Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I think the issue here is fairly simple. We have had rules under which people have guided their lives as it relates to the status of sponsors and legal immigrants, people who are in this country [[Page S 13609]] playing by the rules, trying to prepare themselves to become self- sufficient, contributing Americans. They are doing the heinous thing to continue their education: They are attending a vocational school; they are attending a community college. I think that is an activity that we should not say is just a matter of some interest group. Would you say the GI bill was just an interest group of a few college and university administrators? Of course not. It was a great program, it is a great program that has benefited this country manyfold. That is what the issue is in this amendment. I believe that we ought to say to these people, as part of their learning about America, that we play by the rules that were established when the game started. For you, we are going to complete the rules. If you want to change the rules for those in the future, that is perfectly permissible. I believe we should adopt this amendment as both an immediate and long-term contribution to a better America. Thank you.

Mr. GRAHAM. Will the Senator from Wyoming yield?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I reserve my 1 minute 5 seconds.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, first, the question was asked do we have an offset? I answered we do not have an offset. We adopted other amendments here which create new entitlements, new benefits, new tax preferences without requiring an offset. This is the law today. What we are attempting to do is to retain the law today for those people who came here with the state of the law as it is. We are not trying to change the rules. We are trying to say, if these people came here with certain statements as to what their obligations would be, if the sponsor has entered into commitments with certain expectations as to what their obligations would be, we should keep those for those people who are in the country today. We are not proposing to make this an ongoing new standard. If you want to change the rules, we can change the rules and make it applicable to those who come after the rules are changed. Mr. President, this is not a particularly popular issue because, among other things, we are dealing with a small group of people. But we are dealing with people who embody what we as Americans most applaud-- people who desire freedom, independence, who want to be like us. People who are the target of this amendment are trying to improve themselves so they can be even better Americans. I think it is both shortsighted and unfair to change the rules on these people and deny them, among other things, the opportunity to get that education that is going to make them a more productive citizen. These people will repay in their lifetime much more than the $600 million that this amendment calls for to continue to do for the next 5 years for these people what we have provided for them in the past and what we have considered to be in America's best interest. It was then. It is now. And at least it will be for this current group of legal aliens who are in our country, particularly those who are utilizing the opportunities to extend their education. Let me yield to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, 20 minutes, equally divided.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President. amendment no. 2509

Mr. GRAHAM. I call up amendment 2509. [[Page S 13607]] Mr. President, this is another amendment that relates to the provisions in the bill having to do with that arcane subject of deeming. Deeming means that in calculating the financial status of an individual you deem to include in that individual's assets and income the assets and income of a third party. In this case, the individual who is affected is a person who----

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, under this amendment, we are focused on one group of people, a finite, fixed number of individuals. Those are individuals who are in the United States lawfully as of the enactment date of this legislation. This is not an open-ended number of people which could be augmented by persons coming legally to the United States in the future. What this amendment says is that for those people who are in the country legally today, legal aliens, they should be treated under the rules that exist today with one very major exception, and that is they would be treated in the legislation the majority leader would provide as it relates to supplemental Social Security income. We are dealing in this amendment with a finite group of people, those who came into this country legally, who are in the country today, and who came here under certain rules and expectations. Frankly, one of those rules was that for many of these people they had a sponsor who sponsored their entry into the United States. Sadly, the fact is that by court ruling the sponsorships of legal aliens are extremely difficult to enforce, difficult to enforce by public agencies, difficult to enforce by private parties including the legal alien him or herself. It seems to me extremely unfair, now that these people are in the country legally--and I underscore the word legally--to change the rules on them. It is particularly unfair for a specific group within this class that I would like to talk about, and that is those who have come here as relatively young people and are now enrolled in an educational program. The largest community college in the country is Miami Dade Community College located in Miami. That one institution has some 20,000 legal immigrants within its student body, and 8,000 of those individuals are estimated to be ruled ineligible for student financial aid if an amendment such as the one that I have offered were not to be adopted. Here are people trying to do exactly what the American dream is all about, to improve themselves by hard work, by education, by increasing their ability to contribute to the well-being of themselves, their families, their communities, and their Nation. With the failure to adopt this amendment, we would make it extremely difficult for many of these students to continue their education. This legislation has the strong support of the American Association of Community Colleges and a variety of other State and local service providers who understand the implications of changing the rules for people who are in this country legally at the time this legislation goes into effect. Mr. President, I appreciate your courtesy. I would like to yield time to actually the individual who was the original author of this legislation and who has been kind enough to allow me to join him in that effort, Senator Simon of Illinois. I wish to assure that Senator Simon is fully listed as a sponsor of this amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM. The estimate is that over the 5 years the total cost is $600 million.

