Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, at 10:30 this morning, the proponents of what I would have to say is amnesty in the bill that came out of the committee, the Kennedy-McCain-Specter bill, or whatever name you want to give it, that bill was crushed in this body with 39 votes for and 60 votes against. It was pulled and removed from the docket and sent back to Committee. Then we had a group get together yesterday in an effort to develop what they call a compromise. They could see that there was a vote coming, and they thought they could put something together, and I don't blame them. It has been referred to as the Hagel compromise. But we have looked at the bill, and I have to tell my colleagues, if you voted against the Kennedy bill this morning, you need not support the Hagel compromise because it is fundamentally the same thing. I am going to talk about it and explain how it is essentially the same bill. I wish it weren't the same thing. I wish it was something we could support. I would like to support good legislation. We have an opportunity--a real opportunity--to fix the problem with security and immigration in our country. Our Nation is at risk. Our borders are not under control. However, we have the capacity to do it. It is not that hard. I have said it before, and I have explained how we can do it. T.J. Bonner, the head of the National Border Patrol Council said: It is real simple. You simply fix up the border. You remove the magnet of a job by having real workplace enforcement and, all of a sudden, things can go in the right direction. This bill does none of that. It rewards bad behavior, it would encourage illegal behavior in the future, and we should not pass it. It is against what so many of us promised that we would vote for and we don't have a lot of time. That bill was hatched yesterday after a few Senators met somewhere and thought they could waltz in and just fix it. They expected all of us to line up and vote for it. I don't believe people are going to line up and vote for it. They produced this compromise and introduced it, and we didn't get a copy until 10 o'clock last night. This compromise that we got late last night is 525 pages long. What is in it? Ninety-five percent of what is in it, I have to tell you, is just what you voted against and rejected this morning. We rejected it because it was not a good piece of legislation. It did not do what we promised the American people we were going to do as individual Senators. If you look at the expressions of Senators as a group, time and again they say things that they believe are legitimate principles. These bills do not reflect those principles. The President has said he is against an automatic path to citizenship, and he is against amnesty, both of which are in this bill. The President needs to read it. When you go out and campaign and tell people what you are going to do, you need to honor that commitment. Let me tell you some of the things that are in this Hagel compromise. It triples--triples--the number of employment-based green cards available each year. This is not a committee that met yesterday. This is a group of people, ad hoc Senators got together and huddled. The Senator in the chair there, he has been in a huddle, Quarterback George Allen. They got in a huddle, and with very little time and effort to study the issues, they came up with this legislation. Ninety-five percent of it was what was in the bill we rejected just this morning. What does it do? One of the most significant things that we have given very little thought to is it triples the number of employment-based green cards available each year. It triples the number. Currently, there are 140,000 available. Currently, spouses and children, if they come in, they count against the 140,000 cap. Under the Kennedy bill that we voted down this morning they jumped that number to 400,000, and spouses and children didn't count against the cap. This bill raises it to 450,000 annually, and spouses and children--we estimate about 540,000 more, family members--can come with them, and they do not count against the cap. That is pushing a million a year. That is a huge change. I, personally, am of the view that if we can make our system lawful and have it work correctly, we can and will want to increase the number. But triple the number, and then increase that number again, by allowing spouses and children to come and not count against the cap? That is a sixfold increase. Without any hearings? Without any economists? Without listening to the labor unions? Without listening to business people tell us how many people we really need? Without any professors or scientists who understand the impact this kind of huge numbers would have? They propose we accept this compromise, and it goes beyond the Kennedy proposal that was rejected this morning. It changes the amnesty process for the current number of people. These 450,000 plus family members are, for the most part people who live outside the country. They apply and can come in. So the total number who come in with a green card--which means you are a permanent resident citizen and you are on an automatic path to citizenship--this is supposed to be for those people. The message is we want a guest worker program. That is what they said. We want a guest worker program. What does that sound like, if you are an American citizen trying to evaluate what your legislators are doing up here? I hope those American people who are watching are following this closely because these are not guest workers. Somebody said let's not call it guest workers anymore, let's call it temporary workers. But they are not temporary workers either. They get a green card. They come in under this new H-2C program, and they are able then, on the petition of an employer, to get a green card within 1 year. If they don't have an employer petition for them, they can self- petition, which is not the rule now. Now these are supposed to be based on employment that is needed. President Bush says a company that needs workers certifies they need you. Now you can self-certify and within 5 years you can be placed on an automatic path to citizenship. They never have to return home. That is all I am saying. Anybody who says this is a temporary worker program or guest worker program is not correct the way this language is in the bill. These numbers do not include all that is in the bill. The AgJOBS bill came up on the floor a little over a year ago and was debated and blocked. Senator Saxby Chambliss, who chairs the Agriculture Committee, and a number of us raised objections to that bill. We blocked it. It did not go forward. It did not pass. They blithely added the whole AgJOBS bill to the committee bill and it has now been made part of this compromise. There are 1.5 million who can come in under the AgJOBS bill. People say we need the talented people. We still have limits on talented people who come into the country with high education levels, but there is virtually no limit on the number of unskilled workers who come into our country. That is not good public policy, I submit. That is probably not what you said when you have been out campaigning and talking to your constituents around the country. Under the current law, before new legislation passes, the United States issues 1.1 million green cards a year. That is what we do today, and 140,000 of those green cards are available to aliens who are sponsored by employers. That is the working group. Under the Hagel- Martinez compromise bill, the United States would now issue between 2.2 million and 2.5 million green cards each year, 450,000 of which will be employment-based green cards during the years 2007 and 2016. That is triple the number of employment-based green cards we currently issue on an annual basis, triple the number we currently issue. Although the number would be curtailed after a few years, it is still 150,000 more than currently issued. After 2016, the number of green cards for employer-sponsored aliens would go back to double the current level, at 290,000. They have also increased the employment-based green card cap--that is the total limit, over and above the 450,000 that would now be available each year under the compromise--by exempting spouses and children from counting against the cap. Spouses and children count against the cap today. So we triple the number, and we don't count spouses and children. Because an average of 1.2 family members accompany employment-based green card holders, we estimate that about 540,000 family members will also get employment-based green cards without counting against this cap. That is contrary to what we do today. It is contrary to our policy. This is a huge change is all I am saying. Maybe after thorough debate we might want to go that far. I doubt it. I think we want to increase the number of legal workers who come to our country but surge these numbers this much without any discussion whatsoever? This means next year we could have 990,000--that is almost a million--employment-based green cards issued: 550,000 for the workers, 540,000 for the family members. That is equal to the total number of green cards we handed out this year for all categories, including employment-based, family-based, asylum, refugees, cancellation of removal, and so forth. Using the estimate from our population chart, based on the CRS data and the Pew Hispanic data, the way the new amnesty categories would work is as follows. This is what is in the compromise. If you are here for 5 or more years--and that includes 8.85 million of the 11.5 to 12 million people who are estimated to be here, or 75 percent of those who