Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I listened to my colleague from Texas. I come to the floor to add a word about my friend whom we have lost, Senator Craig Thomas. Craig was from the State of Wyoming. He was from the northern Great Plains. Last evening, when I heard he had died, I spent a lot of time thinking about Craig and about this place. Most Americans see the partisanship. This is actually a political body, so it is not unusual there would be some partisanship. What most Americans never have the opportunity to see is the friendship. This is a small community of 100 Members of the Senate, men and women who come from every part of our country who are elected to serve. There is a great deal of friendship that exists in this Chamber, even in the middle of all of the politics that exists in our political system. Senator Craig Thomas was an interesting and a wonderful man. I have had, especially the last 6 months, an opportunity to work very closely with him. I knew him as a Member of the House of Representatives. I knew him as a Member of the Senate and a colleague in both the House and the Senate. But the last 6 months we worked together, I as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee and Craig Thomas as vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. We sat next to each other, hour after hour, hearing after hearing, and I got to know a lot about Craig Thomas that I had not previously known. His word was his bond. He was quick with a smile. A quiet man in many ways, he cared deeply about his home State of Wyoming and cared deeply about the future of his country. Craig was a proud son of the American West who never, ever forgot about the people he represented. His commitment to American Indians, and especially and particularly to those living on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, was evident as I worked side by side with him on the Indian Affairs Committee, as was his strong support for Indian health care and for all of the other services to Native Americans. I was pleased to have the opportunity to work with him and to get to know him and to admire his work. In recent months, of course, Senator Thomas faced some very challenging health care issues with a very challenging illness. He met those challenges with courage and with grace. He never complained. I never heard him complain. In fact, it was just about 3 weeks ago at a hearing that I turned to him and said: You look great. You really look terrific. He said: I feel good. I feel great. He was a person with that kind of attitude. What a wonderful contribution to the Senate. I think all of us here will miss a terrific friend. Let me end as I started by saying this is a political body. I know most Americans see the evidence of that politics, so they see sometimes the politics and the partisanship. What most Americans never have the opportunity to see is the friendship that exists on the floor of the Senate. Yes, even between those who from time to time are adversaries in debate but who understand each other and are friends with each other. I had the privilege of working with Senator Thomas for many years in the House and in the Senate, and particularly in the last 6 months as chairman and vice chairman of the committee. I will miss him dearly. I considered Senator Craig Thomas a friend. My thoughts and prayers today are with his wonderful family as well. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining the Federal Role to Work with Communities to Prevent and Respond to Gang Violence: The Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2007'' on Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 10 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226. Witness list Panel I: The Honorable Barbara Boxer, United States Senator [D-CA]. Panel II: The Honorable Antonio R. Villaraigosa, Mayor, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; William J. Bratton, Chief of Police, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles, CA. Panel III: Ms. Boni Gayle Driskill, Wings of Protection, Modesto, CA.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing entitled ``Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys?--Part V'' on Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 2 p.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226. Witness list Panel I: Bradley J. Schlozman, Associate Counsel to the Director, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, Former Interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC Panel II: Todd Graves, Former U.S. Attorney, Western District of Missouri, Kansas City, MO.

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

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

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. How much morning business remains on our side?

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

Mr. DORGAN. It is my intention to speak for perhaps 20 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this issue of immigration is a very passionate issue and raises the passions in this country in a significant way. I understand all of that. I have described often on the floor of the Senate the circumstances of what has brought us to this point. This country we live in is a remarkable country. If you have a globe in front of you, and spin the globe, and take a look at all the land that exists on your globe, you will see there is just one little spot called the United States of America, but it is a very different spot than much of the rest of the world. We have raised incomes in this country, expanded the middle class, created a standard and a scale of living that is pretty unusual and pretty remarkable. Because of that, because we have dramatically expanded the middle class and have created a country that is very different than many other countries on this Earth, there are many who live on this planet who want to come here. Last week, I described being in a helicopter, flying between Honduras and Nicaragua, up in the mountainous jungle areas some long while ago, and we ran out of gas. I discovered on a helicopter when you run out of gas, you are going to be landing very soon. We were not hurt, of course, but the red lights and the alarm bells were ringing and going off, and our pilots put us down in a clearing. While we were there, I heard from some campesinos who came up to see who had landed in these helicopters. Through an interpreter, I visited with the campesinos. I heard from them what I have heard in virtually every part of the world in which I have traveled. I spoke with a young woman in her early twenties. She had three children with her. I asked her--after we visited--through an interpreter: What do you want for you and your children? She said: Oh, I want to come to the United States of America. That is not unusual. I have heard that all over the world: I want to come to the United States of America. I asked her why. She said: Well, there is opportunity there--an opportunity for a better life for me and my children. We have built something quite unusual in this country, and many from around this planet would like to come here. I understand that. Let me give you an example of why. If you live in China, the average hourly wage for factory workers is 33 cents an hour. If you are in Bangladesh, 33 cents an hour is the average annual hourly wage, if you can find a factory job. If you are in Nicaragua, 37 cents an hour is the average annual hourly wage. In India, 11 cents an hour is the average wage. In Haiti, it is 30 cents an hour, if you can find a job. In Russia, it is 51 cents an hour. I could go on. But my point is, there are people living in countries where, if they can find a job, they are going to be paid 30 cents an hour, 20 cents an hour, 11 cents