Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are at the time where, in just a few minutes, we will be making a decision about expanding a provision of the immigration law that provides for temporary workers. This is a provision now that has been, by and large, used for workers 85 percent of whom make $75,000 or less. There is a small group of highly skilled, highly talented individuals who do a great deal better than that. They are really not an issue in this particular amendment, as far as I am concerned, because they only take a very small number of the green cards that will be issued. There is a substantive question about how much of a problem there is. Under the Abraham amendment, we will temporarily be opening up this quota in a very significant way. Tens of thousands of new immigrants will be coming to the United States. In our particular proposal, that was not so. Let me read two letters that indicate what the challenge is. One is from Sally Barnett. She is from Plano, TX: I just heard via the radio that several companies, including Texas Instruments, Microsoft, etc., wish to bring in immigrants to do high-tech engineering. I live in Dallas and have for 3 years. I graduated with a degree in mathematics and went back to school in the late 1980s and received my degree in computer programming. I have two positions in the field . . . I have applied all over Dallas but never get an interview. I have my resume on the Internet. I had a 4.0 average in my classes in the late 1980s . . . I do not even demand a high salary but I can't even get an interview for a job. This is a computer technician who is unable to get a job. I had scores of letters that I read from earlier in this debate. Jim Sizemore from Cupertino, CA, has a long letter: Do not increase the immigration quota for high-tech workers. This will force employers to act responsibly to get more from their high-tech talent . . . to invest in domestic training, to internally develop talent, and to take action to retain the talent they have. Don't let employers off the hook from taking such actions. Importing more foreign labor is a cheap and easy answer for companies who don't want to do what's right. Importing foreign labor is wrong for current workers . . . . Wrong for American workers. That gets to the heart of my two amendments. There are three different issues here. One is training, to make sure down the road that we provide adequate training so that American workers will have the skills to get all of these jobs and hopefully be able to do that in the next 3 or 4 years. We are working out that particular provision. But the two amendments that I offer say something else. They say that we will not permit Americans who have those jobs today to be laid off from those jobs and to substitute for those Americans foreign workers. That is permitted today, and that is wrong. That is wrong, because we know what has happened. Foreign workers come on in, and they are forced to work longer and harder and are in the position where they refuse to complain because they know if they do complain, they are going to have their green card pulled and will be sent back to their country of origin. We have the record; that happens, and that is wrong. That amendment no. 1. The second amendment says, before you go out and hire a foreign worker, you at least have to make a reasonable effort to try to hire an American worker. We do it by just saying any employer has to follow the industry standards for recruitment in that industry, and simply indicate on the application form that that is what they have done. Basically, we are saying, what is wrong with American workers? Clearly, they can be trained to take these jobs. We believe they should be able to do so. Secondly, we believe that there are tens of thousands of workers across this country who ought to be able to maintain their jobs and not be replaced by foreigners in this country. We also believe that Americans ought to be given a chance for these jobs in the United States before they go overseas. Those are effectively the two amendments before us. We believe in American workers. We believe they can be trained. We believe they ought to be given the first opportunity for hiring. And we believe that they ought to be able to hold those jobs and not be displaced if they have the needed skills. Mr. President, I hope that we will have a vote in favor of my amendments. I yield back what time I have, and I ask that it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, do I have 5 minutes?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send two amendments to the desk.

Mr. KENNEDY. I had planned to put my two amendments in and make comments for about 4 minutes or so on both of those amendments. I expect Senator Abraham to do about the same, and then we will be almost at the time for the vote. I have about 4 or 5 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. No, but we will.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, just 1 more minute. On the issue of the presence of the applicant, the law itself says: Continuing residence: The alien must establish that he has continuously resided in the United States since the date the alien was granted the temporary resident status. So, according to the law, it says must ``continuously reside in the United States.''

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. He was one of those. Although we have many others.

Mr. KENNEDY. In the United States, or they lose their immigration status. It says the U.S. must be the primary residence in the legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY. The statute says primary residence.

Mr. KENNEDY. That is exactly correct.

