuing of birth certificates. You can just imagine how many million new birth certificates are going to have to be issued. Somebody has to pay for that. It is true the CBO has said this does not come under the new law we passed, because under that law, you have to be up to $50 million of unfunded mandates per year before it is labeled an unfunded mandate. But that does not mean it is not an unfunded mandate, nor does it mean it is not a cost to local or State government. Nor does it mean it is not going to be a cost to citizens. Let me go through a little bit on the cost. If you look at the language in the bill, the idea behind the language is very good, and that is to get birth certificates that are tamper- free. We took the opportunity to contact printers and to talk to them to find out, under the language of this bill, what a State would have to do. Although there is discretion left to the bureaucracy in how this is going to be implemented and the States are going to have some option about how it is done, the printers we talked to said there is anywhere from 10 to 18 to 20 different safety features that one would expect to be included in this new birth certificate. Let me just read some of the things that they are talking about. I am not going to bore everyone with the details. We have two pages worth of different types of things: Thermochromic ink--colored ink which is sensitive to heat created by human touch or frictional abrasion. When activated, the ink will disappear or change to another color. Abrasion ink--a white transparent ink which is difficult to see, but will fluoresce under ultraviolet light exposure. Chemical voids--incorporated into the paper must be images that will exhibit a hidden multilingual void message that appears when alterations are attempted with chemical ink eradicators, bleach or hypochlorites. A fourth example: Copy ban and void pantograph. A fifth example: Fluorescent ink. A sixth example: High-resolution latent images. A seventh example: Secure lock. And on and on and on. This is not something, as I say, that is brain surgery. It is not something that cannot be done. It is something that clearly can be done. But let no one think this is not going to cost millions and millions of dollars, and someone is going to pay for it. The American people are going to pay for it one way or the other. They are going to pay for it if the local government eats up the cost or absorbs the cost, and that is going to be what we like to refer to as an unfunded mandate. If they pass it on to the consumer, to the couple who just got married, or the 16-year-old who gets his driver's license, or they pass it on to the 65-year-old who wants Social Security, that is going to be a tax. It will be a hidden tax. The cost is going to be there, and it is going to be millions and millions of dollars. As my colleague from Michigan pointed out, all these changes, all this burden, all this inconvenience, all these violations of the States rights is being done, really, to go after the problem of illegal aliens and the people, really, who are hiring them. We have talked--it is difficult to get accurate statistics on this-- we talked to INS, we talked to the people who are experts in the field, and I think it is a common opinion that the majority of illegal aliens who are illegally hired are hired by people who know it. They know it. This portion of this bill is not going to solve that problem at all. So, again, we narrow it down. We are doing an awful lot. We are doing all these things to correct only a portion of the problem. Let me conclude by simply stating, again, this is a good bill. No one should think that there are not tough provisions in this bill. If a bill like this had been brought to the Senate floor 2 years ago, 4 years ago, 8 years ago, it probably would not have had any chance. I think I heard my colleague from Wyoming say something very similar to that. It is a strong bill. It is a very strong bill without this what I consider to be a horrible infringement on people's rights. What we intend to do, or try to do, with this amendment is to take out these sections, these sections that are going to impact 260 million, 270 million Americans and punish them to try to get at this problem. We do not think it is going to work. We think it is going to be very intrusive, and we point out also that the bill, without these provisions, is, in fact, a very, very strong bill, and it is a bill that every Member in this Chamber can go home and be proud of and can say, ``We have taken very tough measures to deal with illegal immigration.'' I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I again rise in support of the amendment. I would like to return, if I could, to the issue of the birth certificate because I think it is so revolutionary what we would do if we actually passed this bill as it is written and if we turn this amendment down. As I pointed out earlier, we are saying to 270 million Americans that your birth certificates are still valid. You just cannot use them for anything. If you really want to use them in the traditional way in which we use birth certificates today, you have to go back to the county where you were born or contact that county. You have to get a new birth certificate under the prescription of the Federal Government. For the first time, we have a federally prescribed birth certificate. We have a federally prescribed driver's license. In essence, they are not even ``grandfathered in,'' to use the term we use many times. You will have to get a new one if you want to use it. A 16-year-old who just wants to get his or her driver's license, we are going to say, ``No, you cannot use that birth certificate that your parents have held onto for 16 years. You have to get a new one.'' We are going to say the same thing to someone who wants to get married. You have to go back to contact that county where you were born 20, 30, or 40 years ago to get that birth certificate. You have to be reissued a new form. We will have to say to someone 65 years of age who wants to get Social Security, or Medicare, ``Sorry.'' You come into the Social Security Administration and you think you are going to get your check next month. You sign up, doing what you are supposed to be doing. We will say to them, ``No, you have to go back and get a new birth certificate,'' a birth certificate that was issued initially 65 years before that. I think that is an undue burden. I think it is a terrible burden. I would like to talk now for a moment about another aspect of this, and that is those who argue in favor of requiring this national birth certificate--nationally prescribed birth certificate. To those who argue that it is worth it, we are going to help solve the illegal immigration problem--and I know they are well intentioned when they say this--and it is worth it to require the people we represent to do all of this, I would argue, walk through this with me and see if at the end you still think that a birth certificate--this new tamperproof birth certificate--is really going to solve very many problems, because it is based upon the premise that the person who gets this new tamperproof birth certificate is in fact the person they purport to