Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me respond to a couple of comments which my colleague just made. He characterized his legislation as enabling people to earn the right to stay. This is the earned amnesty provision. But the point is, there is no difference between coming across the border illegally and working here illegally and working under the Craig-Kennedy bill. You are working in the field, and after a period of time you get permanent legal residency. Between 2\1/2\ weeks and 3\1/2\ months, you get legal status. Then a year later you get legal permanent residency by doing the very same thing you are illegally doing today.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, first I compliment my colleague from Idaho for bringing to the Nation's attention a problem which does deserve consideration, and that is how to both fulfill our need for workers in this country for difficult labor that some Americans have not been willing to perform and at the same time deal with the very difficult problem of the status of illegal immigrants who are currently in the country and who have been relied upon by employers in the field of agriculture to perform some of this work. Both the Senator from Georgia and I intend to work with the Senator from Idaho in the future to try to develop the very best kind of guest worker program we can to achieve the objective of providing matching, willing employers and willing employees and at the same time doing it within the construct of the rule of law. We look forward to that debate at a later time. Earlier in the debate on the supplemental appropriations bill, which is the legislation before us, the Senate adopted overwhelmingly a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that we should not be trying to deal with these immigration problems in this legislation. This bill is too important. It requires that we provide funding for our war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason it is called a supplemental appropriations bill is because it is supplemental to the regular process. It accounts for the fact that there are unforeseen expenditures in the conduct of this war we have to fund and we have to get the money to our troops as soon as we possibly can. With that in mind, the full Senate voted we should be deferring the debate on these difficult and complicated issues such as immigration reform to a later date when we can take that up in the full consideration it deserves and not delay important legislation such as the funding of the war effort. We are already into the second week on the supplemental appropriation for that purpose. We hoped to finish this bill last Thursday. I provide that as background to simply note this: We have two votes this morning. The first is on an alternative proposal that has been set out by the Senator from Georgia and myself that would provide a way to match these willing employers and employees but to do so without granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. We will then vote on a second alternative of the Senator from Idaho and the Senator from Massachusetts. The key point I want to make to my colleagues is if both of these propositions are defeated--and they both require 60 votes to pass under the agreement--then we can move on to complete the work on the supplemental appropriations bill and we might be able to finish that bill this week. In fact, hopefully, presumably, ideally, we will finish that bill this week. There is no reason why we cannot do our work and fund our troops. However, if the Craig-Kennedy legislation were to receive 60 votes, we are in for a tough time because that bill is then open for amendment, and we are already aware of numerous amendments that are going to be filed, all of which are going to delay consideration of the supplemental appropriations bill. Some of my colleagues signed on to this legislation before the bill was actually printed or before they realized it contained amnesty. The point I would make to anybody who is in that position is whether they support the Craig-Kennedy version or the Chambliss-Kyl version of guest worker legislation, it is not the time to be considering that legislation. We voted already to not have that debate but rather to get on to the supplemental appropriation bill. Therefore, anyone wishing to move on should vote literally against the first vote we will have on Chambliss-Kyl and the second vote on Craig-Kennedy. If either one of them gets 60 votes, then we are in for a long time of debate on immigration, with an awful lot of amendments on that subject and delaying the time that we can get back to considering the supplemental appropriations bill. Even though it argues against an affirmative vote on our proposition, for those who are interested in moving on to the supplemental appropriation bill, frankly, the correct vote is a ``no'' vote on both of these amendments. Let me explain to my colleagues a second reason to vote ``no'' on the second vote and ``yes'' on the first vote. The first vote is Chambliss- Kyl. What we have attempted to do in our guest worker legislation is provide an expedited, streamlined, simplified way for employers to hire the people they need in agriculture, something they are not able to do today. We have a law today, but they do not use it because it is so cumbersome, expensive, and time consuming. The idea is to make it more streamlined so it will work. In that respect, we think we have a much superior product and that is why I think the Farm Bureau supports our legislation, because they realize farmers will actually use it. I am very concerned that they would not use the Craig-Kennedy legislation because it has so many other things built into it that I believe would make it difficult, at least as difficult to use as the current law. I will cite one of the reasons now. Up to now it has been the law in the United States that Legal Services Corporation does not represent illegal immigrants or illegal aliens. It represents Americans, people who are here either