Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize and pay tribute to the brave men and women of the United States Coast Guard who came to the rescue of the citizens of the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. On May 12, 2006, in one of the largest awards ceremonies in Coast Guard history, 95 Coast Guard members received medals for their heroic efforts while rescuing thousands of victims stranded along the central Gulf Coast. The awards ceremony highlighted the Aviation Training Center near the Mobile Regional Airport. The center served as the staging base for more than 50 helicopters conducting rescue operations along the central Gulf Coast and--along with Sector Mobile personnel--is credited with saving more than 4,700 lives in the two weeks after Katrina. The highest of the four awards presented--the Legion of Merit--went to Capt. David Callahan, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Aviation Training Center, and Capt. James Bjostad, commanding officer of Coast Guard Sector Mobile. They received the award for their outstanding leadership in the aftermath of Katrina. The Distinguished Flying Cross--the second highest award presented at the ceremony--went to 19 local Coast Guard personnel Commander Michael McCraw, Commander Patrick Gorman, Commander James O'Keefe, Lieutenant Commander Brian Hudson, Lieutenant Commander Jacob Brown, Lieutenant Commander William Sasser, Lieutenant Commander Mark Vislay, Lieutenant Commander Scott Langum, Lieutenant Gregory Houghton, Senior Chief Aviation Survival Technician Christopher Walker, Chief Aviation Survival Technician Martin Nelson, First Class Aviation Survival Technician Timothy Fortney, First Class Aviation Survival Technician John Williams, First Class Aviation Survival Technician Jason Shepard, Second Class Aviation Survival Technician Brian Doolittle, Second Class Aviation Survival Technician Joel Sayers, Third Class Aviation Survival Technician Mitchell Latta, Third Class Aviation Survival Technician William Lawson and Third Class Aviation Survival Technician Jason Leahr. The Meritorious Service Medal--the third highest award presented--was pinned on 13 Coast Guard members Captain Edwin Stanton, Commander Barry Compagnoni, Commander Mark Hemann, Commander Jason Fosdick, Commander Bradley Bean, Commander Melvin Bouboulis, Commander Thomas Tardibuono, Commander Ronald Cantin, Lieutenant Commander James Elliot, Chief Warrant Officer Four Thomas Milligan, Chief Warrant Officer Three Kenneth Hardenbrook, Senior Chief Aviation Maintenance Technician Robert Gagliano and Chief Aviation Maintenance Technician Scott Corner. The Air Medal was awarded to 61 Coast Guard members Lieutenant Commander Christopher Chase, Lieutenant Commander Christopher Conley, Lieutenant Commander Robert DeCoopman, Lieutenant Commander David Edwards, Lieutenant Commander Christian Ferguson, Lieutenant Commander Eric Gleason, Lieutenant Commander Mark Hiigel, Lieutenant Commander Thomas McCormick, Lieutenant Commander Edward Sandlin, Lieutenant Commander Patrick Shaw, Lieutenant Commander Thomas Swanberg, Lieutenant Thomas Bailey, Lieutenant Karen Cagle, Lieutenant Steven Cerveny, Lieutenant Cornelius Cummings, Lieutenant William Dronen, Lieutenant John Druelle, Lieutenant Thomas English, Lieutenant Todd Fisher, Lieutenant Mark Graboski, Lieutenant Wendy Hart, Lieutenant Brian Hopkins, Lieutenant Joseph Klatt, Lieutenant Richard Nameniuk, Lieutenant Stephen Priebe, Lieutenant Michael Rasch, Lieutenant William Strickland, Lieutenant Keith Trepanier, Lieutenant Charles Webb, Lieutenant Martin Simpson, Lieutenant Donnis Waters, Senior Chief Aviation Maintenance Technician John Burns, Senior Chief Aviation Survival Technician Jeffery Tunks, First Class Avionics Electrical Technician Ronald Jester, First Class Avionics Electrical Technician Jon Schroeder, First Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Anthony Johnson, First Class Aviation Survival Technician James Dix, First Class Aviation Survival Technician Blain Elkins, First Class Aviation Survival Technician Jeffrey Galbraith, First Class Aviation Survival Technician Dustin Skarra, Second Class Aviation Survival Technician Jason Edmiston, Second Class Avionics Electrical Technician Benjamin Berman, Second Class Avionics Electrical Technician Charles Lowmaster, Second Class Avionics Electrical Technician Stephanie Sera, Second Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Robert Bradley, Second Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Stevenjohn Conrad, Second Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Stephen Fruzan, Second Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Gabriel Grise, Second Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Michael Lewis, Second Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Karl Williams, Second Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Daniel Hoffmeier, Second Class Aviation Maintenance Technician David Villarreal, Second Class Aviation Survival Technician William Johnson, Second Class Aviation Survival Technician James Farmer, Third Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Richard Amelio, Third Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Joshua Nichols, Third Class Aviation Maintenance Technician Mathew Quiggle, Third Class Aviation Survival Technician Keric Allen, Third Class Aviation Survival Technician Sara Faulkner, Third Class Aviation Survival Technician Jeff Lowe, Third Class Aviation Survival Technician Jonathan Ptak and Third Class Aviation Survival Technician Aaron Raines. Mr. President, these awards are a small token of the appreciation and thanks that are owed to the dedication to duty and self sacrifice these helicopter crews, technicians and support personnel displayed. The impact of the brave and tireless efforts of these 95 personnel directly impacted the rescue of 50 times their number. These individuals deserve our gratitude, our praise and most importantly our continued support as they conduct on a daily basis, vital rescue and relief missions for the citizens of the Gulf Coast. Thank you for a job well done and for continuing to support our Nation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I do not want to impose, but if I might have 3 additional minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent to have 2 more minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, first of all, I want to say, nobody is talking about ending immigration if this bill does not survive this amendment. The 1 million people who are allowed to enter our country every year will continue to be able to come in under current law. So it is not so to say a vote to pull this unwise and flawed bill, and send it back for further review, is an effort to end immigration, for Heaven's sakes. We are going to pass, sooner or later, I believe, a bill that will increase immigration, and I will be pleased to support that. However, this one is about three times what the current rate is, and I think that is higher than we ought to approve. So we need to talk about that. I talked to the Congressional Budget Office people today. They only did a 10-year score. Do you know why the first 10 years look better than the second 10 years? Because under the bill, you basically do not get citizenship until the 11th year, and you become entitled to all the benefits our country can give you in the 11th year, including that you have a right to bring in your aging parents. If 1 out of 10 bring in their parents--1 out of 10--according to Mr. Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation, that will be $30 billion a year. He also estimates that the basic welfare medical cost for the people who will be given amnesty will be $16 billion. So it is $46 billion. He actually said, in his opinion, it would probably be between $50 billion and $60 billion. That is what he said. And we do not have a CBO score, people, for the second 10 years. We do not have one. So we have here moving through this body one of the most significant pieces of legislation in decades, and we have no idea what the score is. That is how we get in trouble with spending. The entitlements for the benefits under the bill will not really kick in, in big numbers, until the second 10 years. But I asked CBO about it. Their 10th year was $10 billion. You figure, if that just continued without an increase for the next 10 years, the second 10 years, under the CBO score, would be over $100 billion. Then, I asked a CBO guy, referring to the Heritage Foundation numbers: Well, do you think it would be worse in the second 10 years? This is the direct quote of what the CBO person told me: Very much so. Shouldn't we know that? Shouldn't the sponsors of a bill that purports to be comprehensive, that is going to fix immigration problems in America, be able to tell us what the cost of the bill would be in 20 years? The budget point of order goes out 40 years. Through 2056, CBO says this will be a negative. This will be spending above $5 billion, and the budget point of order lies for any of those. All I am saying to my friends is: We need to stop. We need not to run forward and go off on a bill that costs an extraordinary amount of money without giving it a great deal of thought. We haven't even considered it. Until I received this report on May 16 about what the cost was, nobody even had given any figures on the cost, none. Isn't that how we get in trouble, good friends? Isn't that how spending gets out of control? I urge my colleagues to understand that this bill has a direct and discretionary spending increase in it of $110 billion over 10 years, that tax revenues come in at $66 billion, which is not countable as a matter of law, but we will count it as a matter of practicality, leaving a total net loss to the Government in the first 10-year window of $52 billion. That is where the budget point of order lies. We ought to sustain it. We have made progress in making this legislation better since it has been on the floor, but the flaws are so significant and the issues important to immigration have been so little addressed in many key areas that we ought not to go forward. We should pull the bill and get a better one.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, according to the budget point of order the Senator from Colorado has raised, he will be focusing on, I believe, the second 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office has told us that the first 10 years are net losers. They say that direct spending in this bill authorizes $54 billion. There will be $66 billion in revenue, and discretionary spending will be $64 billion, for a net cost in the first 10 years of $52 billion. That is really significant. The numbers are far worse in the outyears. Those of us who have watched this Congress operate over the years and have been in it a few years realize that we make some of our biggest mistakes when we jump into programs that sound good at the time and we have not calculated the long-term costs to our country, and we wake up wondering how it ever happened. Sometimes we need to go back to look at precisely how it occurred. Robert Rector has done some serious number-crunching for the second 10 years. He was a chief architect of America's welfare reform bill. He is a senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a very well respected group in town. These are some of the things he says about that. He believes--let me tell you--that the numbers could be $50 billion to $60 billion per year in the second decade. This is one of his quotes: In the long run, this bill, if enacted, would prove the largest expansion of Government welfare in 35 years. The largest expansion of Government welfare in 35 years. He estimates that the bill's provisions that put illegal aliens on a direct path to citizenship will result in $16 billion per year of net additional costs to the Federal Government for benefits given to the amnestied individuals alone. This is just the group that is in the first amnesty. This will be in the amnesty of those who are already here. That will cost $16 billion per year. He also points out that the fiscal impact of the cost to the Treasury caused by the Senate bill will extend far beyond the benefits given to the individual aliens, those who are here seeking amnesty. Once those aliens receive legal permanent status--that is the green card, and that is what they will receive under the bill before us--they have an automatic guaranteed right to bring their spouses and minor children into the United States even if this had not been one of their strong desires to begin with. Now they have an automatic right to do this. So that will greatly expand the total number of people ultimately granted citizenship under this bill's provisions. It is not just the people who are here. Undoubtedly, the welfare estimate of $16 billion per year will increase. That is a low estimate. Once an illegal alien becomes a citizen, they have an additional unrestricted right to bring their parents in. Many of these parents will be elderly and need medical care. The Heritage Foundation report points out that parents under the Medicare system could cost as much as $18,000 per person. They estimate that even if 10 percent of the people who are provided citizenship--we are talking about getting into the second 10 years because it will take about that long to go through the process of getting a green card under the restrictions of the bill and under their request for citizenship. You can bring your children and your wife with a green card. If you have a green card, you can bring them. If you become a citizen, you can bring your parents and your brothers and sisters, and they can bring their children. But he estimates that would be $30 billion a year in the outyears. You say that cannot be. Well, all I know is Members of this body debated for years welfare reform. The people who opposed welfare reform and opposed it steadfastly--and President Clinton vetoed it several times--said it was going to increase poverty. The others argued: No, it will help lift people out of poverty. What has happened? Welfare rolls have dropped by more than 50 percent, and the number of children being raised in poverty is lower than it was at that time. Who said that would happen? Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation. He was proven correct in that debate. I submit that he is one of the more brilliant students of public life today, of welfare and all of the related issues. He said it will be $50 billion to $60 billion a year in the next decade. That is a lot of money. That is really a lot of money. Over 10 years, that amounts to a half trillion dollars. So we have to think about this. I suggest to my colleagues that we have not thought this through. We don't even have an official CBO score on the second 10 years. We are asking the country, the American taxpayer, who lifts the burdens and pays our fat salary and takes care of us and everything else in this Federal Government, to just take a walk with us in the hope that something good might happen. I don't think so. I urge my colleagues, if you are concerned about this and other aspects of the bill, to cast a vote against waiving the Budget Act. Our chairman has said: Well, we don't deny the Budget Act is being violated, we don't deny spending increases more than it is supposed to under the Budget Act, but with 60 votes, we want to waive it, and we will move right on and pass something and send it to conference. We have made some progress on the bill. We have had some good debate in the Senate. It is still not fixed, in my opinion, in a number of ways. What really needs to be done is the bill pulled down and seriously talked about.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am going to take some time tonight to inform my colleagues about some of the problems with the legislation before us. It is worse than you think, colleagues. The legislation has an incredible number of problems with it. Some, as I will point out tonight, can only be considered deliberate. Whereas on the one hand it has nice words with good sounding phrases in it to do good things, on the second hand it completely eviscerates that, oftentimes in a way that only the most careful reading by a good lawyer would discover. So I feel like I have to fulfill my duty. I was on the Judiciary Committee. We went into this. We tried to monitor it and study it and actually read this 614-page bill, and I have a responsibility and I am going to fulfill my responsibility. I think the things I am saying tonight ought to disturb people. They ought to be unhappy about it. It ought to make them consider whether they want to vote for this piece of legislation that, in my opinion, should never, ever become law. I would also just point out I will be offering tomorrow, or soon, an amendment to deal with the earned-income tax credit situation that is raised by this legislation, focusing on the amnesty in the bill and what will happen after amnesty is granted, before they become a full citizen. The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the earned- income tax credit will pay out to those who came into our country illegally $29 billion over 10 years. The earned-income tax credit has been on the books for some time. It is a good bit larger than most people think. The average recipient of it receives $1,700. Lowerincome people get a larger amount. Over half the people who we expect will receive amnesty are without a high school degree. They are receiving lower wages. They will be the ones who will particularly qualify for this. This is a score that has been given to us by the group that is supposed to score it--$29 billion will be paid out. If they go all the way and become a citizen they will be entitled to this like any other citizen, and they will be entitled to get it under my amendment. But I do not believe we should award people who have entered our country illegally, submitted a false Social Security number, worked illegally--I do not believe we should reward them with $29 billion of the taxpayers' money. That is a lot of money. I will also be offering a budget point of order, I or one of my colleagues will, in the next day or so. We have been working on that. We asked for a report. The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the budget point of order lies in the first 10 years of this bill. It also concludes that it lies under the long-term provisions of the budget points of order for expenditures in the outyears. They didn't give us those numbers, but they said, without much work--they didn't have to do much work--the numbers are going to be much worse in the outyears. It clearly would be a detriment to the Government and these figures would exceed the budget, and a budget point of order would lie. At the Heritage Foundation, Mr. Robert Rector, who is the expert who dealt with welfare, studied this. He was the architect of welfare reform who has done so much to improve America's welfare system and improve incomes for low-income families. It really worked beautifully. He was the architect of it. He says this bill represents the greatest increase in welfare in 35 years. With the provisions and benefits that will be in it, he estimates that year 10 through year 20, the cost could be $50 to $60 billion a year to the taxpayers because it takes some time for the people who are adjusting and becoming citizens and/or legal permanent residents to really begin to make the claims. CBO admits the numbers are going to surge in the outyears. He says it is $50 billion a year. If that is so--and he is not exaggerating the numbers, because that is based solely on the amnesty provisions, not the provisions that will allow 3 times to 4 times as many people to come into the country legally in the next 20 years as come in today, and many of them will go on welfare because that whole system is not based on identifying people with skills and educational levels that would indicate they would be more than low-wage workers--so it could really be more than that. But $50 billion a year over 10 years is $500 billion. That is a half a trillion dollars, and that is why Mr. Rector said this legislation is a fiscal catastrophe. This is a man whose opinions and ideas and research this Congress, and particularly the Republicans, utilized to hammer away, time and time again, year after year, to get welfare reform. It finally happened. It worked just like he said. The predictions of disaster made against his recommendations proved to be false. He is saying that about this. So this is not a technical point of order. It represents an attempt to save the fiscal soundness of the budget of the United States. I want to take some moments here to deal with some problems with the legislation. The American people are suspicious of us. They were promised in 1986, after years of urging the Government, the President and the Congress, promised to fix our borders and end illegal immigration. In exchange for that they acquiesced and went along with amnesty in 1986. They said there were a million, 2 million here who would claim it. It turned out 3 million