an hour, and they take a look at this country, and they evaluate: Perhaps I need to go to the United States and be a part of that great country. Well, because so many want to come here, we have immigration laws and quotas. We actually allow into this country, under legal quotas, a good many immigrants every single year. Well over 1 million people come into this country every single year legally as part of our immigration quota system. We have quotas for various countries and regions of the world, and we accept legal immigration from those countries. We would have had last year over 2 million people come into this country legally, with both agricultural workers and also under the legal immigration system. But think for a moment if we decided to do it differently, after what we have spent well over the last century building in this country to expand opportunity, expand the middle class, and create an economy that is the wonder of the world--the real economic engine of the world is this economic engine of ours. Think of the consequences if, in fact, we said this: We have a new policy on immigration. Our policy is that anybody in this world who wants to come here--to stay here, to live here, to work here, to be part of the American experience--come right ahead, with no restrictions. Come into this country and be a part of our great Nation. If we said that, if, in fact, that were our country's policy, we would be literally overrun by those who wish to come to be a part of this American experience--an America with opportunity, an America that offers hope to people living in squalid poverty, people working for 11 cents an hour. We would be overrun. As a result, what we do have is a series of immigration laws that provide for legal immigration. It restricts numbers who come in, but we still have a pretty substantial number who come in legally into this country. Now, we are told we have a new immigration proposal put together by a group of Senators in the Senate with, I understand, the assistance of the White House--or at least the involvement of the White House--and brought to the floor of the Senate saying: Here is a new plan. It is 20 years after the last plan, which was in 1986. It was called Simpson- Mazzoli. It was the immigration plan of 1986. That was a plan that, back then, promised it would end the problem of illegal immigration by choking off the demand for illegal labor through tough enforcement and guest worker programs and also through amnesty of people who were then in the country at that point in time. Let me read some quotes for what was done in 1986. Here are quotes in the Congressional Record. Quote: The guts of immigration reform are here. All of it. Employer sanctions, increased enforcement, worker authorization system, verification systems, and legalization is [all] there. . . . That is what was promised 20 years ago. One Senator said: This bill also . . . should help the Immigration and Naturalization Service to increase Border Patrol personnel by 50 percent. Border enforcement, employer sanctions--well, they said: We are going to ramp up border security, provide employer sanctions, so you don't have the lure of a job and, therefore, we, at the same time, will provide amnesty--this is 1986--to about 1 million illegal immigrants. When amnesty was in fact granted following that, it turns out there were 3 million or so. Everyone was pretty stunned to learn there was so little control over the borders then. But now, today--fast-forward 20 years--we have a bill on the floor of the Senate that promises almost exactly the same thing: tougher border enforcement, employer sanctions, guest workers, temporary workers--except now, 20 years later, after we solved the problem 20 years ago, we have 12 million--it is estimated 12 million--people who came here without legal authorization. We do not know that for sure. We think it is somewhere around 12 million people. So we have ``comprehensive immigration reform.'' Well, let me go back for a moment and show you that this issue of border enforcement and employer sanctions is all a matter of enforcement and will. I have just taken the period from 1999 to 2004. The current administration, as you can see, has had almost no worksite enforcement. In fact, in 2004 there were three cases in the entire Nation brought against employers who hired illegal aliens. Think of that. In the year 2000 there were 213 cases out of all of this country; out of the millions and millions of employers in this country, there were 213 cases. In 2004, it dropped to three, which meant there was no enforcement at all--no will, no interest, nothing. Is it surprising, then, that the employers in this country would decide: Why don't I just risk it, just hire illegal aliens because nobody is checking? Here on this chart are the fines that have been levied with respect to employer sanctions. As you can see, $118,000 for the entire country. You can see what has happened under this administration. They apparently decided: We are not going to enforce this at all. The result is a dramatic increase across the border of illegal immigrants. Now, I know some do not like the term, and I do not mean the term as a pejorative term, but it is what it is. We have immigrants who come into this country--some legally and some illegally. That is just a fact. So there has been virtually no enforcement by this administration or really any administration, although the previous administration did much better. But now we are told this new plan has an ability to solve this problem. We are going to have employer sanctions, we are going to have border enforcement--sound familiar? Yes, it was 20 years ago that was promised--and we are going to have temporary workers. They now call them guest workers, but they are temporary workers. Last week I was interested that some of my colleagues, when they defeated an amendment I had by a one-vote margin--an amendment I had that would deal with the temporary worker issue. First, I wanted to abolish it. That lost by a broader margin. Then I wanted to at least subset it, and that lost by one vote. Incidentally, there was a lot of arm twisting to get that vote. I have not seen any casts or anything on arms, but I know there was a lot of arm twisting. We were told during the debate on the guest worker provision the following: The manager of the bill and the manager on the minority side said the same thing. They said: Look, if you do not have a temporary worker provision to allow those who are not now in this country--even as we legalize 12 million who are here with a work permit immediately-- if you do not allow millions more to come in--600,000 a year; now 200,000 a year--if you do not allow additional people to come into this country, they will come anyway. They will come as illegals across the border. So I asked the question: Wait a second. You are saying we have to have a temporary worker program to bring people into this country who are not now here and declare them legal to take American jobs because if we don't have a temporary worker program, they will come anyway? I thought you said you had border enforcement. What you appear to be saying is, you do not have border enforcement, so for those who would come illegally, let's just see if we can label them as legal under temporary workers. You cannot have it both ways. There either is border enforcement or there is not. You cannot say to me we must put in a temporary worker program because if it is not there we will have illegal immigration, and then in the next breath--while thumbing your suspenders--say, and by the way, we really have effective border control. If you have effective border control, why then would you have illegal immigration that necessitates you to say there are millions who live outside this country