are estimated to be here today--what happens to you? You are treated just like you were under the Kennedy bill that was rejected this morning. You get to stay, work, apply for a green card from inside the United States. Again, what does green card mean? It means you are a permanent resident, eligible for all the social welfare benefits that belong to American citizens, No. 1. No. 2, it puts you on a guaranteed path to citizenship. This is your reward for violating the law by coming in illegally. Under this bill, 75 percent of them, 8.85 million would get to stay and apply for green cards from inside the United States, just like the rejected bill earlier today provided for. And in addition, spouses and children would get those green cards as well. And they, spouses and children, would get green cards even if they are not in the United States. So if the person came here to work temporarily, planned to go back to his family, didn't have a plan to stay here permanently and intended to go back to his country of origin, make a little extra money to help out the family, now we have encouraged them to go ahead and bring their family here. That would be a large number. That will impact more than the 1.1 million who are covered by the bill, according to the estimates. They do not count against any family or employment caps or green cards. We do currently have a limit. We are supposed to have a limit on the total number who can come in as permanent workers on the path to citizenship so none of these would count against the caps, out of the 11 to 12 million. So 75 percent of the 11.5 million are like that. What about those in the compromise? They say we are going to be a little different than the Kennedy bill for those 1.4 million people who have been here from 2 to 5 years. What happens to those that have only been here illegally for 2 to 5 years? You get to stay legally, and you are able to continue to work in the United States while you apply for a work visa if, within 3 years, at any time during that 3 years, you go across the border through a consular office and pick up a nonimmigrant visa that you can apply for from the United States. Although the Department of Homeland Security Secretary may waive the departure requirement. So you can go across the border, go to the office, pick up the thing and come right back the same day. Spouses and children get the same status. If they came here illegally, they get the same green card status, but they don't have to go across the border to pick it up, they can get it right here at home. If they apply for the H-2C, a new work visa created under title IV, the employer can sponsor them for a green card the day they come back into the United States. The employer can petition that day to get them a green card. Once you get that green card, you are a legal, permanent resident, entitled to the welfare and governmental benefits of our country. What about those who are here for less than 2 years? That is not directly addressed in this compromise bill that we now have before us that is supposed to solve all of our problems. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve them. The compromise sponsors will tell you that the people who have been here less than 2 years--that is about 1.2 to 1.7 million--will have to leave immediately or be deported. First, let me ask how many people are being apprehended and deported today? Who is going to apprehend and deport these people who are here illegally in the last year? I raise that as a practical question. But under the bill language, you can qualify for the new H-2C worker program, even if you are unlawfully present in the United States. My legal counsel is a smart reader of the law. This is the way the bill explains it. It doesn't say that plainly. It 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. What does all that mean? If you do not have time to put aside the statute, the compromise bill, and go back and read the underlying statute, you don't know what it means, but if you do that, as my counsel did, you will see that is a pretty sneaky maneuver. As I noted, under the new H-2C program, 400,000 per year can get green cards as workers, and these people will qualify for that because those code sections refer to aliens who came here illegally and those who have been ordered removed but have come illegally will go back into the United States. The last bunch, the 1.2 million that have been here less than 2 years, they are not going to leave this country. First of all, nobody is going to come and get them. They are going to apply under the new visa program, the H-2C worker program that has these huge numbers that we have triple the numbers for. And it specifically says in the statute that they will qualify, even if they came here illegally or have been apprehended here illegally or removed--and removed from the United States--and they have come back illegally, they still get to qualify and stay here. We don't need to vote for a bill such as that. By the way, in reading the bill carefully, my fine staff discovered-- it is kind of hard to do all this when you get a bill last night at 10 p.m. which is 325 pages--that those here illegally, whom I just mentioned, in the last 2 years or have been removed and come back illegally, they do not even count against the cap. Why would we want to do that? I say to you that whoever drafted the bill--I don't really say this to the sponsors because the sponsors of the compromise who met for a few hours and put this thing together didn't realize who all had worked on it. I guess it is the forces who believe that no illegal alien should be left behind. So everybody who is here illegally gets to stay in the country, and they don't even count against the cap for the green card. I don't think we ought to welcome back into this country someone who has been apprehended, deported and removed from the country and they come back again illegally. They ought not to be allowed to stay, period, much less be given a permanent status and much less be put on a path to citizenship, which this compromise legislation will do. We think somebody had to have intended this. Somebody who was involved in the writing of this knew what they were doing and definitely wanted to include everybody to make sure that they could say publicly: Well, if it is 5 years, you know you can stay, but if is less than 5 years, you could be removed. None will be removed unless they are convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors. They basically said you wouldn't be eligible for citizenship if you came here after January of 2004. That is not true. The bill covers everybody. That is part of the compromise legislation and still part of it. It is part of the Kennedy bill that we roundly rejected this morning, and it is part of the compromise that is before us now. Let me take a few minutes to run over some of the provisions in that 95 percent of the Kennedy bill that was rejected this morning that remains in the Hagel compromise. Here are some of the difficulties with it. Let us take loophole No. 1: Absconders and some individuals with felonies or 3 misdemeanors are not barred from getting amnesty. An absconder is somebody who was apprehended by Border Patrol people, detained, they did not have time to take him or her out of the country, they were busy, they did not have jail space, detention space for them, so they release them on bail. That is what they do all over the country because we don't take this seriously, and they don't show up when they are supposed to be deported. Surprise. They abscond. Absconders and some individuals with felonies or three misdemeanors are not barred from getting amnesty. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, different crimes make aliens ``inadmissible,'' ``deportable,'' or ``ineligible'' for specific benefits. As written, the Specter substitute--it is included in this bill--only requires an alien to show they are not ``inadmissible'' to qualify for the amnesty contained in the bill. However, some felonies make an alien ``inadmissible,'' but some do not. Absconders--aliens with final orders of removal who are currently watched by ICE immigration officers--should not be eligible for amnesty. They remain eligible for this amnesty. The Kyl-Cornyn amendment that was blocked by the other side so we couldn't get a vote on it, was designed to fix this loophole. It would keep aliens with felony convictions or three misdemeanors from being eligible for the new amnesty program. Surely, we agree on that. If we had a vote on it, I am sure it would pass. But the leader on the other side has managed to block us from getting a vote. Loophole No. 2: Aliens specifically barred from receiving immigration benefits for life because they filed a frivolous asylum application will also be able to receive amnesty. Under INA, section 208(d)(6), if the Attorney General determines that an alien knowingly filed a frivolous asylum application, the alien will be permanently ineligible for any benefits under the INA. This bill changes that. On page 333, it says: ``Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary shall adjust . . . '' an alien who meets the requirement of INN 245B. There is no provision that states that the alien is eligible for amnesty if they file a frivolous asylum application. It, therefore, gives benefits to aliens previously barred from all immigration benefits. Loophole No. 3: All aliens who are subject to a final order of removal--for some reason you are brought up and the court has ordered you removed from the country--who failed to leave pursuant to a voluntary departure agreement, they entered into