be. That, I think, is a leap in logic which may not necessarily be true. My colleague from Wyoming has consistently--and I respectfully say that he has been at this for 17 or 18 years. He refers to the birth certificate as the ``breeder document.'' This is the real problem: We have to get at the birth certificate. The difficulty with that is that under the laws of many States and the way it operates in many States, that breeder document may be a second-generation document or a third- generation document. Let me take my home State of Ohio. Ohio is what might be referred to as an open State. It is not the only State that follows this procedure. There are many other States that follow this as well. All you need to do in Ohio to get a birth certificate is to stop in at the county health department office. You put down your $7, and you get a copy of your birth certificate. Not only can you get a copy of your birth certificate, Mr. President, but you can get a copy of anybody's birth certificate. It is a public document. It is a public record. So I can go into Ohio and get a birth certificate for anybody if they were born in that county. What is the protection here? You can issue the finest document in the world, with all the bells and whistles on it in the world; you can spend all of the money you want to make it tamperproof, but if the person who walks in and gets that document is not that person, what good have you done? So in States like Ohio that have this open system, open record system, what good does it do? There is absolutely no good at all. There are other States that probably are more restrictive, but I would say even in those States that are more restrictive, unless we are willing to impose burdens on American citizens that no one in this Chamber will impose, unless we are willing to say to the 65-year-old who wants to get Social Security who now lives in South Carolina and was born in Ohio that you have to personally go back to Cleveland, OH, or Cincinnati where you were born to get your birth certificate, unless we are willing to say that, how in the world do you protect the integrity of that birth certificate? How in the world do you do it by mail? Let us take it a step further. Let us assume the State even has some very restrictive ways in which they will issue a birth certificate. What is the use of being able to demonstrate who you are, whether it is a driver's license, if you have a driver's license such as Senator Simpson has over there--I heard him tell the story of how cheap it was to get that driver's license. It is a great story. It illustrates a lot of the problems that we have. Then you go to get the breeder document, and you can go circular. Even if you have a restrictive State, not like Ohio and other States where you can get anybody's birth certificate, what in the world good does it do to have all these bells and whistles on these birth certificates? We will spend a ton of money. We will violate States' rights because we are going to tell the States what they can accept and what they cannot accept for official State business, all in the name of trying to solve this problem. I would submit it is not going to solve it at all. In fact, again, it is not too much of a leap of the imagination to think it may create more problems. Why? Because now you are going to have this routine of millions of people every year having to go back through when they turn 16 and want their driver's license and want their Medicare card, or when they want to get married; millions of people have to go back to the origin county of their birth to get a birth certificate. These will be issued en mass. It seems to me that you do not have to be too smart if you are a person who wants to violate the system. If you are a person who wants to game the system, as the Senator from Wyoming said very eloquently, there are people who are doing it, and it is a problem. But now you do not have to be too bright to be able to figure out how to start working that system and how to get out of some of these counties, particularly in States that are open for birth certificates, this breeder document. Only now it is going to be a breeder document that is going to be superior. You are going to be in the situation where you, as an imposter, are going to have a better document than the person who is actually that person. Mike DeWine can go in; I could figure out how to game the system. I could get someone's birth certificate if I was close in age to that person. It might be able to pass. It might be able to work. I have a great birth certificate. If I took it to the Chair and he was the employer, he would say, ``That's it, a new birth certificate, it has to be right.'' And if the next day the real person came in and they had their old birth certificate, the old, moldy birth certificate that had been in their closet or in their attic, or had been in the desk for a number years, you would say, ``Well, that is not as good. I have to take the other one.'' So I think when you work this out--it all sounds great in theory--it just will not work. If you look at how the government really works at the county level, if you look at how health departments issue these certificates that really work, if you take into consideration the fact that an open State can get anybody's birth certificate, this just does not make any sense. Let me turn to another point. I think my friend from Wyoming has been too modest. This is a good bill. He has made it a good bill. He has had 17 years of experience at looking at things that we need to do. There is a consistent list of things that we have done. I say ``we''--``he'' has done. This is the legal immigration bill passed by the subcommittee, a portion of it. These are the things each one of us think relates to a specific problem of dealing with illegal aliens. I reduced it to a chart form because I do not want anyone in this Chamber to think that if this amendment is accepted--which I certainly hope it will be--that there is nothing left in the bill to deal with illegal aliens. This is a tough bill. The Senator has done a great job. He has taken his years of experience in the subcommittee, along with members of the subcommittee, and he did a great job. Look at what the subcommittee did: Increased Border Patrol, INS investigators, wiretaps for alien, smuggling, and document fraud; RICO for alien smuggling and document fraud; Increased asset forfeiture for alien smuggling and document fraud; 5. Doubled fines for document fraud; Next, faster deportation of illegal aliens; And finally, faster deportation of immigrants convicted of crimes. That was the bill coming out of the subcommittee. It is a bill that I think I have heard my friend say would have been hard to get through on the Senate floor even as recently as a couple of years ago. But it is tough and it is good. Then the bill went to the full committee, and the full committee even upped the ante. The full committee added additional things. This is what the full committee did. ``Bill Made Tougher in Committee.'' Increased penalties for visa overstayers. Let me stop with that for a minute because that is a problem. My friend from Wyoming has identified this as a problem. These are people who overstay. They