Mr. KENNEDY. It is self-evident in the application of the green card. You cannot get the green card unless you come here. That is the provision. It is self-evident because that is what the Senator is complaining about--they are coming over here and getting the green card.

Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator will yield for that, you have to come in in order to qualify for it.

Mr. KENNEDY. I have listened to the debate on this issue. It has been an important and illuminating debate. We are really talking, as I understand it--and I am going to ask the Senator from West Virginia a question about this--we are talking about approximately 1,000, maybe 1,500 visas or green cards a year. We issue about 900,000 green cards annually, and with the investor visa, we are talking about a very small program by comparison. There is a principle involved and I have heard the Senator from Arkansas. But it actually is a very, very modest program. It was developed at a time when we had higher unemployment than we do at the present time. It was a recognition that in many of these areas of unemployment we were trying to devise as many different kinds of ways to bring jobs into those areas as possible. But I ask the Senator from West Virginia if he would not agree with me that the immigration policy is a policy which is basically to benefit the United States? That is overarching and a generalization, I know. But our overall immigration policy includes a number of different features. We have the reunification of families. That has a very high priority. We have provisions in our immigration laws for 140,000 skilled workers. Most of our major hockey league players are players from other countries. They come over here, play hockey, get citizenship, and make a lot of money. We have artists who come in here and appear on our stages and they make a lot of money. They have money when they come in here, and they make a lot of money, but we feel they add to the theater or to sports, so we let them in. We have artists who come over here who are wealthy and have particular talents and settle here, get green cards and become citizens. But we believe they add to the country, too, so we let them in. We are, as I understand it, not a nation that just is taking in the dispossessed, although we have an important tradition for that. As I look at immigration, the way that it actually works --a matter which we have been debating here--I believe we ought to give Americans the first crack at these jobs under the temporary worker program, which we can certainly do. But if we are talking about Andrew Lloyd Webber coming over here, he gets in here. He has not waited 2 years, 3 years to get in. He comes on in as fast as the Concorde can bring him. You can say, ``Well, that is unfair. That is unfair. Why are we going to take Lloyd Webber? Why is he jumping over all these other people who want to come here?'' But we still believe he is exceptional and adds something to our nation. These are all balances, though the Senator may not agree with me. What we did in creating the investor visa was very modest. No one quite understood it, because we had never done it before. But it was an effort to try to get some jobs in underserved areas. We had seen that the idea of an investor visa had been utilized in other countries with a modest amount of success--not great success but a modest amount. But we said that in our law, immigrant investors must also create jobs because jobs are needed in West Virginia, needed in Roxbury, MA, needed in Lawrence, MA, and needed in southeastern Massachusetts. Maybe this hasn't worked as well as many of us would like, but nonetheless in some areas, in my own State in some areas, there has been some positive development. Sure, it is 10 jobs per investor. Sure, I would like them to be better jobs than some of the investors have created, but there have been jobs that wouldn't have been there or that would have disappeared without these investments. But I would just say to the Senator, with all respect to my colleague from Arkansas, we have just let in, thank God, one of the best baseball pitchers that we have on the Boston Red Sox. He did not wait like unskilled people do, coming from all over the world. He came right in, and he has been pitching. He started pitching 5 days after he was in this country and he has been just superb. I wanted to say to the Senator and ask him, does he not believe that we have an immigration policy that includes a variety of these features; the overwhelming aspect of it is the reunification of families? That is its heart and soul, as I believe it should be. We have debated what is a family--a nuclear family, whether it is just brothers and sisters, older brothers and sisters, younger brothers and sisters, small children. We have had that debate. There are important differences in this body on that issue. But it has been families. We have also cut back on low-skilled workers which we did not do 20 years ago, and the reason why? Because we find that they are a depression factor on wages for American workers in entry-level jobs. Interesting. That was not a factor years and years ago. But it is now. It is now. That is why there has been some alteration and change. So I just wondered whether the Senator from West Virginia agrees with me that we have in our immigration policy a variety of different features. There are some features of it I disagree with and we have debated some in the last bill which came through this body, which I opposed for various other reasons, not important here today. In creating the investor visa, jobs were important. And that was the balance that was made--to permit the visa if it created jobs. It has been a very modest program and all of us hope that it can be strengthened. But I would ask my colleague whether he does not agree in the total lexicon of consideration of the immigration policy we shouldn't at least be able to consider the feature of national need.