those agreements and oftentimes people promise to leave and never leave--or who are subject to the reinstatement of a final order of removal because they illegally reentered after being ordered removed from the United States are also eligible for amnesty. I call on my colleagues to look at the bill. On page 353, line 3, the bill clearly states that any alien with a final order of removal can apply for amnesty. This means that the aliens who have already received their day in court have had their case fully litigated, and they have been ordered removed and have failed to depart will now be rewarded for not following the law and leaving like they were ordered to do. They will qualify for this amnesty. This will include many of the 37,000 Chinese nationals that China has refused to take back. I understand maybe they have agreed to take them back in the last day or so, but they have been pretty recalcitrant on it. I will be surprised if they are all approved for repatriation. But do you see how important this could be. Loophole No. 4: Aliens who illegally entered the country multiple times are also eligible for amnesty. Page 334, line 8 requires continuous physical presence and states than an alien must not have departed from the United States before April 5, 2006, except for brief, casual or innocent departures. Every time the alien reenters the United States illegally, they are committing a criminal offense. But this bill rewards those aliens with amnesty also. Loophole No. 5: This bill allows aliens who have persecuted anyone on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion get amnesty. It fails to make persecutors ineligible for amnesty. I would have thought that was an oversight until I noticed on page 363, line 22, that the bill makes those heinous acts bar aliens here between 2 and 5 years from amnesty but not those who have been here longer. The same bar left out for the 8.8 million who have been here for more than 5 years. This will be interpreted as an intentional decision of Congress when we pass this bill. That is not inadvertent. I don't know why they did that. Loophole No. 6: There is no continuous presence or continuous work requirement for amnesty. To be eligible to adjust from illegal to legal statutes under the bill, the alien must simply have been ``physically present in the United States on April 5, 2001,'' and have been ``employed continuously in the United States'' for 3 of the 5 years ``since that date.'' The bill does not say ``employed continuously in the United States since that date,'' as some have said. It does not require that employment be full time. Which means that it will be interpreted by any fair court following the law to mean that the alien will be eligible for amnesty if they have been employed in the United States either full time, part time, seasonally, or self-employed. The bill also allows the time of employment be shortened if the alien has attendance in a school. The employment requirement under the language, as written, is as broad as possible. Essentially, any alien who worked in the United States for 3 out of 5 years any time prior to April 5, 2006, will fulfill the eligibility requirements. Loophole No. 7: The bill tells the Department of Homeland Security to accept ``just and reasonable inferences'' from day labor centers as evidence of an alien meeting the bill's work requirements. Day labor centers--I am not sure how reliable those can be to make major decisions. Some of these are openly and notoriously promoting illegal workers. Under the bill, an alien can ``conclusively establish'' that he was employed in the United States, and it can be either full time, part time, seasonally, or self-employed by presenting documents from Social Security, the Internal Revenue Service or an employer related to employment. The alien meets ``the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the alien has satisfied the requirements'' if the alien can demonstrate ``such employment as a matter of just reasonable inference.'' If you can just have a reasonable inference that you have worked, get a document from a day labor center, you meet the work requirements. Everybody will meet it. No illegal alien will be left behind. The bill then states: . . . 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. The invitation is there to abuse the system. The invitation for fraud is clear. Congress is telling the Department of Homeland Security to accept pretty much anything as proof of work, and if they don't take it, they will be sued and they will win in court because the bill we have written says anything goes as valid proof of work. Loophole 8: The bill benefits only those who broke the law, not those who followed it and got work visas to come to the United States. That is a plain fact. If you were here legally on or before April 5, 2001, you will not get the benefit of this amnesty. This amnesty benefits you only if you came here illegally. Loophole 9: The essential worker permanent immigration program for nonagriculture low-skilled workers leaves no illegal alien out. 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 who do not qualify for the amnesty program in title VI, including aliens here for less than 2 years. Under the bill language, you can qualify for this new program to work as a low-skilled permanent immigrant even if you are unlawfully present in the United States. The bill specifically states: In determining the alien's admissibility as an H-2C . . . The program is specifically intended to apply to absconders. There are 400,000 absconders out there now that we are trying to apprehend and trying to deport. They have been ordered deported yet they absconded; illegal aliens who were in removal proceedings and signed a voluntary departure agreement but never left, many of them did that, and illegal aliens already removed from the United States but who have come back. Loophole No. 10: The annual numerical cap on this program is a completely artificial cap. If the 400,000 cap per year is reached, what happens then? The cap immediately adjusts itself to make more room under the cap. I kid you not. If the cap is reached, an additional 80,000 visas can be given out that year and the cap will go up automatically the next year as much as 20 percent. Even if the cap stays at 400,000 per year, we will have a minimum of 2.4 million low- skilled permanent--not part-time--immigrants in the first 6 years, the length of the H-2C visa if the individual did not file for a green card. I see the Democratic leader. I have been going over some of the things in the bill that I think the American people and maybe our colleagues are not aware of. It is a breathtaking piece of legislation. It is something that jeopardizes our ability to be successful in the Senate in passing good legislation. The compromise will not deal with the problems I mentioned today. I am very disappointed. I urge my colleagues, if you said you would not vote for amnesty, you should not vote for this compromise. If you voted against the Kennedy- Specter-McCain committee bill that came out today--and the vote was 60- 39 against it--you should not vote for this bill. It is essentially the same thing.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the Senate Judiciary Committee, under the 2006 budget resolution, has only $6 million remaining. We are talking about a minimum of $2 billion in costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office, under the first 5 years of this immigration bill which is before us today, but the Judiciary Committee, under our budget resolution, has only $6 million remaining in its direct spending allocation for the next 5 years. CBO's preliminary estimate, according to the Congressional Budget Office letter I just read, is that amendment No. 3224 will spend at least $2 billion during that period and likely much more over that period and the next 5 years. This far exceeds the $6 million--it might sound large to you, but in the scheme of things we discuss today, it is a paltry sum--allocated to the committee under the budget. On this basis, we need to review what we should do as a Senate. I think it is appropriate and the right thing that the Senate confront the question and make a decision as to whether we should waive that point of order and go forward with this legislation or not waive it, in which case the bill would be subject to failure. I note that the Budget Committee has responsibilities in this, and every aspect of that has not been completed to date, and it may be premature to move to make such a motion at this time. I am sharing this with everyone so they can be prepared to think through the consequences of this cost, which has not been discussed whatsoever. In fact, if you listen to some of the proponents of the legislation before us, if we just pass this bill, it is going to make us all rich, everybody is going to do better, for the first time people are going to pay taxes, the economy is going to improve, and the average guy is going to be fine. The reality is, that did not happen in 1986 and it is not going to happen this time because many of these benefits are such that they are not available to people here illegally. Under this law they will become legal. We are going to see a rise in costs to our Government beyond that which is permitted by the budget we all voted on, we all agreed to, and we all said we need to stand by. I should not say ``all,'' but enough voted to pass the budget. The budget is a very significant and important document. Many of us take very seriously this cap we agreed to place on spending and agreed not to pass legislation that would break those