are people who come here legally--they are not legal immigrants, but they are people who come here legally. They are students. For any number of reasons they are here, but then they stay. That is a problem. This provision put in by the full committee deals with that--increased penalties for visa overstayers. Next: More investigators for visa overstayers; Next: Eliminate additional judicial review of deportations; No bail for criminal aliens; Three-tier fence along the border; Next: Expand detention facilities by 9,000 beds; And finally: Increase Border Patrol by 1,000 agents. All of those provisions are in this bill. So it is a bill that is a strong bill, and no one, no one should be ashamed of voting for this bill. No one should feel they cannot go home and be able to say, ``We passed a very, very tough bill.'' Let me turn, as I said I would earlier, to the issue of a national verification system. I understand that this is a pilot project. Again, I only bring to the floor my own experience. Each one of us brings our own experience. I think that is the great thing about the Congress and the Senate. We do have varied backgrounds. My background has been, at least in part, in law enforcement as a county prosecuting attorney. One of the things that shocked me 20 years ago is when I found what kind of state our criminal records were in. What am I talking about when I am talking about criminal records? I am talking about basically the same type of thing here, only I am talking about a finite group of individuals, criminals. It is important for the police officer who comes up behind a car to be able to determine who is in that car, if that person has a record, to be able to determine if that person is wanted, or at least if that car is a stolen car. When someone is apprehended, then it is important to be able to determine whether that person is wanted, whether they have had a criminal record in the past. The same way for a judge who looks down at arraignment. He is on his 52d person, or she is on her 52d person, the judge is, and is trying to determine what the bond is. It is important, when they glance at that record, the record be complete; that they know 3 years ago this person committed a rape, or they know that 4 years ago this person fled the jurisdiction. All of that is important, and police officers deal with this every day and have to rely on this information to make life and death decisions. I was shocked a number of years ago to find that this system is not entirely accurate. That is a kind way of putting it. When I became Lieutenant Governor in Ohio, we had as one of our goals to try to upgrade the criminal records system so police officers would know who they were dealing with. We found that only 5 percent of the criminal records in the State of Ohio were totally accurate--only 5 percent. That is not unusual. That is not unusual. In all the discussion about the Brady bill, we got into the whole issue of the accuracy of criminal records. We found that there are very, very few States that could put in an instant check system because of the high inaccuracy level. Now, after having spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try to upgrade a criminal record system that we depend on to make life and death decisions, how in the world do we expect to, overnight, re-create a national data base system for employment, a system that, by definition, is going to have to be a lot bigger? Now, people could say: ``Well, you are talking about a pilot project, Senator. Isn't that what you are talking about?'' ``Yes.'' Yes, we are talking about a pilot project, but I have been thinking about this, and I cannot come up with any way you can have a pilot project that really works and is really accurate and really protects employees or potential employees unless you have a national system. We cannot build walls around States. We cannot build walls around communities. People go back and forth. You have to create a national system, even if you are only using it in four or five pilot projects, and so we will have to build a national system. We will have to build a national system that is not going to be error prone. Anyone who has had any experience with the criminal system in this country, who really has looked at it, I think is going to be hard pressed to be able to make a good argument that this new system we are going to create is not going to cause serious, serious problems as well as be extremely expensive. I know there are some of my colleagues who want to talk some more on this bill, but I just believe this amendment makes eminent sense. It is a good bill without it. It is a great bill. It does a lot. The Senator from Wyoming is to be commended for the work he has done. But unless we take out these provisions, unless this amendment passes, I think we are all going to be very sorry, and I think we are going to have a lot of explaining to do to our constituents when that 16-year-old wants to get his or her driver's license and they find out, no, that birth certificate is not any good; the 65-year-old finds out, no, my birth certificate is not any good anymore; I have to go back and get a new one, or when someone wants to get married and they find out their birth certificate is not any good either. I think that is a very serious problem. Mr. President, I see my friend from Wyoming standing. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, thank you very much. I rise today in strong support of this amendment. Our amendment would, in our view, greatly improve this section of the bill dealing with asylum. Frankly, this section does need improvement. It really creates a summary exclusion, a summary exclusion that would keep out of America some of the worthiest of all asylum seekers. Further, it sets a legal standard that is both unprecedented and excessive for people who are the most in need, for people who are truly fleeing persecution, and it puts what for some people is a life-or- death decision in the hands of the INS bureaucrats. As has been pointed out by my colleagues from Illinois and Massachusetts, there really is not the problem today that we may have seen 2, 3, 4 years ago. Today, the asylum system works pretty well, and we do not need this change, we do not need this summary exclusion. It is not worth the price that we are going to pay. It is clear that several years ago, the asylum system was, in fact, broken. Under the old system, people could get a work authorization simply by applying for asylum, and this, obviously, became a magnet, even for those who had absolutely no realistic claim for asylum. But the INS changed its rules in 1994, and it stopped automatically awarding work permits to those filing for asylum. Instead, it began to require an adjudication of the asylum claim before it awarded work authorization. It also began resolving asylum claims within 180 days. The results are very, very significant. According to the INS, in 1994, before the new rules were put in place, 123,000 people claimed asylum. In 1995 however, after the new rules were established, only 53,000 people even applied for asylum. That is a 57-percent decline in those people who even apply for asylum, a 57-percent decrease in 1 year. Also, the