on legal permanent residency status, green card status, or citizens. There is little funding available to begin representing illegal immigrants and I am afraid the representation of American citizens who are residents would significantly suffer if the Legal Services Corporation is now going to begin representing these illegal immigrants as is called for under the Craig-Kennedy legislation. That represents a significant departure from current law and it certainly will make it more complicated for employers to use that law. I will move to the other point, because the primary question is whether we want to embark on a road to granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. Folks on the other side will say it is earned amnesty, but it is still amnesty by any name one wants to call it. It reminds me of that old saying, put lipstick on a pig and it is still a pig. The fact of the matter is it is still amnesty and here is why specifically Craig- Kennedy is amnesty. Under section 101 of S. 359, an illegal alien shall--it is not ``may'' but ``shall''--be given status after working, and then the periods of time are laid out, but essentially in as little as 2\1/2\ weeks, one could accomplish the accumulated 3\1/2\-month labor period, but a maximum of 3\1/2\ months, minimum of 2\1/2\ weeks. They then have a legal status in the country. One year later, they get their green card. A green card is legal permanent residency, and I underline the word permanent. When one gets their card in this country, they have a status which enables them to live here for the rest of their life. Under existing law, it enables them to do something else. They can also apply for citizenship. They can apply to chain migrate their family into the country. The point is that while that status should be available to anyone who desires to immigrate to the United States, we believe it should be available to people who abide by the law. We also do not discriminate against those who have violated the law and who seek to apply for this status. We simply urge that they not be given an advantage over those who have done everything right, who have followed the law, applied for the legal permanent residency status from their country of origin, and have sought to get in line the same as everybody else. As the President says, if one wants to come here and stay, they need to get in line with everybody else. They should not be given an advantage. That is what amnesty is. When one is given an advantage over those who have conformed to the law, who have abided by the law, and one is given an advantage because they violated the law, that is frankly a concept I think most Americans would deem not only very unfair but getting on a very slippery slope in this country where people who do it wrong, who violate the law, have an advantage over those who are willing to do it right. That is not the American way and that is the key difference between the Craig-Kennedy legislation and the Chambliss-Kyl legislation. We say one can work here and continue to work here. In fact, we have three different 3-year periods, one right after the other, in which one can work in the United States. But we say if they seek to become a legal permanent resident, as opposed to a legal temporary resident, that permanent residency should require them to apply for it the same as everybody else. They have to go home, make the application--it takes 1 year to do it--and then they have their green card. Once they get their green card, it is true they can apply for citizenship, but at least they have to follow the rules. They have done it the same as everybody else and they have not gotten an advantage because they came here illegally and stayed in this country illegally. The final point I want to make is there is another provision of the Craig-Kennedy legislation which I do not understand. It has been alluded to by the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, and others. It is a provision which actually attracts people who have previously violated the law. They snuck in, they came into the United States illegally, they illegally used documents to gain employment, they have been employed illegally in the United States, and the fact of all of those illegal activities is what permits them to come back into the United States. In other words, they have gone home for some reason, and if they can establish that they were here illegally, then they get to come back into the country legally. I don't know of anything that stands the law on its head more than that. Why would somebody try to abide by the law if they realized that, with counterfeit documents, they can simply show up at the border and say, Hey, I worked in the United States illegally and I want to come back in now and get this new status you are creating for me. It is a magnet not only for counterfeit and fraud but for people to come back into the United States who are now not here illegally, claiming that they have a right to do so on one basis and one basis only--because they violated our law. It seems to me to be totally upside-down to grant legal status to people, to invite them into our country, on the basis that they violated our law when there are not enough visas to grant to people who are trying to do it legally. This is amnesty, and it is wrong. What we are saying is there is a perfectly legal way to do this, to get all of the employers matched up that we need. We have no cap on the number of people who can apply through our streamlined H-2A process. As many workers as we need, we can get. I think that is why the Farm Bureau supports this. They know whatever labor needs we have in this country, we can fulfill them through a legal process, and there will not be any magnet for illegal immigrants to come to the country anymore. To conclude, there are two reasons to vote against the Craig-Kennedy legislation and one good reason to vote for the Chambliss-Kyl legislation. The reason to vote against both, frankly, is that unless both of these are defeated, we are going to be on this immigration issue for a long, long time. Who knows when we are going to conclude the supplemental appropriations legislation? We are certainly not going to finish it this week again. This will be the second full week we have been on it. Second, I don't think at the end of the day we are going to pass legislation--through the Senate and House and have it signed by the President--that grants amnesty to illegal immigrants or invites illegal immigrants back into the United States because of their illegal status. For that reason, we suggest we have a better approach, an approach which can meet our labor needs but do so within the rule of law and without granting a reward to those who have violated our law.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, 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. Vote on Amendment No. 387, As Amended