who now must be allowed in? That is on top of the 12 million people who, under this underlying bill, will be declared legal, to have legal status. Anyone who came across by December 31 of last year--across an ocean or across a river or across any border--anyone who entered this country by December 31 of last year would be told: You now have legal status in this country and will be able to work. My colleague, a while ago, asked a very important question: What about the people in other parts of the world who thought this was all on the level and there was an immigration system and they applied through the quota system and have waited now 8 years to see if they would be allowed to come to this country and they are near the top of the list, but now they discover something that makes them feel as if they made a big mistake? What they discovered is, while they waited all of those years to get toward the top of the list under the legal immigration system we have, with the quotas we have, they should have snuck across the border on December 31 because those who did will have been declared, by this piece of legislation, as legal. And those who went through the process and have waited years--7 years, 8 years--and are near the top of the list are told: You are just out of luck. That does not make any sense to me. It just does not make any sense. Let me describe some quotes from the week before last. . . . this legislation has tough border security and tough interior enforcement provisions. Even if you have a secure border--we are hopeful of having secure borders--it won't stop illegal immigration. That is from a Senator on the floor of the Senate 2 weeks ago in support of this bill. The fact of the matter is, some workers will come here illegally, or legally, one way or the other they come in. That is where the temporary worker program comes in . . . if we eliminate this program, you will have those individuals that will crawl across the desert . . . or you can say, come through the front door and you will be given the opportunity to work. . . . That is unbelievable. This is from the architects of the proposal before the Senate who come here boasting it has real security on America's borders, and then say: By the way, if we do not allow--in addition to legalizing 12 million people who came here illegally--a substantial additional number of people who do not now live here to come and take American jobs, they will come anyway because they will come as illegal immigrants--which suggests to me, at least, there is not meaningful border protection or border security in this legislation. Let me describe for a moment the guest worker provision. These are temporary workers--I do not know why you call them guests--but these are temporary workers who would come in and take jobs at the low end of the economic scale and, by and large, put downward pressure on income for American workers. But here is how it would work. It seems to me, you could not sit down and think of what kind of an approach we could use to put together a guest worker provision and come up with this sort of Rube Goldberg scheme. There is just no way you could possibly put this together and believe it to be serious. Here is what they say. In the case of the original proposal, which was 600,000 a year, and now it is going to be 200,000 a year, it will amount to 1.2 million over the first 10 years, and here is what they say: You can come for the first 2 years; you can bring your family if you come for the first 2 years. Then you have to go home for a year and take your family with you, then come back for 2 more years. Then you leave again. If you never brought your family to begin with, you can then come back for 2 more years. So you can be here for a total of 6 years and you can only have your family here for 2 years and you all have to leave this country twice. That is unbelievable. Who on Earth can sit in a room and construct that sort of nonsense? Aside from the fact that we shouldn't have that provision in the bill, we are told, this is the way it will work. How many believe you will have 1,200,000 people come for 2 years, with their families, if they wish, and then all of them will go home? Let's assume they all went home, they get to go home for a year and come back for 2 years and then again go home for a year and then come back for 2 years, how many of you believe they are all going to leave? They are not. Let me emphasize that the guest worker program has nothing to do with agricultural work. These are nonagricultural workers. These will be in manufacturing and in other areas. Also, the guest worker program applies in sectors of our economy where the vast majority of the jobs are done by U.S. citizens. That is a fact. They say this is necessary because you can't find U.S. workers to take these jobs. That is not the case. These jobs are not picking strawberries. Those jobs are in the agricultural worker provisions. But these temporary workers are in construction, manufacturing, transportation, all of which have a wide majority of U.S. workers--80, 90 percent of the workers are U.S. workers. So don't tell me you can't find U.S. workers to fill these jobs. In all of these cases-- construction, transportation, manufacturing--80 to 90 percent of them are already U.S. workers. What does immigration do to American workers? One of the points I have made is this is a way of putting downward pressure on wages in our country. This is from Professor George Borjas, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He says, on average, the impact of 1980 through 2000 immigration on U.S. wages, on average, it has reduced wages by about 3.7 percent. I don't think there is much question that if you bring in a lot of people through the back door to compete for low-wage jobs, you are going to put downward pressure on wages. That is a fact. Here is an example of my concern and one of the things that persuades me we ought to do better. Hurricane Katrina hit on the gulf coast and we had a lot of cleanup to do. When Hurricane Katrina devastated that gulf coast, FEMA and others began to let contracts to try to see how we could create this cleanup, and here is what happened October 22, 2005: Sam Smith was an electrician. He lost his house. He lost a lot during the hurricane. His house was in the ninth ward. It was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He was an electrician, age 55, who returned to the city for the cleanup, the promise of a $22-an-hour wage, and guaranteed work for 1 year, a qualified electrician. He lost his job within 3 weeks--within 3 weeks. Let me show you why these folks--Sam Smith lost his house, lost his job, and here is who the subcontractor brings in. Take a look at the barracks: Illegal workers brought in living in these squalid conditions. Can you get them to work for less? Sure, you can. Is it the right thing to do? No, of course, it is not because an American worker who lost his house and then lost his job--Sam Smith--deserves better. But that is a small example of what we face with respect to the downward pressure on income for those who work at the bottom of the economic ladder. Now, the Wall Street Journal ran a very interesting story in January of this year. It showed that in an area where there is a sudden drop in the availability of illegal immigrants, the wages for U.S. workers then rise. There was a series of raids by Federal immigration agents in Stillmore, GA, and this is again quoting from the Wall Street Journal: A local poultry processing company called Crider Inc. lost 75 percent of its 900 member work force when they were found to be illegal aliens-- Illegal workers. The company apparently, according to the story, had a pretty good idea that a good number of its workers had been illegal. One worker-- It