caps, even if we like the underlying amendment or bill that would spend money. That violates the budget. On many occasions I have felt it my duty to vote ``no'' because I agreed to a budget number. This Congress and this Senate has agreed to budget caps. The very significant factor is that today we now know the Hagel-Martinez amendment violates that Budget Act. I am sure the committee bill also did, but it would appear this may be further along. We have seen amnesty before in our country, in 1986, and the record is clear that American taxpayers did pay the cost of the fiscal deficit created by the 3 million beneficiaries under the 1986 amnesty. Of course, the original estimates were that 1 million, 1.5 million people would qualify for amnesty in 1986. Now they are estimating 12 million. But, in fact, 3 million showed up in 1986 and claimed the benefits of amnesty, many using documents that were dubious. A 1997 study conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that the 3 million newly legalized aliens in the 1986 amnesty had generated a net fiscal deficit of $24 billion in the short decade that passed since their arrival. The 3 million cost the Government $24 billion. That is a very large sum of money. Incidentally, when Congress passed the 1986 amnesty bill, it estimated only 1 million illegal aliens would qualify for that amnesty law and draw upon the Treasury. That is how the numbers were out of sync. There is no doubt about it, American taxpayers will pay if this legislation passes. If this, what I consider to be fairly described as amnesty, passes, the American taxpayers will pay the cost of this amnesty and it will be a drain on our programs that are designed to provide health care and assistance to American citizens and those who came here lawfully to achieve legal permanent status. According to the Pew Hispanic Center report from last year, the average family income in 2003 for unauthorized migrants in the country for less than 10 years was $25,700, while those who had been in the country a decade or more earned $29,000. Given that the average family income for illegal immigrants is just above the 2006 Federal poverty line of $20,000, it is not surprising that many of these families will likely rely on social service programs to meet their basic needs. That is what we know will occur. Though the exact cost of this new amnesty is impossible to absolutely determine, certainly CBO is providing a low figure that they can verify as of this date. We can learn a lot by looking at existing studies that give us a glimpse at the cost of illegal immigration to our social program. For example, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that in 2001, 31 percent of illegal households used at least one of four major welfare programs: Medicaid, SSI, TANF, which is temporary assistance for needy families, which is a basic welfare program, or food stamps. That is a very large number. It is not improbable considering the other numbers about the average income, knowing that there are so many below the poverty line. The Urban Institute estimates in 2000, 47,000 families in the United States headed by one or two illegal aliens received TANF, the temporary assistance for needy families, on behalf of their children--47,000 is a pretty dramatic number. Further, if each of these families received greater than $1,000 a year, the amount spent for a TANF household by illegal aliens could easily reach tens of millions of dollars. I see others who wish to speak and I will follow up on this later. I am saying we have to deal with the reality. Unfortunately, we have not spent a lot of time thinking through the full consequences of our actions. We have not had economists, we have not had experts, we have not had Government officials, we have not had professors and scientists discuss with us the impact of this legislation and how we can pass legislation that would best help those who come here, and how we can do so in a way that does not adversely impact the Treasury of the United States. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on European Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on Islamist Extremism in Europe.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 5, 2006, at 9:30 a.m., to receive testimony on the Department of Defense's role in combating terrorism, in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2007 and the Future Years Defense Program.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 5, 2006 at 3 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on improving contractor incentives in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2007.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 10 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to consider the nomination of Mr. W. Ralph Basham, of Virginia, to be Commissioner of Customs, Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 5 at 2:30 p.m. The purpose of the hearings is to review the 2005 Wildfire Season and the Federal Management Agencies' preparations for the 2006 Wildfire Season.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Global Climate Change and Impacts be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 2:30 p.m., on The Current and Future Role of Science in the Asia Pacific Partnership.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to hold a hearing on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. to consider the following nominations pending before the Committee: Richard Capka to be Administrator, Federal Highway Administration; James Gulliford to be an Assistant Administrator, EPA; and William Wehrum to be an Assistant Administrator, EPA.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. for a hearing regarding ``Federal Funding of Museums.''

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on The Problem of Methamphetamine in Indian Country.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness, be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at 10 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 5, 2006 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed business meeting.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 10 a.m. for a hearing titled, ``The Future of Port Security: The GreenLane Maritime Cargo Security Act.''

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on U.S.-India Atomic Energy Cooperation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank Senator Talent for his leadership on this important issue. As a person who lives in Mobile, AL, I am proud of Satchel Paige. I assume he will be in the museum.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment to the underlying bill.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank Senator Salazar. We did indeed have a most important trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey, and were able to delve into some of those matters that are so important to our national security and check on the quality of care our troops are receiving. I enjoyed that very much. He is a fine addition to our Senate. I think we have a lot of agreements on this legislation, and some disagreements. I appreciate the opportunity we have to discuss these issues. This debate is often centered around whether we are dealing with amnesty here, and I believe this legislation, by all definitions, is amnesty. But first I want to ask the question: Why is this so? Why is it that people care about whether we use a word such as ``amnesty'' to describe what this legislation that is before us today is? Why is that important? It is important because most of us, when we were out campaigning for election, promised not to do amnesty again. Many people in this body who voted for the 1986 amnesty bill agreed it was amnesty and said they wouldn't do it again. The President of the United States, President Bush, despite all of his intentions to try to enhance legal immigration in our country, has always said he did not favor amnesty. So that is the deal. I think the American people have a right to expect that those they elect to office will honor what a fair interpretation of the meaning of that word is. If you promise not to support amnesty, then you shouldn't support a bill that is amnesty. You can redefine words to make them mean most anything you want. My definition of an activist judge is a person who redefines the meaning of words to have them say whatever he or she would like them to say so they can accomplish a result they consider to be desirable. But words do have meaning. We can have some understanding of what these issues are about, and I want to discuss it in some detail. Senator Kennedy said: Many have called this adjusted status amnesty. I reject it. Amnesty means forgiveness, not pardon. Well, I don't know exactly what that means. He said: This bill is not amnesty. He goes on to say: ``Amnesty is not a pardon.'' Senator Durbin, the assistant Democratic leader, said: ``Amnesty basically says, We forgive you.'' He goes on to say: Amnesty, very simply, is if you have been charged and found guilty of a crime, amnesty says, we forgive you. We are not going to hold you responsible for your crime. But only if you have been charged and found guilty, apparently. Senator Feinstein says: ``Amnesty is instant forgiveness, with no conditions. And there are conditions,'' she says, ``on this'' bill. Senator Specter said: Amnesty is a code word to try to smear good-faith legislation to deal with this problem. It is not amnesty because the law-breakers have not been unconditionally forgiven of their transgressions. And Senator McCain said also: There is no requirements. There must be no requirement