claimed amnesty after 1986. That ought to give us some pause about the projections that we would have. We have 11 million people here now and only 8 or so will seek amnesty under it. That ought to give us some pause there. It may well be above the number. So the American people are suspicious and they are dubious and they are watching us carefully, and they should. Let me tell you some of the things that are in the legislation that indicate a lack of respect for the American people, really. Some of these are some of the reasons I said the other day the Senate should be ashamed of itself, the way we are moving this bill. My staff, working up some of these comments, came up with a title-- maybe at my suggestion--``Sneaky Lawyer Tricks'' that are in the bill. I will let you decide if that is a fair description of what is in it. I will go down through some of the matters that are important. There are others I could complain about for which we will not have time. First, the legislation talks about title IV of the bill. That title IV of the bill defines the new H2-C program as a temporary guest worker program. Those are in big print in the bill: Temporary guest workers. That sounds like a temporary worker, doesn't it? It sounds like a guest, like somebody who stays in your bedroom for a weekend, a guest, temporary guest. Interesting, section 408 sets out the temporary guest worker visa program task force. So a little further down it has what is called a temporary guest worker visa program task force. So you would think they are writing in this section, would you not, something about the task force. But this, down in that section, this task force establishes the number of H2C visas that may be issued annually and subsection (h) is where the writers of the bill hid the provision that actually transforms these so-called temporary workers into legal, permanent residents. OK? So all the big print, ``temporary guest workers,'' ``temporary guest worker task force,'' and then you read in that section down there that it effectively converts them from temporary workers to legal permanent residents, granting them a green card. It is tucked away in a title that has nothing to do with substance of that matter. So I am pleased that my staff and others who have been reading the bill have discovered that. It wasn't discovered early on in the process. Family members of H-2C visa holder need not be healthy. Under current law, aliens must prove that they are admissible and meet certain health standards. Many times, visa applicants must have a medical exam to show that they do not have a communicable disease. They have to be up-to- date on immunizations, and cannot have mental disorders. Spouses and children of H-2C visa holders, however, are not required to have a medical exam before receiving a visa. I have an amendment to fix this that I hope is accepted. The work requirement for a blue card can be satisfied in a matter of hours. Under the AgJOBS component of the substitute, illegal alien agricultural workers who have worked 150 ``workdays'' in agriculture over the last 2 years will receive a ``blue card,'' allowing them to live and work permanently in the U.S. However, because current law defines an agricultural ``workday'' as 1 hour of work per day--the bill language restates that definition on page 397--an alien who has worked for as little as 150 hours--there are 168 hours in a week--in agriculture over the last 2 years will qualify for a blue card. Blue card aliens can only be fired for just cause, unlike an American citizen worker who is likely under an employment at will agreement with the agricultural employer. No alien granted blue card status may be terminated from employment by any employer during the period of blue card status except for just cause. Because blue card aliens are not limited to working in agriculture, this employment requirement will follow the alien at their second and third jobs as well. The bill goes as far as setting up an arbitration process for blue card aliens who allege they have been terminated without just cause. Furthermore, the bill requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to pay the fee and expenses of the arbitrator. American citizens do not have a right to this arbitration process, why are we setting up an arbitration process for blue card aliens paid for by the American taxpayer. Regarding free legal counsel, the AgJOBS amendment goes further than paying for arbitrators, it also provides free legal counsel to illegal aliens who want to receive this amnesty. The AgJOBS amendment specifically states that recipients of ``funds under the Legal Services Corporation Act'' shall not be prevented ``from providing legal assistance directly related to an application for adjustment of status under this section.'' Interestingly, page 414 of the bill requires the alien to have an attorney file the application for him. Not only will AgJOBS give amnesty to 1.5 million illegal aliens, it would have the American taxpayer pay the legal bills of those illegal aliens. This is unbelievable and unacceptable. We should not be rewarding illegal aliens who break our laws with free legal counsel and a direct path to citizenship. Under this bill a temporary worker is eligible for a green card if they, in part, maintained their H-2C status. In order to maintain this status the ``temporary'' worker may not be unemployed for a period of 60 continuous days. This means that a temporary worker only has to work 1 day in every 59 days to maintain status. This employment requirement only requires that they work about 1 day every 2 months. In this bill, an alien who has been here between 2 and 5 years is not eligible for asylum if they have persecuted others on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. However, an alien here more than 5 years who has persecuted others on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion gets amnesty under this bill. There is no specific ineligibility for such conduct. Since it is included under the ``mandatory deferred departure'' section, a court will interpret this to mean we purposefully left it out of the ``earned amnesty.'' I cannot imagine why the drafters of this bill would allow persecutors to benefit from amnesty. The bill's future flow ``guest worker'' program in title IV leaves no illegal alien behind--it is not limited to people outside the United States who want to come here to work in the future, but includes illegal aliens currently present in the United States that do not qualify for the amnesty programs in title VI, including aliens here for less than 2 years. Under the bill language, you can qualify for the new H-2C program to work as a low-skilled permanent immigrant, even if you are unlawfully present inside the United States today. The bill specifically says: In determining the alien's admissibility as an H-2C nonimmigrant . . . paragraphs (5), (6)(A), (7), (9)(B), and (9) (C) of section 212(a) may be waived for conduct that occurred before the effective date. . . . By waving these grounds of inadmissibility, the new H-2C program is specifically intended to apply to illegal aliens who were already removed from the United States and illegally reentered. The bill tells DHS to accept ``just and reasonable inferences'' from day labor centers and the alien's ``sworn declaration'' as evidence that the alien has met the amnesty's work requirement. Under the bill, the alien meets the ``burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the alien has satisfied the [work] requirements'' if the alien can demonstrate employment ``as a matter of just and reasonable inference.'' An alien can present ``conclusive evidence'' of employment in the United States by presenting documents from social security, IRS, employer, or a ``union or day labor center.'' The bill then states that: It is the intent of Congress that the [work] requirement . . . be interpreted and implemented in a manner that recognizes and takes into account the difficulties encountered by aliens in obtaining evidence of employment due to the undocumented status of the alien. If these lax standards can't be met, the bill makes sure that the alien can get what they need by allowing them to submit ``sworn declarations for each period of employment.'' Putting these together the alien must prove it is more likely than not that there is a just and reasonable inference that the alien was employed. I don't know what this means other than DHS will have to accept just about anything as proof of employment. Regarding in-State tuition for illegal aliens, current law provides that: [A]n alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident. The DREAM Act would eliminate this provision and allow illegal alien college and university students to be eligible for in-state tuition without affording out-of-state citizen students the same opportunity. Thus, the University of Alabama could offer in-state tuition to illegal alien students while requiring citizens residing in Mississippi to pay the much higher out-of-state tuition rates. Allowing all illegal aliens enrolled in college to receive in-state tuition rates means that while American citizens from 49 other states have to pay out-of-state tuition rates to send their kids to UVA, people who have illegally immigrated to this country might not. Out-of-state tuition rates range from 2 to 3\1/2\ times the in-state resident tuition rate. Regarding Federal financial aid for illegal aliens, while the Pell grants provision was removed from the bill, Stafford student loans and work study remains in. Under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, legal permanent residents and certain other eligible non-citizens are eligible to compete with American citizens for certain types of higher education assistance. The DREAM Act makes illegal aliens eligible for several types of higher education assistance offered under the Higher Education Act-- including Stafford student loans and work study programs. There is another matter, another sleight of hand I suggest. Amnesty both for legal aliens who have been here for more than 5 years, and those in the next category who are here from 2 to 5 years, don't really require that those aliens have to be continuously present in the United States. That is what it says in plain language. It starts off that you have to be continuously present in the United States. But, once again, is that what it really means? The bill allows these aliens to depart and to return after a brief departure. This allows illegal aliens who broke our laws by entering the United States and who have left and returned illegally perhaps multiple times--and each time violating our laws by entering the United States--to qualify for this amnesty. I am not sure how these departures and illegal entries can be considered innocent since the illegal aliens broke U.S. laws by reentering. But it will absolve them from any of these multiple violations. That is a huge loophole. This is even more important. An alien may not have had deep roots in our country. They may have spent a lot of their time away from our country. But they heard about this amnesty, and if they can get in the country, then they will say they have been here continuously, perhaps. Somebody says: No. We found out you were back home. He says: That was brief. I want my amnesty. We object. I am going to take you to court, or you prove it, or I say I have been here. That is what I say. It is going to be very difficult to prove that. There are provisions in the bill that deal with U.S. worker protections. The bill purports to protect U.S. workers from the flood of cheap labor that might occur by requiring employers to prove to the Department of Labor that good-faith efforts have been taken, first, to recruit U.S. workers for a job before they go out and hire someone from outside of our country. They ought to at least find out if there are American workers who want the job. Then they are supposed to notify the Secretary of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security when one of these H-2C workers is ``separated from employment.'' I am quoting that--``separated from employment'' requires notice. We heard defenders of the bill say: Well, if you are not continuously working, they will notify the Department of Labor and you have to leave the country. Have you heard that? You have to be continuously working, you can't be not working, or else you are not entitled to the benefits of this H- 2C provision. The separation from employment notification is supposed to help the Department of Labor and Homeland Security know which people have been out of work, and if they are out of work under the bill for more than 60 days, their visas are supposed to be revoked. OK. That is supposed to be a provision that makes sure people who come here are really working. Sounds good. But under the provisions of the bill, the term ``separation from employment''--you can find that on page 236. As defined, the term means virtually zero. As defined, ``separation from employment is anything other than discharged for inadequate performance, violation of workplace rules, cause, voluntary departure, voluntary retirement, or expiration of a grant or contract.'' Furthermore, it does not include those situations where the worker is offered--even if they do not take it--another position by the same employer. Is that what I just read to you? It is hard to believe--that you are supposed to notify them, except you don't need to notify them if they have left work, if they left work because they were discharged for inadequate performance, fired, or violation of workplace rules, or for just cause, or involuntary departure, involuntary retirement, or expiration of the contract. You don't have to notify them about those things. What would you notify them for, pray tell? That is ``flabber'' written. I submit whoever wrote this bill--it was not the Senators, I can assure you of that--ought to be ashamed of themselves. That was a deliberate evisceration of what on the surface sounds like a legitimate provision, totally unenforceable. There is no way under this provision DHS or the Department of Labor will be provided information about people who have been terminated from employment. Protections for U.S. workers--that is one of the goals the bill says it reaches. Under the bill, employers must prove that hiring an H-2C worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States, and that they did not and will not cause separation from employment of a U.S. worker employed by an employer within the 180-day period beginning 90 days before this H-2C petition is filed. Employers must also prove that they made good-faith efforts to recruit U.S. workers before they can hire an H-2C worker. That sounds good but, once again, things are not what they seem. As defined on page 263 of the bill, a U.S. worker includes not only citizens, it includes legal alien workers. And, amazingly, it also includes aliens who are ``otherwise authorized under this act to be employed in the United States.'' In other words, this provision provides protection for those who have been given legal status under amnesty, over and above, and provides them the same protection we provide to American citizens who are supposed to be given some protection against the flood of foreign labor. You have heard the deal. You have heard it said that the people who come to get amnesty--this is almost humorous--have got to pay their taxes. That is part of some sort of punishment. They make it sound like, in some way, you earned the right to be forgiven of your crime by paying your taxes. Everybody is supposed to pay their taxes. For heaven's sake, we are all supposed to pay taxes. This is nothing but doing what you would expect any American to do. But under the bill, things are, once again, not quite what their sponsors have said, or what the language might lead you to believe. You have to read it carefully. Under the bill, an illegal alien who is getting amnesty only has to pay back taxes for the period of employment required in the INA, section 245(B)(A)(1)(d). This is on page 347 of the bill, if people would like to look. These are actually just 3 of the 5 years between April 5, 2001, and April 5, 2002. So the plain language of the bill doesn't require them to pay all their back taxes at all. They get an option to pick and choose which 3 years they want to pay their taxes. Presumably, they can forget and not pay the taxes for the high years. How silly is that? This is really important. I think most Americans are pretty sophisticated. They know how the system works and the massive numbers we are talking about--the burden of proving payment of back taxes is on the Internal Revenue Service, pages 351 and 411. They have to prove it. How are they going to prove it? The IRS must prove that they owe the taxes. How will the IRS know if an illegal alien has worked off the books thereby avoiding paying any taxes? This is really an utter joke. It is a promotion put forth by those in support of the bill that I have heard repeatedly--that somehow it is supposed to make us believe that people have earned their right to be forgiven for violating the law, and they only have to pay back 3 of the last 5 years in taxes. What about American citizens? Do you think you can go down to Uncle Sam, Mr. President, and have 5 years of income and then be able to pick and choose which years you pay and you only pay 3 out of your last 5 years? Why don't we let every American citizen have this benefit? Why do we only give it to people who entered the country illegally? You tell me. What about background checks? The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to do them on illegal aliens. That is going to be exceedingly difficult. They are required to do it within 90 days. They have to protect our homeland. They have to handle all these provisions. I don't think it can ever be done. That may sound like something important is going to happen, that all the people here illegally will have their backgrounds checked promptly, but the truth is that is not going to get done in that timeframe. How about fines? Let me state who they want to fine. A Federal agent, trying to do his duty to enforce the law and investigate fraudulent information provided by an illegal alien in their amnesty application, for law enforcement purposes, what happens to them if they take the amnesty application and actually examine it and find out it is fraudulent? What do they do? The agent would be fined $10,000. That fine, I note, is five times the amount the alien is able to post, $2,000, to get his amnesty from his illegal acts. There is no reason in the world Federal law enforcement officers should be barred from investigating and utilizing amnesty applications to prosecute criminal activities in America. There is no reason this ought to be protected other than it looks to me that some clever lawyer has realized if they can get this in the bill people can file false amnesty applications all day and no one will ever be able to investigate. Isn't that horrible? That is what it looks like to me. Is that a sneaky lawyer trick? I ask you to make that judgment. It does not sound good to me. Page 363 of the bill. Look it up. How about the employers? They get tax amnesty. Employers of aliens applying for adjustment of status--amnesty--``shall not be subject to civil and criminal tax liability relating directly to the employment of such an alien.'' That means a business that hired illegal workers does not have to pay the taxes they should have paid. Why? This encourages employers to violate our tax laws and not pay what they owe the Federal Government. They are excusing these employers and giving them amnesty from not withholding taxes. That is a very bad thing. Every American business knows they have to pay their withholding taxes. What about two small businesses, one hiring illegal aliens not paying Social Security, not paying withholding to the Government, and paying some low wage, and another one across the street doing all the right things, hiring American citizens, perhaps paying higher wages and withholding money and sending his Social Security money to the Federal Government, what message does that send to the good guy, to give complete amnesty to the guy who has manipulated the system and gotten away perhaps with tens of thousands of dollars in benefits that his competitor did not get? You cannot play games with the law like this. You cannot pick and choose people and allow them unilaterally to not have to pay their taxes. What about illegal alien protection? The alien and their families who file applications for amnesty ``shall not be detained, determined inadmissible, deported, or removed until their applications are finally adjudicated, unless they commit a future act that renders them ineligible with amnesty.'' With tens of millions of applications, this amnesty, this provision essentially guarantees an illegal alien years of protection in the United States, even if they do not qualify for the amnesty. We hear they have to pay the fine, the $2,000 fine, but it is not due right away. For