Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 15 minutes. I believe Senator Bingaman wants to speak after that.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his work on this. It is obvious he has read the legislation and attempted to see what it actually means, which is a good thing, and done too little in this Senate, but it is important especially in this legislation where it is so critical. Let me say what I understood the whole deal was supposed about. It was put very simply to me how we were going to have a new immigration system, in this new legislation that was going to be better than last year's bill. The way I understood it, from the talking points that were suggested and floated around and that we were briefed with, there would be a temporary worker program that would actually be temporary. To me that means a person would come for less than a year but could come back repeatedly after that, as long as their employer is happy and they have work to come to and they have not gotten in any trouble. And, they would not bring their families with them. That is what I thought we were talking about. Then we were told that there would be a separate second flow for people who enter America permanently, coming into America to go on a citizenship track. And we were told that track would be evaluated using a different system, it would be more skill based. In other words, a person would apply, and they would compete for the slots based on the skills they had and that we have in the United States. So I am concerned and share the concern of Senator Bingaman that the temporary worker program which allows 2 years' entry, then says go home and come back 1 year from now for another 2 years and then go home for a year, and come back for the final 2 years and never come back again seems less workable than the temporary seasonal worker program we have today. I am concerned about that. Remember, we are still going to have the constant flow of people who come in on the citizenship track and get a green card and become permanent citizens. They will also be workers, their family members will also be workers. We are not stopping that. But this bill creates a separate temporary worker program. I believe a system of temporary workers needs to work, needs to make sense, needs to be consistent with common sense, and ought to be in a way that is practical. I am not sure the legislation as introduced does that. Senator Grassley spoke before we recessed and asked this question: Why is it nobody has said this time, as they did in 1986, that there would be no more amnesties? He said he was here in 1986. He remembered what they said. It was admitted that they were having amnesty and they made a promise we wouldn't have amnesty anymore. People said: If we do it this one time, we won't do it again. He asked why we weren't hearing it said again. Of course, he answered his own question. The answer is, because bill sponsors can not make that promise. How can we say we are not going to have it anymore, after having said we would not do it again, and doing it again, and presumably we would be doing it again after that? I mentioned the enforcement trigger. This was designed to make sure if we give amnesty, enforcement would occur. We put some things in the trigger that had to be done before some of the benefits of this program would accrue, but a lot of things were left out, and the things left out were quite troubling. They make you wonder how serious we are about creating a lawful system in the future, for example. The enforcement trigger that has the requirements that must be met before the new temporary worker program begins does not require the exit portion of the US-VISIT system, that is the biometric border check-in, checkout system first required by the Congress in 1996, be working. That is a cause for concern because it is already well past the year 2005, when this bill required that the U.S. visa exit system be in effect. In other words, in 1996, we said: OK, we are passing a law, and we are going to have an exit-entry visa system at the border that will clock you in when you come in with a biometric card, and it will clock you out when you go out, just as you do when you are working at a job. Just like a lot of employment agencies and businesses have those kind of things. OK? It was due to be completed in 2005. Without the U.S. visa exit portion, the United States has no method to ensure that the workers or their visiting families, who are allowed under certain circumstances to visit them, do not overstay their visas. Senator Bingaman has been talking about his concern over the temporary worker program. Let me ask this: How do we know they are going to go home when their time is expired if the exit portion of the US-VISIT system is not up and working? We don't know. It is a fundamental loophole of monumental proportions, and I am surprised it is not in there. Once again, it suggests those promoting this legislation may not be serious about creating an immigration system that works. They may like a system that allows virtually anyone determined to come here to come here. There is another matter I wanted to mention in the trigger requirement. If it is not in the trigger, there is no way to say the bills sponsor really intend for it to happen. The example of the U.S. VISIT system indicates something about the nature of the Senate. Remember, in 1996, this Senate passed legislation that required the US- VISIT exit system be in effect by 2005. Then 2005 came and went. That did not occur. What does that mean? It means you can pass any law here and say you are going to do something in the future, but if you don't fund it or future Congresses don't fund it or future Presidents don't fight for it, it may not ever occur. That is all I am saying. That is why the American people need to be concerned about amnesty coming before all of the needed enforcement items. Another matter that involves what we are doing here involves having enough bedspace to end catch and release at the border. We passed a law in 2004 that requires 43,000 beds to be in place by the end of 2007. This is to end the catch-and-release section of the bill. Those beds have not been completed. In this legislation, it only required 27,000 beds. We had already required 43,000, but as I said, we are going to have to have 27,500. Then Senator Gregg offered an amendment to increase that to 31,500. We passed legislation in 2004, as part of the Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, to require much more bed space than this, and they have not been completed. Because we pass legislation doesn't mean it is going to happen. There is another loophole I will mention. I have 25. I should have added the problem Senator Bingaman just mentioned. I could have added many more than 25. Let's look at No. 4. Aliens who broke into this country a mere 5 months ago are provided permanent legal status in our country and are treated better than foreign nationals who legally applied to come to the United States more than 2 years ago. Aliens who can prove they were here illegally in the United States on January 1 of this year are immediately eligible to apply from inside the United States for amnesty benefits, while foreign nationals who filed applications to come to the United States after May 1 of 2005, over 2 years ago, must start the application process all over again from their home countries. The bill sponsors continue to claim this bill is necessary because illegal aliens have deep roots in the United States and are, therefore, impossible to remove. They claim that they have families here. They have been working here for many years. They can't be asked to leave. There is some truth in some of those situations, for sure, but it simply is not true in all cases. It is simply not true in many cases. The young man who ran past the National Guard out at the border somewhere last December is going to be given amnesty here in this country. The American people want us to treat the illegal alien population compassionately, I do believe, but there is no reason to lump all illegal aliens, regardless of when and how they got here or how deep their roots are, into the same amnesty program. Last year's Senate bill would have given illegal aliens amnesty if they could prove they had been in the United States since January 7, 2004. A lot of people want us to believe that this is a tougher bill than last year's bill. At least last year they said you had to have been in the country by January 7, 2004. This year the bill expanded the amnesty window by 3 years to 2007. Under this year's bill, illegal aliens who have rushed across the border in the last few years, including those who came 5 months ago, will be given all the amnesty benefits as those who have been living here for decades, have U.S. citizens in schools, and have been good workers. The January 7, 2004 date, why was that date selected last year as a cutoff date? It was important because that was when President Bush first gave his speech saying we needed a lawful system of comprehensive reform of immigration in America. We knew that when he gave that speech--and he was talking about amnesty for people here illegally-- that that would encourage more people to try to come into the country so they could be provided amnesty too. So they cut off the dates and said: If you came in after the President's speech, you can't get the advantage of the amnesty. That makes sense, I think. Then even more significantly, last year, in May 2006, President Bush announced the beginning of Operation Jump Start. Do you remember that? That was the program to put the National Guard at the border. He called out the National Guard. So this bill says if you ignored our announcement that we are going to make a lawful system of comprehensive reform, if you ignored the announcement that the border is closed, if you ignored and ran past the National Guard we put on the border to create a lawful system there, as long as you got here by December 31 of last year, you get to apply for full amnesty. You are home free. You are in. I don't think that is required. I don't think that is good policy.