INS reports that it is now completing 84 percent of the new cases within 60 days of filing, and 98 percent--virtually all new cases--within 180 days of filing. That is why the administration, the INS, say that they did not need this provision. Second point, Mr. President. The most worthy cases for asylum would be excluded if we impose this new summary exclusion procedure. Among those excluded would be cases of victims of politically motivated torture and rape, the very people who are most likely--most likely--to use false documents to flee from the country of their torture. These are the people who would be hurt the most, frankly, by this summary exclusion. Let us talk about these individuals. We have already heard about the young woman who was seen in the press the last few days from Togo. But let me use two other examples. These are real world cases. These are cases where, if the law, as it is currently written in this bill, if this change does in fact go into effect, these people never would have gotten into this country. They would have been excluded by an INS bureaucrat and sent back to their country in that 1-hour determination that we have talked about. A real example. First, a student in Sudan was beaten and given electric shocks by Government torturers for the crime of engaging in a peaceful protest against the Government. He escaped to the United States without a passport. He was placed in detention because an INS bureaucrat concluded he did not have the credible fear of persecution standard that we have heard about. However, on judicial review, this individual was granted asylum. So under the procedure that is contained in the bill, under that procedure, the new procedure that we are trying to take out, under the new procedure, it never would have gone beyond the INS bureaucrat. This student from Sudan would have been sent back to Sudan. There would have been no opportunity for this person to have a hearing on the matter beyond an initial 1-hour hearing from the bureaucrat where the bureaucrat made the decision, ``Send him home.'' Second example. A man from India--this is a true case--was imprisoned and tortured by the Government because of his religious beliefs. His family's home was bombed. Fearing for his life, he fled to the United States, where INS bureaucrats verbally abused him, and denied him food and water until the next day. They said his fear was not credible. This case on judicial review was changed. He was granted asylum. Again, under the provisions of this bill, without our amendment, this person never would have gotten to the judicial review, would have been sent back by the determination made by the bureaucrat. Mr. President, I think that is too heavy a price to pay. I think it is very clear that we do not need to change the law in this area. I think America, Mr. President, stands for something better than that. We have historically held out the lamp of freedom to the world. We are different than other countries. We have held out a lamp that is lit by the flames of justice, not by bureaucracy. Mr. President, I ask the Members of the Senate, whether watching on TV or sitting in the Chamber, think back to stories you have heard--we have all heard stories--about people who have fled persecution, and whether that was in Nazi Germany, or more recent examples. How often did that person who fled persecution have to have a forged document? How often did that person go to great pains to obtain a forged document to flee the country? How often did that person have to have another country of immediate destination before they ended up in the country that they wanted to end up in? How many by necessity had to have that third country there? Each one of us can remember these stories. I remember, as a very young boy, listening to a story told by a friend of my father, who fled Nazi Germany. Although some of the details have left me over the 40- some years since I heard this story, I can still remember parts of it, and how difficult it was and what great risks he took to get out of Nazi Germany, to get out of Nazi Germany with documents that clearly were fake. I think we need to keep this in mind, Mr. President, when we decide what to do in regard to this amendment. My friend from Wyoming talks about compassion fatigue. I understand that. I get it. That is why, quite frankly, we have made changes. There are major changes in this bill. That is why the INS has made very, very significant changes in the last several years to speed up the process, to make sure that they weed out these cases that do not have merit. That system is working. But I would just say that as we look at this amendment, I would ask my colleagues to keep this in mind, that in an immigration bill, more than in any other bill that we pass on the floor, more than any other bill that we debate, we do define who we are as a country. I think we should be different. I understand the argument that Holland does it one way or Germany does it another way. That is fine. I understand the argument. But I think, quite frankly, we have to do it our way. We have to do it in a way that is consistent with our tradition. One of the great traditions of this country is that we have been a beacon of hope, and of light, as Ronald Reagan would say. We have been the country where people could come to when they were persecuted. If you look at our history and our immigration policy, our best days--our best days--have been when we reached out and said, ``Yes. We are this country that is different.'' The few times in our history when we have turned our back on people who are persecuted--and there are examples of this; the Nazi Germany situation, the few times we have done that--we have lived to regret it. And we have been sorry for it. So, yes, I understand compassion fatigue. But we are, in a sense, in this bill defining who we are as a people and redefining that. I think the amendment that has been offered by my friend from Vermont is entirely consistent with that great tradition of this country. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment. The first thing that I want to say is that I have the greatest respect for my colleague from Wyoming, and I know that no one has worked harder or longer on this issue. As he knows as well as anybody, it is not an issue that is very beneficial politically for anyone. But it has been something that the Senator has done out of a sense of duty, a sense of obligation to perform that function for the U.S. Senate, but more importantly for the people of this country for many, many years. He has done a very good job. I rise, however, to oppose the amendment, and I rise to oppose it for two reasons. First, I believe it is a fundamental mistake to mix the issue of legal immigration and illegal immigration. I will explain in a moment why I think that is a mistake. Second, I rise to oppose the amendment because I believe on substance it is a mistake. Let me start with the first reason. Let me start with why I believe it is a mistake to mix two very different issues. As my colleague from Michigan has pointed out, this is an illegal immigration bill. That is what is in front of us today. It is important I think that we keep it that way. It is also