Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield the remaining time to the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I believe when we return at 2:1 p.m., we will go to Senator Dorgan's amendment, followed, hopefully, shortly thereafter by the Bingaman amendment, depending on the outcome, for the notification of the Members. I thank all of our colleagues for their cooperation for a good morning's debate and discussion. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: How was that time allocated? Was that morning business?

Mr. KENNEDY. I see. How much time on each side?

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KENNEDY. So we have 34 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator will yield for a question. Is it the Senator's understanding that if we accept the Isakson amendment, we will continue to have this culture of illegality in the United States? If we accept the Isakson amendment, we will still have the hiring by employers of illegal aliens, we will be driving wages down, we will still have a whole culture of illegality, we will have people in the shadows, we will have people whose names we don't know because we are unable to bring people out into the sunlight and understand who is actually here in terms of our national security? Does the Senator from Colorado not believe that this is really--the Senator from Colorado, as I understand it, has been a strong supporter of border security, provisions that are in the underlying bill. He has been a strong supporter to make sure that this is a key element in our total immigration strategy: a strong border and that we deal with the dangers of our border, but to understand that if we are going to be able to deal with the dangers of our border, we are going to also have to deal with enforcement in this country of employers. We are also going to have to deal with the adjustment of the status of those who are here. Is that the position of the Senator from Colorado? Mr. President, I want to understand clearly, he is not taking a second step to anyone, is he, in having a strong border enforcement; am I right?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as I understand the Senator from Colorado, his position, quite frankly, is much more consistent with what the President talked about last night, am I correct, where the President talked about a comprehensive approach to deal with the challenges of illegality. And his position is that we ought to look at it in a comprehensive way, and the best way to deal with illegality on the border is to also deal with illegality in employment and deal with legality and illegality in adjusting the status in terms of earning the right to remain here; am I correct?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield further, therefore, the Senator from Colorado, with his amendment, believes that he offers a path that is going to protect our national security in the most effective way because we will gain information, we will gain knowledge, we will understand the people who are here and will know their names, will know their addresses, will know where they live, and they will be part of our society. Secondly, I understand that he believes that without his amendment, we are still going to have this culture of illegality where we have employers hiring undocumented workers. The Isakson amendment doesn't do anything about that, as I understand. If we adopt the Isakson amendment, we will still have the exploitations of undocumented workers, and we will also have the conditions where we are driving wages down, which drives wages down for Americans. Does the Senator not believe that will continue to be the result unless we do a comprehensive approach?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 4 more minutes, Mr. President.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, finally, I have my differences with the President, but I agree with the Senator from Colorado. We support that judgment and that decision and his ability to make that judgment and decision. That is what the Senator from Colorado supports, and I do, too. I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, my friend and colleague from Michigan has a special request. We know it is not completely consistent with the subject matter at hand, but we are willing to yield time, Senator Salazar and I, out of our time, so we are not going to delay the proceedings of the Senate. This is an important matter. I yield 4 minutes, if that is sufficient time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as has been pointed out, it is a three- legged stool: tough border security, tough legal enforcement here in the United States, and a recognition of our humanity and decency and our immigration background. If people are prepared to pay a penalty, play by the rules, work hard, and stay free from any trouble with law enforcement, at the end of the line they can earn American citizenship. That is the way to go, and the Isakson amendment short circuits that process.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 4 minutes to myself, 4 minutes to the Senator from Illinois, and 4 minutes to the Senator from Colorado. I ask the Chair, when I have 30 seconds left, to be informed. Mr. President, the amendment of the Senator from Georgia does nothing with regard to the National Guard. I have listened to the debate and discussion about the National Guard. Frankly, the way the President described it last night, the Guard would be very limited. They have mainly a supportive kind of proposal. I have real concerns because in my State the Guard is very busy today with the flooding we have in part of Massachusetts. But we are open, at least I am open, on this issue. This amendment has nothing to do with that. The fact is that those of us who oppose the amendment of the Senator and support Senator Salazar's amendment believe in strong border security. But we also read history. We know the record on the border. Twenty years ago, we had 40,000 people who were coming in here illegally; 10 years ago, it was 400,000. Do you know what we did? We spent $20 billion over the last 10 years, we have increased border guards by 300 percent, and guess what: We have doubled the numbers to 800,000 today--to 800,000. What is the answer to that? The answer to that is we need tough border security, but we need tough law enforcement here in the United States, and we have to deal with the legality or adjustment of status for those who are here, prepared to pay a penalty, work hard, play by the rules, participate in the armed services of our country, and then join the end of the line for those people waiting to come into the United States--at the end of the line, and 11 years from now be able to achieve citizenship. The fact remains, if you only do one of the proposals--and this the President of the United States understands and spoke to very clearly. I have my differences with the President, but he is absolutely right. He understands history. He is a border State Governor, and he knows you can't do this by itself, only at the border. The fact is, in the bill that we support, we increased by 12,000 the border patrol. We create a virtual fence. If the Senator from Georgia has additional national security matters that they think can be added, we are glad to consider them. But we are dealing with the recognition that you have to have a comprehensive approach if you are going to gain control of the borders. History teaches us that. We have had hours and days of hearings about that. All you have to do is look at what has happened to the border in the last years.