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. The bill's drafters say amnesty applicants will be at the back of the line and will not be treated preferentially to those who have followed the law. That is not true in a number of cases and in this case. The bill allows the illegal aliens who got here 5 months ago to cut in line in front of people in the family green card backlog who filed their applications after May 1, 2005, 2 years after. Illegal aliens who came to the United States 5 months ago will get probationary Z visa status 1 day after filing a Z visa application. I suppose those who followed the law, who made their application properly, who waited in line may wonder why they didn't come illegally also. Isn't that the message we are sending? So this provision in the bill does not restore respect for the rule of law. It erodes it. At a minimum, no illegal alien should be treated better than a foreign national who applied to come legally. The amnesty date should be moved back to May 1, 2005. I will have an amendment to that effect. I see my colleague here, Senator Dorgan. I appreciate his insight into these issues and his willingness to ask some tough questions about the system and the bill before us and to point out some of the weaknesses in it. That has been helpful to the debate.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am not sure I quite understand that.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cornyn for his tireless effort and his great knowledge of the complexities of the issues involved in any comprehensive immigration reform. I know he has worked hard to try to craft a comprehensive bill but one that will actually work. That is the question. I know the Senator has developed great concerns about that and has offered a number of amendments, some excellent law enforcement amendments, drawn, I know, from his experience as a former attorney general in Texas and a member of the supreme court in Texas. I believe, as a former Federal prosecutor, those amendments are essential to having a successful immigration program. I would like to hear why it is that now 3 days into this bill he has not been able to get a vote on those amendments and about other amendments that he has offered this morning, whether he has been successful in even calling them up for consideration.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to make one correction. I think I said we had four or five votes, or three or four votes, or something of that nature. My staff tells me we have had seven votes this week. I think that is better than four, but that would indicate that in 2 weeks we will have had about 14 votes. That is not enough, in my view, to fix the problems in this legislation. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the failed immigration policies we have now are in need of reform, in need of comprehensive reform. I said that last year. Some of my colleagues said borders first; and I had sympathy with that and it actually would probably have been a healthy process if we started a year or two ago and established border security and gained the respect and confidence of the American people. We could then have been bringing forward a comprehensive immigration bill with more credibility than we have today. There is a lot of debate going on, and a lot of posturing going on. You see things, such as my good friend, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mike Chertoff who is doing a great job--he frames the issue this way: It is a choice between Republican conservatives who want to block the bill by insisting on mass deportations or insisting on deportations that are just not going to happen. Well, I am not aware of anybody on our side of the aisle calling for mass deportations. That is not so. That is a false setup. That is a triangulation, if you will, good friend, Mr. Chertoff, former U.S. attorney. We served together in the Department of Justice. He is one of the best members of the Cabinet. I do not appreciate it, Mike. You tell me who on this side said we want to have a mass deportation--zero. That is not the question. The question is whether we will have a decent bill that will actually work. I know you have made recommendations that are critical, Mr. Chertoff, to the passage of the bill that were not included in it. In fact, I have to give him credit. He did criticize the liberal immigration rights advocates by suggesting they will prolong the anguish by holding off the bill also. But I do not think that is the right issue here. All of us want a compassionate, legitimate piece of legislation that can work and will serve our long-term interests and will be consistent with the principles that are set forth by the people who worked on the legislation. But I am not given confidence. I will repeat again: I am not feeling confident at all there will be a legitimate, full, vigorous debate and a lot of amendments that go to some of the weaknesses in the legislation. I am afraid they are not going to be considered. I say that because I see the tactics moving along. We have gone a week with only three, four votes. That is not enough time on a bill of this size and complexity. I think we had 40 or 50 votes on the bankruptcy bill. It was nothing more than an updating of bankruptcy law. It went on for weeks and months. It came through the Senate three or four times actually before it finally became law. There were other bills that had far more extensive debate and discussion than this one. But none of those bills come close to having the impact on America or come close to having the attention of the American people to the degree this issue does. The reason the American people are angry and upset is simple. They are not angry, they are not upset with immigrants. That is not what I read people to be saying. What I think they are angry and upset with is Congress and the President for absolutely refusing to listen to their natural and proper concerns about immigration. What I am hearing is they do not want to be taken to the cleaners once again. They do not want to be victims of a bait and switch in which we promise we are going to create a system that will work for lawful immigration, that will allow us to have an immigration policy that serves the national interest, that allows millions of people to come to our country in immigration status--but it would be a number we can have jobs for, without pulling down the wages of hard-working American workers. It would bring in numbers sufficient to make sure we do not cause problems in schools and other areas that we cannot quite handle. The number ought to be correct, and that they ought to be, insofar as possible, persons who are going to flourish in our economy, people who have the skills, language, and education levels that indicate they will likely be very successful here, like Canada does. That is what they do. We have a touch of that in this bill--far better than last year, I have to say--but I have been so disappointed to read the fine print and to see that movement to follow the philosophy that Canada does has not nearly been strong enough. It is discouraging to see it has not been. So the individuals who thought they would meet and reach an agreement and plop it on the floor of the Senate--for which all the rest of us folks would just dutifully comply with and ratify and say: Thank you, my elite colleagues. We are glad you have worked out this immigration problem. Thank you so much. We know something had to be done--and it does have to be done--we are just overjoyed you got Senator Kennedy and Senator Kyl and everybody has agreed, and we are going to plop this