Mr. GRAHAM. I yield time to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. GRAHAM. We do not have an offset.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for clarifying this issue for me.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President. The question is does the Chafee modification to the maintenance of effort mean that a State would have to continue to maintain its effort at 80 percent if the Federal share is reduced.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, to conclude, we are about to set up what I think is a very unsafe situation: The Government fails to carry out its constitutional responsibility, and for the people who are illegally in communities across America, we are saying the Federal Government is going to deny any benefits to those people, which means those communities already the most heavily impacted now, out of their resources, have to pick up those responsibilities. As a humanitarian society, we are still going to face providing health care, delivering babies to pregnant women, and the negative aspects of operating a criminal justice system and the other requirements when that illegal population acts in ways that are antithetical to the society in which they are living. Reserving the right to review the amendment in its final form, I raise for my colleagues the potential consequences of this amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask the manager for 1 additional minute.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the answer to that question allayed one of my principal concerns about this amendment, because in the original form, the form that was at the desk, there was no recognition of the children of persons who were in the country illegally in terms of their participation in elementary and secondary education. In fact, there was a provision which would have allowed the States to have terminated educational assistance to those children as well as the Federal Government terminating whatever assistance it provides. With that modification, I will reserve final judgment as to how I will vote on this amendment. But I would like to raise the fundamental issue, the Federal Government has the total constitutional responsibility for the enforcement of our borders, and for our immigration and naturalization law. It is written almost in those terms in article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. The States have no authority in either of those two areas. Second, when the Federal Government fails to carry out its responsibility and to enforce the borders, it is the States and the local communities who have the principal obligations and consequences of that failure. Third, those consequences are heavily focused in about six States. Six States have over 80 percent of those persons who are in the country illegally living within their borders. So, fourth, the consequence of this legislation is to say the Federal Government failed to carry out its exclusive constitutional responsibility: To protect the borders and enforce the immigration laws, allow large numbers----

Mr. GRAHAM. Could the Senator tell me where in the amendment that was mentioned?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would say to the Senator, I was particularly concerned about the issue of elementary and secondary education. The Senator stated that his amendment would not deny the child of a person who was in the country illegally access to elementary and secondary education?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would first, if I could, ask the Senator from Nebraska if he would yield for a question?

Mr. GRAHAM. Is there a policy reason why the State has a percent of a block grant as opposed to an absolute number?

Mr. GRAHAM. The principle? If the goal is to accomplish the objective, why could it not have been stated in an absolute amount as opposed to a percentage of a block grant, which is very different from State to State?

Mr. GRAHAM. Does that mean that, for instance in the District of Columbia, they would get 11 times as much actual money for the reduction of illegitimacy as would, for instance, the State of Mississippi, since they get 11 times as much block grant per poor child in the District of Columbia than in the State?

Mr. GRAHAM. The Senator from Kansas yields for a question? As I read the amendment that is in the bill, it provides a bonus of 5 percent of your State grant if you reduce illegitimacy by 1 percent, and 10 percent if you reduce it by 2 percent. Is that correct?

Mr. GRAHAM. Will the Senator from Kansas yield for a question?