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

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 555.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will speak in morning business to the point discussed by my colleague from Florida. I understand another Senator was going to be here; when he arrives, I will yield the floor. It is important for my colleagues and for the American people to appreciate a little bit of the background of this issue with respect to judges. My colleague from Florida makes a point that he has voted for most of the President's judicial nominees. Indeed, that has been the case with every Senator for every President. But until the last 2 years, we have voted both for district court nominees and circuit court nominees. Two years ago, the Democratic minority began filibustering circuit court nominees. That is why President Bush has had a lower percentage of his nominees approved than any President since Franklin Roosevelt for the important circuit court positions. In fact, a third of President Bush's circuit court nominees were filibustered or could not be brought to a vote because they would have been filibustered; fully 17 out of around 35. So when our colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about the large number of judges they have approved, they are folding in all of the Federal district court nominees everyone has always voted for. That is not the appropriate measure. The question is, how many circuit court nominees? Never before, in the history of our country, have we seen circuit court nominees or district court nominees, for that matter, but circuit court nominees filibustered in this manner--ten separate judges we could not come to a final up-or-down vote, seven more who would have had the same fate had they been voted for. That has never happened before in the history of the country. Our colleague from Illinois was discussing the fact that a former Senator from New Hampshire had, in this Senate, talked about filibuster, following a couple of judges for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In fact, that Senator had said that. The interesting point is, even though he, a single Senator, wanted to filibuster the nominees-- their names were Berzon and Paez--the Republican leader, Trent Lott from Mississippi, made an arrangement with the then-Democratic leader, Daschle from South Dakota, that they would not be filibustered, and we filed cloture, which is the petition to bring the matter to a close so we could take a final vote. Senators on both sides of the aisle supported the cloture motion, so they supported getting to a final vote on those two judges. Of course, cloture was invoked, meaning they were not filibustered. They were brought up for a vote. Some voted against them--I voted for Berzon and against Paez--but the net result is they are both sitting on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today. They were not filibustered. So there is no case of a filibuster of the circuit court judge. None. Second, the only other situation in which it is alleged a filibuster occurred was with Abe Fortas, whose name was withdrawn by Lyndon Johnson the day after a cloture vote failed to succeed. As Senator Griffin from Michigan, who was then leading that opposition to Abe Fortas, has told me and others, there was no effort to filibuster because they had the votes to kill the judge. They simply had not had time to debate him, which is why they voted against the cloture, but as a result of the President acknowledging he had no support in the Senate, his name was withdrawn. There has never been a filibuster of a Supreme Court or circuit court judge in the United States--it simply is erroneous to suggest there has been--nor is it correct to say we have been voting on all of these different judges. If you take the district court judges out, about whom there is no controversy, there is a huge issue because fully a third of the President's circuit court nominees were not voted on because of this new filibuster by the Democratic minority. We need to have some perspective. Who is changing the rules? Until 2 years ago, all the judges got up-or-down votes. Judges that could not even get out of the Judiciary Committee with a majority vote were granted the privilege or courtesy of a vote in the Senate. During the debate when Clarence Thomas was being confirmed, several leading Democratic Senators came to the Senate to oppose Judge Thomas. They said they actually had thought about trying to filibuster his nomination but that would be wrong because filibustering judicial nominees is wrong. Senator Leahy, Senator Kennedy, and others came to this floor and said, we do not know whether we will defeat Clarence Thomas or not, but we are not going to defeat him with a filibuster because that would be wrong. Sure enough, they were correct. They lost the vote, 48-52. He was confirmed. I admired them because they stood for principle. The rule and the tradition of this body had always been we give the nominees an up-or-down vote, but if they could get 51 votes for confirmation, they became a circuit court judge or a Supreme Court justice. That is