whatsoever to call this bill amnesty. He said: Amnesty is simply declaring people who entered this country illegally citizens of the United States and imposing no other requirements on them. That is not what we do, Mr. President. So in an effort to redefine this situation to mean what they want it to mean, they have said unless there is no condition whatsoever, you can't have amnesty. But people agreed that 1986 was amnesty and placed quite a number of conditions--some more significant than the ones in this bill--on those who were given amnesty. Those of us who are familiar with the law world--I served as a lawyer the best I could for a number of years, and I know Madam President is a lawyer--we know what Black's Law Dictionary is. It is a dictionary lawyers use to define words in their legal context. Black's Law Dictionary, as part of its definition of the word ``amnesty,'' says this: The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided amnesty for many undocumented aliens already present in the country. Black's Law Dictionary, the final definition of legal words, says the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided amnesty for people here. It had conditions on it. It had some conditions on it; it just didn't have many conditions on it. So everybody recognizes it as basically amnesty, and that is why they called it that. Again, I am not trying to use a code word here. What I am saying is there is a systematic effort in this body to redefine the definition of amnesty so they can tell their voters back home that although they opposed amnesty, this bill is not amnesty, and that is why they voted for it. That, unfortunately, I would have to say, is where we are. What does the Democratic leader in the Senate, Senator Harry Reid, say about what amnesty is? Does he say that 1986 was amnesty and it had quite a few restrictions on the movement to full benefits of citizenship in the United States? This is what the Democratic leader says. This is what he said on September 20, 1993, when making a speech on the floor in the Senate; it is part of the Congressional Record. He said: In 1986 we granted amnesty, and I voted against that provision in law. We granted amnesty to 3.2 million illegal immigrants. After being in this country for 10 years, the average amnesty recipient had a sixth-grade education, earned less than $6 an hour, and presently qualifies for the earned- income tax credit. The earned income tax credit is if you don't make enough money to pay income taxes and don't pay income taxes, not only do you not have to pay them but they give you money back. The average benefit for a person who qualifies for the earned-income tax credit, I would say parenthetically if anybody is interested, is $2,400 per year. So that is what Senator Reid had to say about it in 1993, that the 1986 law was amnesty. I don't think anybody disputes that 1986 was amnesty. He made another speech. We have a chart and I want to refer to it because I want to drive this point home. On March 10 of 1994, the Democratic leader in this body today, Senator Reid, said this: In 1986, Congress gave amnesty and legal status to 3.1 million individuals not lawfully residing here. . . . Even after Congress has passed massive legalization programs, millions of individuals do not lawfully reside in the United States today. That was true in 1994, a mere 8 years after the bill passed. He continues: And many more continue to cheat the rules and continue to enter unlawfully. That is a true statement, I submit, this very day. So did the Democratic leader have any doubt that 1986 was an amnesty law? I don't think so. In fact, everybody knows it was. That is what we defined it as. I want to go over some of the provisions in that act and compare it to the provisions in today's act. Let's talk honestly here. There is no mystery here. I would submit, as several of the proponents of this legislation have tried to do, that you only have amnesty if you put no condition whatsoever on the person who is here illegally--and they put some conditions on those persons. Therefore, they say, Oh, no, I know we promised not to pass amnesty, but this isn't amnesty because there are conditions on the people who are here illegally. So there is no way to do this but go over it truthfully and analyze it and see what the facts are. This was passed in 1986. What did it require, this amnesty of 1986? It required continuous unlawful residence in the United States before January 1, 1982. That is 4 years before the passage of the 1986 act-- more than 4 years, because I am sure it didn't pass January 1. So for more than 4 years you had to be here unlawfully before this act applied to you. That is a restriction, isn't it, on amnesty, under the definition of those who want to say the current act is not amnesty? But what does the 2006 act say? Physically present and employed in the United States before January 7, 2004--employed in the U.S. since January 7, 2004; continuous employment is not required. So the key date here is that you have to have been in the country before January 7, 2004. So we are requiring under this bill that you have to live in the country illegally for 2 years before you get on this amnesty track. Under the previous law, they required 4 years. So with regard to 1986, I think it is a tougher standard, I submit, than we have in today's standard. I don't think anybody can dispute that. Then you have a fee. They say they are paying a fine, a big fine. Well, in the 1986 act, they say there will be a $185 fee for the principal applicant, $50 for each child, a $420 family cap. Now we have a $1,000 fine, but it does not apply to anybody under 21 years of age; they don't pay anything. They paid $50 per child back in 1986. They don't pay anything. I submit that is about a wash. There is a little difference in money. You had an inflation rate; what difference is $1,000 to $420? Both of them say you should meet admissibility criteria. That means, I suppose, that you are not a felon. That is one of the main criteria. Both of them said that. Surely we are not going to be taking in felons into the country. In fact, regarding this bill to which Senator Kyl and Cornyn have offered an amendment--which apparently is being blocked by Democratic Leader Reid from ever getting a vote--they are contending that this criminality requirement is not in this bill. In fact, this bill is weaker than the 1986 bill on the question of that issue of whether you have a criminal record. In 1986, people were worried about welfare claims and so forth, so they put in language that said you are ineligible for most public benefits for 5 years after your application. They said if you are going to come here to be a citizen of the United States, we do not want you come here to claim welfare. We are going to prohibit you from claiming welfare for at least 5 years. After that, if you get in trouble and you need help, we will help you. But you have to come here not with a desire to gain welfare benefits in our country which exceed the annual income of most people in a lot of areas of the world. So they put that in. There is no such requirement in our bill. None of that. You can immediately go on welfare, presumably, under the legislation that is before us now. It does require a background check and fingerprinting, but presumably that was done in 1986, also. But it focuses really on the crimes a person may have committed while they were in the United States. I don't think it has a mechanism under this act to actually go back to the country of origin--whether it is Brazil or Canada or Mexico--to see if they have a criminal history there. That is a weakness in the system. But even if it does, those systems are so immature and nonexistent, it would not be very effective, I suggest. This requires an 18-month residency period. This one authorizes immediately a 6-year stay in the country. So they said you have to stay 18 months before you make your application for adjustment to permanent resident status. In this bill, you have to stay 6 years, so that is tougher. And you have to work. What are people here for if not to work? Spouses and children don't have to work. People are here to work. It is only a minimal work requirement--not continuous employment--and the proof level is very weak. Regardless, presumably the people who are here want to work, and they ought to be able to prove that they have. Then you adjust to permanent resident status. That is the green card. In 1986, it required English language and civics. So, in 2006, it is English language and civics, a medical exam, payment of taxes--really? Presumably the people are paying their taxes. And Selective Service registration. So you earn your right to stay in this country by coming into the country illegally and paying your taxes. Thanks a lot. Then the final step is, in 1986, you paid an $80 fee, $240 for a family. In this bill, it is a $1,000 fee and an application fee. All I am saying is, if you add those up, I don't think a principled case can be made that 2006, in terms of conditions of entry and amnesty in our country, requires any more stringent requirements on them than in 1986, which Senator Reid and everybody else, including ``Black's Law Dictionary,'' have concluded was amnesty. I say to my colleagues, I would be very dubious of someone who comes up to you and says: Now, Senator, I know you promised in your campaign repeatedly, just as President Bush did, that you would not support amnesty. Don't worry about it. This bill is not amnesty. I am telling you, the American people are pretty fairminded, and they know perfection is not possible for any of us. But