important I think that we do what we said we were going to do, and that is after this bill is over with bring a legal immigration bill to the floor and battle that out and talk about that. But I think we need to keep the two separate. Why? First of all, for historic reasons. These issues have always been divided by this Congress. Go back to 1986. The Simpson-Mazzoli bill was an illegal immigration bill. A few years later Congress dealt with the legal aspects of that, a legal immigration bill. And in fact, just this year when these bills started off in Senator Simpson's subcommittee they were separate bills. It was only at the end of the subcommittee's deliberations that they were combined. The full Judiciary Committee by a vote of 12 to 6 decided to separate them and to go back to the way this matter has always, or at least for the last 15 years or so, been dealt with. So on historical grounds it is very clear this precedent is to keep them separate. There is absolutely no precedent to combine the two issues. It is interesting that the House of Representatives basically made the same decision when they deleted the significant portion, the portion of the illegal bill that had to do with illegal immigration, and they made that same decision. The House of Representatives did, and they did it by a fairly lopsided margin. The second reason that it is important to keep these issues apart is I believe that a yes vote on this amendment does in fact merge the two issues and does in fact make it much more difficult and more unlikely that we will be able in this session of Congress to deliver to the President of the United States for his signature an illegal immigration bill. If any of my colleagues who are in the Chamber or who are watching this back in their offices have any doubt about this, reflect on the debate of the last 2 hours and fast forward to later on today with more and more and more debate. I think the longer you observe this and how contentious some of these legal immigration problems are and the disputes are, it will be clearly understood that by taking a relatively clean illegal immigration bill and dump the legal issues into it makes it less likely that we will ever been able to pass a bill and send it on to the President of the United States. I think there are clearly votes in this Chamber to pass a good illegal immigration bill. I am going to have an amendment later on to change a provision of the illegal bill. My colleague from Michigan is going to have a separate amendment to change it. We are going to vote those up or down. We are going to argue those out. But ultimately we are going to be able to pass the illegal bill. If we start down this road of amendments that are clearly dealing with the legal aspect of this, I am not as confident that we are going to be able to pass a bill. I am not as confident that we are going to be able to do what my friend from Wyoming wants to do, and I think the vast majority of the American people want to do; that is, to pass a good illegal immigration bill and send it to the President of the United States. The third reason I believe it is a mistake to combine these issues, these issues that we have historically not combined, is that once you begin to do that, it makes good analysis more difficult and we begin to confuse the two very distinct issues. We have in this country an illegal immigration problem, and we all agree on that. I think there is pretty broad consensus about what to do about it. There are a lot of good provisions in this bill. I do not believe we have a legal immigration problem. Illegal immigrants are lawbreakers. They are lawbreakers. And no country can exist unless it enforces its laws. We absolutely have to do that. Legal immigrants, on the other hand, are by and large great citizens. They are people who care about their families. They are people who work hard. They are people who played by the rules to get here, got here legally, and add a great deal to our society. The linkage of the legal and illegal bills, which is what this amendment really is going to end up doing, brings about a linkage and I think many times a distortion of the correct analysis. Let me give two examples, two examples of what failure to keep the distinction between the illegal issue and the legal issue does. I have heard many times the statement made that aliens use social services more than native-born Americans. They are on welfare more; they use up social services; they are a burden to society. The reality is that statement may be technically true, depending on how you state it, but if you talk only about legal immigrants, that statement is totally wrong. In fact, the facts fly in the face of that because the facts show that legal immigrants are on welfare less than native-born citizens. Although I have not seen any studies or empirical data about this, just from observation--admittedly, it is anecdotal--it would seem to me that the legal immigrants, citizens now, care very much about their families and have intact families and work very, very hard. The fact is that they are on welfare less. The fact is that they do consume social services less than native-born citizens. That is the truth. So you can see how the mixing of the rhetoric and the mixing of the issues causes problems. The second example of how mixing these issues causes a problem: The statement is made--and it is a correct statement--that one-half of all illegal immigrants came here legally. Let me repeat that. One-half of all illegal immigrants came here legally. That is true. That is a true statement. But these are not legal immigrants. ``Immigrant" is a term of art. They are not legal immigrants. They did not come here expecting or being told that they could become citizens. These are, as my friend from Wyoming pointed out, students who overstay their visas. These are people who come here to work who overstay. As my colleague from Wisconsin correctly pointed out, the Simpson amendment does not deal with this issue. It does not deal with this problem. And it is a problem. The bill does. We took action in the bill and in committee to try to rectify this problem. Again, you have a difficulty when you confuse the terminology. Yes, these individuals came here legally, but they were never legal immigrants. They never came here with the expectation they would become citizens. They have no right to expect that. So when we analyze legal immigrants and we talk about the burden they place on society, we talk about where the problem of illegal immigration comes from, it is important to keep the distinction correct and to watch our terminology. Therefore, I believe for practical reasons, for historic reasons, and also for reasons of good analysis, we should vote no on this amendment. A yes vote links these two issues. It takes an illegal immigration bill that we can pass and shoves into it issues that should be kept separate and dealt with distinctly, and I would say I clearly believe that they should be dealt with later on on this floor in a separate bill. Let me turn, if I could, for a moment, Mr. President, to the merits of this bill, and I am going to return to this later; I see several of my colleagues who are patiently waiting to talk. If