bill down, and you guys will just ratify it. You can have a lot of little amendments if you want to, but, remember, if anything touches the core principles we have decided on, why, that would be something we just couldn't accept, and every one of us is going to stick together, and we are going to vote against it, even if we might agree with your amendment. We had to compromise that to get this agreement. Yes, Jeff, we like that amendment. I know you like that amendment. I really think you are right on that amendment, but I cannot vote with you because I have agreed with this group over here in this secret session which the public was not involved in. We made a commitment to one another, and we are going to stick together and vote you down. Now, this is not the way old Bill was taught law was supposed to occur in America. It is unbelievable that you would have a piece of legislation of this historic nature not even go to committee and that this group just met. How quick did we have it? Oh, well, we were going to have the bill last Thursday so people could read it, and then it was going to be Friday. We promise we will have the bill Friday. Then it turned out to be Saturday morning, at 2 a.m., they emailed it and tried to say they put it out Friday. It was Saturday, at best, when the bill was out. They claim it is 300 and some pages. I believe this is it. They say it is 300 pages or whatever the number of pages it is in this stack of bills, but they didn't print it in the normal language. I have never seen a piece of legislation of any size go through here and not be in bill language. This is fine print. If you put this bill in bill language, it would probably be 1,000 pages. A good immigration bill needs to be 1,000 pages. There are thousands of issues involved that need to be clarified, hundreds and hundreds of complex situations that, if not properly addressed, will never work if we don't do it right. That is all I would say to my colleagues and friends. I love you. I appreciate all your efforts to try to solve the American people's problems. I know you didn't want to bother with them while you met and had your discussions, except I guess the Chamber of Commerce and this special interest group and that special interest group and maybe some pollsters telling this and that; I don't know how that came out. But I don't appreciate the fact that we are not being able to have a full debate on it, and we are not going to be able to have very many amendments. We could probably, without--well, you say: You are trying to file amendments to delay. You want to slow down the process. Well, as Senator Specter said, in retrospect, we would have done better had the bill gone through committee, the Judiciary Committee. At least they did last year. It was rammed through the committee last year because I saw it when I was on the committee. This is what happened last year: They waited until the last minute. Senator Frist, the majority leader, says we are going to bring an immigration bill up next Monday. On the Judiciary Committee, we are working hard. We go to the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Specter has a bill that had some possibilities. It had problems, but it had some attractiveness to it. It wasn't long before Senator Kennedy dropped his bill and substituted and the Specter bill was gone. We had an entirely new bill. Then they dropped an AgJOBS thing on top of that. Then they dropped the DREAM Act, which gives instate tuition to illegal aliens and things of that nature that all got dropped on, passed, pop, pop, pop. Senator Frist says: Well, if you don't have the bill on the floor by Monday night, I am going to go with an enforcement only bill. So we rush and rush around there and they put the bill down on Monday night and here we go. Senator Reid says we don't want any amendments. Senator Cornyn and Senator Kyl had some amendments. They got their backs up and began to push back and people said: What are we going to do with a bill without any amendments? So finally, Senator Frist pulled the bill. He said: We are not going to bring it back up until the Democratic leaders agree we are going to have some amendments. It came back up for a couple of weeks of debate and cleared this body, knowing the House of Representatives had no intention whatsoever of ever considering it. It was sort of a gesture because it was not an effective piece of legislation. This year's bill is better than last year's, although I have been disappointed to see that it has backed up on some issues of significance. I still would say the framework of this year's bill is a good bit better than last year's. Last year's bill should never, ever have become law. It was fatally flawed. So what were the principles that the promoters of this legislation said should be occurring here? They said we need a lawful system, that we wouldn't have amnesty and that there would be a trigger, which was rejected last year, a trigger and a number of other things they cited as key component principles of a good immigration bill. All right. I agree with that. Many of those principles were sound. But as we read the fine print, our concern is--my fine staff, they have worked hard, including weekends. They get the bill at 2 a.m. Saturday morning. They work Saturday nights and Sunday nights and here we are on the floor of the Senate. The thing does not even get introduced until Monday night, and nobody has had a chance to read it until then. So it is a big problem. My fundamental concern then is that the bill does not live up to the stated principles that it contains. So what we need in reform are a number of things. We need to recognize--unless anyone misinterprets this--we need to recognize we are indeed a Nation of immigrants. We are. Some people don't believe that, but I don't believe there is a Member of Congress who doesn't understand that. We want and will have a continuing flow of new people into our country, and it enriches us and has proven to be one of our strengths as a Nation. I think we need to restate that again and again and that immigration will continue in the future and that we are going to treat compassionately, even generously, people who have broken our laws and come into our country illegally. But we must do it in a way that minimizes the damage that will be done to our legal system and our ability to enforce the law in the future. My colleagues have been involved in law enforcement and you get busy and you start giving people immunity for this and that crime repeatedly and people begin to believe you are never going to enforce it. At some point in the future, you get to the point where you would not be able to enforce it. On the floor, I think maybe yesterday, Senator Grassley from Iowa, who is such a great Senator, such a direct speaker, asked this question. He said he was here in 1986 when they promised no amnesty. He is very concerned because it didn't work and he felt responsibility for that. He was not going to be a part of new immigration legislation that doesn't work such as the 1986 legislation. He said: In 1986, they said we are not ever going to have amnesty again, and he asked this question: Have you heard any of the promoters of this legislation say we will not have amnesty again? He said: You are not going to hear them say that. That is one thing you would not hear because after--because if we give amnesty again, what good is it to even say we are not going to do it? Because what principle, what basis on which to stand will we have 10, 12, 15 years from now when several million other people are in our country legally and someone says they are here illegally, why