what happened in the case of Clarence Thomas. Now, all of a sudden, it has been turned around, and the Democratic minority, almost to a person, has said they believe judges should be filibustered, and the President's nominees are not going to get an up- or-down vote if they decide they want to filibuster a particular nominee. As I said, at least a third of these circuit court nominees so far have been filibustered. It is our understanding that practice will continue unless we can get back to the way it has always been, the traditional role of the Senate in providing advice and consent with a majority vote, up or down. It has also been suggested the President is nominating a new, wild variety of lawyers and judges to be circuit court judges, way out of the mainstream kind of people. This, of course, is absolutely ludicrous. The kind of people that President Bush has nominated are respected jurists or lawyers. The American Bar Association, which used to be the Democrat's gold standard for approving the judicial nominees, has judged all of these candidates qualified. Yet somehow some of our colleagues on the left say they are out of the mainstream. My colleague on the Judiciary Committee, the Senator from New York, for example, has made this charge on several occasions. I ask, who is probably more representative of the mainstream? A single Senator from a State, for example, like New York? Or the President of the United States who had to get elected with support from all over this country? I don't think anyone would say George Bush is out of the mainstream, that President Bush is out of the mainstream of this country. Who are some of the people he has nominated? Some are judges who have had to stand for election, for example, in California and Texas, and have received supermajorities, 70 or 80 percent. I have forgotten the exact numbers of support from the citizens of their States. One is a blue State. One is a red State. When well over 50 or 60 percent of the citizens in this State vote to support these judges to continue in office on their State supreme court, you would hardly say these nominees are out of the mainstream. Yet those two particular judges, Janice Rogers Brown from California and Percilla Owen from Texas, are the ones for whom this filibuster has been applied. It does not make sense to suggest a tradition of this Senate to give people an up-or-down vote is going to be overturned because all of a sudden a President is proposing people who are wildly out of the mainstream. What has the Republican majority at least considered doing? Simply returning to the way it has always been, to going back to the 200 years--before 2 years ago--and giving people an up-or-down vote. Members can still vote against the nominee. Members do not have to vote for the nominee, but at least give them an up-or-down vote. We do that based upon the precedence that has been set by the then-majority leader of this Senate, the Senator from West Virginia, who, on not fewer than four separate occasions, utilized the precedence of this body to ensure that dilatory tactics could not prevail in this Senate and that we could move forward with the business of the Senate. It is the very same precedent that would be used to reestablish the up-or-down vote which has been the tradition of this Senate all along. That is not rubberstamping. That is giving due consideration to these nominees and giving them an up-or-down vote at the end of the day. When Americans look at this sort of intramural battle occurring in the Senate, they have to wonder why this is happening, why it is so important. I suspect it may have something to do with the fact there might be a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and our friends on the other side of the aisle are so afraid President Bush might nominate someone who could gain majority support they are prepared to actually refuse that nominee an up-or-down vote. That would be unprecedented in the history of this body. I don't think it is right. Some people have called this the nuclear option because they threatened to blow the Senate up if we try to return to the traditional rule of an up-or-down vote in the Senate. That is a very unfortunate name and a very unfortunate threat. No one should be threatening to go nuclear or blow the place up or prevent the Senate from doing its business. Our constituents sent us here for a reason, to get work done, to pass a budget, to pass the appropriations bill, to pass the bill that is before the Senate right now, the supplemental appropriations bill that will literally fund our troops' effort in Afghanistan and Iraq, to pass an energy bill, to pass a defense authorization bill, all of the other important things they want us to do here. Yet we have some colleagues suggesting, if they do not get their way on these judges, like a school-yard bully who has a call go against him by the referee and picks up his ball and goes home so the rest of the kids cannot play. Is that the threat here; pick up your ball and go home so the rest of us cannot do the business we were sent here to do? Let me make one final prediction. Last time we met as members of the Judiciary Committee, we could not get a quorum to do business. Not one member of the minority party showed up. We have to have at least one for a quorum. This was not the last meeting but the penultimate meeting. They said there were three members going to the funeral of the Pope; 3 out of 9. I predict, at another meeting on Thursday--and we need to pass the judges out to consider them on the floor--they will not give a quorum then, they will not show up or, if they do show up, they filibuster it so we cannot get the judges adopted. I predict right now the judges that are on the agenda for that meeting this coming week will not be passed out. They might pass out one or two, but they are not going to allow us to pass all of those judges so they can be considered by the full Senate. It was Members of the minority party who complained, while Republicans never