those in the amnesty program, illegal aliens are supposed to pay a fine of $2,000. However, the way the bill is written, many illegal aliens may not have to pay the fine for 8 years. The bill says that the $2,000 fine has to be paid ``prior to adjudication.'' It is not required at the first. If it is left the way it is, the illegal alien can live, work and play in our country and not pay a cent of his fine for years. Perhaps they may even decide they do not want to pay it at all. This puts a financial burden on local taxpayers for the health, education, and the infrastructure costs that are not reimbursed for about 5 or 10 years. There are a number of other items. However, it is late; I will make these remarks part of the Record and will not belabor these points. It is clear the people who drafted this legislation had an agenda and the agenda was not to meet the expectations of the American people. The agenda was to create a facade and appearance of enforcement, an appearance of toughness in some instances. When you get into the meat of the provisions and get into the bill and study it, tucked away here and there are laws that eviscerate and eliminate the real effectiveness of those provisions. It was carefully done and deliberately done. This is a bill that should not become law. It is a bill that will come back to be an embarrassment to our Members who have supported it. I wish it were not so. I know how these things happen. You do not always have time to do everything you want to do. You try to do something you think is right, but ultimately in a bill as important as this one that has tremendous impact on the future of our country and our legal system and our commitment to the rule of law, we ought to get it right. We ought not to let this one slide by. It is not acceptable to say, let's just pass something and we will send it to the House and maybe the House of Representatives will stand up and stop it and fix it. That is not acceptable for the great Senate of the United States. I strongly believe we are not ready to pass the bill. We are not ready to give it final consideration. I strongly believe it is a horrendous violation of the Committee on the Budget and that it is, as Mr. Rector said, a fiscal catastrophe if passed, and as such we ought not to waive the Budget Act but pull the bill from the floor and fix it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to speak in support of the amendment of Senator Gregg to deal with the lottery provision that is currently in the code involving immigration. We have many odd and curious provisions in our immigration law, but I suppose the lottery provision is one of the most odd and most curious. It seems to me to be unprincipled, without any real thought as to how it would effect a policy that is good for America. What kind of thing is this, that you do a lottery to let people come in from around the world? His approach would be to say: Let's focus two-thirds of those slots on people with higher skills and higher education. I want to speak in favor of that and say, really, we need not only to do this two-thirds, but it would be better, in my view, to do the whole lottery program in this fashion. In addition, we need to reevaluate entirely this bill which is before us today to ask ourselves with some thoughtfulness how we can make future immigration policy beneficial to our country. It ought to benefit us. Everybody who comes here, no matter how poor or uneducated, according to the witnesses we heard at our one hearing, is benefited economically. The poorer they are the more they benefit. They benefit, but the question is, What about the United States? Do we benefit? Is it a net gain for the United States? We had a number of professors who testified--Professor Freeman, Professor Siciliano, Professor Chiswick, and others whose names escape me--and talked about this quite openly. These are the fundamental facts that should be part of any thoughtful, comprehensive reform of immigration in America. The facts are these: People with college credit, people with a college degree uniformly contribute more to this country in taxes than they take out in benefits. The people who come to our country with less than a high school education, a high school dropout or somebody who just didn't have the opportunity, they don't have a high school degree--and over 50 percent of illegal immigrants entering our country today are without a high school degree--those people, it is uniformly agreed by professional economists who studied this issue, most of whom testified at our committee, strongly favor immigration but they all agree they will on average--not every single one but on average--draw more from the U.S. Treasury and U.S. coffers than they put in. Does that tell us anything? What is happening in Canada? What is happening in France right now? What has already happened in Britain, Australia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands? These countries have reevaluated their immigration policy. They are focusing on bringing in people who benefit the country. We cannot accept everybody. Isn't it a simple principle? There is no way this country can accept everybody who would like to come. The leading expert on immigration--I think universally agreed on immigration--such as Professor Voorhas from the Kennedy School at Harvard, he himself is an immigrant. He immigrated here from Cuba. The name of his book, probably the most authoritative book on the entire subject, is entitled ``Heaven's Door.'' What is that? ``Heaven's Door'' is entry into the United States. For a poor person in the Third World who has been abused by a legal system that does not work, who does not have clean water, who does not have a legitimate job, who does not have electricity, getting to the United States, the title of his book, is like going through Heaven's door. It is a tremendous thing. But the world has a lot of people in it. We already have a lot of people in the United States. We have to ask ourselves: How many can we welcome? What people will achieve their dreams and aspirations most successfully here, people who are high school dropouts or people who have a greater education? We also need to ask, as Canada does: Do they speak English? Australia does. They ought to speak English before they come here. What is it about letting in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people on the theory that they might one day learn English, and that would be a requirement for citizenship. But if we have gotten more applicants than we can accept, why would we not want to ask ourselves whether we should give extra points, a higher listing on the list, if they already speak English? They would be guaranteed to be more successful here and more likely to assimilate, more likely to be promoted, more likely to be a boss over other people. If you can't speak the language, how can you ever rise to be a supervisor? Those are important things, I submit, and not considered in the legislation before us at all. Senator Craig's amendment is a very good amendment. It focuses on a critical matter. Let me tell you what my staff has concluded from their careful study of the bill. We believe that as it is presently written today only 30 percent of the people coming into this country will come in as a result of their skills or education. That is a pretty stunning number. Only 30 percent coming into our country will have their entry evaluated, their skill level or their education level, whereas 70 percent will come into our country for other reasons. For example, if a young man came to our country under the new guest worker program that would be made law today, and that guest worker program would allow him to come into the country to file for a green card the first day he arrived here, within 5 years from that he can apply for and obtain as of right his citizenship in the United States. That will happen under the bill. Within 6 years, the person could possibly be a citizen of the United States coming in under a program which the bill says is a temporary guest worker provision. They say it is a temporary guest worker section of the bill. It has big letters, ``Temporary Guest Worker.'' But on the first day they get here, their employer can ask for a green card. A green card means you have legal permanent residence. Within 5 years of getting that card, they can become a citizen. A legal permanent resident means if you never seek citizenship you can stay in the country once you get that green card for the rest of your life. What I am saying is, under this provision a young man can come in-- and he is 20 years of age. If he works 5 or 6 years, he becomes a citizen. Now he is 30, and he has a 50-year-old brother, a 60-year-old, a 70-year-old mother and father. They can be brought into this country under chain migration, whether or not they have any skills or any education that would be relevant to their success in the United States of America. Think about this: Let us say they are both from Honduras. Let us say this is a young man who was valedictorian of his school in Honduras, who had a chance to take an English course and took English and learned it well, was able to go to a technical college and became skilled in electricity, and he applies at age 21 to come to the United States. Would he not have the advantage over a 50-year-old brother or a 70- year-old mother of someone who is already here when those people who may or may not have any skills which would be beneficial to the country could likely became a drain on the Nation's resources? That is how we have 70 percent of the people coming into our country under the new provision who are supposed to be in a comprehensive reform of the immigration system? That does not make sense. We need to focus more on providing opportunities for people to enter our country who have the greatest potential to succeed. It is perfectly proper and legitimate for us to ask: What is the worker status, the wages that are being paid in a given area, and do we have a shortage? In my view, the Department of Labor should not allow surging immigration when we have certain fields in the United States where there are more workers than there are jobs and you let a bunch of people come in from out of the country to take what few jobs there are leaving Americans unemployed. We need to consider all of those things. But, fundamentally, when you make a choice between two individuals--a younger person, a person who speaks English, a person who has skills--who is going to be far more successful? If they are successful here themselves, and if they benefit and if they are blessed by the great freedoms and economic prosperity and the free market we have in America, if they are blessed by that, they will pay more taxes to the Government than they draw from the Government. That is a pretty good thing, I submit. One reason I have been so critical of this legislation--and I remain steadfastly convinced that it is not worthy of the Senate of the United States--is the legislation seems to have given no thought to these issues whatsoever. We certainly never had a hearing to deal with it, to my knowledge. A lot of things we haven't done that we could have done. We could have studied more, we could have had more experts come in and testify and help us craft the legislation. We should have brought in immigration people who work for the Government of the United States to find out what is working and what is not working. I talked to the person in the Dominican Republic, the American consulate official who meets with those people in the Dominican Republic who would like to come to the United States. He seemed like a very nice guy. He made some mention about sham marriages. So we talked about that. As a U.S. attorney prosecuting a case where people created a sham marriage for immigration purposes, he said they won't even talk about prosecuting a case in the Dominican Republic. And he has seen lots and lots of sham marriage cases that were never prosecuted. Why do they have a sham marriage? Because if you are married to somebody who is in the United States, they can take their wife and their children. That is the way to get people here. So they create a sham marriage. But he told me that 95 percent of the people in the Dominican Republic who were approved to come to the United States were approved under the chain migration or family connection provisions in our code. Fundamentally, almost no one coming from the Dominican Republic to the United States is coming because they have a skill that would benefit us and that would indicate their likely success in our society. They come in because some other family member of a qualified relation is here as a citizen or even a green card holder. That is how they get to come. They are creating a false document to show these are relatives or their spouses and they are married when it is not so. As I have said a number of times on the Senate floor, 60 percent of the people in Nicaragua in a recent poll said they would come to the United States if they could, and I understand 70 percent of the people in Peru, when polled, said they would come to the United States if they could. What does that mean? Think about it. Mexico, all of Central America, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Morocco, all of the African nations, the Middle East, Bangladesh, China, India, Taiwan, the Philippines--all these nations around the world with great people in them--wonderful people but in each one of those countries are significant numbers of people, I submit, who would come to the United States if they could. Wouldn't it be a good policy for our Nation? Wouldn't it be the right thing to think seriously about who should come, like Canada and Britain, and as France did last week, and refocus our attention on accepting a certain number of people but making sure those people bring skills and talents with them to indicate they would be a positive benefit to our society rather than a net drain on society? That is a challenge. We simply cannot accept everyone who wants to come. It is painful to bring people who are not able to speak English or effectively take advantage of the opportunities our country has. When they do not do that, they do not do well. They tend to pull themselves apart and continue to speak their own language. They do not advance and assimilate and become part of the great melting pot we are so proud of as Americans. It is a big step forward to take this lottery, to put two-thirds of those people who are in it, who are now chosen by random chance, without any regard to skills or abilities or language or those matters, to at least set them aside for high-skilled positions for education, science, mathematics. It would be a great benefit to our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I am not surprised. I am not surprised at all that he would be focused on policies that are important for America, even during his suffering. I thank Senator Specter for letting us get to know him.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am honored to have been here this evening to hear the remarks of Senator Specter about his friend Judge Becker. I came to know him and respect him greatly myself. I remember it was Judge Becker this and Judge Becker that as we wrestled with the asbestos litigation. Senator Specter, I knew, had such extraordinary respect for him. I guess it probably would be fair to say that in the last year, if there had to be a 101st Senator, he might have been the one we would name because he met time and time again with Senators and groups and interests and people to try to work out an asbestos bill that would be effective. I came around to the thinking that he was exactly correct and agreed that he and Senator Specter had the right approach to that historic piece of legislation. I am very sad we never could move it forward, but Judge Becker provided a great and extraordinary contribution to the legislation. In getting to know him, talking to him about other judges, he talked about Bill Pryor, a judge from Alabama who was recently confirmed. He knew and studied his record. I came to feel that he was a fine and decent person who loved his country and just didn't want to retire and sit around. He was right in the middle of things to his last days on this Earth. I thank Senator Specter for allowing us the opportunity to get to know him. I hope he will convey to Judge Becker's family our admiration and respect for him.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, if the Senator from Kentucky will yield for a question, just a few years ago, not long after 9/11, we had the Brookwood mine disaster in Alabama, where 13 miners lost their lives. Basically, like the firemen in New York, they were responding to help someone in need, another miner that they believed needed help in an emergency, and lost their lives in a rescue attempt. It was a very emotional time for me and the families and the town. We were joined on that occasion at the Brookwood mine area by the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao. I want you to know how proud I was of her that night. She went over to the union hall. She had to be up at 5 o'clock the next morning to catch a flight. But she stayed there almost 2 hours meeting and talking with the victims of that disaster. I was able to call just Friday several family members and others who were involved in that to tell them of the passage of this piece of legislation out of committee. They were very excited about it--a lawyer for the union official, families of people who were killed in that disaster. As the Senator said, the price of coal is up. The demand for energy is up. We are going to be doing more mining. This legislation will clearly be a step forward into making those mines safer. I thank him for those comments. I hope we can move rapidly.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I certainly agree with that. I just ask that when the Senator gets home tonight, he thank the Secretary of Labor for the good work she has given to the committee in helping us pass this legislation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I express my appreciation for the leadership of Senator Grassley. He spoke from the heart. He was here during the 1986 amnesty debate. I happened to go back and I saw a summary of that debate. The Members argued on one side saying it was a one-time amnesty; others said amnesty begets amnesty, that if this occurs, there will be more to come. In truth, we see which side has prevailed. Chairman Grassley has given much insight and wisdom. I hope our Members will consider what he has to say. It is thoughtful, honest, and direct, as always. I do remain troubled that the Senate is moving steadily, like a train down the tracks, to pass an immigration bill that is deeply flawed. It dramatically increases legal immigration and has no guarantee that significantly improved enforcement procedures will ever be carried out. In fact, the Senate rejected the Isakson amendment which would have conditioned amnesty on effective enforcement. Clearly, we have not comprehended the ramifications of rewarding those who have broken our laws with all the benefits we give to those who lawfully enter, thereby undermining, as Senator Grassley said, the rule of law in this country. Further, this legislation, which claims to be comprehensive, provides a radical increase in future legal immigration almost with no discussion or consideration of what is good policy for our future. In addition, the legislation has been crafted in a way that hides and conceals, even misrepresents, its real effects. Thus, I have said it should never pass. I have said that these actions are unworthy of the great Senate of the United States. I have said, and I think correctly, we should be ashamed of ourselves. What should we be doing? What should the Senate of the United States be doing? We should be working openly and diligently on these issues and should have been for some time. We should be seeking the input of experts and carefully studying relevant data. Certainly we should be consulting with those who have hired us--at least for a term--the American people. In my view, the American people have been right from the beginning. They have rejected an immigration system that makes a mockery of law, a system that rewards illegal behavior, while placing unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles in the face of those who dutifully attempt to comply with the law. In the decades before the 1986 amnesty and after, they have urged and pleaded with the powers that be to end the illegality, to secure the border, and to develop a system based on the commonsense interests of our Nation. The American people have been arrogantly ignored by the executive branch and by the Congress. We have failed to fulfill our responsibilities, in direct opposition to the legitimate and clearly stated will of the American people. In every way, the American people have been correct. They have been motivated by the highest of American ideals, despite what the critics say. They have sought a lawful, wise system of immigration. It