this has not been an issue which has not been discussed. Everybody has talked about the failure of the 1986 bill. As a result, we wanted to do something different. We said we were not going to do that again and we were not going to grant amnesty. I submit this bill does. I wish it were not so. We can pass legislation that will work. I have repeatedly said we can pass legislation that has good enforcement. We can pass legislation that provides fair treatment to the millions of people who are here. They are not all going to have to be removed from our country and be arrested and prosecuted. That is not so. That is not part of any plan here. But we do need to recognize that we should not give every single benefit to someone who came illegally that we give to those who follow the law and come legally. Senator Leahy, who says this bill is not amnesty, even admits this is amnesty in 1986. He says: Opponents of a fair comprehensive approach are quick to claim that anything but the most punitive provisions are amnesty. I am not claiming that. They are wrong. We had an amnesty bill. President Reagan signed an amnesty bill in 1986. I suppose he voted for it. This is not an amnesty bill. Our bill is more properly called what it is, a smart, tough bill. The amnesty bill was signed by President Reagan in 1986, and this is different. But it is not different. Fundamentally, it is the same thing. I submit that is indisputable, and that is why we have a difficulty here. Some of those masters of the universe, sitting up in those glass towers who write editorials, and the Chamber of Commerce, they don't understand what it is like to campaign for office, look your voters in the eye, and discuss directly with them the issues facing our country, and to make commitments to them about what you are going to do once you get elected. They can redefine the meaning of words and think that is just fine. They can just say whatever they want to and then write their editorials. But they don't have to answer to the people they looked in the eye and directly told they would not support amnesty. In fact, the President, despite his drive to fix immigration and to enhance the flow of immigration into our country, has said a direct path to citizenship--by Scott McClellan, just less than 2 weeks ago. Scott McClellan said a direct path to citizenship and amnesty are two things they don't favor. Why is this important? After 1986, we ended up with a big problem. Things were not working well in our country. So 6 years after this happened, in 1992, we did an evaluation by an independent commission of that part of the act which dealt with agricultural workers as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act. That was the name of it, the ``Immigration Reform and Control Act.'' We told American voters--or those in the Congress at that time did--that we are going to control the immigration system. The congressionally created Commission on Agricultural Workers issued a report to Congress that studied the effects of the 1986 agricultural amnesty on the agricultural industry. They did a study on it because Congress wanted to find out what had really happened with regard to that legislation they had passed. One of the first things the Commission acknowledged was that the number of workers given amnesty under the bill had been severely underestimated. They said this: The SAW program legalized many more farm workers than expected. It appears that the number of undocumented workers who had worked in seasonal agricultural services prior to the Immigration Reform and Control Act was generally underestimated. That is page 1 and 2 of their report, the executive summary. What else did the Commission find? Did it tell us that the 1986 amnesty of 3 million farm workers solved our agricultural labor problems? Was that the fix that people thought it would be? How did it work? No, their answer was this: Six years after the IRCA was signed into law, the problems within the system of agricultural labor continue to exist. In most areas, an increasing number of newly arriving, unauthorized [illegal] workers compete for available jobs, reducing the number of work hours available to all harvest workers and contributing to lower annual earnings. That is page 1 of the Report of the Commission of Agricultural Workers, executive summary. What did the Commission recommend that Congress do? What did they recommend, this independent, bipartisan Commission? Did the Commission recommend that we pass a second legalization program such as the one for agricultural jobs that has been made a part of this bill, offered in committee and is now part of the committee bill that is on the floor? Did they recommend that as a second program to solve the illegal alien agricultural workforce dilemma that was still in existence in 1992, 6 years after the amnesty that was supposed to end all amnesties occurred? No, the Commission concluded just the opposite. They found: The worker-specific and industry-specific legalization programs as contained in the Immigration Reform and Control Act should not be the basis for future immigration policy. That is page 6 of their report. What did the Commission suggest that Congress should do? They concluded that the only way to have a structured and stable agricultural market was to increase enforcement of our immigration laws, including employer sanctions, and to reduce illegal immigration. You talk to anybody on the street, and they will tell you the same thing. You talk to Americans. Overwhelmingly, 80 percent believe we are not enforcing the laws effectively on our borders, and any legalization today without an effective enforcement program in the future will bring us back to an amnesty situation just like we face now, just like they faced in 1986. The Commission said this: Illegal immigration must be curtailed. This should be accomplished with more effective border controls, better internal apprehension mechanisms, and enhanced enforcement of employer sanctions. The U.S. Government should also develop a better employment eligibility and identification system. This was 1993, 13 years ago. What has been done about it? Let me repeat that. We need to establish a: . . . better employment eligibility and identification system, including a fraud-proof work authorization document for all persons legally authorized to work in the United States so that employer sanctions can more effectively deter the employment of unauthorized workers. What a commonsense statement that is. Wasn't that what they promised back in 1986 when we were going to have an amnesty to end all amnesties? Remember that they said this would be a one-time amnesty and we were going to fix the enforcement system and therefore the American people would go with us on that. We are going to do this one-time fix and be generous to those who violated our laws. But trust us, we are going to fix the enforcement system in the future. That is what happened. We have known that for 14 years--that the key to securing our borders and ending illegal immigration includes more border enforcement, more interior enforcement, and a foolproof worksite verification system. Still, we are not prepared to do that. We are told we should do the same thing we did in 1986 on a much larger scale. I note that in 1986, we estimated there were 1 million people here who would claim amnesty. That is what people were told when the bill passed. After the bill passed, how many showed up? Three-point-one million people, three times as many. I don't know where they are saying 12 million people, and that is how many will be given amnesty now, not 1 million. They are saying there will be 11 million and that those would all be given a direct path to citizenship. Let me point this out. When you adjust to permanent resident status, you get a green card. You are able to stay here permanently, as long as you live here, and after a period of time--5 years--you can make application and you become a citizen. If you haven't been convicted of a felony in the meantime, presumably if you don't pay your taxes and don't get caught for it or don't get convicted of it, you can still do so. Presumably you are drawing welfare or Medicare benefits and those things, you can still make application. We added up the years. Maybe about 11 years in this process, 10 years, maybe, in the 1986 act, and about 11 years in process. They are saying it takes 11 years for you to become a citizen. That is what it took for anyone who came here in the first amnesty and became a permanent resident. They didn't get to become a citizen the next day; they had to go through the same process as this amnesty requires. Let me explain why 1986 was a failure and why we can have every expectation that 2006 will be a failure. I am going to be frank with our Members. I don't believe this is an extreme statement. I am prepared to defend it. I believe everyone here who is honest about it will admit it. In 1986, we passed amnesty, and it became law as soon as that bill was signed. Those people were eligible to be made legal immediately in our country and placed on a track to citizenship that day--the day the bill was signed. What did we have about enforcement? We had a promise that we were going to enforce the law in the future. We are going to fix this border, and we are going to have workplace enforcement. That was a mere promise. It never happened because I don't think any President wanted it to happen. We went back to the problem when President Carter was here, President Reagan, President Bush, President Clinton, and this President Bush. None of them have demonstrated that they actually intend to enforce our