don't we enforce the law and ask them to go home. Oh, well, you gave amnesty before. You gave amnesty in 2007, you gave amnesty in 1986. How can you enforce the law now? So to not understand as a matter of law and principle that once again, taking the easy amnesty step will make it almost impossible in the future for us ever to enforce the law is a mistake. I read the debate in 1986--a lot of it. It went just like that. People said: One-time amnesty. We have to do this. Own-time amnesty. The others said: Well, we are not sure about this. We think if you have an amnesty and you wipe out the laws that we had here and the violations that have occurred, you are liable to increase the threat in the future that more people will break into our country illegally on the expectations that they, too, after a period of time, will be allowed to stay legally. If you read that debate, you will see whose predictions were correct. I have to say that. I have to say that. So I think the Z visa program that allows people who come here illegally to stay here illegally, to come out of the shadows with some sort of status, but not, I would suggest, as it is now written giving them a guaranteed path to receiving every single benefit that accrues to people who come legally, I don't think we should do that. That is my principle. If you didn't follow the rules, somehow, it ought to be clear that you will never get every single benefit of citizenship and participation in America than if you waited in line. If you give up on that principle, we have a problem. So I think if we had the courage and the firmness and the strength in this Senate and would listen to the American people, we would say the principles of 1986 are going to be affirmed. OK. We will figure out a way you can stay, your children can be citizens, you can have all the protections of the laws of our country but not every benefit of citizenship, and we will never, ever again do that. If we give away that position, I think we have a problem. So what I would like to talk about is some of the loopholes in this bill. I talked about the loopholes last year in the bill and there were quite a number of them. This is not an exhaustive list. You heard Senator Allard earlier this morning make comments about the weaknesses in the legislation, and you heard Senator Cornyn point out some weaknesses in the legislation. I have identified 15. We certainly would not be able to talk about all those this morning that I wish to talk about, but there are many more. It is troubling that we might not be able to have an opportunity to fully amend the bill to fix these loopholes. Our old buddy, Bill, the ideal way that laws should be written in America, well, he has been forgotten in this process. I will tell you what could happen in the House of Representatives. I don't think they are having any serious hearings over there. This bill could hit the House of Representatives if it came out of the Senate--and it may well come out of this body--it could hit the House of Representatives. They could call it up. They don't have unlimited debate. They don't have a very strong ability to cut off debate. They could vote the bill out. It could go to conference. The conferees will be chosen and controlled by Senator Reid, the Democratic leader, and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and they will appoint the people they want to fix any differences in the bill, and they can make virtually any changes they want to. Then the bill is on the floor, and it is either up or down, and it might pass. As one Member of the House said about whether President Bush would sign it, he said President Bush would sign a pork chop if it had immigration reform on it. We have to be careful what we do and what is in this bill. It can affect what is actually going to become law. There is no passing this off to the House of Representatives, like last year, as if that was going to fix many of the problems that were in the legislation. The House is liable to make it worse. Well, you have heard one of the principles in the bill. I am glad to hear Senator McCain say there was a trigger in the legislation. He resisted a trigger last year. We had quite a debate on it. Those opposing it last year said you cannot have a trigger because all of us who met and wrote the bill don't want a trigger; you will upset our compromise. I asked then--and I ask today--who was in this compromise? Did you have public hearings? Were people allowed to do what you were discussing? Did La Raza get to put in their opinion? Did the U.S. Chamber of Commerce get to put in their opinion? Who all got to put in their opinion? They didn't ask my opinion--well, that is not totally so; I did talk to a couple of them, whom I expressed some opinions to. Fundamentally, that is just not an open process. Sometimes you can do something like that as a tough nut to be cracked, and people have to make a decision. But this is too big, too broad, too much policy. The American people are too concerned about it, and it is too important to be settled that way. Let me tell you what the trigger was about. I offered in the Judiciary Committee last year--because it dawned on me that in Judiciary Committee, I offered an amendment to say: Let's add border patrol, and they accepted it. I offered an amendment that showed how we don't have enough bed spaces to end catch and release, saying you had to have more. They accepted that. I offered amendment after amendment, and they accepted them. I thought, why is this? So I offered amendments to change the policy to make the law actually enforceable, and they got voted down. Why would that be so easy? Because the brain trust that was proposing that bill last year knew the history of 1986; they knew how Congress worked, and they knew they never had any intention of funding all the Border Patrol agents and the fencing and the prison beds. We could pass an authorization bill to build prisons, and they are never going to get built, I am telling you. I will show you examples. It means nothing. So I offered a trigger. It finally dawned on me what this was about, how the game was going to be played out. I offered an amendment that said: You don't get any of this amnesty until the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies that he has operational control over our lawless border. They voted that down. So Senator Isakson, from Georgia, picked that up and wrote it in even more detail when the bill came to the floor and offered the amendment. We had quite a debate over this because it was important--the trigger was important. The cabal who put all of it together said: We cannot do that because it would upset our delicate compromise in the groups that participated in writing this bill--not the American people--and they would oppose it. They voted it down. It was a fairly close vote, but they voted down the trigger because they really didn't want that trigger because they never intended to do the things that were in the bill. The trigger would have said: You have to build a fence, you have to build the prison beds, and you have to hire the people. If you don't do those things--and actually do them--the other stuff doesn't become law, the amnesty. That was the debate last year. This year, they say: We got the message, we are going to have a trigger. Well, good. I was happy about that. That sounded good. This is one of our principles. This time, we are not going to mislead the American people. We are really going to do what we promised and have a trigger, and you can relax, Sessions, because we are not going to fool you this time. It is not going to be like 1986. But the