you look at the merits, I think you have to look at the big picture. I believe that, unfortunately, the effect of the Simpson amendment is to go against some of the best traditions of our country. It really flies in the face of what our immigration policy should be and has been, at least has been throughout a great portion of our history. That immigration policy in its best days, most enlightened, has been based on two principles. One is that the United States should be a magnet, a magnet for the best and the brightest, yes, but also a magnet for the gutsiest, the people who have enough guts to get up, leave their country, get on a boat or get on a plane or somehow get here, come into this country because they want a better future for their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren. The second basic tenet of our immigration policy at its best has been family reunification. We talk in this Congress a lot about family values. We talk about how important families are. They are important. Our immigration policy at its best has put a premium on family reunification. I believe that the net effect of this amendment, however well-intentioned, is to fly directly in the face of those traditions. It is antifamily. It is antifamily reunification and goes against the tradition of trying to attract the best people in this country, people who are the most ambitious, the people who are willing to take a chance. Let me just give a couple of examples, and I will come back to this later. The net effect of this amendment is to exclude adult children. Let me take my own example. We all relate things to our own lives. My wife Fran and I have had eight children. Let us assume that I just came to this country. Let us assume that I became a U.S. citizen. The effect of the amendment would be to say, some of your children, a part of your nuclear family--part of them are part of your nuclear family--our younger child, Anna, who is age 4, she could come. Mark, who is 9, could come. And Alice could come; she is 17. Brian, who just turned 19, he could come, too. But John, who is 21, he is not part of your nuclear family. You could not bring him over. He is going to college. You could not bring him. He could not become a citizen. It would say about my older children, Patrick and Jill, they could not come. I think that is a mistake. I think, again, it goes against the best traditions and the history of this country. The amendment even goes further, the net effect of it does. It says, if you have a child and that child happens to be a minor, but if that child is now married, that child is not going to get in either. Again, I think that is a mistake. We hear talk about brothers and sisters. It is easy to say it is really not important that brothers and sisters come. My colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, has given a couple of examples of what impact that would have. Maybe you can argue the brothers and sisters issue either way. Let me make a couple of comments about it. One of the ways legal immigrants have been able to succeed when they come here--you see it, you certainly see it in the Washington, DC, area. You see it in other parts of the country, too. You see, in small businesses that have been started, you see whole families in there working, people who are hustling, people who are not looking to the State or Government for handouts, but rather people in there trying to make it. They are making it because everybody in the family is working. Somehow, I do not think that is bad. Somehow, I think that is really in the best tradition of this country. It is in our history, each one of us on this floor. I will make another point in regard to this. Whatever you think about whether brothers and sisters should be able to come in, this amendment would close the door to brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens who have already--these are brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens--who have already paid their fees, applied for admission and been admitted; who waited in line, many times for years, who have done the right thing, who have done everything we told them to do--``Be patient, wait in line, your turn will come.'' They get right up to the door and with this amendment we will say, ``No, that is wrong, we have changed the rules.'' We can do that. We have every right to do that. I just do not think we should do it. I do not think it is the right thing to do. Let me at this point yield the floor. I do want to address some of the issues my friend from Wyoming has brought up, but I see my friend from Alabama is on the floor. Several other Members are waiting. Mr. President, in just a moment I am going to yield the floor. Let me briefly summarize by saying that any Member who thinks these issues should not be joined, who thinks we should keep the issues separate and apart and distinct, any Member who is really concerned about increasing the odds of passing and seeing become law an illegal immigration bill, should vote ``no'' on this amendment. You should vote ``no'' if you want to keep the issues separate. You should vote ``no'' if you want to increase the odds of finally getting an illegal immigration bill on the President's desk and signed into law this year. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I would like at this point to try to respond to my friend and colleague from Wyoming and to some of the comments that he has made. I think we are engaging in a good debate here. This has gone on for a few hours. It is probably going to go on for a few more hours. But I think these are very, very important issues. I believe that the Simpson amendment is in fact antifamily, anti- family reunification, and goes against the best traditions of this country. Let me explain why I say this because this can get very, very confusing, and you have to really spend some time. It has taken me some time to get into it. I certainly do not today pretend to be any kind of expert. But let me explain what I understand the facts to be. The Simpson amendment would have the effect of pushing aside adult children of U.S. citizens. It would have the effect of pushing aside the minor children of U.S. citizens who happen to be married. It would say to a U.S. citizen--let me again emphasize ``a U.S. citizen''--you cannot bring in your adult child. We are not going to consider that person part of your nuclear family anymore. That is going to be your extended family, those of us who have children over a wide range of ages. Try to tell that to your older children, my son Patrick, or Jill, or John, that they are no longer part of our family; you cannot come in. It says to a U.S. citizen, if your minor child has made the decision to get married, well, you cannot even bring your minor child in. It says that to the U.S. citizen. It pushes these children aside in favor of--let us be very careful how we state this--the spouses and minor children of illegal aliens, people who were illegal aliens, who came here illegally and who were ultimately granted amnesty in the Simpson- Mazzoli bill. That is the choice. That is what it is doing. But when you get into it further, what you also find out is that the vast majority of these people, which