filibustered, they did keep some of President Clinton's judicial nominees bottled up in committee. We will see whether they are willing to pass these nominees--I think there are 6 or 7 pending--we will see whether or not they are willing to show up for the meeting so there is a quorum and enabling the committee to pass them out to the full body so we can debate the nominees or whether they talk and talk and talk until the meeting has to end, no one else is around, and we no longer have a quorum or they simply do not show up for a quorum. We will see what they do. I predict right now my colleagues are not going to allow us to get those judges to the Senate so we can begin the debate and the consideration of whether they should be confirmed. That will be a real shame and, again, a violation of what this Senate has always done in the past, even when we did not particularly think a nominee should receive an affirmative vote on the floor. I believe Clarence Thomas was in this situation. The committee passed him to the Senate to see what the full body would do to give its advice and consent which is what the Constitution calls upon us to do. I close by urging my colleagues not to confuse this discussion with erroneous information or talk about things that are in a history that never was but, rather, to approach it on the basis of moving forward, in a bipartisan way, to fill our constitutional responsibilities to grant these judges an up-or-down vote by our advice and consent so we can put people on the court in these very important positions to serve the American people.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Let me read the opening to give a flavor of what the American Farm Bureau Federation is saying: The American Farm Bureau Federation strongly supports the Chambliss-Kyl amendment and urges its adoption when it is considered on the Senate floor. This amendment would provide U.S. agriculture a clear, simple, timely and efficient H-2a program to fill seasonal and temporary jobs for which there is a limited U.S. labor supply. . . . This measure also deals sensibly and fairly with illegal immigrants who are now working in agriculture, who meet strict criteria and pose no security threat. This amendment does not grant amnesty to illegal aliens. . . . The Chambliss-Kyl proposal strikes a reasonable balance among employers, hard-working employees who are striving to better themselves and the need and obligation of our country to control the flow of immigrants. The American Farm Bureau Federation supports the Chambliss- Kyl amendment and we urge your fellow Senators to vote for this proposal when it is considered in the Senate. In summary, we are going to have two proposals before us, one offered by the Senators from Massachusetts and Idaho. We urge you reject that proposal because it is not something that is ever going to become law. It provides amnesty for illegal immigrants here. The other is our proposal, which enables us to have a good, workable system for agricultural labor. It can pass both bodies, and it does not include amnesty. I note when we begin debate on the supplemental appropriations we will have more of an explanation of what we have offered to our colleagues, but at least this way we have opened up the subject. I yield the floor.

Mr. KYL. One of the reasons I believe our bill has more support is that it is more likely to become law, whether it is a stand-alone provision that relates only to agricultural workers or is part of a broader kind of immigration reform. I do not think many people believe the House of Representatives is going to pass a bill with amnesty, so we are trying to be practical about it. We would like to get something done, not simply run an ideological position up the flag pole in order to get a vote on it here in the Senate. That is why the American Farm Bureau is so strongly in support of our legislation and in opposition to our colleagues' legislation. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from the American Farm Bureau Federation dated April 13 to the Presiding Officer and myself.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I first wish to express appreciation to the Senator from Georgia for explaining very well both the need for and the description of the legislation on which we will be voting tomorrow, which is our version of the legislation that will help employers in our agricultural sector by including immigration reform which will make it easier for them to obtain workers from both the illegal immigrants who are in the country today as well as those legal immigrants who would be applying under our legislation. Let me go back to kind of a 30,000-foot elevation view here and describe the reasons we put this legislation together and are offering it at this time. As we have said before, the supplemental appropriations bill, which will be debated again tomorrow as well as later today and which will help pay for our war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not the appropriate place to be debating immigration. Unfortunately, some of our colleagues saw fit to bring amendments to the Senate floor which related to that subject. One of those amendments is this amendment that deals with agricultural labor. It was at that point that Senator Chambliss and I had no alternative but to present the alternative view of how to serve those agricultural needs. The basic difference between the bill Senator Chambliss just described and the other bill, the bill that is primarily offered by Senators Kennedy and Craig, is the difference between a bill that provides amnesty, in the case of their legislation, for illegal immigrants here, and our bill, which provides the workforce within the legal construct of the law but does not grant amnesty to the illegal immigrants who are here. There are a lot of other differences, but that is the prime difference. Both of us recognize that there is a significant need for a workforce in this country, willing and able to work in agriculture and related occupations, and