Mr. KENNEDY. How much time do we have on the Bumpers amendment?

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator, my friend from Rhode Island. We have had the good opportunity to work with the Senator from Rhode Island and also the Senator from Maine on this particular issue. I know that the Senator from Rhode Island is someone who has been on the education committees, not only in the Senate but also in the House of Representatives, and is someone with a number of years of experience with this important issue. The Senator from Rhode Island has spent a lot of time in developing an understanding of this particular program and how it works in the States. He has also found how it can best be targeted in ways that offer the best opportunity for needy students, giving focus in areas of important need--math and science and other skills. So, we will continue to work with him. We appreciate his leadership and the leadership of the Senator from Maine in this area. We have been trying to work to assure that Americans are going to develop the skills to be able to compete in these areas. This is really a combination of both the education and training aspects that Senator DeWine, Senator Reed, and Senator Collins have been working on, as well as the Senator from Michigan. And that is a reflection of the good faith of the Senator from Michigan on it. So I appreciate his willingness of the Senator from Rhode Island, at this time, to continue to work with us. We give the Senator the assurance we will continue to work very closely with him, and with the Senator from Maine, as we move on into the conference. But I appreciate his cooperation and leadership on this issue. Amendment No. 2416 (Purpose: To repeal the Immigrant Investor Program)

Mr. KENNEDY. That is fine.

Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object--I do not intend to--he will go for 7 minutes and then we will have a chance to respond to his amendment? Are we going to have time to dispose of his amendment before the Senator from Arkansas?