is unfair to ascribe to the good American people the words of some frustrated and extreme person whose anger overflows--the talk show callers and the like. That is not the heart of the American people, just because someone mis-spoke on a talk show or in a conversation. What they are saying is legitimate, principled, and consistent with the American ideals. We have not responded to it. We did not respond to it before 1986. We did not respond to it in 1986. We have not responded to it since. The American people will support a fair and generous immigration policy for the future, and they will support compassionate and fair treatment of people who have come here illegally. They are not asking that they be prosecuted, locked up, or that every one be hauled out of America. That is not so. No one is proposing that in any serious way. Make no mistake, we cannot treat lightly and it is a grave step to concede, to admit, that the laws of the United States will be ignored and not enforced. During the 1986 amnesty debate, it was argued that amnesty would be a one-time event. People argued that if that were done, it would weaken the rule of law and encourage more people to enter the country illegally, confident that at some day in the future, amnesty would be available to them, too. I ask my colleagues, who was right 20 years ago? Senator Grassley just told us who was right. He said he believed it was a mistake when he voted for it. Not many Senators have the gumption to come to the Senate and admit they made a mistake. While amnesty just 20 years ago created a legal route to citizenship for 3 million people not here legally, today we are expecting, 20 years later, 11 million and perhaps 20 million people could benefit from this amnesty. We must acknowledge that when you play around with the rule of law in a nation that expects to be treated seriously, you have done something quite significant. It cannot be altered or undermined without real consequences. Life has consequences. If you pass a law and then turn around and admit you cannot enforce it, with a promise that we are going to enforce it in the future and we are going to allow everyone who violated a law a free pass, what does that say about the future? These are not light matters. If we could do it like that, if we could make this kind of 180-degree turn without consequences, it would be one thing, but life is not that way. We are supposed to be a mature branch of Government of the greatest Nation on the face of the Earth. Surely we know that. Surely we know we cannot do this lightly. I am afraid some have not given enough thought to that. I wanted to share those remarks at the beginning because we are dealing with huge numbers of people who will be legalized. We will be dealing with a fundamental expansion of immigration, a massive amnesty, large increases in governmental expenditures, and an enforcement promise I am not sure we will ever see occur because enforcement was promised in 1986. It was faithfully and honestly guaranteed by supporters of that bill in 1986, and it was never accomplished. I will introduce four amendments this afternoon. The four amendments are, first, a numerical limit amendment, an amendment to cap the immigration increases caused by this bill. The numbers CBO and the White House say we should expect include 7 million and their dependents under amnesty. Additionally, CBO and the White House estimate that under this bill 8 million new immigrants will flow into the country above the current level 10 million over the next 10 years. Got that? What my amendment will do is cap green cards at 7 million for amnesty, plus we are going to add 8 million to the current flow in the future. We think the numbers are higher than that. But that is what the CBO says the numbers are. That is what the White House has trumpeted as the numbers. So at least, I suggest, this Senate should make clear those are the numbers, and let's pass it, so we will not have this danger that the bill will spin out of control or in fact will be much more generous to immigration than some are currently suggesting, even CBO. Another amendment will be the earned-income tax credit. This would be an amendment to eliminate the earned-income tax credit for illegal aliens and those who have adjusted status under this bill. Once illegal aliens become citizens, they will once again be eligible for the earned-income tax credit. But it is a huge expense, maybe over $20 billion over 20 years. I will have an amendment to deal with chain migration which has to do with provisions that are continued in current law but are not principled and do not serve our Nation well. If we want to admit more skill-based immigrants, we must reduce the right of immigrants to bring in certain categories of relatives, regardless of skill, regardless of ability to perform. We will work on those four amendments, and I hope we will be able to get a vote on them. I know people are saying: No, no, we need to move this bill on. We can't go another day. We have to finish this debate. You guys have had your little amendments. The train is moving. Get off the track. We are going forward. And I am already hearing that we are moving in that direction: The debate is going to be limited, and we will have to curtail our legitimate amendments. I submit to you, the amendments I am offering here are legitimate amendments that go to real issues of national importance, not some technical thing. My amendment that deals with the total number of immigrants into the United States comports with the estimates of the Congressional Budget Office which has run these numbers. I thought they were low, but that is what they say, and the White House has jumped right on it and said: These are the numbers, and Sessions and the Heritage Foundation are all wrong. Their numbers are not good. These are good numbers, so let's just have a vote on it and let's make it law. They estimate that a total of 7 million illegal aliens and their dependents will be granted status under the bill. Of the 11 million, they say 7 million will be granted status. Additionally, the CBO and the White House estimate this bill will increase current immigration levels--which are now about 1 million a year legally--by about 8 million over a 10-year period, making total immigration into the United States over the next 10 years nearly 18 million instead of the currently expected 10 million, setting aside those who get amnesty. Under various provisions of current law, the United States issues just under 1 million--approximately 950,000--green cards every year to people coming through immigration channels legally. In 10 years, if this law remains the same as today, almost 10 million people will join the United States. Over 20 years, it would be about 18.9 million people--just under 20 million--under current law. Under this bill that is on the floor today, we have been shocked to find the breadth of the numbers. Almost 2 weeks ago, my staff and the Heritage Foundation did separate extensive analyses to determine the total number of people who would be coming into America under this bill, if it passes. At a press conference last Monday--the first time anybody had even discussed it--Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, joined with me to reveal the results of our studies and to shed some light on the future immigration policy changes in the bill. According to my projections, the bill would have increased the legal immigration population by 78 million to 217 million over the course of the next 20 years. I would note, the current population of the United States today is less than 300 million. So 100 million would be a one- third increase in the population by immigration; 200 million, of course, would be two-thirds of an increase in the population. Mr. Rector's estimate was within the range I projected--coming in at 100 million over the course of 20 years. I just tried to figure out what the low numbers could be and the high numbers could be. He focused on what he thought the number would turn out to be. He found it to be 103 million people over the next 20 years--one-third of the current population of the United States of America. So the day after those numbers were released, the Senate adopted an amendment offered by Senator Bingaman--I see him on the floor today-- which is, I think, perhaps, the most significant amendment we have adopted to date, that capped the number of people who could come into the country under that bill's new H-2C temporary guest worker program at 200,000 per year, not 325,000. And it ended this 20-percent automatic escalator clause. I say to Senator Bingaman, I thank you for your effectiveness on that amendment. And it ended up having a pretty nice vote. But until that time, we had not begun to discuss on the floor of the Senate anything other than enforcement at the border and amnesty provisions. We had not even thought about it. How did they put this in there? How did they come up with an automatic 20-percent increase in immigration for a low- skilled provision of this bill? Who wrote that in there? Did anybody even know it was there? If my fine staff had not been digging into it, I am not sure it would have been found. Well, the Heritage Foundation also dug into it, but awfully late. The bill had been tried to be pushed through this Senate about a month ago without any debate, without any amendments. They were just going to move that through. So it was a good improvement. We now expect, after this however, that the numbers are still huge. I project the expected numbers in the next 20 years will be between 73 million and 92 million. Robert Rector has estimated that it will be 66 million over the next 210 years. He didn't include H-1B in his calculations. So without any growth in the H-1B, the high-skilled visa program, we come in at 73 million. Under the maximum growth, we would come in at 92 million. Current levels, under current law, would be 10 million. Now, that is a big, big deal. It represents a serious policy decision of the people of the United States. And how many American people know we are talking about that? And 92 million is over four times the current rate of immigration in this country--five times really. From where did that come? So even after Senator Bingaman's effective amendment, it is important to remember that both the Heritage Foundation's--Mr. Robert Rector's-- projections and mine calculate the bill will still increase current levels of immigration three- to fivefold over the next 20 years. The realistic estimate, I think, is four times the current rate. Is that what we need? Maybe it is. But we sure have not talked about it. Have you heard the American people consulted on that? We already have a pretty generous immigration system, I submit. It brings in a million people a year. People say: Well, you have lots of illegal immigrants too. That would be 50 percent more, maybe 500,000 a year, as estimated. That is not three, four, five times the current rate. Last Tuesday, the CBO released its final score of the Senate immigration bill. They estimated that if it passes, it would result in an 8 million person increase in the population over the first 10 years. The precise estimate is 7.8 million, which can be found on page 4 of the CBO score. This estimated 8 million increase accounts for only future legal immigration caused by the bill. It does not include an estimate for the number of illegal aliens. We are not going to take that to zero, surely. Surely, we will make some progress to reduce illegal immigration, but it is not going to zero. The CBO estimate for how many in the illegal alien population would benefit from the bill's amnesty provisions is contained in a separate calculation on page 22. On page 22, CBO estimates that 1 million illegal aliens will be adjusted under the AgJOBS provisions, and that two-thirds of the 6 million illegal aliens here for more than 5 years, and 50 percent of the 2 million illegal aliens here between 2 and 5 years, will adjust status under the bill's provisions. So according to CBO, a total of 6 million illegal immigrants will become legal permanent--permanent--residents under the bill and be placed on an automatic path to citizenship. Now, the White House, last Thursday, in a press release, entitled ``Setting the Record Straight''--OK--wholeheartedly embraced the CBO report and claimed that the 8 million future immigration estimate by CBO is ``consistent with most research on immigration issues.'' The White House press release also embraced the CBO estimate on the current illegal alien population but stated it a little differently. According to the White House, CBO estimated that about one-third of illegal immigrants eligible for legalization under the bill are unlikely to become legal permanent residents. Therefore, the logical conclusion of this statement is that two-thirds of the eligible illegal alien population will likely become legal permanent residents. The White House press statement directly implies that the White House does not expect more than two-thirds of the illegal alien population to become legal permanent residents under the bill. If 10.3 million people have been illegally present for more than 2 years, two-thirds of that number would mean approximately 7 million people now living here illegally will benefit from the amnesty provisions. This estimate--7 million--is 1 million higher than the way CBO lays out the numbers on page 22 of their score. As the press statement points out, these estimates are much lower than the estimates that Robert Rector or my staff, after extensive review, came up with. Although I highly doubt we have true numbers from the CBO, I sincerely hope they are accurate, and not mine. It is imperative that the American people, however, be able to trust their Government-- particularly those agencies that enforce these laws--when discussing issues such as these. My amendment will adopt the CBO and White House estimates as the realistic result of S. 2611's increases in immigration. Under the amendment we are offering, the number of green cards that CBO and the White House estimate will be needed will be made available for the adjustment of status provisions and future immigration levels caused by the bill. First, the amendment limits the number of green cards available under the bill's amnesty provisions to two-thirds of the qualified illegal alien population of about 10.3 million--a total of 7 million green cards. Second, the amendment limits the increase in future immigration to 8 million above the current level of 10 million over 10 years. Under the amendment, the total number of green cards issued shall not exceed 18 million over any 10-year period, starting with the 2007-2016 10-year period. Because real numbers of current immigration levels would only reach about 9,500,000 in 10 years, an additional 500,000 green cards are added to the White House's estimate in this amendment. It is important that we limit the bill's effects to the numbers being used to justify the bill's passage, at least. The American people are much more accepting when they know the numbers we are asking them to believe in. And they are asking us to make sure we tell them truthfully, and that we comply with it. Though I am not in favor of granting amnesty to those who break the law, I believe it is important to hold the administration to its word when enacting a comprehensive reform bill. My amendment limits the number of illegal aliens who can be granted amnesty under the bill. This limit will in turn limit the potential for fraudulent adjustments of status. It would also say if there were more claiming for green cards under amnesty than projected, and they met all the qualifications, they would get those green cards, but the future flow numbers would be reduced to cover that. Unlike the bill as written, my amendment would allow for a controlled increase in legal migration by placing a cap on the number of green cards that can be issued under the bill's other provisions. The fact is, we cannot admit everyone who wants to come to our country. Unlimited immigration will put a strain on finite resources. Therefore, in addition to properly enforcing our laws and securing our borders, we must put reasonable limits on the number of people who can enter permanently. Under my amendment, future immigration will be increased by--hold your hat--80 percent, but not as much as the current bill allows, 300 to 500 percent. Eighty percent is too high. We haven't had the evidence to justify that, but I am saying, let's put this up for a vote so when this bill goes through here, we will at least know what the top level is. This amendment is sensible and responsible. I ask my colleagues to vote for it. Later, I hope to have the opportunity in the debate--I see others, and I won't utilize any more time--to talk in more detail about the earned-income tax credit amendment, the need to reform in a significant way the unprincipled chain migration provisions of the bill, and the H-2C green cards future flow cap for H-2C green cards to be issued. I thank my colleagues for their time. I urge each one of us to spend some serious time in analyzing the impact of this hugely important piece of legislation that the American people care about, and rightfully so. It is our responsibility to get it right. We don't want to be back here, as Senator Grassley has done today, and say we have made a mistake in 2006. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, cloture has been filed on the immigration legislation, and I suspect cloture will be obtained on the immigration bill. We will have a vote later on in the week. The train is moving. People simply want to do something, and I suppose that is where we are headed. I wish to make a couple comments about it. First, the difficulty we faced was that the bill which came out of the Judiciary Committee to the floor of the Senate, which was essentially the Kennedy-McCain bill, was not good legislation. In fact, it was so broadly problematic that I thought and said from the beginning there was no way we could file amendments to fix that bill. It was unfixable. It had too many basic problems that had not been evaluated carefully, that should have been thought through carefully before it was ever filed. Senator Specter just left the Chamber. He supports immigration. We started in the Judiciary Committee a few months ago--really just a couple of months ago--and his bill was a lot better than the bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee. The chairman's mark had a number of provisions in it. It did not have an automatic path to citizenship, for example. So we spent several days talking around at the committee. Senator Frist said he wanted this bill on the floor a certain date. That was a Tuesday. He wanted the bill out of committee. On Monday, we were still talking about various technical, complex legal issues and debating them and worrying about law enforcement issues, and, boom, the Kennedy-McCain bill is offered as a substitute to the Specter bill in committee. With about an hour's debate, this several-hundred page bill became the bill in committee. A few minutes later with very little debate, the agriculture jobs part was added to the bill, and that is what came out of committee. It was incredibly broad, huge in its increase in legal immigration into the country, as well as I think inadequate enforcement and overreaching in amnesty and a lot of other issues. So here we are trying to pass this legislation. I guess we have done it now. I spent some time pointing out some of the difficulties, and I will continue to do so. I will say this: The legislation that will hit the floor presumably this week and will be up for a vote should not be passed by us. I have four amendments on which I would like to have votes. I know what is going to happen. Cloture has been filed, and I will be lucky to get one vote on the four amendments I will be filing tonight, to get legislative council to approve them and worry about germaneness and a lot of other things, but I am ready to file these amendments and will file them. I want to talk about those amendments, and I ask the American people and my colleagues to think about some of the issues in these four amendments and ask: Should not, when we set about establishing a new immigration policy for America, which has consistently been a 20-year policy--we did one in the midsixties and we did another one in 1986. Here we are 20 years later in 2006 passing another one. We are going to pass a bill that could set policy for quite some time. It ought to be a good bill. It should be a bill of which we are proud. It should be a piece of legislation that considers the relevant issues facing our country and tries to fairly and decently and justly treat people who want to come here in a legitimate way, but fundamentally what we should be asking ourselves is how many people this country can accept and what kind of skill levels should they have, what expectation do we have that they will be successful when they come to this country and be able to take advantage of the opportunities that are