problem is that the trigger doesn't get us there. I just have to tell you that. The trigger only applies to the guestworker program and taking illegal aliens off the probationary Z visa, and all other programs in the bill will begin immediately. So if the trigger is never met--if the trigger that is supposed to be met is never met, these requirements we put in there to ensure that we were going to follow through with enforcement, if they are never met, the probationary status in the amnesty group never expires. After the bill passes, Homeland Security has 180 days to begin accepting Z visa applications. They would accept them for 1 year and can extend the application filing for another year. When the trigger is met, if it ever is, Homeland Security will start approving the applications they have been processing and adjudicating. What happens if the trigger is never met? Will the probationary amnesty end or expire? Those are pretty good questions. If the trigger is never met, I can answer it for you: The Z visa probationary status never ends in the bill. It is explained on page 291, line 17: Probationary authorization document does not expire until ``6 months after the date on which the Secretary begins to approve applications for Z visas.'' So if the trigger is never met, if the Department of Homeland Security never starts approving the applications and the 6-month clock never starts ticking, therefore, the probationary authorization document never expires. My staff asked about this in one of the briefings by the group promoting the bill. The staffers asked: Does the Z visa probationary card ever expire? The answer was: Well, because the triggers are going to get met sometime, in fact, it is not going to expire. So, in addition, we need to remember that there is no guarantee that the additional enforcement items--I talked about that earlier--in title I and title II of this legislation that purport to be effective in enforcing the law--there are dozens of things there that are not listed in the trigger. The question is, Will they ever be funded? You should be aware, sophisticated Americans and Members of the Senate, that there is no obligation or requirement whatsoever that these things ever get funded in the future. The bill itself acknowledges that in many different places. So with regard to some of the things in the bill that are supposed to make enforcement better and make the system work better, they use this phrase--they say, ``subject to the availability of appropriations.'' That phrase is used 18 times in the bill. What does that mean? It means we are going to increase our prison beds, increase border patrol, and do all these things which are in our law, and we are going to enforce the law subject to the availability of appropriations. Well, somebody probably wants a bridge in their home State or a highway or a university grant in their home district--more money for this or that, good programs or bad programs, but that is how these things get lost out in the competition for spending. They don't get done. They acknowledge that. The phrase ``authorized to be appropriated'' is used 20 times. So they are saying we are authorizing to be appropriated money to do this, that, and the other. They are going to make this bill good. So our masters of the universe come out and say: Don't worry, American people, I know you think we are not going to enforce the law, but we have new Border Patrol officers and prison spaces and fencing, and they add the phrase. But all it really says in the legislation is that it is authorized to be appropriated. There is no way they can guarantee that Congress next year is going to appropriate the money for what they put in the bill. All of that was key to the trigger effect. I have to tell you that, in my view, the trigger is not nearly strong enough. It has been undermined, and virtually everything in the trigger has already been completed or is soon to be completed. It doesn't have some of the new things that have been promised here in the trigger. Loophole No. 2. This is very important. The enforcement trigger does not require that the U.S. visa exit portion of US-VISIT--the biometric border check system that records that you have come into the country-- will be implemented. It was required by Congress in 1996. Over 10 years ago, we required that the US-VISIT exit system be in place; that is, if you have a visa to the United States for 6 months or 30 days or a year, you come in and present your card, it goes into the computer system, like at the bank or like your timeclock where you work, it clocks you in, and then it clocks you out. If you don't exit when you are supposed to, red flags can go up that you didn't exit when you were supposed to. You are an ``overstay.'' It is an absolutely critical step in creating a lawful immigration system that will work. It was required to be completed in 2005. Here we are in 2007, and it is not completed. Did we promise to complete it as part of the trigger? No, no, no. There would be no way to ascertain whether people exit when they are supposed to. Under the bill, it says a certain number of people come seasonably, or certain people for 2 years, and sometimes family members can come for 30 days, and sometimes family members can come for 2 years--those kinds of things. Who is going to find out if they didn't go home when they were supposed to? Over a third of the people in our country illegally came legally but overstayed their visa, and many have no intention of returning to their home country whatsoever. We don't even know they didn't return because we have no way to clock out when they left. We have no idea who left when they were supposed to leave. This is why I say the legislation before us was designed to fail. I am not sure the Members all designed it to fail, but the effort, when it came down to it, when confronted with things which would actually work and which are critical to the success of an effective border system, they weren't in there, and that sends you a signal on what is really there. In 1996, we required, as I said, this US-VISIT system to have an exit component by 2005, and it is still not complete. Do you think that in 1996, Members of the Congress and Members of the Senate went out and told their constituents that we are working on immigration; we passed a bill that will have an exit system in 10 years or 9 years, and that will help us enforce the law, and I am so proud we passed that? What good is it to pass it if it never happens? It hasn't happened yet, and it is not required through the trigger, which is the only thing that can require it to work. According to the Pew Hispanic Center's 2006 report entitled ``Modes of Entry for Unauthorized Migrant Population'': 4 to 5.5 million of the current illegal alien population ``entered legally'' and are non-immigrant visa overstayers. Despite what we know about the overstay rates, the US-VISIT exit system is not made part of the trigger. That is a very big loophole. I don't think we are serious if we don't have an exit system. One might say it is hard to do. We have had 10 years. I will say one thing, if President Bush wanted the exit system to be in place, he would have it in place. If Congress wanted it in place, we would have it in place. A separate section of the bill does require the Department of Homeland Security to submit to Congress a schedule for developing an exit component. That is not good enough. Loophole No. 3, one of these little spots in poor old Bill who got shot up because he didn't go to committee like he was supposed to learn in civics class. He is supposed to go to committee. Maybe some loopholes