that cannot be satisfied solely with people who are American citizens today. The difference is in the way we treat those people who are here illegally today. What the Craig and Kennedy legislation does is to grant those people, very early on, a legal status which permits them to become legal permanent residents. ``Legal permanent residents'' is a term of art under our immigration law. Some people refer to it as a green card. As little as 100 hours' work for 3\1/2\ months entitles someone under their legislation to get a green card. A green card is like gold because it enables you to live for the rest of your life in the United States of America and work here. But it also means something else. If you have a green card, you can also apply to become a citizen of the United States of America. It is a wonderful thing for people from other countries to get to be citizens of the United States of America. We are very much in support of immigration to this country. As my grandparents came here and as almost all the rest of us have relatives who came to this country from another country, we all support legal immigration. But we do not believe that great opportunity to become a citizen of the United States should be granted to someone on the basis of their illegality; because they came here illegally, because they used counterfeit documents, because they got a job illegally--that on the basis of those factors they should get an advantage over those who are abiding by the law and who want to become U.S. citizens. It is that with which we disagree. What we say is if a person who is in the country illegally today wants to work in U.S. agriculture or related industries, and the employer needs that person--and there are certainly a lot of them in that category--the employer petitions and that individual can get a different kind of status, a blue card, as Senator Chambliss said. That blue card status enables them to work here, to live here, to travel back and forth to their country of origin. They can go back and forth every weekend, if they desire. There are no restrictions there. They are in the Social Security system. They are protected by our laws. They have to be paid a specific kind of wage, and they have all of the other kinds of protections one would think of in this context, but their status is different from that of a legal permanent resident, a green card holder. Not only are they not entitled to live here the rest of their lives-- eventually they are going to have to return home--but if they want to become citizens they have to go home and apply for it just like anybody else. What does that mean? They have to be petitioned for by somebody, by an employer in this country. It takes about a year for them to acquire this status of legal permanent resident. That is how long it takes to get it. But once you get it, you can apply to become a U.S. citizen. We are not punishing people for having violated our laws. Some would say you should not give them the opportunity to become citizens because they broke our laws. As Senator Chambliss pointed out, we are not saying that. If they want to become legal permanent residents and apply for U.S. citizenship, they would have that right. All we ask is that they be treated just like anybody else who wants that right, which is to say they apply from their own country, not from the United States; that they wait the same period of time you would have to wait otherwise, a year; and then, if it is granted, they can apply for citizenship, and all the rest of it works just the same as it would for anybody legal. What we say is that you cannot use the fact that you came to the United States illegally to get to stay here and stay here during the entire process that you are applying for legal permanent residency and U.S. citizenship. That gives you a big advantage, a leg up over those who are abiding by the law and who did not violate the law and come here illegally in the first place. There are other differences, but that is the most critical difference. From our colleagues' standpoint, what we are saying is you can vote for a bill which grants a very simple, convenient, economical way for us to get the agricultural labor we need in this country, with all the protections for the laborers which one would expect, without having to grant amnesty to these individuals, and that is a big deal. The second way the Kennedy-Craig legislation provides for amnesty is that it even provides for someone who came to this country illegally and is employed illegally here and who then went back to their home country to come back into the United States and get those same advantages as those who would otherwise have to wait a year for legal permanent residency and then later for citizenship. So it not only would apply to those who are here illegally today but those who claimed they worked in the United States illegally in the past. And who knows what kind of claims we are going to get there? Because, of course, the counterfeit documents, Social Security cards, driver's licenses, and other kinds of documents used to gain employment in the first instance can also be used to demonstrate the previous status of having illegally worked in the United States of America. (Mr. CHAMBLISS assumed the chair.)

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Let me propound the unanimous consent request again, if I can. I ask unanimous consent that in 15-minute blocks of time Senator Wyden proceed without any of this time coming off his, there then be two 15-minute blocks for the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Georgia, followed by a 15-minute block for the Senator from Massachusetts, but in the meantime, Senator Bingaman be able to offer his amendments.

Mr. KYL. They could ask unanimous consent to intervene, and obviously it will be granted.

Mr. KYL. I am happy to have my unanimous consent request amended along the lines of what the Senator from Massachusetts said.

Mr. KYL. That is accommodated in the unanimous consent request which I proposed.