Mr. KENNEDY. And I ask for the yeas and nays on the following amendment, on the Salazar amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will take the last minute 20 seconds. We ought to learn from history. What we learn from history, from the studies on the border and listening to those hearings, is that just trying to build up the border and add the fence down there is not going to solve the problem. If you read from history, as has been pointed out by Republicans and Democrats, if you just grant amnesty, it doesn't solve the problem. We have crafted a balanced program which will have strong national security, strong border protection, and also have strong enforcement in terms of employers and recognize that those individuals who are here working hard, playing by the rules, and paying the fines, we will have the ability to adjust their status. You have to have the three legs of the stool. History teaches us that. The Isakson amendment will take two of those important legs away. It doesn't make sense if we are interested in national security, and it doesn't make sense if we want to have real immigration reform. The President understands it. I hope the Senate will. The President understands it. I hope the Senate will.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Would the Senator be willing to yield 10 minutes?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania. I want to thank my friend and colleague and the principal sponsor of the major comprehensive legislation. In addition, I ask the Senator from Arizona, is it not true that you have the advertising for a worker in the United States where there is not an American worker and a willing worker who comes from outside of the country, that they have some important labor protections-- protections with regard to the minimum wage, with regard to Davis- Bacon, with regard to service contracts, protections against exploitation of contractors, which were the source of great abuses at the time we had the Bracero issue and question. Is it not true that we have some protections for those individuals and, therefore, the idea that there is going to be a continuation of the exploitation of these workers working in a substandard way is fundamentally addressed? And is it also not true we have some 2,000 inspectors that are included in the underlying legislation that are going to be charged with the enforcement of this provision, which we have never had? I listened to so many people talk about 1986 and the amnesty. Part of that provision was to have employer enforcement, and it didn't take place--not under Republicans or Democrats. But we have addressed that issue in the McCain-Kennedy proposal. We have 2,000 individuals whose sole responsibility is going to be in terms of the adequate enforcement of the labor protections. Is it also not true--it is true--that we have had important economists who have been before our Judiciary Committee who say that this will have an important, positive impact in terms of wages, working conditions, and treatment of American workers? I know there are several items that are included in this question, but I want to make sure that we include and add on to what was the excellent presentation of the Senator from Arizona. We have talked about having a comprehensive approach. We hoped to have a comprehensive approach earlier this morning, and we have a comprehensive approach by recognizing what the Senator from Arizona has said and is so obvious-- that is, if you are going to have the demand in this country and desperate people in the others, it makes a good deal more sense to try to develop a legal process by which that can be controlled, rather than think that we are going to be able to build fences high enough, long enough, along the 1,800-mile border and prohibit tunnels deep enough to keep people out.

Mr. KENNEDY. One final question. The Senator is addressing the issue of real security, national security. But we are committed to trying to have a secure border. We have gone through the measures which we have included in our legislation, many of which were enhanced during the course of the markup and have been expanded in the supplemental. But a key aspect of that security and in controlling the border is to stop the flow of people climbing fences, going into tunnels, and circumventing the border. A key aspect of this is to develop an orderly process by which people in the limited numbers that we have outlined in the bill would be able to come. Would the Senator not agree that this is a security issue, border security issue, as well as a worker issue?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome the start of this week and the prospect of a good and fair debate on the whole issue of our borders and how we are going to deal with immigration reform. There are some exceedingly important public policy issues and questions that have to be decided. But it certainly appears that the Senate itself is prepared to take votes on these measures. I believe that is certainly the way we ought to proceed. I hope as we start the debate we understand there are a lot of misstatements about the different positions which have been outlined in the course of this debate. It is going to be important for the American people to listen to those of us who are putting forward proposals--I will outline briefly the proposal of Senator McCain and myself--and then to listen to those who are supportive of those proposals. In this debate, not unlike other debates, we will find those who misrepresent our proposal, distort our proposal, and then differ with it. That is a rather tried, true, tested process around here. Why should I believe this debate might be different? Maybe that is hoping for too much. These are tough enough choices and decisions for this body to make. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to have a fair debate on the substance of these matters. That is certainly what I look forward to. I know Senator McCain looks forward to that. That is certainly in the tradition of this great legislative body. I will take just a few minutes this afternoon to outline in broad terms the proposal Senator McCain and I supported. We go back, Senator McCain and I.

Mr. KENNEDY. I am glad to yield for a question.