says in the story-- arrived at the plant in 2004. As she filled out an application, she tried to use the Social Security number, a tax payer identification number that started with the numeral 9. The company clerk stopped her and said valid Social Security numbers never begin with a 9. The clerk kept saying: Maybe you want to put down a 4 or a 6. So the illegal immigrant wrote down a 6, and of course the application was accepted. After the raid, almost 75 percent of the workers were determined to have been illegal immigrants and the company decided it needed to find workers, so they decided to raise wages. An advertisement in the weekly newspaper titled ``Increased Wages'' at Crider, starting at $7 to $9 an hour. That was more than a dollar an hour above what the company had paid many immigrant workers. It began offering free transportation from nearby towns, free rooms in company-owned dormitories near the plant, and for the first time in years, the company aggressively sought workers from the area State-funded employment office, which is a key avenue for low-skilled workers to find jobs. Continuing again to describe the Wall Street Journal article, it said: Hundreds of local workers, many of them minorities, accepted the higher wages and were happy to take these jobs. Pretty soon this Georgia company was apparently hiring back some additional illegal immigrant workers who had been previously caught up in the raid. They turned to a ``temporary labor provider'' who began to provide the company with the same illegal immigrant workers who had been caught in the first raid. So the immigration officials conducted a second raid and the company then finally agreed to stop working with temporary labor. The point of this story is very simple: If you have substantial amounts of illegal immigrant labor coming in, it puts downward pressure on wages. Eliminate that illegal labor from the marketplace, and what happens is you raise wages at the bottom of the economic ladder. Robert Samuelson wrote an editorial in the Washington Post some while ago. He said: It is simply a myth that the U.S. economy needs more poor immigrants. He pointed out that in March the unemployment rate for college graduates in this country was 1.8 percent. The unemployment rate for the 13 million U.S. workers without a high school diploma is over 7 percent. Those 13 million U.S. workers without a high school diploma compete directly with the immigrant workers who come here illegally and who do not have a high school diploma. That is what puts downward pressure on wages in this country. This is, as I indicated earlier, a very difficult issue, filled with passion, and I understand that. I think there are a lot of immigrant families living in this country, perhaps many who came here without legal authorization, and many came here 5 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. They have lived model lives. They have gone to school here. They have gotten jobs. I understand all that. I think we should deal with that in a sensitive way. There are many who should not be expelled from this country. We are not going to round up 12 million people and deport them. We are not going to do that. So we need to find a way to deal appropriately with these issues. But that appropriate way does not say anyone who came across illegally into this country on December 31 of last year is deemed to have come here legally. That is not the right approach. You can't do that. Second, you should not be oblivious to the needs in this country of the low-income workers. We have a whole lot of people today who got up this morning who are going to work hard all day long and come home with very little to show for it, in many cases two and three jobs. You know the people. They are the ones who know about being second. The people who know about secondhand, second mortgage, second job, second shift. They are always in second place. They are the ones who have the least opportunity in this country to get a decent wage because their productivity goes up and their wage does not. As long as there are employers who are able to bring in across the border--a border that leaks like a sieve when it comes to illegal immigrants--as long as there are employers who are willing to put downward pressure on income for American workers, we are going to see people at the bottom of the economic ladder in this country continuing to struggle. That is a fact. The question is: Are we going to do something about it? When we deal with immigration, we ought to do 2 things. First and foremost, we ought to have a bill on the floor of the Senate that deals with border security. You can't deal with this issue without stopping illegal immigration. After all, we allow nearly a couple million people in this country every single year under a legal system. But if you don't stop at the border this unbelievable avalanche of illegal immigrants, you don't have any hope of dealing with this issue. First and foremost, you have to deal with border security. That ought to be the bill on the floor of the Senate. Then, after we have dealt with border security, we ought to deal with the question of the 12 million people who are here without legal authorization. I would be the first to join those who say let's be sensitive and let's be thoughtful about that. We are not going to round up 12 million people. There are some who have been here a long while and raised families here who have contributed to this country and we need to understand that. That is a different issue than the issue of border security. If we don't do border security and do it right, this is another way to say: Let's provide amnesty this time for 12 million people; we did it for 3 million people 12 years ago. By the way, let's meet again. In fact, let's set a date right now. We will meet again in 10 years, if, in fact, those who wrote this bill were telling me what they believe 2 weeks ago and that is if you don't have a temporary worker program, you are going to have people come here illegally anyway. What that means is they don't have real border security or the least bit of confidence in the border security and their bill. That is a fact. There is a generous amount of discussion on the floor of this Senate about issues that are completely devoid of the well-being and the best interests of people in this country who work very hard and show very little for it. I would love to see a long discussion on the floor of this Senate about international trade and the $830 billion trade deficit, and American companies being given a tax break by this Congress and previous Congresses, American companies who shut their manufacturing plant, fire all their workers, and ship their jobs to Chinese or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka or Indonesia. They actually get a tax break for doing it. I have tried four times to shut it down. I have been unsuccessful. I would love to have a debate about that. In fact, it is the same coin, just the reverse side. Shipping American jobs overseas is the reverse side of the coin of bringing cheap labor through the back door. That is a fact. I understand where the impulse comes from. It comes from many large enterprises, many big businesses who have convinced this Congress--or too many in this Congress--that you can't fill jobs with Americans, you have to bring in people from across the border or from around the world. There aren't enough Americans to assume these jobs. I don't believe that. I believe as long as you keep a constant supply of cheap labor coming into this country, you keep downward pressure on wages, and the person across the convenience store counter, the person who made the bed in your hotel room where you stayed last night, the person who works in all of those jobs at the lower end of the