border laws. I used to be a Federal prosecutor. I used to deal with law enforcement issues. I actually prosecuted one day--I think when I was an assistant U.S. attorney--an immigration case, a stowaway on a ship. A bunch of them stowed away on a ship. I know a little bit about it. But those actions which are necessary to make the legal system work were never taken by our Chief Executives. We in Congress can study the problem at the border, we can see what those problems are, and then we can pass a law to try to fix it. We can say we want more border patrol, we want more fencing, we want more UAVs, a virtual fence. We can pass those things, but unless the executive branch really wants it to succeed, then--even then, we may not get the thing to work. The truth is, they should be coming to us. President Bush comes to us and says what he needs to win the war in Iraq, and we give it to him. If he came to this Congress--I hate to say it because I think he is a great President and a great person, and I support him on so many things. But he has never come to our Congress and said: Congress, this border is out of control; I need A, B, C, and D, and I will get it under control. So now he wants us to grant blanket amnesty to 11 million people, and after you do that: Trust me, I will get the border under control. That is a sad fact. Securing the border is the President's responsibility. What about Congress? We were in committee and we were debating the bill. I offered an amendment to add 10,000 detention beds for the Border Patrol. I do not know how many they need. I think that is not enough. We are at 1.1 people coming into our country illegally every year. The number of people other than Mexicans who really need to be detained, sometimes for an extended period of time, has surged. We need the detention spaces to make the system work. Do you know what they all said, Democrats and Republicans? Fine. We accept that amendment. Senator Feinstein and I offered an amendment to speed up the hiring of new Border Patrol agents. They accepted that. Then it hit me. All who have been in this body for some time know the difference between authorization and spending the money, appropriations. In this body, people authorize all the time. I just left one of the finest groups of people you would every want to meet outside--national forensic science leaders from around the country. They came to see me because I supported a bill, and we passed it, the Paul Coverdell forensic sciences bill. It was to add $100 million to help jump-start forensic sciences in America. Do you think that $100 million was ever appropriated? Certainly not. I think we may have gotten to $20 million one year. Because you authorize money to be spent for forensic sciences or for immigration enforcement does not mean that it is ever going to get spent. It has to go through the appropriations process. Maybe they want to spend it on a project back home. Maybe they decided we need more money for Katrina, health issues, education, whatever. At the end of the day, you don't get the money. So we have at least two major problems: One, will it ever be appropriated and two, if the money is appropriated, will the President actually use it effectively? I admit that this Congress authorized a budget that set forth a projected expenditure for immigration enforcement that is larger than the President requested, but it remains to be seen if it will ever be funded. Those are the things which cause us great concern. So I would challenge quite directly the people who support this bill and say this is going to be different than 1986 to come down on the floor of this Senate, look at their colleagues and people who may be watching back home directly in the eye, and assure them that we are going to have the money and we are going to have the will to enforce this legislation. I was on a radio talk show earlier today. I was asked about enforcement actions that were taken against certain big businesses recently. They all called their Congressmen and complained, and the enforcement sort of went away. You have heard those stories. Do we have the will to actually make this happen? I think we could. I am not hopeless about this. I think we could, but I don't get the sense that we are there yet. I have compared it to leaping across a 10-foot chasm but leaping only 8 feet, and like the Coyote and the Roadrunner, you fall to the bottom of the pit. That is where we are. We have some things in this bill which make enforcement much more likely to occur, but it does not all get there yet. We need to do a number of things. For example, employment: The workplace law and provisions in the bill are not effective and do not cover all employees of an employer. It is a critical step. You have heard it said that this bill has fencing in it. It is the most minimal amount of fencing; it is nothing like a legitimate fencing. I wish to say this: Good fences make good neighbors. There is nothing wrong with a fence. There is nothing in the Scripture that says you can't build a fence. You have thousands of people coming across the border in a given area, and you have just a few Border Patrol officers, and they are trying to do their duty every day. And you say it is somehow offensive or improper or against the Lord's will to build a fence to try to contain it so you can maximize the capabilities of the limited number of Border Patrol agents who are out there putting their lives at risk this very day to try to enforce these laws? They arrest 1.1 million a year. What possible objection could we have to legitimate fencing? They built one in San Diego; it was an unqualified success. They said it could be breached. I am told the one in San Diego has never been breached. What happened on both sides of the fence, where lawlessness, crime, gangs, and drugs were disrupting entire neighborhoods? Those neighborhoods have been restored. They have come back strong. They are prospering. The property values are up as a result of bringing some lawfulness to a lawless area. Let me say this. Why is it that there has been such an aversion to fences? I will tell you why. Because those who want to have open borders, who have no desire to see the laws enforced, know, first of all, that it will work; and second of all, they have used it to twist the argument and to say that anybody who favors a fence wants no immigration, they want to stop all immigration, they just want to build a fence around America--totally mischaracterizing the need for a barrier on our borders. That is not fair. That is wrong. The amendment I offered would have increased substantially the number of border-crossing points, so lawful people could come back and forth far easier and at less expense with a biometric card. They could enter and exit the country with it. This could work. We can make this work. We need more legal exit and entry points, and we need to block the illegal entry points. If we do that and we send a message throughout the world that the border is now closed and no longer open to those who want to come illegally, I think we will have a lot less people wandering off in the desert, being abused by those who transport them, and putting their lives at risk and many of them dying. That is what you need to do. I am prepared to support any legislation that would increase legal immigration. When we end illegal immigration, we are going to need to increase the opportunity for people in numbers to come here lawfully, and we need to increase the exit and entry points. Another thing. I mentioned this biometric card and entering and exiting the country. Let me tell you why some of us are concerned about promises in the future. We passed, 10 years ago, the US-VISIT program. It is supposed to do just what I said. A person comes to this country legally, comes with a card. It is a computer-read card, and the person is then approved for entry. They need a biometric identifier, a fingerprint, and it can read that. You are allowed to come in. It also calculates when you leave, so people who do not leave can be identified and removed because they didn't comply with the law. Well, 10 years after passing that bill, we still don't have that system up and running. They tell us that this summer, we will have some pilot program which can actually identify those when they exit in certain border places, which, of course, means it is no system at all. We authorized 10 years ago a perfectly logical, sensible system to monitor the legal entry of people into our country, monitor their exit. What we have learned, particularly after September 11, is that many of the terrorists were overstays. They came lawfully, but they did not exit on time. We need additional bed space. This is so basic. Not an unlimited number of beds, but we need more. What is happening is, people come across the border, and particularly those other-than-Mexicans cannot be readily taken back across the border and dumped if they are from Brazil, Russia, or China. What do we do with these people? They need to be held and they need to be transported back. We are doing that, to some degree. But what happens when we do not have the bed space? This is what happens. I read a newspaper article in the committee a couple of months ago on this very subject. People come in from foreign countries. They come into the border, enter illegally, head off across the desert, they see a border patrol officer and they are told to go up to the border patrol officer and turn themselves in. Why would they do that? The border patrol officer puts them in the van or his vehicle and he takes them another 100 miles inside the border to the Customs and Border