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for bringing this matter to our attention once again. As we were saying a few moments ago, this was accepted in the last debate on immigration reform in 1996. When it went to conference, there were a number of us who were excluded. If we had been able to participate, we would have supported this measure. But we were in a different regime at the time. In so many areas of immigration policy there are the opportunities for abuse by a few. But as the Senator has pointed out, thousands can still be affected by the injustice. The Senator has identified one instance in which a family was harmed. We would be glad to work with him and with Senator Abraham to see what could be worked through in the conference. If somehow we are not persuasive in the conference, we will join with him later in offering his amendment on appropriations bills or other bills. But I think the Senator has made a strong case, just as he did the last time. I think he has identified a very important issue.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I have 150 letters and scores more back in my office of Americans who have training and skills in computer knowledge and technology and are unable to get the jobs. You can, under this proposal, hire 1,000 foreign workers and displace 1,000 American workers and it doesn't violate any law. It violates no law. I think we ought to protect American workers, and if there is a job out there, an American worker ought to have a crack at it before it goes overseas. Madam President, I see my friend and colleague from Nevada who, under the agreement, is to be recognized to offer an amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield myself 4 minutes on the amendments. As I am sure the Senator from Texas knows, about 85 percent of these jobs earn $75,000 a year, or less. I am just wondering what we have against Americans and American workers that we are so prepared to turn over these good jobs to foreigners. Now, if the Senator wants to say, well, what about these $75,000 jobs? The GAO pointed out that there is no increase in the salary of these workers. I thought supply and demand said that if we have that great a demand, we are going to see an increase in salaries; right? Wrong. The GAO report says there is no indication of that. So these are good jobs. I say, let's try an American first. Let's develop the kinds of skills employers need so that we won't need to have this continue after the expiration of this particular proposal. Let's try an American first. And if we are not going to do that, let's just ensure that an American who is in that job and working, as the record demonstrates today, isn't going to get laid off and replaced by a foreign worker who then is going to work longer hours and be threatened day after day that if they complain at all, they are going to have their green card taken and they will be shipped overseas. That is the case, in many instances. Madam President, I find it difficult to just accept the Senator's argument that this really is just the pure free market system working at its best. I think we owe something to American workers. It is so interesting that all of these companies want to have a free enterprise system--except when it comes to paying wages and salaries. Then they want to do it and get cheaper workers in from overseas and then exploit them. We want to protect against that. That is what those amendments would do. I withhold the balance of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, we will be moving towards the votes as set out by the two leaders for votes on these amendments in approximately 2 hours. But while there is a brief moment, I would like to address the Senate on one of the issues that we will be addressing later this evening and on tomorrow. That is the amendment that will be offered hopefully in a bipartisan way by Republicans and Democrats on the tobacco bill to raise the cost per pack of tobacco from $1.10 to $1.50. I have hopes that this will be a bipartisan amendment since there have been Republicans and Democrats who have supported that position both in the Finance Committee when the Finance Committee accepted that concept last week and also in the Budget Committee. I think that there are those on both sides of the aisle that support that particular measure. I will strongly support the measure and welcome the opportunity to be one of those who commends that position to the Senate, when it is hoped, we will have some determination on that as one of the first orders of business. I believe that under the proposition, which will be announced later on this evening by the two leaders, that will be one of the measures which will be addressed and voted on tomorrow. So I will just take a few moments now to express my strong support for increasing the cigarette price by $1.50 per pack. Mr. President, youth smoking in America has reached epidemic proportions. According to the report issued last month by the Centers for Disease Control Prevention, smoking rates among high school students have risen by nearly a third between 1991 and 1997. Among African-Americans, the smoking rates have soared by 80 percent. And more than 36 percent of high school students smoke--a 19-year high. With youth smoking at such a crisis level and still increasing, we cannot rely on half measures. Congress must use the strongest legislative tools available to reduce youth smoking as rapidly as possible. The amendment we will have before us tomorrow will provide for a cigarette price increase of $1.50 per pack over the next 3 years. The $1.10 per pack increase over 5 years in the managers' amendment is not adequate to achieve the youth smoking reduction goals of 60 percent. And by raising it by $1.50 instead of $1.10 a pack, we can deter an additional 750,000 children from smoking over the next 5 years. That will mean 250,000 fewer premature deaths from tobacco-induced illnesses. Public health experts have overwhelmingly concluded that an increase of $1.50 a pack is the minimum cigarette price increase necessary to achieve our youth-smoking reduction goals. Dr. C. Everett Koop and Dr. David Kessler, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the American Medical Association, the ENACT Coalition, and the Save Lives Not Tobacco Coalition have all stressed the importance of a price increase of at least $1.50 a pack. It is the single most important step we can take to reduce youth smoking. More than a third of the Senate have already cosponsored bills proposing the $1.50 a pack increase. The Senate Budget Committee endorsed $1.50 on a bipartisan vote of 14-8 in March. Last Thursday, a bipartisan majority in the Finance Committee voted for a