economic ladder, they will never, ever see a better income. It took us nearly 10 years to pass an increase in the minimum wage in this Congress. One of the reasons for that is the same influence in this Chamber that exists in support of this bill. The biggest businesses in this country didn't want an increase in the minimum wage and they blocked it for nearly 10 years. The biggest interests in this country that want to shift jobs overseas, want to continue to bring cheap labor through the back door, and that is the genesis of this kind of legislation. I am not averse to resolving the status of the 12 million who are here without legal authorization, but I wouldn't do it this way. I certainly wouldn't point to December 31 and say: By the way, if you got here last December 31, good for you, we declare you to be legal. That is a thoughtless approach, not a thoughtful approach, to dealing with these issues. Mr. President, one final point: It is the case that I come to the floor of the Senate on this issue concerned about a lot of people in this country who work hard and get little for it. We have seen a dramatic increase in the largesse of this country going to the top 1 percent of the income in this country--the top 1 percent, I should say, of the people who earn income in this country have seen dramatic increases in their income. Yet the bottom 20, bottom 40 percent, in many cases, have seen that they have not been able to increase their income at all. I think an aggressive debate about how we improve the lot of all Americans would be helpful. But we don't improve the lot of Americans who have done the work they wanted to do, to go find a job and get educated, we don't do their bidding and help them by deciding we are going to keep downward pressure on their wages. This is exactly the wrong approach. I know the Chair and the ranking member are here. They wish to get to the bill. I know there will be many amendments this week. Let me say this. I would be very interested in voting for a piece of legislation that I thought was on the level, that will provide real border security. That is the first and most important need in dealing with immigration. But 2 weeks ago, the very people who wrote this bill said if we don't have temporary workers coming in under the temporary worker program, they will come in illegally anyway. I think that unmasks the fallacy of this bill. There is not border protection here that will work. There has not been a will to enforce it in the past. This legislation will continue to put downward pressure on the income for American workers. That is exactly the wrong thing for us to do. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I voted in favor of the Vitter amendment yesterday because I do not support a plan that tells those who came to this country illegally up until December 31 of last year that they are excused and now have legal status. I think that is a mistake. But I do want to state clearly that there are a fair number of those 12 million people who came in here without legal authorization whose status must be resolved in a sensitive way. I am talking about those who have been here for decades, who have raised families, worked hard, and been model citizens. I believe we should adjust their status and give them an opportunity to earn citizenship. That same right, however, should not apply to someone who just last December decided that they were going to sneak into this country illegally. My understanding is that we will have additional amendments that will be sensitive to the need to distinguish that difference and I intend to support the amendments that will provide the sensitivity to those immigrants who have been here leading productive lives for a long period of time.

Mr. DORGAN

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

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

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this amendment is relatively simple. It is an amendment that would sunset the so-called guest worker or temporary worker provision. As my colleagues know, I was on the floor the day before yesterday attempting to abolish the temporary or guest worker provision. I failed to do that. We had a vote and, regrettably, in the Senate they count the votes, and when they counted those votes, I was on the short end. I have felt very strongly about this issue, and I wish to describe why. But having lost that vote, what I next propose is that we sunset the temporary or guest worker provision. Let me describe that even if we were not on the floor of the Senate talking about immigration today, we have a great deal of legal immigration in this country. We have a system by which there is a quota where we allow in people from other countries to become citizens of our country, to have a green card, to work, and then work toward citizenship. Let me describe that even if we were not here with an immigration proposal, here is who would be coming to our country. The 2006 numbers, I believe, are: 1.2 million people--1,266,000 people--last year came to this country legally; 117,000 of them came from Africa; 422,000 came from Asia; 164,000 came from Europe; 414,000 came from various locations in North America, including the Caribbean, Central America, and other portions of North America; 138,000 came from South America. Let me reiterate, the cumulation is 1.2 million people that came to this country legally, and received green cards last year. So it is not as if there is not immigration--legal immigration. We have a process by which we allow that to happen. There are people, even as I speak this morning, who are in Africa or Europe or Asia or South America or Central America, and they have wanted to come to this country, and they have made application. They have waited 5 years, 7 years, 10 years, and perhaps they have risen to the top of the list or close to the top of the list to--under the legal process for coming to this country--be able to gain access to this country. Then, they read we have a new proposal on immigration. No, it is not that immigration quota where you apply and you wait over a long period of time. It is that if you came into this country by December 31 of last year--snuck in, walked in, flew in--illegally, we, with this legislation, deem you to be here legally. We say: Yes, you came here illegally. You were among 12 million of them who came here illegally-- some of them walking across, I assume, on December 31, who crossed the southern border--and this legislation says: Oh, by the way, that does not matter. What we are going to do is describe you as being here legally, and we are going to give you a permit to go to work. What does that say to people in Africa or Asia or Europe who have been waiting because they filed, they believed this was all on the level, there is a process by which you come to this country legally--it is quota--and they decided to go through that process? What does it say to them that now we have said: Do you know what. You would have been better off sneaking across the border on December 31 of last year because, with a magic wand, this legislation would say you are perfectly legal. In addition to the 1.2 million people who came here legally, under this bill there would be another 1.5 million people coming to do agricultural jobs. There are also 12 million people who have come here illegally. Let me say quickly I understand there will be some of them who have been here 10 years, 20 years, and more, who came here--they didn't come legally, I understand that--but they have been here for two or three decades. They have raised their families here, they have been model citizens, they have worked. I understand we are not going to round them up and ship them out of this country. I understand that. There needs to