this amendment purports to help, with children, with spouses, people who were illegal aliens, who came in here then because of the amnesty provision of Simpson-Mazzoli, were legalized, we say that is OK--their children. The facts are the vast majority of their children and their spouses are already here. They are already in the country. They are not leaving one way or the other, no matter what this bill does. That is the reality. No one can come to this floor and say this is going to impact it one way or the other. So we are pushing aside family members of U.S. citizens purportedly for the reason to help other people, the vast majority of whom are already here anyway. That is antifamily. It is wrong. It is wrong. It is wrong. We should not do it. How did this all come about? Let us look at the facts. Let me cite the Jordan commission because my colleague from Wyoming very correctly cites the Jordan commission for many things. Let me cite the Jordan commission. It is stated, stated by proponents of the Simpson amendment--it was talked about in our committee--that there are 1.2 million spouses and children of permanent resident aliens who are waiting to come in. That is the people the Simpson amendment purports to help. Let me repeat it--1.2 million spouses and children of permanent resident aliens who are waiting to come in. End of quote. Here is what the Jordan Commission says about this group of people. The Jordan commission said that at least, at least 850,000 of these people, at least 850,000 of them are already here. They are already in the country. Who are they? Again, they are the children, they are the spouses of people who this Congress in the Simpson-Mazzoli bill in 1986 granted amnesty to. So I think it is very important that we keep this in mind. Now, no one can come to this floor and say these people are going to be kicked out. That is not happening. It is not going to happen. In fact, the husbands, the mothers, people who are granted amnesty, once they were granted amnesty, were on the road to citizenship if they wanted it. Now, many of them for any number of reasons that I cannot fathom have decided not to become citizens, but no one is talking about kicking them out. INS is not deporting them, nor is INS deporting their children, nor is INS deporting their spouses. And there is no one who can come to this floor and say anybody is talking about doing that. So I think it is very, very important to emphasize who these people are. And again I would cite the Jordan Commission. Mr. President, the 850,000 of this group of people the Simpson amendment purports to help--it purports to help family members--get help only on paper because they are here already. The fact is that when a legalized person becomes a U.S. citizen after 5 years, the spouses and children are legalized immediately. They can do that. All that person has to do is become a citizen. And even if that person does not elect to become a citizen, no one is going to kick those kids out and no one is going to kick the parents out. So I think, while what is said about the Simpson amendment makes sense and is technically correct, we have to look behind that and look at who these people really are and what the real facts are. Let me turn, if I could, to another issue but it is related. It is related to Simpson-Mazzoli that passed in 1986, and it is related to the overall rhetoric about the extent, number of legal immigrants who are coming into this country. The statement is made that we are at an all-time high. That is simply not true. It is not even close to being true. It is not accurate. We are at the rate of approximately, talking about legal immigrants, of 2 per thousand of our population. We have been at roughly this rate for 30 years. We have been at higher, we have been at lower during our history. Just to take one example, though, if you go back to the turn of the century we were at about 10 per thousand. We are at roughly 2 per thousand now. What about my colleagues who may say, well, we just heard the argument made that we have new statistics out from INS that show the numbers are up. Yes. What it shows is that we got what we expected. When we decided to grant amnesty in 1986, we knew there was going to be a spike, and we knew there was not only going to be a spike but there was going to be additional spiking as a result of that because of the children that could be legalized, could become U.S. citizens of those people who are granted amnesty. That was expected. So I think you have to put this again in its historical perspective, and we have to understand that this should be a shock to no one. It was totally expected. It is an increase that we have seen as a direct result of the amnesty that was granted in 1986 and it is basically just as the amnesty was a one-time shot, the results of that amnesty are also a one-time occurrence. Let me talk, if I could, about another argument that my friend from Wyoming made. He had a very interesting chart. I walked over to take a look at it. It was something that I heard him talk very eloquently about a great deal and that is the chain migration problem. Just a couple comments. As my friend from Michigan said a moment ago, that chart may be accurate, it may be accurate for a family. I can come up with a hypothetical. It might be accurate--might be. But if it was accurate, assuming it was accurate, assuming that is a real case, it takes about a half a century for that all to take place. So I think we need to put that in perspective. My colleague from Wyoming agreed with me; we should favor the gutsy people, gutsy people who picked up and came here. What is to say those people on that chart are not gutsy? What is to say they are not people who contributed to society? What is to say they are not people who work with their family, maybe work in a business to make things happen? That chart is almost the history of this country, almost a reflection of our own, not just the history of this country but a reflection of many of our own families, if we go back a generation or two or three. I wish to return to another issue because this issue keeps coming up. I just want to return to it because it shows I think how many times the mixing in our bills and in our mind of the issue of legal immigration and illegal immigration leads not only to what I think would be bad legislation but I think bad thinking and confusing thinking and confusing rhetoric. Let me give one example. It has been stated time and time again one-half of the people who come here--let me get the precise language. I wrote it down. One-half of the people who are illegally here came here legally. One-half of the people who are illegally here came here legally. Yes, that is true. But these are not the people we are talking about when we talk about legal immigrants. These people were never immigrants, immigrants meaning someone who is here on the path to becoming a citizen. Rather, these are people who came here--yes, legally--but who came here with absolutely no expectation that they would ever become a U.S. citizen. These are people who came here to work on visas. These are people who came here as students. Frankly, they overstayed; they overstayed their welcome, they