here, to be able to pay taxes to the Government more than they draw from the Government, and those kinds of questions. That is what we are about. I submit that the legislation fails in that regard. I have four amendments. One is a numerical limit amendment. It would cap the immigration increases caused by the bill to the numbers CBO and the White House tell us to expect, 7 million under amnesties and 8 million in new immigrations in the next 10 years. We had somewhat of a dispute. This bill is 600 pages. It is exceedingly complicated. It has a host of different categories. It has caps that apply and numbers that don't apply to caps and are exempted from caps. It is hard to figure out how many people might actually come. The Heritage Foundation and my staff have concluded that we are looking at four times the current rate of immigration. It was 5 to 10 times the current rate of immigration until we discussed these huge numbers at a press conference last Monday, and Tuesday we adopted an amendment to knock that down. We think the immigration in that country will range from 73 million to 93 million people over the next 20 years. That represents approximately four times the amount we now allow in, which is a little less than 1 million a year, so it will be a little less than 19 million over 20 years, five times current rate, four times current rate at a minimum, we think. The administration and CBO say some of those numbers were not good enough, and they came up with some figures. That amendment would be designed to say: OK, we will look at your numbers and see if we can just make that the law so it won't be confusing. At least we will know what the numbers are. If the administration numbers are correct and the CBO numbers are correct, they are too high, way too high, but at least we would know what they are. At least we wouldn't have to worry that they might go and explode out of reason. Another amendment we will be offering is the amendment to eliminate the earned income tax credit for illegal aliens and those who adjust status under this bill. Once illegal aliens become citizens, they will once again be eligible for the earned income tax credit, which is nothing more than a Government payment. It is a Government subsidy to low wage American workers, and it is very large. I will talk about that in a minute. Chain migration. We will offer an amendment that would eliminate certain chain migration provisions in this bill. If we want to admit more skill-based immigrants, we must reduce the right of immigrants to bring in certain categories of relatives automatically and they have an automatic right on the list to be able to come in. We need to make that choice. Why is this Senate dodging that issue? I don't know. Other countries, as I have noted just a few moments ago, are going in exactly the opposite direction. They are focusing less on some sort of connections and more on work skills. Then I will offer an amendment that deals with green cards for future flow H-2C workers. This would be an amendment to make sure that H-2C workers who come in the future--not those given amnesty under this bill--will be subject to the annual numerical limits on employment- based green cards when they apply. There is some dispute about that. We were told originally: Oh, yes, they apply, the caps apply, these limits apply. And then we read the legislation carefully, and under that provision, it says: If you qualify for a green card, the Secretary shall give you the green card. And it appears that ``shall'' means you will get it whether the caps apply or not, or whether the caps would apply. I shared earlier thoughts about the large numbers and the CBO numbers in that amendment. I have discussed it. I would like to take a few moments to discuss the earned income tax credit limit. This amendment would do two things. One, it would clarify existing law that makes illegal aliens ineligible to claim the earned income tax credit and postpones the ability of illegal aliens who are given status by this bill to claim the earned income tax credit until they become citizens. So the amendment is clearly a moneysaver. It is also a way to make sure that illegal aliens are more likely to contribute more in taxes than they are taking out. The inability to claim the earned income tax credit should be one of the things added to the list of items illegal aliens will have to agree to do in order to receive the benefits of the amnesties contained in title VI of the bill. Other items on the list include a background check, a medical check, and payment of back taxes, and being required to not claim the EITC until the illegal alien becomes a citizen is a natural addition to that list. The EITC tax credit was established in 1975. It is a refundable tax credit for families that can offset income taxes or provide a tax credit directly to the family. According to IRS data for 2003, 22 million households received $39 billion in EITC payments, an average of $1,782 per household or $2,100 for any families with children. Now, let me just repeat that. This is a huge Government program. And most of the low-income people don't owe any taxes. If you are making below $20,000 a year, you are unlikely to pay any income taxes. If you have children, you certainly are not going to be paying any income taxes. So how do you get a tax credit if you don't pay any taxes? Well, they send you a check. That is what they do. You file your tax return at the end of the year, and if you have worked and your income was lower, they send you a check. We looked at the numbers. If you are a minimum wage worker and you make around $14,000 a year, that family would receive a check, a subsidy from the Government of 4,700-and-some- odd dollars. So this was designed to encourage Americans to work. It was a plan to make work more attractive for people on welfare. Do you remember all that talk: Well, you can make more money on welfare than you make working. So a brilliant Congress, a number of years ago, came up with this idea that we would just give people extra money if they would work. It will be less than welfare, so why not do it? OK. That is what we did. But it was not designed to reward illegal aliens for coming into the country illegally, for heaven's sake. But that is what this bill does. As soon as they get that regularized status, they get it. Now, this would allow them to get the earned income tax credit if they become a citizen but not before. That is not required of us. It is not required of the Senate that we should provide a $2,000 bonus check to individuals who work in our country, who seem to be happy to get the wages they are being paid, a $2,000 bonus check from Uncle Sam as a result and as an incentive for coming into the country illegally. That is a really big issue. To qualify for the credit, married couples filing jointly who earn certain sums of money would qualify. For example, a single mother with two children, the earned income tax credit provides a tax credit for 40 percent of every dollar earned, up to $11,340. A family that earned between $11,000 and $14,000 received a maximum credit of $4,536, not $4,700. After the floor of $14,810 is reached, the credit is slowly reduced until the income cap of $36,000 is reached. It is only then that it is eliminated. For 2006, the maximum amount of the earned income tax credit is $4,556 for a worker supporting two kids and $2,747 for a worker with one child, $4,012 for a child of eligible employees and adjusted for inflation. Now, a Social Security number is required in order to reap the benefits of this tax credit, and those applying must have a valid Social Security number and be a resident alien. Valid Social Security numbers are given out to all legally working people in the United States--legally working aliens. Legal permanent residents and citizens have Social Security numbers. Under the tax law, resident aliens are citizens of a foreign country who are either lawful permanent residents of the United States or have been physically present in the country for at least a certain specified amount of time during the past 3 years. They are taxed in the same manner as U.S. citizens, and thus they qualify for the refundable tax credits. According to the IRS, under the residency rules of the Tax Code, any alien who is a nonresident alien--an alien will become a resident alien in one of three ways: No. 1, by being admitted to the United States as or changing in status to a lawful permanent resident under the immigration laws; No. 2, by passing a substantial presence test, a numerical formula which measures days of presence in the United States; or No. 3, by making what is called the first year election, a numerical formula under which an alien may pass the substantial presence test 1 year earlier than under the normal rules. Under these rules, legally present work-authorized aliens who pass the substantial presence test will be treated, for tax purposes, as resident aliens. They are able, then, to claim EITC. Under these rules, even an undocumented illegal alien who passes the substantial presence test will be treated for tax purposes as a resident alien. If they are using a fraudulent Social Security number, they can apply for the EITC. If they are using a legal IDIF number, they cannot apply. Under S. 2611, the bill before us today, if illegal aliens pay their taxes legally today, they do so with an individual taxpayer identification number they are given for tax purposes. The ITIN cannot currently be used to get the EITC because a Social Security number is required to claim the EITC. They are not eligible to get a Social Security number. So under S. 2611, illegal aliens will become legally present and work authorized immediately upon passage of the act. They would then be given Social Security numbers and will pass the substantial presence test, making them automatically, at once, eligible to claim the very generous benefits of the EITC. The Congressional Budget Office has looked at this and tried to figure out what the cost would be. American taxpayers would pay this. This would be a new cost on the taxpayers, created by the very bill that is before us today. Under the current legislation, in S. 2611 as initially offered and came out of the Judiciary Committee, the preliminary CBO score revealed the following about directed spending contained in the compromise. They say this: CBO and Joint Tax Committee estimate that direct spending outlays would total about $8 billion for the first 5 years, 2007 through 2011, and $27 billion for the first 10 years. Most of those costs are for the earned-income tax credit and for Medicaid and food stamp programs. Costs in subsequent decades would be greater than in this first 10-year period. ``Costs in further decades would be greater than the first decade.'' Mr. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has worked on numbers like this. He was the architect of the welfare reform. He said to us recently, a group of Senators: Senators, this is how this Government gets out of control. This is how things go wrong. You don't start out to pass a bill that is going to cost $29 billion. You don't think it through. You pass the legislation, and a new Congress 20 years from now wakes up and says: How did this ever happen? We don't have the money to pay for this. We made this obligation way long ago. How are we going to get out of it? Maybe we should cut back. Then all the protests start because you can never cut a program, it seems. He warned us about that. That is exactly what is happening with this particular provision in the legislation. Once the Hagel-Martinez bill became S. 2611, I, along with five other Senators, asked CBO to provide a comprehensive score so we would know how much this amnesty provision would cost the taxpayers. The final CBO score estimates that, of the 2007-2016 period, 10 years, this bill would increase outlays for refunding tax credits $29.4 billion, the largest direct expenditure in the bill--$29 billion. I had a conversation a few moments ago with a fine Senator who is concerned about spending. He was sincerely asking me about the cost of enforcement at the border and at the workplace in our country. Where are we going to get this money so we are not just putting it to our grandchildren? I don't know how much it is going to cost. We spend $40 billion now on homeland security every year. Maybe this is going to cost $5 or $6 billion. A lot of it will be one-time costs, setting up computer systems and border barriers and in purchases of equipment. A lot of that will be repetitive, like border patrol and bed spaces or removing people from the country. But it will not exceed $29 billion, trust me. It will be a fraction of that. Mr. President, $29 billion is a lot of money under any circumstances, I have to tell you. You can buy three aircraft carriers for $29 billion. They have 4,000 people on them. Mr. President, $29.4 billion will be added. These refundable tax credits will include EITC and child tax credits, where most of the cost is clearly attributable to the EITC. To clarify, the credit first reduces an individual's tax liability. If the credit exceeds the tax liability, the excess is sent to the individual in the form of a check from Uncle Sam. These refunds are classified as outlays in the Federal budget. They are classified as outlays. They are not classified as tax deductions because they are, in fact, outlays. They are, in fact, payments from Uncle Sam sent in the form of a check to individual Americans. In conclusion, I would note the bill increases the amount of refundable tax credits by increasing the number of resident aliens, people who are illegal today, converted to resident aliens. Although this bill grants amnesty to those who came illegally, it is not required, in my view, that they be absolved from all consequences of coming here illegally nor be provided every benefit we provide to those who come legally. Certainly nothing is strange or unusual in that. If we decide to give certain benefits to people who came here illegally and not give them to others, what is wrong with that? For example, we are going to allow them to stay in the country. At least overwhelmingly, they will be able to stay in the country. We are going to forgive them for being prosecuted. Do we have to then also reward them for their illegal activity by providing a sizeable check every year from the Federal Government? No, you don't have to do that. If they become a citizen one day, fine, they are entitled to the same benefits of every other American citizen. But not in the interim. My amendment clarifies existing law to make sure that illegal aliens--existing law--who pass the substantial presence test cannot use fraudulent Social Security numbers to claim the earned-income tax credit, and it postpones the ability of illegal aliens at a given status, some sort of legal status by the bill, to claim the earned- income tax credit until they become citizens. I believe that is the right approach. It is unthinkable that we would provide this kind of incentive when it really has no necessity. Mr. President, I would like to share some thoughts about another amendment. It deals with chain migration. It would reduce chain migration by eliminating the provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act that allow parents and adult brothers and sisters to immigrate to the United States based solely on their family connections. Chain migration refers to the mechanism by which foreign nationals have the right to immigrate to the United States by virtue of one single characteristic: they are related to someone who previously immigrated to the United States. Chain migration does not refer to spouses and dependent children of immigrants. That does not encompass wives and children. Nothing in this amendment would say that a green card holder, a legal permanent resident or citizen would not be able to bring spouses and children. That will remain the law under this amendment. No changes are made whatsoever. But for immigrants who become citizens, chain migration refers to their ability to bring in parents, brothers and sisters, and spouses, and children of their brothers and sisters. You get to bring in your parents, your brothers and sisters, and the spouses and children of your brothers and sisters. People who immigrate based on this family relationship are in no way evaluated for their skill levels, their age, their English proficiency, or if they are needed by the American economy whatever skills they have. How they will benefit the United States is completely irrelevant to this process. The only relevant characteristic is their family connection. Until the late 1950s, American family immigration policy focused solely on the nuclear family; only spouses and minor dependent children of the immigrant were allowed to immigrate solely on their family connection. In the late 1950s, family migration policies of the United States began to extend beyond children and spouses. Immigrants were allowed to bring in their adult unmarried children. You are here, you can bring in adult children from that foreign country. But they are unmarried, and you can bring them. Immigrants who became citizens were allowed to bring in their married adult children and their parents and their brothers and sisters, parents and brothers and sisters, and adult children can bring in their own spouse and their children. If the extended spouse has parents and siblings, they, too, can get in line to immigrate to the United States based solely on the family connection. To show you a little bit how this works--it sounds a bit complicated. By viewing the charts behind me, maybe we can make this a little bit clearer. Here are the people in green. That means they possess a green card. You can get green cards in any number of ways if you come in under the language of this legislation that is so inaccurate. Let me say it that way. Under the rubric they call a temporary guest worker, the first day you are here, your employer can apply for a green card, and within a month presumably you will get that green card. Once you become a green card holder, you become green on that chart, but you also became a permanent resident of the United States, not a citizen. What happens when you become a permanent resident? You can immediately bring in your spouse and your children, maybe half a dozen children. You can bring in all of those children. One thing about this amnesty is this: There are a lot of people who are working in our country today who have not brought their families. They have not been that interested in bringing their wives and children here, but under the bill, we give them legal status. We allow them to become a green card holder in short order, and then they are automatically allowed to bring in their spouses and children. Five years after they get the green card, they can apply to be a citizen. So 5 years, they become a citizen. Here is the family now, this group here, green. They come over. This is the nuclear family: Father, mother, and two children. The mother is now legal. She can bring in her parents; he can bring in his parents. What about brothers and sisters? Each one gets to bring in their brothers, and then they can bring in their wife and their children. This lady has one brother. She allows that brother to come in as a relative within the category, and then he can bring his wife and his children. What about her? She probably has brothers and sisters, too. Once she gets in and gets in the system, she can bring her brothers and sisters and her parents into the system. The father here can bring in his brother or sister, and she can bring in her husband and her two children, or however many they have. I believe somebody detailed once on the floor of the Senate that one family brought in 85 under this system. It is not at all impossible to imagine. Can you see how it can happen? One person comes in, and as a result of the family connections he brought in 85. I think that was Senator Allen Simpson in the debate 20 years ago in 1986. It is a remarkable story, how the nuclear family, 5 years after they become citizens, can bring in their parents. What can the parents do? The parents can bring in their parents, if they are still alive. They really can. Maybe they are 90. They can bring in their brothers and sisters. All the uncles can come in through the parents. The wife can bring in brothers and sisters. Then the wife brings in her brother, who brings in his wife and two children, and she brings in her parents. It just goes on and on. We would like to do the right thing. We would like to be generous. Someone made the argument, I guess at one point in time it seemed like a good idea to have that policy. But every now and then, when we review a bill once in 20 years, you would think we would have discussed this. It has not been discussed, to my knowledge. Not a single Senator has discussed it on the floor of the Senate, to my knowledge. No amendment has been offered on it. It was not discussed, I don't think, but maybe just in passing in some of the Judiciary Committee debate of which I was a member. It is a serious matter. Obviously, we ought to do a better job of thinking through who should come to America. I keep thinking about a valedictorian in the Dominican Republic, some small town in Colombia, Peru, or Brazil, top of his class, learned English, speaks it well, and wanting to come to the United States of America. We have a limited number of people who come. He can never get in because grandparents, great-grandparents, brothers and sisters and grand-nephews are coming in under migration, crowding those numbers out. With regard to all of these people, there is no requirement of any educational level, no requirement of any job skills or any other capability. I think we need to make progress. There is no reason in the world we shouldn't be discussing that in an effective way. Over the past 5 years, approximately 950,000--almost 1 million--extended family members immigrated to the United States and immediately received a green card-- lawful permanent resident who will never have to leave. The numbers equal about 20 percent of all aliens who immigrated to the United States in the last 5 years. Immigration, therefore, makes up a significant portion of family-based immigration. If we want to discuss the percentage of family-based immigration and increase the percentage of skill-based, it makes sense that we would deal with this issue. I think this amendment needs to be considered. I am disappointed that we really have not had time, with cloture being filed we will not have time to seriously discuss that. Let's talk about one more issue. I don't mind saying I cannot be sure that we have dealt in years with a bill more important than this one. Mr. Rector of the Heritage Foundation said this bill is so significant it compares with the passage of Social Security and Medicare, in his opinion. He has been a student of these things for several decades. This is a huge piece of legislation. What has happened, a group has gotten together. They have reached a compromise. We were told flatout the other night that one of the amendments could not be accepted because the people who put the compromise together would not accept it. They would not accept the amendment because they said it violated the compromise, the compromise would fall apart, and we could not amend it in that fashion. And it failed. The machinery around here is working. We will have an opportunity to talk about this additional issue tomorrow. I will plan to do that then. I am proud at least to have had the opportunity to talk about this. The fact is, we are not going to be able to vote on this. We will be lucky to get a vote on one of them, and then this will be voted on. I assume it will be passed and sent to the House of Representatives. If we are fortunate, the House of Representatives will say it has to be better; we will not accept it; we are going to insist on that before we pass it. Who knows what will happen in the political processes of our country?