be a sensitive, thoughtful way to address the status of those who have been here for a long period of time and who have been model citizens. This is different than deciding that those who walked across the border on December 31 of last year are going to be deemed legal. That is very different. But in addition to those questions about the legal status of 12 million people who came here without legal authorization, the other question is: Should we decide to bring additional people into this country who aren't now here to take American jobs under a provision called the guest worker or temporary worker provision? Now, you don't have to read many newspapers in the morning to see the next story about the company that closed its plant, fired its workers, and moved its jobs to China. You don't have to spend a lot of time looking for stories such as that. They are all around us, American companies exporting American jobs in search of cheap labor in China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and at exactly the same time, we see all of these stories about exporting American jobs. We now see the urgings of the biggest enterprises in this country, many of which do export these jobs in search of cheap labor. We see their urgings to allow them to bring in additional cheap labor from outside of this country into this country to assume jobs American workers now have. They say these workers are necessary because they can't find American workers to do those jobs. That is not true. They don't want to pay a decent wage for those jobs. The people across the counter at the convenience store, the people who make the beds in the morning at the hotels, if they paid a decent wage, they will get workers, but they don't want to have to do that. What they want to do is bring in cheap labor, and that is why we have a guest or a temporary worker provision. I talked yesterday on the floor of the Senate about Circuit City, the story which reinforces all of this for me. Circuit City, a corporation all of us know, announced they have decided to fire 3,400 workers. The CEO of Circuit City, it says in the newspaper, makes $10 million a year. They announced they are going to fire 3,400 workers at Circuit City because they make $11 an hour and that is too much to pay a worker. They want to fire their workers and hire less experienced workers at a lower wage. This pernicious downward pressure on income in this country--fewer benefits, less retirement, less health care, lower income--is, in my judgment, initiated by the export of American jobs for low wages and the import of cheap labor for low wages, all of it coming together to say to the American worker: It is a different day for you and a different time for you. Don't expect the kind of wages you used to have. There is downward pressure on all of those wages, and that is part and parcel of what this proposal is: temporary guest workers. Let me show you a graph I put up the other day, and this is a graph that has 200,000 temporary workers, because the proposal I tried to completely abolish was bringing in 400,000 temporary workers a year. That was cut by the Bingaman amendment to 200,000 a year. Let me describe how it works, because I am anxious to put a tape recorder on somebody and go listen to how they describe this at a town meeting, if they decide to vote for this. Two hundred thousand foreign workers can come in as temporary or guest workers for 2 years. So these 200,000 come in for 2 years; then the second year another 200,000 can come in, so you have 400,000 the second year, but the 200,000 who come in can come in for 2 years, and they can bring their family if they wish. Then they have to go home for a year and take their family with them, and then they can come back for 2 more years. Or, they can come in for 2 years, not bring their family, go home for a year, and bring their family for another two years. Or, they can decide to come in for 2 years without a family, 2 years without a family, 2 years without a family, as long as they stay 1 year between each of the 2-year periods; as long as they stay 1 year outside of this country between those periods. It is the most Byzantine thing I have seen. Now, what are the consequences of it? The consequences are this: This is cumulative, so what we have are these blocks of 200,000 workers who come and go, come and go. They stay 2 years, leave a year, bring their family, maybe don't bring their family. It is unbelievable. We are not talking about a few million people here. Add all these family members to these 200,000 workers who come for 2 years with their families and ask yourselves: What kind of immigration is this? By the way, where will they get jobs when they come to this country? We already have an agricultural provision that is in this legislation, so these are not farm workers. We are not talking about people who come and pick strawberries here. We are talking about people who will assume jobs--we are told--in manufacturing. Why? Because we don't have enough American workers in manufacturing? Are you kidding me? I have described at length on the floor of the Senate the people who lost their jobs because their manufacturing jobs went to China for 20 cents an hour labor, 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. They want to know where to get people to work in manufacturing? Go find the people who were laid off--thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions laid off--because their company decided they were going to make their products in China. If they need hints, go back and read my previous speeches on the floor of the Senate. Fruit of the Loom underwear, a lot of folks worked there; not anymore. Levi's, not any more. Huffy Bicycles, no more. Radio Flyer, Little Red Wagon, no more. Fig Newton Cookies, no. All of those folks worked for all of those companies. Pennsylvania House Furniture. My colleague from Pennsylvania is on the floor. Pennsylvania House Furniture is a great example of what has been happening, if you want to find some great workers, some real craftsmen. I know I have told this story before, and I will tell it again, because it is so important and so emblematic of what is going on. Not many people know it, but Pennsylvania House Furniture, which is fine furniture--those folks in Pennsylvania who use Pennsylvania wood and were craftsmen to put together upper-end furniture, they all got fired because La-Z-Boy bought them and they decided they wanted to move Pennsylvania House Furniture to China, and they did. Now they ship the Pennsylvania wood to China, make the furniture and sell it back here as Pennsylvania furniture. But on the last day of work with the last piece of furniture these Pennsylvania House Furniture craftsmen produced--not many people know that they turned the last piece of furniture upside down, and as it came off the line, all of these craftsmen who for years have made some of the finest furniture in this country, decided to sign the bottom of that piece of furniture. Somebody in this country has a piece of furniture and they don't know it has the signatures of all the craftsmen at Pennsylvania House Furniture on the bottom of their piece of furniture. Do you know why they signed it? Because they understood how good they were. They didn't lose their jobs to China because they didn't do good work. They were wonderful craftsmen and they were proud of their work and they wanted to sign that piece of furniture. Somebody has that piece of furniture today, but none of those craftsmen have a job today. If somebody is looking for a manufacturing worker, I can steer them in the right direction. We have plenty of people in this country who need these jobs. We are told two things that are contradictory. We are told there is bona fide border security in this