would have been closed if we had an opportunity to talk about it publicly before the whole world. Loophole No. 3: The bill does not require the Department of Homeland Security to have enough bed space to actually end catch and release at the border and in the interior. It only requires Homeland Security to maintain its current level of bed space and establishes a ``catch, pay, and release'' program that benefits illegal aliens from countries other than Mexico who are caught at the border and who can post a $5,000 bond. A $5,000 bond is not hard to post if you know how the system works and you are prepared. It can be done any number of ways. But let's say an individual has a cousin or uncle or someone in the United States and they come into the country and are apprehended, and they came from Europe or Brazil or someplace other than Mexico. All you have to do is post a bond and then you are released pending some hearing on deportation. We have had this problem for a number of years. Secretary Chertoff has made some progress in ending it, and I give him credit for that. There was an article in a newspaper that showed that people other than Mexicans--you see, it is not easy to deport them. It is easy to take a person back to Mexico, but how do you take a person back to Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, or Belarus? It takes some effort to do this. So they were releasing everyone on bail because they didn't have any bed space, and asking them to show up at some given time so they could deport them. If a person is willing to break into the country in violation of the laws, how many of those people are going to show up after they have been apprehended to be flown out of the country? No, not zero; 95 percent don't show up. That is what the number is. In fact, some of the rules smugglers told their people to follow is if you see an immigration officer, turn yourself in because they will take you further inland, they will process you, and let you out on bail, and you never have to come back, which is exactly what 95 percent are doing. It is a mockery of the law and, in some areas, we have made progress, but that is not a part of the trigger. What about the bed space? You have to have a certain amount of bed space or you can't hold people. Over the past 2 years, the Senate appropriated money for 9,000 new beds, bringing us to a total of 27,500 beds. This is the current funding level, 27,500 beds. We have already funded that amount. Nothing new was added to the requirements of the trigger until the Gregg amendment was adopted earlier this week. Now the trigger requires Homeland Security to reach a detention bed space of 31,500 beds, 4,000 more. The 27,500 beds, however, are far less than the 43,000 detention beds required under current law to be in place and constructed by the end of this year. OK, cynics out there, does that provide fuel to your fire? How about that? Does that breach cynicism? We require in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 that this country have 43,000 beds by the end of this year, but when this bill came up, they only had in the trigger portion, the thing that would guarantee we reach that level, 27,500 beds. Senator Gregg raised the number to 31,500, but in 2004, when Senators went out and bragged that they raised our number to 43,000 detention beds, that was supposed to be met, and we have no intention of meeting it, I submit. Because it is in bill language doesn't mean it will ever happen. This month, a Federal lawyer who used to be with the Bureau of Prisons, Joseph Summerill, wrote an op-ed piece--he used to be with the Bureau of Prisons, so he knows this issue. As a lawyer, he was a counsel for the Bureau of Prisons, and he now practices with the firm of Greenberg Traurig. He says the following: . . . the demand for deportation and removal operation detention space has grown much faster than available bed space has. . . . He goes on: Despite the fact that high-risk/high-priority immigrants include immigrants who are associated with criminal investigations, have committed fraud, or are likely to abscond, these immigrants are often released because of the lack of detention bed space. . . . The lack of detention bed space has resulted in creating a de facto amnesty program for illegal immigrants who are subject to removal, particularly those immigrants from countries ``other than Mexico.'' From 2002 to 2004, he explains:

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to just take a moment, and I see my colleague, Senator McCain, is here and prepared to speak, and I will be pleased to yield the floor and allow him an opportunity to speak. One of the problems we have with this legislation is we have gotten out of sync about our normal process on how legislation becomes law, how it should become law, what should be a part of it, particularly when it is such a massively important, broad, comprehensive bill that purports to be moving through the Senate. My colleague used a phrase that has been used frequently, that he was concerned about perhaps this amendment because it might affect an essential part of the agreement. Who made an agreement? I have not made an agreement. The American people haven't been in on an agreement. We have not gone through the normal process of moving an immigration bill through committee to the floor with hearings. We had some hearings last year and produced a quite different bill from the one that is on the floor today. This one was cooked up by a hard-working, good group of Senators who thought they could just speak for everybody--self- appointed, I suppose. Let me display this chart. When this bill was announced, it was said: This is democracy in action. This is what you learn in ninth grade civics. This is good business. But how about our old buddy Mr. Bill who wants to become a law. You have heard him say it. Old Bill has a bunch of holes in him. He has a lot of loopholes in him. I am going to talk about that in a few minutes. Senator Specter, former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, ranking Republican on the committee, part of this effort that worked hard to try to create a bill they thought would be effective, said the other day that in retrospect, it would have been better had it gone to committee. Old Bill, ask him how a bill becomes law. He says: It is an idea somewhere. Then it gets written up. Then it goes to the floor. Then it goes to committee. The committee has hearings on it and calls witnesses and considers all the details and ramifications and lets the American people know what occurred. The way this bill purports to become law is a group of Senators got together. I affectionately call them ``masters of the universe.'' They got together and wrote up a historic piece of legislation that, if placed in normal bill language, would probably push 1,000 pages, probably the longest piece of legislation ever brought here. It was not sent to committee. It was filed at the desk, and the majority leader, Senator Reid, called it up without any committee hearing. They had the old bill on the floor. They filed cloture this Monday on the old bill. Then Monday night, for the first time of record, they plopped down this historic and incredibly complex, long piece of legislation. It has a lot of problems with it. It should not become law. That is what this is all about. Now we have gone a week, and we haven't had many amendments voted on. Thirteen is about all we have voted on by voice, unanimous consent, and roll call. Senator Cornyn, who has been engaged in this deeply and worked hard on it, former attorney general, Supreme Court Justice of