Mr. KYL. Let me propose this unanimous consent, Mr. President, if I may. The Senator from Oregon is speaking right now. I ask unanimous consent that after the Senator from Oregon is finished, so there would have been two Members speaking on behalf of the legislation of the Senator from Idaho, that at that point, the debate next go back and forth between proponents of the Chambliss-Kyl amendment and then back to Kennedy-Craig, and anyone offering an amendment can obviously seek to ask unanimous consent to lay the pending business aside, but in the meantime the debate on these two provisions that will both be voted upon tomorrow proceed with speakers on either side rotating.

Mr. KYL. Yes.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Oregon, we have the Senator from Massachusetts here, and the Senator from Alabama has been here, as has the Senator from Georgia been on the floor when there was no one else present. I wonder if we can get some general agreement of going back and forth between proponents or opponents or proponents of the two separate bills so the Chair has some idea of order and the debate participants do as well. I offer this as a suggestion. I have not proposed a unanimous consent request, but perhaps some of the staff can work this out while the Senator from Oregon is speaking.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, will the Senator from Oregon yield for a procedural question?

Mr. KYL. Yes. We change the wage rate to the prevailing wage. We make it easier for the farmer to demonstrate that there are not American workers available to do the jobs. We make it easier, cheaper, faster, but with protections for the employees. I think all of that is why the American Farm Bureau Federation has endorsed our legislation as the best way for them to satisfy these employment needs. Mr. President, I will close and allow my colleagues the opportunity to speak. Senator Craig wants to disagree with us, and I want to give him that opportunity. Let me allow him to describe his bill, and we can have a debate back and forth as to which bill better satisfies our employment needs or requirements but doing so in a way that we can actually get a bill passed and sent to the President; i.e., a bill that doesn't include amnesty.

Mr. KYL. Yes.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, that is a very good question. I think all of us would agree that we cannot be displacing American workers. We are currently not doing that today. There is a need for these employees, and it is really a question of which approach is the better one, to ensure we can match a willing worker with a willing employer without granting amnesty.

Mr. KYL. Yes.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I think we are now ready to begin a conversation. There are several colleagues here, including the Senators from Georgia, Alabama, and Idaho, we would like to discuss this issue we are going to be voting on tomorrow. Our colleagues need to have a clear picture of what we will be voting on. There are two basic versions of legislation to try to make it easier for agricultural employers to hire people who are temporary workers or who have been in the United States illegally and can be employed under the bills proposed here. There are two different approaches. One is the approach of the Senator from Idaho--I will defer to him in a moment to have him discuss his approach--and the other approach Senator Chambliss and I have offered. There are a couple of key differences. They both approach the problem from the standpoint of broadening the way in which legal immigrants can come to the country and be employed legally in agriculture and taking illegal immigrants who are currently not working within the legal regime, using counterfeit or fraudulent documents-- and, everybody knows, being employed illegally--and enabling them to work for a temporary period of time legally in this country. The primary difference between the approaches is over the question of amnesty. Regarding that, I think everybody would have to admit--and different people have different definitions of what amnesty is-- everybody would have to agree, if there is a difference in how you can become a legal, permanent resident in this country or a citizen, you would have to agree, if someone is granted an advantage over an applicant for legal permanent residency or citizenship status in another country, if they are given an advantage because they came here illegally and counterfeited documents to get employment and worked here illegally, to give them an advantage over people who are seeking to come here legally is giving them an advantage that would amount to amnesty. You should not be able to use, in other words, your illegal status to bootstrap yourself into a position of legal, permanent residency or citizenship. I pointed out before, under the bill of the Senators from Massachusetts and Idaho, there would be an ability for people not in the United States but who would like to come here to claim they worked in the country illegally, and that would give them an ability to come here and apply for this same status. So, ironically, we would be turning on a neon sign that says come here with documents--they could be fraudulent and you could have defrauded us before--and claim that you worked in the country illegally, and we will let you come back in again. I don't know how you give people an advantage on the basis they violated our law. You would think you would want to give people an advantage who have played by the rules. That is the second way in which this bill grants amnesty and is not the right approach. As my colleague from Georgia talked about, we would be changing, for the first time, a law to allow the Legal Services Corporation to represent these illegal immigrants, which is something we have not been willing to do in the past. We have to be careful because the reason illegal immigrants are working here is the current H2-A law is so cumbersome to use, it is so subject to abuse and costs money and takes time and you can be sued, and so on, that employers don't like to use it. It is just not worth it to them. If we are going to have a bill that is no easier to use, there is not going to be any advantage over the current law and, as a result, it is going to be difficult for farmers to utilize this new provision if they have to look over their shoulder and wonder if the Legal Services Corporation is going to file a lawsuit.