bill. I happen to think the way you deal with immigration, first and foremost, is to provide border security. If you don't have border security, you don't have immigration reform because all you will do is nick at the edges and continue to have a stream of illegal workers flowing into this country. So the first and most important step is to provide border security. I was here in 1986, and I heard the promises of border security, but in fact, there wasn't border security. Employer sanctions. In fact, there were not employer sanctions that were enforced. No enforcement on the border of any consequence; no enforcement with respect to employer sanctions. We are told a guest worker provision is necessary because we cannot provide border security. Several of those who have been involved with this compromise have said: Workers will come here illegally or legally; one way or another, they are going to come in. My colleague has a couple of times pointed to the Governor of Arizona--and I suspect she did say this; I don't contest that--the Governor of Arizona, Governor Napolitano, says: You know, if you build a 50-foot-high fence, those who want to come in will get a 51-foot ladder. Well, if that is the case, if Governor Napolitano is correct, then I guess we are not going to have border security unless we cut the legs off 51-foot-ladders. The implication of that is: Illegal immigration is going to occur, like it or not. Therefore, let's have a temporary worker program, which means we will describe as legal those who come in illegally. That is the point. I mean, I don't understand this; I just don't. So I lose the amendment fair and square to try to strike that temporary worker provision. I understand where the votes were on it. But I come to the floor suggesting let's do one additional thing. Let's at least sunset this provision. Here is what will happen for 10 years under the temporary worker provision. This chart shows 10 years, 200,000 in the first year, 200,000 the second year. That first group of 200,000 will be on their second year, so as those 200,000 continue their work the second year, another 200,000 will join them, and then by the fourth year, we have 600,000. By the fifth year, we have 800,000. My proposition is this: Why don't we decide to sunset this at the end of 5 years and take a look at it and see. We have plenty of experience with claims that have never borne fruit here on the floor of the Senate. Why don't we take a look at 5 years and see where the claims were made for the temporary worker provisions. Were they claims that turned out to have been accurate or not? Now, my understanding is--and I was looking for a statement in the press that was reporting on a colleague who was part of the compromise, if I can find it. Let me read from Congress Daily, Wednesday, May 23, which would have been yesterday. One change that might win over some would be a sunset provision which Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat, North Dakota, said he wanted to offer after his proposal to eliminate the guest worker program failed. Continuing to quote: Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, who helped negotiate the compromise immigration bill, said today he would not consider the sunset proposal a deal breaker. I am quoting now Senator Martinez from Congress Daily: Labor conditions might change, Martinez said. I don't see why in five years we shouldn't revisit what we have done. Martinez is among a group of roughly a dozen Senators dubbed the ``grand bargainers,'' who have agreed to vote as a block to stop any amendments they believe would unravel the fragile immigration compromise on the Senate floor. So at least one of the grand bargainers, Senator Martinez, has told Congress Daily that the amendment I offer is not a deal breaker. He says: I think it is perfectly reasonable. Again quoting him: I don't see why in five years we should not revisit what we have done. So I would say to my colleagues, at least one of the ``grand bargainers,'' so described by Congress Daily, has said the amendment that I offer with Senator Boxer and Senator Durbin to provide a sunset after 5 years to the temporary or guest worker provision would not be a deal breaker. We have passed a lot of legislation in the Congress that represents important policy choices and a number of those pieces of legislation have sunset provisions. The farm bill. The farm bill has sunset provisions in it. The Energy bill, the bankruptcy reform bill, the intelligence reform bill, all have sunset provisions. The purpose: Let's find out what happened and then determine what we do next. A sunset clause doesn't mean a piece of legislation will not get reauthorized. It might. If all of the claims that buttress the original passage turn out to be accurate, then you might well want to reauthorize it. But with other pieces of legislation, we have sunsetted key provisions. Why wouldn't we want to do the same with respect to temporary workers, which will open the gate and say come into this country. This immigration bill that we have, with 12 million people being deemed legal, who came without legal authorization, that is not enough. We need more. I know we had discussion yesterday about chicken pluckers on the floor of the Senate. How much money will chicken pluckers make? Well, I will tell you one thing about chicken pluckers and those who do that kind of work. They are never going to make the money they used to make because of downward pressure on wages. That downward pressure in that sector comes directly from a massive quantity of cheap labor that has come into this country. That may be all right if you are not plucking chickens. If you are working in one of those plants and you see what happened to wage standards and wage rates, it is very hard to say we are making progress on behalf of the American worker. We are not. That is what brings me to the floor of the Senate. I regret that I disagree with some very good friends in the Congress on these issues. But the fact is that this is very important public policy. This public policy and things that attend to it and relate to it determine what kind of jobs we are going to have in the future, what kind of economic expansion we will have, and what can the middle-income families expect for themselves and their kids and their lives. I am not going to speak much longer, but I wish to say this. I remind all my colleagues where we have been. Almost a century ago, there was a man who was killed. I wrote about him and said he died of lead poisoning. He actually was shot 54 times--James Fyler. The reason he was shot 54 times almost a century ago is he was one of these people who decided to fight for workers' rights in this country. He believed that people who were coal miners and went into a coal mine ought to be able to expect, one, a fair wage; two, they ought to expect to be able to work in a safe workplace; they ought to have the right to organize and fight for those things. For that, he was shot 54 times. For over a century, beginning with that, we dramatically, and through great difficulty, improved standards in this country. We demanded safe workplaces, fair labor standards, and all these things that would raise people up. We expended the middle class and created a country that is extraordinary, a middle class in which they could find good jobs that paid well and had decent fringe benefits. They negotiated for decent health care and retirement benefits. We did something extraordinary in this country. That didn't happen by accident. At this point, all around the country, with middle-income workers, they see a retraction of those things, a downward pressure on their income, much less job security, and too many workers being treated akin to wrenches--use them up and throw them away. If