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I yielded the floor to Senator Wyden a few moments ago, and I wish to complete some thoughts. I documented without any real dispute that the provisions in the bill before the Senate today will increase legal immigration into our country by an extraordinary amount, by four to five times the current levels. That is a huge increase. At the same time, we have done the research on it, and I will not go into the details, but the programs that allow most of the people to come into our country favor low-skilled workers. We think from 70 to 90, maybe 92 percent of the workers who will come in under the provisions of the bill in the Senate today will come in as low-skilled workers. That is very significant because it is quite clear from every professional, independent, pro-immigration economist who has analyzed it that low-skilled workers do not tend to pay as much in taxes as they take out. They become a net drain on the Treasury of the United States. That is an important issue. If we are going to do comprehensive reform, why haven't we discussed this issue? I ask my colleagues and those who promoted the legislation before the Senate today, has that been discussed with the American people? Have we had extensive hearings in committees on this question? The answer is no. In fact, if you read the bill, you will discover there has been a studied and carefully carried out plan to conceal how many people will come in under the temporary guest worker programs when, in fact, what they mislabel as a temporary program is in fact a permanent worker program that leads on a direct path to citizenship in fairly short order. I am talking about the future immigration programs in the bill here. I am not talking about the other 11 to 20 million illegal aliens who may claim amnesty under this bill. If we are going to do a comprehensive plan, why don't we think first and foremost about what our Nation needs, what the implications are for immigration, how it has enriched us in so many ways in the past, how many wonderful, decent people come here. But we also need to ask ourselves, what are the limits of immigration? What are the aspects of it that could be better handled? We need to think these things through in a careful, legitimate way, focusing on the legitimate national interests of the United States of America, because it is not our policy and cannot be the policy of any nation to allow immigrants into their nation solely on the basis that it is good for the immigrant. I don't want to be harsh about this. I am not being unkind. We want to have immigration. I will support an increase in legal immigration over the current levels if it is a reasonable increase focused in the right direction and promotes the interests of the United States. We will have more coming in, but we need to ask the question of how we should do it, who should be allowed to take advantage of the limited number of slots we can legitimately bestow on those who come here. It cannot be their choice, but there seems to be talk here that reminds me of entitlement talks, rights talks, that someone in a foreign nation around the world has some sort of right to come to America, an entitlement to come to America, that we cannot deny them. Where did that come from? That is not true in any other nation in the world. It is an example of muddled thinking. It is Mr. Barone who wrote a book called ``Hard America, Soft America.'' Sometimes we need to just have clear thinking. Some things you just need to make a decision about. One of those is the number of people who can come into our country is limited. A great nation, a wise nation, wants to make sure the people who come into the country best suit and best foster that nation's progress. How simple is that? Let's talk about the national impact of low-skilled workers versus high-skilled workers. I asked for a series of hearings. We got one hearing. It went 2 or 3 hours. We had good professors, but only three or four Senators showed up. I have some of the testimony from that hearing and some other information relevant to that important question that I will read from in a minute. Shouldn't we be talking about those things? We are talking about a lot of issues that may be hot buttons and of concern, and I am pleased we have a fence at the border, but at the same time, the great Senate of the United States needs to think about the future. This is what we learned. The economic experts who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 25, 2006, at the immigration economic impacts hearing agreed that low-skilled immigrants unavoidably depress the wages of American workers in low-skilled job categories. They held, it is fair to say, a common consensus. Some are pro- immigration, and they argue benefits and other things, but they all held a common consensus that high-skilled immigrants are better for the economy than low-skilled workers. Low-skilled workers are an overall net drain on the economy. Professor Richard Freeman, the Herbert S. Ascherman professor of economics at Harvard University, testified, among other things: One of the concerns of when immigrants come into the country is that they may take some jobs from Americans or drive down the wages of some Americans. Obviously, if there are a large number of immigrants coming in, and if they are coming in at a bad economic time, that's very likely to happen. He went on to talk about the impact of high-skilled workers. He noted: I think America makes a huge gain, and much of the gains are to us. Some of the gains are to the immigrants, of course. You will notice he says that more than once. He talks about who actually gains from immigration. For low skilled workers who come here, it is a gain to them because they are coming to a better and freer and more prosperous country. But the real question our Nation should ask is, How does it benefit us? He says: There are gains to us from high-skilled workers and to the immigrants. He goes on to say: Having a lot of immigrants coming in at the top, it does make it more difficult for some young Americans to advance in those fields, but we can recompense the young Americans with other policies. He goes on to note: It's very important to understand that the biggest beneficiaries from immigration tend to be the immigrants, particularly if you are a low-skilled immigrant. He adds this: If you are a poor immigrant, your income in the United States will be six to eight times what it is in Mexico. Professor Dan Siciliano, director of the program in law, economics, and business at the Stanford Law School, a pretty good law school, is a pretty strong advocate in favor of immigration, but he talked about the question of the cost of low-skilled immigrants. He said: If you look at the fiscal/economic impact, which is the Government's coffers impact, it might be true that lower- skilled workers, just like all of us, have a negative impact on the fiscal bottom line. And so we may have a modest net negative fiscal impact for all low-wage workers in the United States, not just immigrants. This is not unique to immigrants, documented or undocumented. What he was saying is that low-skilled American workers who are not trained, not skilled, and not educated, will draw more from the Federal Treasury than they put into it. That is one of the reasons we work so hard to train and provide skills to American workers, so they can rise and be successful and reach their highest possible aspirations. But when that does not occur, it does have a cost to the economy. Why would you want to import large numbers who don't have skills when there are large numbers of people with skills who want to come here? Dr. Barry Chiswick, head of and research professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said this: What about the impact on low-skilled American workers? How does a large amount of new labor into the country impact American workers of low skill? He was blunt. He told it like it was. He said: There is a competition in the labor market, and the large increase in low-skilled immigration that we have seen over the last 20 years has had a substantial negative effect on the employment and earnings opportunities of low-skilled American workers. He goes on to add: The large increase in low-skilled immigration has had the effect of decreasing the wages and employment opportunities of low-skilled workers who are currently resident in the United States. We have some Members on the other side who want to bring in five times as many low-skilled workers as we bring in today. Do they want to dispute the professor from Chicago? He goes on to say: The last amnesty [in 1986] actually encouraged additional low-skilled immigration in anticipation of further amnesties. I went back and saw the summary of the debate in 1986. People who opposed that amnesty predicted that we were going to be driven inevitably to future amnesties and we should stand on principle and fix the system in 1986. This professor clearly agreed that their prediction has come true. He goes on to add: Over the past two decades, the real earnings of high- skilled workers have risen substantially. The real earnings of low-skilled workers have either stagnated or decreased somewhat. That is a sad statement. It is a sad event, if it is true, because people are doing well today. The economy is booming. But as I will point out to my colleagues in further remarks, the wages for low- skilled workers are not increasing. They are not sharing in the benefits of the progress and prosperity this Nation is enjoying at this point. We have an agreement here struck between the Chamber of Commerce and some political activist groups to move this bill through, and they are not concerned sufficiently about the interests of decent American citizens who may not have the highest skills. These Americans, however, are entitled to a decent wage and their wages should be going up in this time of prosperity. Dr. Chiswick goes on to say: We need to provide greater assistance to low-skilled Americans in their quest for better jobs and higher wages, and one of the ways we can help them in this regard is by reducing the very substantial competition that they're facing from this very large and uncontrolled low-skilled immigration that is the result of both our legal immigration system and the absence of enforcement of immigration law. I lay this on the table, like I have done before. If people want to disagree with Professor Chiswick, let's have them down here and explain that. Professor Samuelson and a lot of others agree with him, and the numbers tend to confirm that. When you have a shortage of labor, a laboring man's value goes up because he can demand a high wage. When you have a large amount of low-wage people willing to go out and take a job, it can drive down wages an American worker can expect to get when they go out and seek a job. I don't believe we are going to repeal the law of economics for labor. It has always been there, and it always will be. Dr. Chiswick also shared with us his thoughts about the cost of low- skilled immigrants, and he notes: Low-skilled immigrants make greater use of government benefits and transfers than they pay in taxes. I am not condemning anybody. We should not condemn anybody. We have a nation that is generous and wants to help people who have difficulties getting by in life. We are always going to do that. But he says: Low-skilled immigrants make greater use of government benefits and transfers than they pay in taxes. So in terms of the public coffers, they serve as a net drain. Whereas high- skilled immigrants have the opposite effect. And the consequences of low-skilled immigration are pretty much the same whether they are in legal status or illegal status, although the net effect on the public coffers is actually more negative for legal immigrants who are low-skilled immigrants. Did you hear that? Once they become legal and get a green card or become a citizen, they are entitled to more benefits than when they are illegal. But in fact, both of them turn out to be net drains on the coffers of the United States, according to Professor Chiswick. He goes on to say: And if you do the analysis separately for high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants, what you would find is that even in a period of surplus, low-skilled immigrants would be paying less in taxes than the burdens that they would be putting on government expenditures. Mr. Siciliano, who is more pro-immigrant and sees it in a more positive light, interjected and said: Truthfully, just like low-skilled U.S. workers. And Professor Chiswick responded: Just like low-skilled natives, yes. Mr. Siciliano responds: Yes, in no different way than low-skilled U.S. workers. And Mr. Chiswick replied: But low skilled natives are here. And low-skilled immigrants, do we want them in? In unlimited numbers, I would add. What about high-skilled immigrants? What did Mr. Chiswick say about that? Two-thirds of the immigrants coming into the United States annually come in under kinship criteria. That is chain migration. Only about 7 percent are skill tested. For only about 7 percent do we really ask the question what will you contribute to the American economy? He goes on to say: We need to alter our immigration policies to increase the focus on attracting high ability, high-skilled immigrants. What we want to do is attract those immigrants who would have the largest positive contribution to the American economy, and they will be highly skilled immigrants, immigrants with high skills in literacy, numeracy, scientific knowledge, technical training. Current immigration law pays very, very little attention to the skills that immigrants bring to the United States. That is his statement. It is something we need to think about as we pass a bill that pretends to be comprehensive. Professor Harry Holder, also testifying at our hearing, who was associate dean and professor of public policy at Georgetown University, another pretty good university, said this about the impact of low- skilled American workers: There are jobs in industries like construction that I think are more appealing to native born workers. And many native born, low-income men might be interested in more of those jobs, although employers often prefer the immigrants, especially in residential construction. Now, absent the immigrants, employers might need to raise those wages and improve those conditions of work to entice native born workers into those construction, agriculture, janitorial, food preparation jobs. I believe that when immigrants are illegal, they do more to undercut the wages of native born workers because the playing field isn't level and the employers don't have to pay them market wages. He was then asked about future immigration policy, and he said: I agree with Professor Chiswick. We are not ready to open the floodgates of immigration. We will continue to have controls on immigration. And we need to find cost-effective and humane ways to limit those immigrants. So we didn't get five hearings. We didn't get a national dialog. We had one hearing for a few hours and a number of professors, pretty much those professors who consider themselves pro-immigrant, and that is what they told us. Let me share a few more points on that subject from another individual. The Washington Times, on May 8, published a column by Alan Tomlinson. He is an official with the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation. He went back and did some studies and dealt with this allegation that without ever increasing flows of immigrants, representatives of numerous industries have warned their sectors will literally run out of workers and the economy will collapse. He was not so impressed after he did some studies. He said: Most statistics available show conclusively that far from easing shortages, illegal immigrants are adding to labor gluts in America. Think about that. He says that we don't have a shortage, we have a glut. Specifically, wages in sectors highly dependent on illegals, when adjusted for inflation, are either stagnant or have actually fallen. When labor is genuinely scarce and too many employers are chasing too few workers, businesses typically bid wages up in the competition to fill jobs. When too many workers are chasing too few jobs, employers typically are able to cut wages, confident that beggars can't be choosers. Then he checked the Department of Labor statistics. He says this: The Labor Department data revealed that the wage-cutting scenario is exactly what has unfolded recently throughout the economy's illegal immigrant heavy sectors. Then he talked about restaurants. We hear there are not enough people to work in restaurants. Illegal immigrants comprise 17 percent of the food preparation workers, 20 percent of cooks, and 23 percent of dishwashers. What did he find? According to the data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, through inflation-adjusted wages for the broad food services and drinking categories, wages fell in real terms 1.65 percent between 2000 and 2005. If there is a crisis to get cooks and dishwashers, how are they able to cut salaries? How does the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that salaries went down? This is one of the areas where we have the most numbers of illegal immigrants. He then goes on to talk about the hospitality industry, which includes hotels. They say we have to have a person who puts that chocolate on your bed every night and makes up your bed and comes in and puts your toiletries in a line for you, whether you want that or not. You have to have them. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data, according to him, who studied them, show that inflation-adjusted wages fell nearly 1.1 percent from 2000 to 2005. So hotels are booming, and they are building new hotels, and they say they cannot get workers. Why are wages not going up? Perhaps if they pay a little more money to decent American citizens, they might be able to get more to work. They may have to charge $180 instead of $170 a night for a room. Is that going to destroy the American economy? I think not. Maybe the average American worker would be better able to participate in the prosperity that is going on. He talked about the construction industry. He says that, interestingly, from 1993 to 2005, wages in that sector only increased 3 percent. That is 12 years. The wages, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the construction industry area only increased 3 percent in 12 years. From 2000 through 2005, at the height of the housing boom, inflation-adjusted wages actually fell 1.59 percent. So we have this crisis in workers, and wages are falling. He then talks about food manufacturing. They make up a big part of that. Let me point out that even in the construction industry, the illegal immigrants make up only 12 percent of the workforce. So this argument that you cannot get anybody who is native-born to work in construction is bogus. The one thing that hurts me the most when I hear President Bush say it is when he says these are jobs Americans won't do. I reject that. He should never say that. These are good jobs, honorable jobs, filled by honorable American people. In the construction area, almost 90 percent are American workers, and there is nothing they won't do. They may not do something because they don't get enough pay or benefits or retirement, but the jobs themselves are noble contributions to America. They go out and build something--a wall, drywall, a roof on a house--and that is a lot better than some of these lawyers and other people who contribute very little, I submit, to the net economy. They talked about the 14 percent of the workers in food manufacturing, including animal processing. That includes chicken plants, slaughterhouses, and beef-processing plants. You have heard that we cannot get workers there. Pew Research says that illegals make up 27 percent of workers in that category. That is the highest sector, it looks like, according to this. What happened to their wages from 2000 to 2005? They say they cannot get people to work in the chicken plants. That is what they say in Alabama--they cannot get workers and we might have a real problem without the illegal workers. If so, how did adjusted wages fall 1.4 percent during that period of time? He goes on to note that examining more closely the pattern within the 2000 to 2005 period provides compelling evidence that illegal immigrants have been used deliberately to force down wages. In most industries that used illegal immigrants heavily, inflation-adjusted wages rose modestly during the first years of the current decade. Yet, soon after, they dropped significantly. What about the guy who wrote the textbook on economics, Robert Samuelson? I think he would be considered a liberal. Robert Samuelson produced an op-ed on May 17, 2006, this year. He deals directly with the question of immigration. This is what he said: The central problem is not illegal immigration, it is undesirably high levels of poor and low-skilled immigrants, whether legal or illegal. Immigrants are not all the same. An engineer making $75,000 annually contributes more to the American economy and society than a $20,000 laborer. On average, an engineer will assimilate easily. He quotes favorably Professor Chiswick, and I just quoted from his testimony before the hearing. This guy has written books on economics. He quotes the same quote I just gave, I believe. I will not repeat that. He quotes Mr. Chiswick's comments concerning the fact that low- skilled immigrants tend to pay less in taxes. They receive more benefits, such as income transfers, the earned-income tax credit, food stamps, public schooling, and publicly provided medical services. He quotes this from Mr. Chiswick, too: While low-skilled immigrant workers may raise the profit of their employers, they tend to have a negative impact on the well-being of the low-skilled, native-born population and on the native economy as a whole. Mr. Samuelson adds this: Hardly anyone is discussing these issues candidly. It is politically inexpedient to do so. We can be a lawful society and a welcoming society simultaneously, to use the President's phrase, but we cannot be a welcoming society for a limitless number of Latin America's poor, without seriously compromising our own future and indeed the future of the many Latinos already here. Yet, that is precisely what the President and many Senators, Democrat and Republican, support by enforcing large guestworker programs and an expansion of today's legal system of visas. And in practice these proposals would result in substantial increases in low- skilled immigrants. What are other countries doing? I will wrap up with these thoughts. What are other nations around the world doing as they consider their immigration policies? In Australia, immigrant applications are considered under either the general migration program, which includes skilled or migrant spouses and those sponsored by family members already settled in Australia, or the humanitarian refugee program. For fiscal 2004-2005, the Australian Government set a goal of 120,000 migrants, far less than our number; 42,000 places for family members; 72,000 for skilled business migrants; and 13,000 for the humanitarian and refugee program--though actual arrivals were just over 123,000. Under the skilled migration program in Australia, applicants are given points for different criteria. In the fiscal year 2004, the pass mark for general skilled migration was 120 points. So they have a points based system. As it turned out that year, you had to have 120 or more or you were not approved. Points were awarded for age--lower age tends to be better--skill, English language ability, specialized skills, job offers in demand fields, or completion of an Australian university degree. If a foreign student comes here and finishes at the top of their class at Georgetown or the University of Alabama, they have to leave for at least 2 years. Somebody can come in here for a low-skilled job and get a green card the first day they come in. How silly is that? But that is what Australia does. They give 5 additional points for a capital investment in Australia of at least $100,000. Australian work experience, fluency in the Australian community language, and skilled occupations are given various points. What about Canada? They accept six major categories of immigrants: skilled and independent workers, business immigrants, provincial nominees, family class, international adoptions, and Quebec-sponsored immigrants. Refugees are also counted in immigration statistics. They do not have a country-based or worldwide quota, but they establish annual targets. In fiscal year 2004, approximately 236,000 people were accepted for permanent residence in Canada; 113,000 were skilled, 62,000 family, 10,000 business, 6,000 provincial nominees, and 32,000 refugees. There is a pretty good mix there. Far higher--over half of that number clearly are people with high skills, high education, and business capability. The strictest preference system is used in Canada for skilled workers and is based on a point system. Under the current system, applicants must obtain at least 67 out of 100 points and have at least 1 year of work experience within the past 10 years in a management occupation or in an occupation normally requiring university or technical training, as identified by the Canadian occupational classification system. Points are awarded for education, languages, employment experience, age, employment, and adaptability. So they have standards. In our system, people come in basically under entitlements. If you meet this standard, you get to come in regardless of your skill. What about France? Two days ago, France's lower House of Parliament approved a new immigration bill supported by one of the top Cabinet members. The Parliament approved a bill that would allow the country to selectively choose which foreigners can live and work in that country and would require that immigrants learn the French language. You know, they care about that French language. We need to care a little more about the English language. I remember when Chirac walked out of the European Union conference because a Frenchman, in speaking to the delegation, spoke to them in English. He was so offended that a Frenchman would speak English at an international conference, he left. That is a little bit much, I think, but I don't think there is anything wrong with a nation that is proud of its language and wanting to preserve it. So this French bill could make it easier for the country to screen out poorly educated immigrants in favor of highly skilled workers. It would tighten restrictions under which immigrant workers can bring their families to France. That is chain migration. You get to bring your family no matter what skills they bring to the Nation. It would abolish the right of illegal immigrants to receive residency papers after living in France for 2 years. So in a way, it abolishes amnesty. It abolishes the right of illegal immigrants to receive residency papers, even after they have lived in the country for 10 years. The bill passed by 367 to 164 and will be debated in the French Senate next month. An article I happened to catch on the airplane the other day in the Economist, a London-based newspaper, said Americans are nativists, not internationalists. Why don't we talk about some of these EU countries that are supposed to be so progressive? This is what the Economist wrote on May 6 describing the background of France's immigration policy and the reason for their legislation: Until the mid-seventies, immigrants to France came to work. Since the law was tightened in 1974, the inflows have changed. Today, only 7,000 permanent workers arrive each year, down from over 107,000 in the late sixties. Three-quarters of legal immigrants to France are family related. Not skill related, family related. France has a low proportion of skilled immigrants. France's Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, argues ``that under the pretext of protecting jobs at home, France has created a system that let's in only those who have neither a job nor any useful skills.'' How about that? The Economist article goes on to describe an immigration bill that Mr. Sarkozy has put before the French Parliament this week, which addresses that very problem. Mr. Sarkozy's proposal, in many ways, simply follows the practice of other countries, notably Australia, Canada, Switzerland, as well as Britain and the Netherlands. In each case, the policy is based on a recognition that there is no such thing as zero immigration, and that a managed, skill- based immigration policy will not only control inflows, but will also bring benefits to those countries. Madam President, we have focused on a lot of hot button issues, some of which are very important, but we have not given serious thought to the fundamentals of what we are doing here, and what impact it will have on our country. We are not giving any thought to what the Netherlands, what France, what Britain, what Canada, and what Australia are doing. We are not in any way following their model. In fact, we are ignoring the testimony of some of our Nation's most prestigious economists on those issues. As a result, we have a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation on the floor of the Senate. It should never ever become law, and it is a sad day when those who are supporting this legislation are reduced to quietly going around and suggesting: Don't worry about it being so bad, we just have to do something and maybe the House of Representatives will save us. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Sounds great.

Mr. SESSIONS. So one of the most significant issues facing America today is how many immigrants will be allowed to enter the United States and become citizens. I am not sure we have given any thought to that. As I said, when we announced at the beginning of this week that the numbers could be as high as 200 million people allowed into the country, I don't think most Senators had any idea that was so. My staff worked that up at about the same time the Heritage Foundation did their own independent analysis, and they were very close in numbers to ours. I hope that played a role in our ability to pass a bill the next night that did bring those numbers down. As I say, we are now looking at about 73 million to 93 million more people legally coming into our country in the next 20 years. I wish to emphasize this: Don't think those are small numbers. We are a 300 million-person country right now, and I am talking about 4 times the legal immigration rate presently existing in our country. Under the current law, we would have 19 million come in over 20 years. Under this bill, we would have 73 million to 93 million coming in by a short 20 years from now. I asked the Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing on April 19 to examine the full impact of the legislation and what we could do about it. I asked that we examine what the estimated numerical impact is of the immigration proposal and how does the future chain migration of family members impact the total immigration numbers under the proposal. I asked that we have hearings on what will be the legislation's estimated fiscal impact on the Federal Treasury as well as State and local governments; how will the entitlement programs such as Medicaid, TANF, and food stamps be affected; what level of immigration in the future is in our best national, economic, social, and cultural interests; and what categories of immigrants in terms of skills and education should compose the overall level of annual immigration. I stated that we need to have a national discussion on this issue. The American people need to be involved. We had one committee hearing, and it lasted about 2 to 3 hours and three or four Senators came. The individual provisions of the bill have never been examined by any committee. Let me state that again. The individual provisions of the bill on the Senate floor have never been examined by any committee. But every witness who came to that one hearing acknowledged that high-skilled immigrants are good for the economy and that low-skilled immigrants are a net drain on the economy--on average, not every single one. Many of them turn out to be productive and go on and be productive. But on average, from an economist point of view, based on the data we have, they tend to take out more in taxes than they pay in taxes. I sent a second letter asking for further committee hearings. I wanted to examine the numerical figures in the bill, the fiscal impact, but we never had any hearings on that. So we did our studies on the legislation, and we came out with these numbers. We did our calculations, and we believe the numbers would run from 80 million or more people coming in over 20 years to perhaps 200 million people. Two hundred million would be two-thirds of the current population of the United States of America. So we worked hard on those numbers. I don't think they were ever seriously challenged. This is the way it ran. Under current levels of legal immigration, there would be 18.9 million people coming into the country. If we had passed this legislation as it originally was when it hit the floor, we would have had 78.7 million at a minimum coming in--4 times the current level of immigration--and it could have hit the maximum of 217 million, according to our calculations--about 11 times the current level of immigration. So those are huge numbers. I think they caused great concern. After the amendment Senator Bingaman offered was passed and it took out that 20-percent-per-year escalator clause on the 325,000-person guest worker program per year--under this new program, if you hit that 325,000 one year, automatically the next year's limit was 20 percent more, automatically the next year would be 20 percent more, and automatically the next year would be 20 percent more. I think that would have sent a clear signal to the entire world that the United States was going to accept huge numbers of immigrants, and I believe we would have had applications flooding in and it would have been a very serious problem. We did pare that back to 200,000 per year without any 20 percent increase over 20 years, and that made the huge difference I just mentioned. So now about 73 million to 93 million will come in over 20 years, 4 to 5 times the current rate. I submit that is still far too large a number. We have had no real serious national discussion about what impact that would have on working Americans, what impact it would have on our welfare and our cultural ability to assimilate and welcome foreign visitors and workers who come to our country, and I think it would cause us great difficulty. So we still need to talk about that. I ask my colleagues and those in the media, how much have you heard this discussed? How many people in the Senate have actually discussed and debated and acknowledged how huge a change this is and whether it is the kind of change we should carry out? Has it even been discussed? Oh, but they say, we have to pass something. We just have to pass something and get it off our plate. You know, the Senate has a lot to do. We are busy. Let's just move on it. Let's just show courage. Let's just move it on and get something to the House. Oddly, some of the people who have been making the most fun and complaining about the House of Representatives for their enforcement approach are now justifying and asking us to pass the bill on the basis of, well, it will get better after we go over to the House. They tell me to not be so worried about all of these provisions because the House Members will never agree to it and we might make the bill better in conference. That is kind of an odd argument to make. If you are so holy and so righteous, why don't you come down here and defend these numbers they tried to slip by 3 weeks ago without a single amendment being considered by the Senate. They tried to move that through here. Finally, it blew up and Senator Frist pulled the bill down, insisting that at least there be some amendments considered as we move this piece of legislation forward. So, Mr. President, in a few minutes I will share a few more remarks on some of the specific concerns I have involving this philosophy of the bill in a few moments. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Probably longer than that. A good bit; probably 30 or so minutes more. So I would be pleased to yield to the Senator if he is ready and pick up after that. I think I am going to be closing out the Senate when we finish up, anyway.