Protection Office and they are taken before an administrative officer. What does the administrative officer do? He does not have any beds or place to put them, so he says we will have a hearing on whether you are legally here. We will have a hearing and we will set it in 30 days. I will release you on bail; come back in 30 days. How many do you think come back? The newspaper reporter said at the place he examined, 95 percent did not show up. So all we have done is send the border patrol agents out to pick them up and transport people into the country illegally. That does not make sense. We have to have a certain amount of detention space. We have an insufficient number of Border Patrol agents. There are just not enough. We need to get to that tipping point where people realize it is not going to work if they try to enter illegally. We added some Border Patrol agents in committee, but they say it takes years to hire them. That is why we passed, 5 years ago, legislation to add increased numbers of Border Patrol agents. Senator Kyl got that through. Being on the Arizona border, he knew the problem. What happened? They still have just now been hired 5 years later. They say it is hard to hire enough people. I was reading recently a book on World War I. When World War I started, we had 130,000 people in our Army, and 18 months later we had 4 million people in uniform, 2 million of them in France. To say we cannot add 10,000 trained Border Patrol agents and get them trained in a prompt period of time is not credible. There has been a lack of will to see this occur. Who is to say if we pass this legislation we will have a renewed will in the future? The American people have a right. We had a hearing on Monday in the Judiciary Committee. It dealt with the problem of the appeals being filed by people who object to being returned to their country. Since 2001, 4 years, we have had a 600- percent increase in appeals to the Federal court, court of appeals. You can legitimately appeal a determination you are in the country illegally, but a sixfold increase in 4 years? What has that resulted in? It has resulted in a 27-month delay before your case is heard. What does this tell an immigration lawyer who is meeting with a person who has been apprehended and who has an appeal pending about being deported and the guy or the woman does not want to leave the country and says, if you appeal, even if it is frivolous, it will be 27 months before anyone ever reads it or makes a decision. That is why we are having this surge. That system is broken. Senator Specter, Judiciary Committee chairman, had legislation in his bill in the Judiciary Committee to help fix it--not completely, I didn't think--that made a substantial step toward fixing this broken system. They offered an amendment in committee to strip that language and it passed. So not only did we not improve the bill and have not improved the bill with regard to fixing the broken system, but we stripped language that would have made a good step forward in fixing. What does that say about the intent of the Members of this Congress to actually see the immigration law be enforced? I repeat once again, our nation is a nation of immigrants. We believe in immigration. We have been enriched by immigration. But our Nation is a sovereign nation and it has a right to decide how many people come and what kind of skill sets they bring. Once it makes that decision, it should create a legal system that will make sure that occurs. We have not done that. As a result, in 1986 we provided amnesty, which no one disputes. Not Senator Leahy, not Senator Reid. We gave amnesty in 1986, thinking we could fix it once and for all. And 20 years later we end up with not 3 million people here illegally but at least 11 million people here illegally and no enforcement mechanism close to being in place that would actually work. I encourage my colleagues to think carefully. We can fix our border enforcement. We can increase the number of people who come here illegally. We can tighten up the workforce workplace very easily. We can make this system work. As we tighten up the border, we eliminate the magnet of the workplace, we can reach that magic tipping point where all of a sudden the message is going out around the world that if you want to come to America, the border is closed. You better wait in line and file your application and come lawfully because if you come unlawfully, it won't work. Then we will have a massive flip. We will not see so many bed spaces. We may not even need as many Border Patrol agents as we have today. But that message is not out there. In fact, the opposite is out there. If we pass this bill, it will be business as usual. We should not do it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, if I may ask a question of the Senator.

Mr. SESSIONS. Satchel Paige was denied the right to fully participate in American baseball until the very end of his career. That was a tragedy. It was really a tragedy. It is something our Nation cannot take pride in and should feel great sadness over. A number of other Negro Leagues players came from Mobile, which is a great bastion of baseball excellence, including Willie McCovey and Hank Aaron, among others, who developed out of that history of excellent baseball. I thank the Senator from Missouri for his leadership. I think it will be an important addition to our national heritage to have this museum.

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to make some remarks today about a committed and pioneering individual, Dr. Carl Taylor, the assistant dean and director of the Center for Strategic Health Innovation at the University of South Alabama. Dr. Taylor earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Marshall University, a juris doctor from the University of Miami, and is a Fellow at the Royal Institution in London. He serves on the State of Alabama's Department of Public Health bioterrorism advisory board and has been the principal investigator on nearly a dozen disaster related grants, including the grant that developed the Alabama incident management software system which he superbly presented recently to the Senate Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness. This software system, referred to as AIMS, is an online hospital surge capacity and surge capability management tool used to support public health efforts during large-scale disaster response. This easy- to-use system shows which hospitals have available beds, staff, and equipment in real time while allowing hospitals to request help or offer assistance to one another. During Hurricane Katrina, AIMS was the software tool used by the Alabama Department of Public Health to manage information from 83 hospitals and 7 medical needs shelters. AIMS was vital to Alabama's outstanding performance in delivering quality medical care to vulnerable individuals in a time of crisis. I commend Dr. Taylor for his leadership and creativity in developing this system that has application for the entire country. His work has the potential to save lives and reduce cost. This spirit of ingenuity is what keeps America strong.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we had a very fine hearing this morning. I think five Federal judges, and the Department of Justice represented, and a professor, to deal with a problem in our immigration system. Senator Cornyn has rightly said a bill is a bill is a bill, but what does it say? In Chairman Specter's mark, he dealt with a crisis in appeals in immigration. During the course of our committee markup, an amendment was offered that said that wasn't good and whatever, and we struck that reform. So the bill that would be the Judiciary markup bill on the floor does not have any action whatsoever to deal with this problem. Since 2001, we have had a 601-percent increase in appeals, Bureau of Appeals, immigration appeals cases. Six times they have increased since the year 2000. It now takes, on average, 27 months for one of those cases to be handled because of the backlog. Judge Bea of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who has one of the biggest backlogs in that circuit, said this this morning: Second, as petitioners and attorneys see appeals piling up in the circuit courts, they realize their appeals will be delayed. During the period of delay, events may change the alien's chances of staying in the country. Those changes may be personal, such as a marriage to a U.S. citizen or the birth of a child, or any number of other conditions that might affect their removability. Or those changes may be political, such as change in country conditions in the alien's home country, or legislative and administrative, such as immigration reform in the country, giving the alien new hopes to remain here. Even if the appeal lacks all merit, the backlog of cases in the circuit court provides an incentive to appeal by almost guaranteeing a delay in deportation, now on an average of 27 months. What I would say to my colleagues is, If we are going to do something--and we should--we have to confront the problem of those who are here illegally and handle that in a humane and fair and decent way. But if the promise at the same time is we are going to fix the system that is broken today--Senator Harry Reid said he was down on the border and he said it was chaos and the laws are unenforceable. These are some of the examples of it. Senator Specter had language in to fix it. The language was stripped out. There is nothing in this bill before us that would deal with this problem. It is an example of some of the gaping holes that remain in this legislation. I yield the floor.