you pay $11 an hour, that is too much. You find workers for $8 an hour, with no experience. Terrific. Or you can pay 30 cents an hour in China; that is even better. You may say, what does that have to do with this bill? A lot, in my judgment. That is what pushes me to come to the floor on these amendments--not because I wish to hear myself talk or because I wish to take on friends but because I think the direction we are headed in is wrong. Yes, we have an immigration problem. I accept that and I understand that. I believe the first step to resolving it is border security because, otherwise, 10 or 15 years from now, we will be back with another immigration problem, and we will understand there was not border security. Those who tell us there is border security are the same ones who tell us, as Janet Napolitano says, that if we build a 50- foot fence, they will get a 51-foot ladder. You can't stop it, so declare it legal. Illegal immigration is going to occur, like it or not; therefore, let's have a temporary worker program. I disagree with that. The fact is, I don't know all the nuances of what happened this week. I know this: The price for the support of the national Chamber of Commerce in the last bill brought to the Senate--the price for the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was to allow them to bring in this cheap labor in the form of guest or temporary workers. I didn't support it then; I don't support it now. We have 1.2 million people who came in legally last year. I support that process. That is a quota system. The process works. We refresh and nurture this country with immigrants. So 1.2 million were allowed in under the legal immigration system last year. That doesn't count the agricultural workers who would come in under the AgJobs program in this bill. That is another 1 million-plus people. I also understand the urging and the interest to try to be sensitive in resolving the status of people who have been here a long time. Yes, they came without legal authorization, but they have been model citizens. They have lived up the block, down the street, and on the farm, and they have been among us and raised their families and gone to school; they have good jobs. Should we resolve their status with some sensitivity? Of course, I fully support that. But you do not resolve that, in my judgment, by pointing to December 31 of last year and saying, by the way, anybody who came across December 31 of last year and prior to that is considered to have legal status in our country. That is the wrong way to resolve it. Let me do two things. Let me urge my colleagues to support a 5-year sunset on this legislation. Let me say a second time to those with whom I disagree, I respect their views. I disagree strongly with them. I mean no disrespect on the floor of the Senate about the views they hold. They perhaps hold them as strongly as I hold my views. I believe in my heart, when you look at people who got up this morning and got dressed and went to work, many of whom packed a lunch bucket, they came home and took a shower after work because they work hard and sweat, those people want something better for their lives in this country. They want the ability to get ahead and to get a decent wage for their work. Regrettably, all too often, that is being denied them by a strategy that says this country values cheap labor. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, of course I will yield.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Prior to my vote.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague from Arizona used the dreaded words ``killer amendment.'' It is like killer bees and killer whales. On the Senate floor, it is ``killer amendment.'' Pass this amendment, and we will kill the bill, we are told. I said yesterday that it is like the loose thread on a cheap sweater: You pull the thread, and the arm falls off or, God forbid, the whole thing comes apart. It is not just this bill. This happens every single time a group of people bring a bill to the floor of the Senate. If you amend it, if you change our work, then somehow you kill what we have done. Of course, that is not the case at all. Let me talk about a couple of the items that have been raised. Worker protection. The workers in New Bedford, MA. Let me describe to you a worker in the Gulf of Mexico just after Hurricane Katrina hit. His name is Sam Smith. Sam Smith was an electrician. Just after Katrina hit, he knew there was going to be a lot of reconstruction work. Sam Smith was a skilled craftsman, an electrician. He was told by an employer that he could come back and take a $22 an hour job--$22 an hour--for work as an electrician. The job would last 1 year. It only lasted a couple weeks. I don't have the picture to show you, but I have had it here on the floor before to show what Sam Smith faced, and it was a picture very similar to New Bedford, MA. Those who came into this country, presumably illegally, living in squalid conditions, being given very low wages to take the work Sam Smith was promised. What is the solution? Well, the fact is, in New Bedford, MA, and in this case, the employer is guilty, in my judgment, of mistreating its workers. We have worker protection laws in this country. We have worker protections. If an employer abuses them in New Bedford, MA, or New Orleans, LA, that employer is responsible. Law enforcement is responsible to investigate and prosecute. That is not what this bill is about. My colleague says, well, the way to resolve the situation in New Bedford, MA, is to make the illegal immigrants working there legal. Just describe them as legal. Would that be the way you would handle it in New Orleans, LA, to say, well, the people who came in to take Sam's job should be deemed legal? I don't think so. Why not punish the employer for abusing the rights of these immigrant workers and why not restore those jobs to those who were the victims of the hurricane in the first place? Is the principle here that we describe the problem as mistreatment of workers who are illegal immigrants, and therefore what we will do is deem them legal to hold those jobs and therefore expect some other kind of behavior by the employer? I don't think so. So that is a specious argument, frankly. We have worker protection laws. They ought to be enforced. If they are not enforced, there is something wrong with the system. Now, one of my colleagues says there is no doubt that we need additional workers. Oh yes, there is doubt--probably not in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. There is no doubt they want additional cheap labor. But there is plenty of doubt. My colleague says there is an economist from Harvard who says this raises the GDP, this bringing in of immigrant labor, presumably illegal labor, determining that they are then legal once they have come across illegally. It raises the GDP. Well, you can get a Harvard economist to say anything you want. We all know that. Let me describe my Harvard economist--my Harvard economist, Professor George Borjas. Here is what he says. The impact of immigration between 1980 and 2000 on U.S. wages is lower wages in this country, and he describes which ethnic group is hurt the worst. Hispanics are hurt the worst and Blacks next. My colleague says that his Harvard economist states that one of the benefits of bringing in this additional labor from outside of our country is lower costs. Well, in my hometown, I understand what lower costs means. It means they are going to pay less to the people making it. That is called lower wages. And that is exactly what my Harvard professor says is the case.

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

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

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