Texas, offered some amendments this morning. They were objected to. I was told last night if I put up some amendments to the other side, they would evaluate them, and we would be able to call up one of those amendments this morning. In truth, both have been objected to. I am not able to offer a new amendment this morning. So the first week is gone. In fact, Senator Harry Reid, our esteemed Democratic leader, a person I like and enjoy working with, wanted to complete the bill this week and had it set up to try to complete the bill this week. There was so much push back and objection, he said: We will carry it over for another week. I don't believe 1 more week is nearly enough for this legislation, frankly. We need to spend a lot more time on it. I can feel the train moving. There is a method in the way the majority is handling amendments; that is, you can only bring up one amendment at a time. It has to be approved by the other side before you can call it up. If you can't call it up, it ceases to be an amendment that can be voted on postcloture, even if it is germane. So the result is, we could proceed with this process in a way that does not allow it to be improved in a significant way. I am worried about my friend, Mr. Bill. I don't believe his teachers back there in the civics class would be pleased with how he has been bumped around. They would not be pleased that he had not gone through the normal process. I will point out some of the loopholes in poor, old Mr. Bill, as we go along today. Those loopholes will indicate this bill should not be passed in its present form. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would just ask this question, through the Chair. Is it similar to the bill last year? Did they not improve the language that basically said if you file a false document for a benefit under this bill, that is really not subject to being examined and investigated and prosecuted? If an American filed a false claim for hurricane relief or any government benefit, that is a violation of title XVIII, section 1001. I have prosecuted it many times. But persons who are here illegally, noncitizens, can file false statements and then there is a mechanism that blocks that from being actually investigated and perhaps prosecuted?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would prefer to have a vote on my amendment tonight, if we could do so. I would be reluctant to have another vote if we can't have a vote on the amendment I will offer.

Mr. SESSIONS. Reserving the right to object, I had understood there would be an opportunity for me to speak after Senator Sanders and Senator Durbin. Are we going to be in a situation where I may not be allowed to offer an amendment?

Mr. SESSIONS. It is a tough life in the pit here. If I desire to have a vote tonight myself, what would be the difficulty with that? We could do that at the same time as the vote on the Sanders amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, there will be a number of amendments I would like to have considered and a number of others that need to be considered after we come back. I would just reluctantly state that if we have a vote, I would need and request that my vote be also tonight; otherwise, I would object to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am pleased to yield.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, if I would be allowed to make my two amendments pending and to speak for 15 minutes, I would forgo a request for a vote tonight.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I have two amendments. They are both on the same subject. I would rather offer both. I am not sure which one--I would never ask the Senate to vote on both, but I would like to offer both.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I salute the Senator from Illinois for his expertise in extracting that agreement from this confusion. Amendment No. 1234 to Amendment No. 1150 Mr. President, I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask that the pending amendment be set aside and I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, one of the more significant ramifications of the immigration bill that is on the floor today is that it will confer immediately on persons in our country illegally the benefit of the earned-income tax credit. This is not a little bitty matter. The earned-income tax credit is the largest aid program for low-wage workers in America. Last year, the earned-income tax credit benefitted over 22 million people who. The average recipient who receives a benefit under the earned-income tax credit receives over $1,700 per year--a very generous event. Last year, we spent $41.2 billion on the Earned Income Tax Credit. What this bill would do, for the people who are here illegally, is confer on them a Z status, a legal status, and under the impact of the legislation, these individuals would immediately become eligible for the earned-income tax credit. Let me tell you why this is not good policy, it is not required by morality, and it certainly is not required of Congress as a matter of law or policy. The earned-income tax credit was created in 1975 to provide extra income to the working poor. Before welfare reform particularly, there was a widespread understanding that many people could not work, could stay at home, draw a panoply of welfare benefits, and end up making more money not working than working. It was creating a disincentive to work. Back when President Nixon was President, Republicans--and I guess Democrats--moved forward with the earned-income tax credit. It has grown and become a major factor for low-wage working Americans. The whole concept behind the earned-income tax credit was to encourage Americans to work, to affirm their work, to provide aid and assistance to them, unlike welfare. It is tied to their work. Now, I have to tell you, I have looked at it, and I do not think it is achieving quite what we want it to do. In fact, I would like to change that and have suggested it over the years but, regardless, that is the deal. So how is it, then, that we would think we have an obligation to provide, as a reward to someone who came to our country illegally, a benefit they are not now receiving, did not expect to receive when they came to the country, legally or illegally, and then, just as an additional benefit and reward to their legalization, we provide a $1,700-per-year benefit? It does not make good sense to me. I think it is bad policy, and it has a huge impact on our bottom line in the budget we have to deal with. I also note that in 1996, when we passed the Welfare Reform Act, after much effort and work--President Clinton vetoed it twice but finally signed it--an effort was made to ensure that persons who obtained a green card did not receive means-tested benefits until at least they had a green card for 5 years. In other words, if you were coming to our country as an immigrant, we wanted to be sure you were not coming for welfare benefits, but to work, and that you would not receive means-tested benefits until you had a green card for at least 5 years. So what happened was, when they wrote that, it did not touch the earned-income tax credit. I guess that is a Finance Committee matter. It is a tax committee matter. It was not considered a normal welfare- type payment, and that was not included in the list of things a person was not allowed to get. But, in my own mind, I say to my colleagues, it is perfectly consistent in philosophy and in principle with that because the earned-income tax credit is a payment from the Federal Government to working Americans. You file a tax return and obtain the Earned