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we have had some good debate this week on the immigration bill that is before the Senate. We made some progress toward improving the legislation. I think to some degree the good and decent and deeply felt views of the American people are beginning to be heard--but not clearly enough in this body. We still need to listen to them more. I submit that on every single issue the American people have it right. We discussed last night and debated last night some key issues. I know one of the supporters of the bill described this as a difficult issue, complicated, emotional, but we are trying to do something. He suggested that was courageous and we should be not afraid to move forward. Well, we do need to move forward but we did not have to move forward on this bill. We could have moved forward, as the House did, taking the first step to ensure that we have a legitimate legal system of enforcement that works, and then we could move on to the comprehensive solution of what to do with the illegal alien population and the future immigration policies of the United states. We can do that separately, or we can try to do them together at the same time. I was inclined to believe that we weren't ready to deal with this issue comprehensively. That is why I thought the House's idea wasn't so bad. But it was complained about on this side, with great moral superiority, that their approach to security first was somehow bad and not worthy of respect. I think it is very worthy of respect. In fact, I think this bill would show that we probably would have been better off to have followed their lead. This is the great Senate of the United States of America, and we are not here just to do something, anything. We are here to do the right thing. We are here to confront one of the big issues of our time, and to do it in a way that is consistent with our laws and our values and the values of the American people. That is what we should do. That is our responsibility to our constituents, to our posterity, to the heritage we have been given. That is absolutely our responsibility. I will tell you, and I will say it plainly, and others may not, but this legislation fails miserably in that regard. It is unworthy of the Senate. It should never pass, it should never become the law of the United States of America. It does not meet our highest ideals. It does not create a system that is consistent with the national interest of the United States. Let me say with regard to the work that we did this week, I will sort of run down and point out some of the things that occurred, some good things occurred, and some things that were not so good that occurred. Also, in my time today, I want to move from that to a more thoughtful discussion of what any good immigration reform bill should have in it, what issues it should deal with, and point out how this bill is defective in the most fundamental way it lacks the basic principles of any good immigration reform bill. We started out on the floor of the Senate with a 614-page bill , My staff, Cindy Hayden and her team, discovered that the bill on the floor that they were urging passage of would have brought 78.7 to 217 million legal immigrants into the United States in 20 years, equal to 26 to 66 percent of the entire total population of the United States of America of 298 million. That is what we were being asked to vote on. I believe we were correct. We were the only group, apparently, to have ever researched this, and I think that includes the authors themselves. Those who were opposed to this bill were being accused of wanting to lock up people and close our borders and not let anybody in and do all these horrible things, which was never the case. We simply said let's talk about a good policy for America. We attempted to deal with the important issue of making sure enforcement will happen. I raised it in the Judiciary Committee and got a modest amendment on this issue passed. The Presiding Officer, Senator Isakson from Georgia, went right to the heart of the issue and drafted a very good amendment that I thought had a very good chance to pass, and should have passed, and it deals with this fundamental problem, most clearly demonstrated by what happened in 1986. In 1986, they passed comprehensive amnesty and immigration reform. Those who were in the Senate then--I was not yet here--and remember the debate know it was an amnesty to end all amnesties. It was supposed to create a legal immigration system, and we were told we would not have to do this again. Those concerned about it warned, however, one amnesty begets another amnesty. The more you go down that path, the easier it is. This sends a signal to the world that we are not serious about our laws. In that one bill in 1986, we passed the amnesty, and we authorized a number of things to occur that were supposed to result in an effective legal system. Well, the amnesty became law just like that. But the other things that the enforcement side took--the required funding and congressional assistance, and mostly Presidential leadership--never occurred. It didn't occur. So Senator Isakson came up with an amendment this week that I thought was pretty good. It basically would have ensured that the borders were secure before any of the amnesty provisions could be implemented. They are telling us constantly that the borders are going to be made secure if we pass this bill, so let's hold their feet to the fire and say this time the American people want to have a little hold on you before you grant amnesty again. Let's be sure the borders are secure first, that Congress won't forget that goal after the bill passes. Without the Isakson language, the amnesty provisions in the bill take effect the day the bill is signed. But we didn't accept that amendment. Instead, we will remain in the position where we hope that we will have immigration enforcement in the future. We accepted the Salazar trigger amendment that simply requires the President to determine that the bill's amnesty and guest worker provisions will ``strengthen the national security of the United States.'' That is not sufficient. That doesn't go to the meat of the issue like Senator Isakson proposed. And why was it rejected? Why was it rejected? I have had a suspicion and a growing suspicion over the years that this Congress is always willing to pass some bits of legislation dealing with immigration. But if any piece of legislation hits the floor of the Senate that will actually work, that is when the system pushes back and, for one reason or another, one excuse after another, it never happens. So I think this would have worked, and that is the reason it got rejected. What else occurred, good and bad, through the week? My amendment was accepted 83 to 16 to put 870 miles of physical barriers on the border, 370 miles of fencing, and 500 miles of vehicle barriers--a good amendment, consistent with what the Secretary of Homeland Security and the President said they desired. We probably need more, but we need at least that. It was accepted. Amusingly, I saw in the paper--I wasn't there when the final vote was counted, but I saw in the paper that 17 Senators changed their votes, mostly on the other side, the Democratic side, after it became clear the amendment was going to pass. Many Senators, for months, have been rolling their eyes and said we don't need fences. That is not very good. That is not a good thing to do. Fences will work, trust me. They will work. But that, of course, begets the objection, I suspect. But when we voted, it was interesting that we ended up with a vote of 83 to 16, suggesting that the American people are beginning to have their voices heard a little bit in Congress. Then perhaps the most significant amendment that was adopted was a Bingaman amendment. It would reduce the incredible escalating number under the new H-2C visa foreign worker program. Under the original bill, the numbers were unbelievable. The amendment reduced the total number of immigrants that would have come into the United States if that bill became law from 78 to 217 million to a lower 73 million to 93 million. That was a strong vote for that provision and we make progress in reducing the numbers. However, this bill, S. 2611, still enacts a four- to fivefold increase over the current levels of legal immigration into America over 20 years. Current law would bring in 18.9 million over 20 years. Did you get that? This bill, if passed today, even after the Bingaman amendment passed by a substantial majority, would still bring into our country three, four, five times--at least four times, I suggest--the number of people who can come into our country legally today. That is a huge number and will lead us at the end of 20 years to have the highest percentage of foreign-born Americans this Nation has ever had in its history, including the great migration period between 1880 and 1925. It is a colossal bill still in terms of those numbers. The Senate also accepted, after rejecting it 3 weeks ago when the bill first came up--the bill was pulled from the floor because we couldn't get a vote on Senator Kyl's amendment to make certain that criminals are not given amnesty under the bill. It was a simple amendment to say criminals, felons, couldn't be given amnesty, and we couldn't get a vote on that amendment. It was so bad apparently, the Democratic leader was so determined to block this vote, that Senator Frist pulled the bill down. As time went on, we were ready to vote on that amendment, and they accepted it, not graciously, but they took it. It certainly makes sense that we do that. The Senate rejected the Vitter amendment by a substantial amount--66 people voted against it--which would strike the bill's provisions that adjust the illegal alien population to lawful permanent residents, the so-called amnesty provision. The Senate narrowly accepted the Cornyn amendment, 50 to 48, which protects U.S. jobs for workers by making sure the H-2C visa holder can only apply for green cards if they have actually worked--they are supposed to work--if they actually worked for 4 years and their employer attests they will still have a job after they are given a green card, and the Secretary of Labor determines there are not enough U.S. workers available to fill the job position. Then the very next vote, a companion amendment by Senator Kennedy which was adopted with 56 votes, gutted that protection, in effect, and it no longer requires that the employer promise to continue to employ an H-2C alien. Federal benefits was a key vote yesterday. The Senate shockingly rejected the Ensign amendment 50 to 49--close, close vote--that would have prevented aliens from collecting Social Security benefits as a result of their illegal entry into the country, their illegal work, and their illegal presentation of a Social Security number. Fraudulent presentation of a Social Security number and criminal entry into the United States, and this bill provides they can draw Social Security. We had an amendment to clarify that issue, and the Senate voted to keep the provision in the bill. Social Security is in trouble now. Thankfully, the Senate accepted the Cornyn amendment that assessed a $750 fine to illegal aliens that will go into the State impact assistance account, and the money will be used to help the States pay for costs that are connected with immigration. The Senate accepted an amendment by Senator Inhofe on a 63-to-34 vote, 34 Senators voting no, stating that English is a national language and strengthening the citizenship test where one is supposed to know something about the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and crew, and the history of the United States. It would strengthen that a bit. But 34 Senators voted against that amendment. It was adopted. We are moving forward. My good friend, Senator Cornyn, who is as positive and effective a Senator as we have had join us in quite a long time, said that we made a lot of progress this week. I say we made some progress. I want to share with my colleagues why I think there are serious problems in the legislation. Last week, I detailed 15 loopholes in the bill that is before us today. Of those 15, maybe 4, 5, 6 have been fixed in significant part, leaving 8 or 9 that have not been fixed. I will not go over those at this time, but I do want to say that those concerns I raised last week are very real. They really need to be fixed. Those loopholes need to be closed. Those concerns need to be dealt with. I am prepared to debate or negotiate with anyone about the importance of those points I made last week. I think most American people would agree with me on every single one of those issues. Today I wish to talk about a more broad concern with the bill and its potential impact. I again emphasize that we are sensitive to the good and decent people who come here. Those of us who are unhappy with the way this bill is written are not against immigration and not against immigrants; we are not for closing our borders and not for not having anymore immigration. That is all foolish. We are not for arresting people by the tens of thousands and hauling them out of the country. That is not going to happen. But, I don't think the view of the House of Representatives, that we ought to deal with enforcement first and demonstrate that we can create a lawful and workable system first, is immoral, impractical, or radical. It makes a lot of sense to me. Secondly, I am not aware of any Member of Congress who favors hostile or extreme measures in dealing with the issues today. We want immigration to occur. We will expect to see some increases in immigration, but we want it to be legal, under policies and terms that are appropriate for the United States of America. The American people are with us on this issue. They expect us to create an immigration system that works and is legal. They don't want to reward those who break into our country with every single benefit we provide to those who come legally. To me, that is, indeed, amnesty. The American people do not think big business and advocacy groups should be able to meet in secret and create some great design of a plan, foist it on the Senate, and that we can't consider it, review it, and reject it if we need to. That is basically part of the debate we had last night. It was argued: Well, there has been a great compromise. Sessions, you and the American people, your views weren't part of it, but we know better for our country than you do. And if you amend this section, the compromise will collapse, and the bill may not get passed. You can't change this bill. The section we were trying to change was the section that is as bogus as any part of the bill. It is the section that is captioned in big print: temporary guest worker. That is what the President has been saying he favors. He told me that personally a couple of days ago. He told me, when he flew to Alabama, that he believed in temporary workers. But it is not so that this bill creates a temporary worker program. I challenge any one last night to tell me that what I am saying is not true. Under this bill, under that rubric of big print language, ``Nonimmigrant Visa Reform, Subsection A, Temporary Guest Workers''-- what it really says is if you come into this country under this work visa you get to convert your status to a green card holder--a legal permanent resident that can then become a citizen. Somebody said last night: Why are people afraid to discuss this issue? I say to the supporters of the bill: Why are you afraid to tell the truth about your bill? Why do you title the section one thing and then write it to actually do another? Why are you putting in here ``temporary guest workers'' when there is nothing ``temporary'' or ``guest'' about them. Why? Are they afraid the American people will find out what is really in that provision which would have brought in, had it not been amended by Senator Bingaman, perhaps 130 million new people into the country permanently? What kind of temporary program is that? How does it work? This is the way it works: You come in, get a job; you come in under this guest worker proposal, and within the first day you arrive, your employer can seek a green card for you. If you qualify--and most will--then that green card will be issued, and you are then a legal permanent resident. You are a legal permanent resident within weeks or months of entry into the country, and within 5 years of being a legal permanent resident and having a green card, you can apply for citizenship. If you know a little English and don't get arrested and convicted of a felony, you will be made a citizen by right under that provision. So it is not a temporary guest worker program. We need one in the bill. It is not there. That is what the President says he supports. The American people don't think we ought to huddle up, have some groups come in and meet with a few Senators and have them foist on the American people an immigration bill that ignores their concerns about legality and their legitimate concerns over the depressing of the wages of American citizens. That is not a myth. The law of supply and demand has not been abrogated with regard to wages and labor. In terms of lawfulness, decency, morality, and the national interest, the American people are head and shoulders above the Members of Congress who are asserting and pushing this flawed legislation. A huge majority of the American people have been right on this issue for decades. It is the executive branch and the Congress that have been derelict in their most solemn duties. If the American people had been listened to and not been stiff-armed by an arrogant elitist bureaucracy and political class, we wouldn't have 11 million to 20 million people in our country illegally today. The American people have been concerned about this issue--and the polls have shown it--for 20, 30 years. So what is our national interest and what policies should we pursue? What about border workforce enforcement? Any good bill would include a good enforcement system at the border and workplace. We should focus our policies on higher skill needs, college degrees, instead of low-wage workers. Serious consideration should be given to how we welcome new immigrants into the American world and have them reach their fullest and highest aspirations. We are not able to do that under the current system, and we certainly should fix this illegality and actually provide some mechanism for a large number of people to come out from the shadows, as they say. We should consider seriously the impact of wages on the American workers, and we need to consider what other developed nations, such as Canada, Britain, and France are doing. How are they confronting these questions? Why don't we do that? I will tell you why we don't. It is because this bill is totally incompatible and inconsistent with the principles those advanced nations are following. All of this must be done with the full recognition that America cannot accept everyone who might want to come here, and that is just a fact. I recently took a trip with Chairman Specter of the Judiciary Committee to South America. We were provided State Department news clips. There was an article about a poll in Nicaragua that said 60 percent of the people in Nicaragua would come to the United States if they could. Sixty percent of the people of Nicaragua said they would come to the United States if they could. We next stopped in Peru, and I asked one of the officials at the Embassy about that poll and asked him did he think it was true. He said they just had a poll in Peru earlier this year--I mean this year, both these polls were this year--earlier this year, he said, and 70 percent of the people of Peru said they would come to the United States if they could. What about the whole world? We have people who want to come from India and China and South America and Brazil and Haiti and the Dominican Republic and the Middle East and Bangladesh and Taiwan and the Philippines. These are good people. I am not putting any of them down. I am just saying for an absolute fact--an absolute fact--that we cannot accept everybody who would like to come here. Therefore, we should decide how to create a system that makes the laws enforceable and then enforce them, and we ought to seek to bring in people who provide the greatest asset to America. So we will be confronting another issue we need to confront, and that is chain migration. Once a person comes in and they get that green card and then they become a citizen, once they get the green card, they can bring their wife and children. They may have six children. And the wife gets to come and the children get to come. Then, in addition to that, once they become a citizen, they can bring their parents and their brothers and sisters, even if it is a large number of them. They can bring, through this chain migration system, huge numbers of people who may not be what our Nation needs at the time. Maybe there is a glut in the skills their brother or sister has. Maybe those things would mitigate against them. And maybe there is some college graduate in the Dominican Republic who is anxious to come but does not qualify, cannot get in because the visas have been used up by this chain migration process, which makes no sense and needs to be altered. Also, we need to consider the impact on the Federal Treasury. Even as a green card holder and as a citizen, you are entitled to an earned income tax credit. Most of the people legalized or coming in under this bill would be lower wage workers, and the earned income tax credit for those who qualify amounts to a tax refund to a lower wage worker on average of $2,400 per worker, per year. So they would qualify for the earned income tax credit, their parents would qualify for SSI health care, Social Security benefits as we have in this bill, welfare benefits, education, and health care. The bill calls for instate tuition for illegal immigrants. That is still in here via the DREAM Act. Those kinds of things are in this bill. So we have had a week of some productivity, but we have much more to do in creating a bill that is fundamentally worthy of this Senate and that will deal in an effective way with where we are heading in the future. Mr. President, I see my colleague from Washington, Senator Wyden. I don't know how long he wants to speak. I have some more to go. If he is not going to be particularly long, I would--

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his good work because we are now a Nation of people of different faiths, different skill sets, different backgrounds, different colors of skin, and different nationalities. Where we once were apart, now we have become Americans. The thing that makes this country effective is being able to communicate with one another in a common language. I think that is an ideal of America that is important. I think any Nation, historically, that has divisions based on language, begins to have a lot of complications and problems. So I am pleased that Senator Alexander and Senator Inhofe have worked hard on this, that they have come up with language that also includes more extensive training and learning on behalf of new citizens about what it means to be an American. No one has been more articulate over the years on this than Senator Alexander. I offered an amendment on it and worked with Senator Inhofe and Senator Alexander and others, and we have reached a common accord with an amendment I think everyone can support that will help unify us as a Nation and make sure we are one people, all Americans, adhering to the highest ideals of this great country. Senator Inhofe, thank you for your work and, Senator Alexander, I appreciate your leadership also.