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

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Material Support to Terrorism Prohibition Improvements Act of 2005. Mr. Barry Sabin, the Chief of the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, testified as to the importance of the material support statute at a September 13 hearing before the Terrorism Subcommittee last year. He emphasized that: a key element of the [Justice] Department's strategy for winning the war against terrorism has been to use the material support statutes to prosecute aggressively those individuals who supply terrorists with the support and resources they need to survive. The Department seeks to identify and apprehend terrorists before they can carry out their plans, and the material support statutes are a valuable tool for prosecutors seeking to bring charges against and incapacitate terrorists before they are able to cause death and destruction. The bill that I introduce today expands current law's exclusion from the United States of persons who give material support to terrorism by training at a terrorist camp. The bill makes such persons inadmissible to the United States, they now only are deportable, and applies these exclusions to pre-enactment terrorist training. Mr. Sabin described at last year's hearing the threat posed by persons who have receive training at a terrorist camp: A danger is posed to the vital foreign policy interests and national security of the United States whenever a person knowingly receives military-type training from a designated terrorist organization or persons acting on its behalf. Such an individual stands ready to further the malicious intent of the terrorist organization through terrorist activity that threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States. My bill would ensure that such persons not only are removed from the United States once they are found here, but also are prevented from entering this country in the first place. Today's bill also repeals a 2006 sunset on several recent clarifications that were made to the material-support statute in order to address vagueness concerns expressed by some courts. At the September 13 Terrorism Subcommittee hearing, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said of the original legislative proposal to clarify the statute: ``[t]his proposal would actually improve the current federal law by correcting gaps and ambiguities that have led to recent judicial reversals. In that sense, the proposal can be viewed as a slight benefit to civil liberties by removing a dangerous level of ambiguity in the law.'' There is no reason why this important provision, and other improvements to the material-support statute made in last year's 9/11 Commission bill, should be allowed to expire at the end of this Congress. This bill would make these improvements permanent. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a section by section analysis be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Material Support to Terrorism Prohibition Improvements Act of 2005. Mr. Barry Sabin, the Chief of the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, testified as to the importance of the material support statute at a September 13 hearing before the Terrorism Subcommittee last year. He emphasized that: a key element of the [Justice] Department's strategy for winning the war against terrorism has been to use the material support statutes to prosecute aggressively those individuals who supply terrorists with the support and resources they need to survive. The Department seeks to identify and apprehend terrorists before they can carry out their plans, and the material support statutes are a valuable tool for prosecutors seeking to bring charges against and incapacitate terrorists before they are able to cause death and destruction. The bill that I introduce today expands current law's exclusion from the United States of persons who give material support to terrorism by training at a terrorist camp. The bill makes such persons inadmissible to the United States, they now only are deportable, and applies these exclusions to pre-enactment terrorist training. Mr. Sabin described at last year's hearing the threat posed by persons who have receive training at a terrorist camp: A danger is posed to the vital foreign policy interests and national security of the United States whenever a person knowingly receives military-type training from a designated terrorist organization or persons acting on its behalf. Such an individual stands ready to further the malicious intent of the terrorist organization through terrorist activity that threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States. My bill would ensure that such persons not only are removed from the United States once they are found here, but also are prevented from entering this country in the first place. Today's bill also repeals a 2006 sunset on several recent clarifications that were made to the material-support statute in order to address vagueness concerns expressed by some courts. At the September 13 Terrorism Subcommittee hearing, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said of the original legislative proposal to clarify the statute: ``[t]his proposal would actually improve the current federal law by correcting gaps and ambiguities that have led to recent judicial reversals. In that sense, the proposal can be viewed as a slight benefit to civil liberties by removing a dangerous level of ambiguity in the law.'' There is no reason why this important provision, and other improvements to the material-support statute made in last year's 9/11 Commission bill, should be allowed to expire at the end of this Congress. This bill would make these improvements permanent. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a section by section analysis be printed in the Record.