Income Tax Credit after a year's work. When your work shows your income level was below a certain level in America, you reach a qualifying level, and you get a tax refund of $1,700, $1,000, $2,400, depending on the circumstances of yourself and your family. So that is what happens today for working Americans. The individuals who are in our country illegally at this moment have not been expecting to get that, have not been getting it unless they are filing fraudulently, and they should not get it. They should not get it as an additional benefit to receiving a Z visa, which allows them permanent residence in the United States and a pathway to citizenship. That Z visa would also allow them to obtain quite a number of other benefits, such as food stamps--which would not be affected by my amendment--health care for children, and, of course, anyone who goes into a hospital who has an emergency need will be treated whether they have insurance or legal status or not. So their children would be educated in our school systems. All those things would occur. Nothing would impact those things. But it is not correct as a matter of law, as a matter of principle, and certainly it is not a matter of fiscal responsibility for this Congress to pass an immigration reform bill that confers another $18 billion to $20 billion in earned-income tax credit on people whom we just rewarded with permanent residence in our country. That is not required. There is no requirement of that. The Congressional Research Service describes the EITC in this way: The earned income tax credit began in 1975 as a temporary program-- Typical of Washington, isn't it, that we start something that is temporary, and it is $40 billion a year now-- to return a portion of the Social Security taxes paid by lower-income taxpayers and was made permanent in 1978. In the 1990s the program was transformed into a major component of Federal efforts to reduce poverty and is now the largest antipoverty entitlement program. I bet most Americans did not know that the EITC is the largest entitlement program on the books. Now, I have had a fairly positive view of the earned-income tax credit. I think in many ways it is a good philosophy to help Americans get out, get moving, make some work. They often start out at lower wage jobs, and it sounds bad sometimes for them, and they are not making enough to get by. This earned-income tax credit can really be a benefit to them, and if they stay at that job, if they work at it, if they are responsible and they come to work on time and do their duty effectively, most people in America get promoted. Their wages go up, and they do better and better. So I do not think it is a bad program, but it is a very expensive program, and for a number of reasons it could be operated better. I will again say to my colleagues, I am not of the belief that it is required of us that we should confer on persons who came into our country illegally every single benefit we confer on those who wait in line and come to our country legally. I just do not think that is required. One of the things in particular I would suggest not to be conferred--should not be conferred--upon them is the extensive benefits of the earned-income tax credit. In other words, we do not want to attract people to America on things other than their wages and salary. We have enough people who need help in America. We have a lot of people out there working who, frankly, maybe did not have a good home life. They have not been as reliable as they should have been. Maybe they have gotten in trouble a time or two. We need our American businesses to take a chance on those people. We need to help them get their lives together and establish a good work history and start making some money. The earned-income tax credit comes in as a refundable tax credit on top of that as a real bonus to them, and that is good. But it should not be an attraction to draw people into our country because most of the persons who come into America as an illegal immigrant, at least in the first years, tend to make the salary levels that qualify for the earned-income tax credit. So there will be a disproportionately high number of persons who will qualify for that. I see my time is about up. I will reluctantly accept having a vote, as Senator Kennedy suggested we can do early in the next week when we come back, if that will help move us along tonight. But I want to tell my colleagues to think about this amendment--really think about it. This is not a harsh amendment. This is not an amendment to hurt anybody. It is an amendment that says: OK, if you are in our country, just like the 1996 Welfare Reform Act said, and you qualify for the Z visa under this amnesty program, or whatever you would like to call what we have in this bill, you are not automatically eligible for the earned-income tax credit. We absolutely should not allow that to happen. It is not necessary. It is not right to do so. It is a raid on the Treasury of the United States. It draws money from people who have paid taxes for years. I would have to note, under the bill that is on the Senate floor, the immigration bill before us, are individuals who have been here illegally, some of whom may have made nice incomes and are absolved from paying a portion of their back taxes. So they don't even pay all back taxes. Then we are going to give them, immediately, the next year, an earned-income tax credit that could be a very substantial amount of money, and that comes right out of the taxpayers' pockets, a billion here and a billion there and a billion here and a billion there. It does add up, and it is significant. So I would urge my colleagues to consider this and hope that they will. I also wanted to express my support for Senator Hutchison for the analysis on Social Security of persons who come here to work and who violate their stays and overstay, that they should not receive the full benefit of Social Security. One of the things you have to have if you are going to have an effective immigration policy is you must have a situation in which you don't reward people for bad behavior, for heaven's sake. We certainly are not very good at apprehending people who violate the law, who either came in illegally or overstayed and removed them from the country, but surely we ought to set up a system that says if you violate the law, the way you come or stay here, you don't get Federal taxpayer benefits and a reward as a result of that illegal behavior. If we are not able to make those distinctions and stand with clarity on those kinds of questions, I suggest we are not able to take a stand on most any principle of law. So that worries me. Senator Cornyn, who spoke earlier and very effectively, asked me to make this note for the record; that his modification corrected--he stated in his remarks that he made a modification to his amendment to correct the page number. He also wanted to make clear that he did also include a technical correction beyond that, and he didn't want to mislead anyone. He asked that I clarify that for him so that there would be no dispute about that. Also, some people have suggested that the Cornyn amendment would amount to an unconstitutional ex post facto rule because of its retroactive application. Now, that is a pretty harsh thing to say about Judge Cornyn. Senator Cornyn served on the Supreme Court of the State of Texas and he would just suggest this: In order for any immigration provision to have immediate effect, it is imperative that they apply to the conduct and convictions that occurred before enactment.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute, and I will wrap up.