cigarette price index of $1.50. Too many young lives are at stake for us to ignore the advice of all the public health experts. Mr. President, the $1.10 increase, on the other hand, simply will not do the job. According to the University of Illinois' Professor Frank Chaloupka, the Nation's leading authority on the impact of higher cigarette prices on teenage smoking, an increase of $1.50 a pack would reduce youth smoking by nearly 50 percent. When combined with the youth access provisions and other tobacco control measures, the $1.50 per pack increase will reduce youth smoking by 60 percent and reach the target that we have set. In addition, if the tobacco industry plays by the rules and no longer targets young Americans with their advertisements and promotions, no look-back penalties would need to be applied above the $1.50 a pack increase. According to Professor Chaloupka, the $1.10 increase will reduce youth smoking by only a third. Even with the nonprice provision in the tobacco legislation, it would be very difficult to achieve the targets for reducing youth smoking. Ask any parents if saving 750,000 additional children from a lifetime of nicotine addiction and tobacco-induced disease is worth the extra 40 cents needed for the $1.50 price increase instead of the $1.10 increase. Ask any person who is concerned about the health of the Nation's children whether we should do all we can to prevent these young Americans from taking up this deadly habit. The vast majority of the American people support the $1.50 per pack increase and Congress should support it, too. Ask any taxpayer if they want to continue to shoulder the burden of paying the health costs of the Nation's smokers. Seventy-five percent of Americans do not smoke, yet the Department of Treasury finds that they pay $130 billion each year for the health costs in lost productivity of the 25 percent who do smoke. Ask any American if they have had enough of the tobacco industry's distortions and denials of the addictiveness of nicotine or about the industry's cynical marketing of cigarettes to children or about the industry's decades-long coverup of the health risks associated with smoking. This is an industry which once argued that cigarettes are no more addictive than Gummy Bears. This is an industry that used Joe Camel in advertising blatantly designed to hook children on smoking, yet they now ask us to believe that a $1.10 or $1.50 increase will lead to big tobacco's bankruptcy and a rampant black market for illegal cigarettes. The challenge is clear. One million young people between the ages of 12 and 17 take up the deadly habit each year--3,000 new smokers a day. The average smoker begins smoking at age 13 and becomes a daily smoker before age 15. One-third of these children will die prematurely from a tobacco-induced disease. Once children become hooked on cigarette smoking at a young age, it becomes increasingly harder for them to quit. And 90 percent of current adult smokers began to smoke before they reached the age of 18. Ninety- five percent of teenaged smokers say they intend to quit in the near future, but only a quarter of them actually do quit within the first 8 years of beginning to smoke. The tobacco companies have known these facts for years. They are fully aware that they need to persuade children to take up smoking in order to preserve their future profits. That is why big tobacco has long targeted children with billions of dollars in advertising and promotional giveaways that promise popularity, excitement and success for young men and women who take up smoking. The recent documents released in the Minnesota case against the tobacco industry reveals the true extent of the industry's marketing strategy to children. In 1981, in the Philip Morris memo, ``Young Smokers, Prevalence, Implications and Related Demographic Trends,'' the authors wrote that: It is important to know as much as possible about teenage smoking patterns and attitude. Today's teenager is tomorrow's potential regular customer. The overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens. The smoking patterns are particularly important to Philip Morris. Furthermore, it is during the teenage years that the initial choice is made. Nothing is done to reverse this trend in adolescent smoking. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 5 million of today's children will die prematurely from smoke-caused illnesses. The American public has had enough of the daily tragedy of death and disease caused by tobacco use. They are demanding dramatic action by Congress to drastically curb youth smoking. This Congress will be judged in large measure by whether or not we respond effectively to that challenge. Increasing cigarette prices by $1.50 is the most effective way to reduce teenage smoking. The public health community agrees it is the minimum increase needed to achieve the national goal of reduced youth smoking by 60 percent over 10 years. Study after study has shown that raising cigarette prices is the most powerful weapon in reducing cigarette use among children, since children have less income than adults to spend on tobacco, and most children are not yet addicted. Philip Morris, the Nation's largest tobacco company, concedes as much in an internal memorandum as far back as 1981. That memorandum stated, ``It is clear that price has a pronounced effect on the smoking prevalence of teenagers.'' And the goals of reducing teenage smoking and balancing the budget would both be served by increasing the Federal excise tax on cigarettes. In 1982, R.J. Reynolds said essentially the same thing in that ``the key finding is that younger adult males are highly sensitive to price. Price may create a barrier which prevents the appeal from developing into an ongoing choice to become a smoker.'' Canada increased its cigarette prices between 1980 and 1981 until there was a $3 difference in cigarette prices with the United States overall. An increase of $1.50 a pack is clearly realistic. In addition, it is not likely that the $1.50 increase in the manufacturers' level will turn into a much higher real price increase at the retail level. The difference between a $1.10 increase and a $1.50 increase is literally that 750,000 more children will be deterred from smoking over the next 5 years. We shouldn't sacrifice these children to a lifetime of tobacco-induced illnesses. The lives of these children hang in the balance. The American people are calling on you to have the courage to act. The $1.50 increase has broad public support. The public health community deserves the support of the full Senate, too.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 11 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.