overstayed the law, and they are a problem. This bill begins to address the problem, the bill as currently written. The Simpson amendment does not do anything about this problem. In all due respect to my friend from Wyoming, I think the only thing this rhetoric does is confuse the issue because people then make the jump and say you have to combine the two issues. They are separate and distinct. Legal immigrants is a term of art. People who are here--that is not the problem. There are some people, a lot of them, who overstay the law. They came here legally but they were never legal immigrants. I think it is important to keep those two things in mind. The statement is also made that aliens use social services more than native-born Americans. Again, every statistic, every study that I have seen, as well as anecdotal evidence that I think most of us have seen in our home States, would indicate that you have to look beyond that statement. That statement may be technically true, but if you break out legal immigrants, people who came here legally, people who have become citizens, people who got in line the way they were supposed to get in line, people who are now naturalized citizens or who are legal resident aliens, in line to become citizens--if you look at that group, and that is the group that the Simpson amendment is going to affect, what you find is statistically they are on welfare less than native-born Americans; less. Again, I think it shows the problem when we try to mix the arguments and when we try to combine legal and illegal. This vote is a vote not just on the merits of the Simpson amendment. It is also a vote on whether or not this Senate is going to take an illegal immigration bill that I do not think is perfect--in fact, I have a couple of amendments. One amendment I am going to offer; another amendment from Senator Abraham I am going to support. We are going to fight about those and vote on them. But it takes an illegal immigration bill that I think is a very good bill, a bill that addresses the legitimate concerns that honest Americans have that their laws be enforced, that we play by the rules and that people who come here illegally are dealt with--it it takes that concern and superimposes on it--this is what the Simpson amendment does--a whole other issue, an issue that this Senate should debate, should talk about. But on a different day. It confuses the two issues, puts them together, and I think that is a mistake. For those of my colleagues who are concerned, and I think virtually everybody in this Senate is, about passing an illegal immigration bill and getting it signed and having it become law, the best way to do this is to defeat the Simpson amendment. Do not take us down the path of getting in the swamp, getting in the muck of all the other issues we are going to be into if, in fact, the Simpson amendment passes. Legal and illegal, they simply, I believe, have to be kept separate. I am going to have a few more comments later on. I do see several of my colleagues who are on the floor waiting to speak. I will, at this time, yield the floor.

Mr. DeWINE. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. DeWINE. Will the Senator yield for just one more?

Mr. DeWINE. Then I will sit down and get my own time. I appreciate my friend's generosity with his time. I wonder if he could just respond to this. Is it not true that the individuals he just described who are already unified, who are together, are the people that Senator Simpson says his amendment is intended to benefit and who, I argue, because of that amendment, are people who really do not need to be unified anyway; they are already unified. They, with his amendment, would be pushing out adult children, yes--adult children--of U.S. citizens who could not come in and minor children of U.S. citizens who happen to be married? I want to clarify for the membership who we are really talking about. These are people--850,000 of them--who are already here. My colleague says no one is talking about kicking them out. They are already in the country. So to me it is a little misleading, or maybe it does not tell the whole story, to use the term we are ``reunifying'' these people-- and that is the purported sense of the Simpson amendment--when, in fact, they are already physically unified. They may not be on paper unified but they are here and living together. That is who he intends to benefit. I appreciate the Senator's generosity.

Mr. DeWINE. I just want to compliment my colleague from Texas for one of the most eloquent statements I have heard since I have been in the U.S. Senate, a little over a year. His story of his family, but frankly most particularly his story of Wendy Gramm's family, his lovely wife, is America's story. I have heard him, because he and I have been out campaigning before together, I have heard him tell that story I think eight or nine times. Each time I hear it, I am still touched by it because it is truly America's story. I will also compliment him on his comments about chain migration. When you look at the chart of chain migration, that is America's story, too. Those are people who are trying to bring their families here. You see it--and, again, it is anecdotal--but you see it when you go into restaurants in Ohio or you go into dry cleaning stores or you go into any kind of establishments in Ohio, Washington, or Texas. You see people in there who, you just assume they are all family. You do not know whether they are brothers or cousins or who. They are all working. They are working. That is what is the American dream. That is what has made this country great. I just want to compliment him on really, after kind of a long, difficult debate, coming over to the floor and really cutting through some of our rhetoric and just getting right down to it. I compliment him for that.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, for those Members in the Chamber or those Members watching back in their offices, this is really the same vote that we just had. It is not substantially changed. The issues are essentially the same. I am not going to take the time of my colleagues to wade through this again. We had about 6 or 7 hours already today on very, very similar issues. It is essentially the same vote. This bill still, I say with all due respect, is antifamily, is antifamily reunification. It flies in the face of the best traditions of our country as far as immigration policy is concerned. It mixes, unfortunately, the legal immigration issue and the illegal immigration issue. This is the illegal immigration bill. We should continue the tradition, and we should continue what the Judiciary Committee did, and that is to not mix the two. This is the sheet that has been passed out. When you go through it, what you really find is that it is very, very similar to the previous amendment, very, very similar to the previous issue. It is true that some of these slots have been sprinkled down into some of the family groups, but effectively--effectively--it is very, very little. The essence then is that it is pretty much the same vote that we had a few minutes ago. I urge my colleagues again to reject the amendment. Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.