Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that George Ward, who is serving on my staff for the course of this immigration debate, be granted floor privileges for the full course of the debate on S. 2454, Senator Frist's border security bill.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 413, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceeding.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Armed Services Committee be discharged from further consideration of and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 385.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted out a historic and monumental immigration bill. The work was intense and fast, and we spent less than, perhaps, half a day dealing with the entire area of the bill that is referred to as guest workers or what to do with those who are here today illegally--perhaps 11 million to 20 million individuals. I have reached a conclusion, having been in law enforcement for the most part of my professional career, that the enforcement provisions are not going to be adequate--although there are some good ones there, some steps forward--and our approach to those who are here and those who wish to come here in the future has been poorly thought out and unprincipled. I strongly believe that America has a tremendous opportunity to fix a broken immigration system. The system as it operates today makes a mockery of law, and we all know that. It rewards bad behavior. It places bureaucratic hurdles and delays in front of those who want to do the right thing in coming here. The list of the ways the current system does not work, frankly, is almost endless. We have had hearings and discussions, and you have read in the newspapers so many of the things that are disturbing about why our system does not work. Our failure to develop a lawful system has had a number of perverse consequences. But one little-noted consequence is that many Americans, even those in this Senate, have come to believe that it cannot be fixed, that it is hopeless, that we cannot get control of our borders, that it is just a natural thing we should accept, that we go through the motions of doing something about it, but it really will never be fixed. But the good news is that is not true. The failure of our current system is the result of identifiable defects, defects that can be fixed. It is not impossible. Fixing these deficiencies is not all that difficult. Although it will cost real money, it is affordable. So what we really need is the will to do it, the belief and the will and the determination to go forward and make this system work. T.J. Bonner, who heads the National Border Control Council and who has repeatedly expressed the frustrations of our Border Patrol agents-- he represents them--told us, at our Judiciary Committee, how to make the system work. He said: First, control the borders. Second: Workplace enforcement needs to be effectually carried out; that is, to make sure people who are not legal do not get jobs because the jobs are the magnets. A third and connected step is to make our entry and exit system biometric and easier to use. That is part of the concept that would be necessary to move us to an effective legal system. Such actions, in my view, based on my study and the hearings I have attended, will allow us to quickly reach the magic ``tipping point.'' That is the point where those who want to come to this country will receive a clear message. And that message is this: It makes far more sense to enter our country legally rather than illegally. Now, at this time, the opposite is true. Those who desire to enter America would rather pay a fee to some transporter, some ``coyote,'' to cross illegally rather than enter lawfully. The situation is so bad that while we apprehended 1.1 million last year entering our country illegally--think of that, 1.1 million--the number who have arrived successfully has surged to almost 12 million, according to the best estimates. Many say more. How bad is that? That is not good. This is not a policy which we can take pride in or have any confidence in, that we have almost as many people illegally as legally coming. So what do we do to fix it? You say: Sessions, what are you going to do about it? What do you propose? There are some steps we can do. Unfortunately, because the system has been broken for so long, we are going to have to work very hard at first to get to that tipping point, to tip from illegality to legality. But you see what happens when that occurs, when you reach that tipping point? Then the stress on the agents, who are out arresting thousands every night, is so much less because they have fewer to apprehend. You have fewer in our deportation centers. You have much less of a problem for those who are deported--other than Mexicans, who cannot readily be deported to their country--because fewer are coming because they know if they come they are likely to be apprehended and they will be immediately sent back to whatever country they came from. It begins to work in a way that a lot of people do not think is possible, but it is absolutely possible, and that is, once we make clear you are not going to successfully be able to enter our country illegally, that you must wait in line to come legally, we will have far fewer people come here. Right now the word is out that we are open for anyone who desires to come, even if they don't desire to come legally. That is what is causing so much problem. One of the things we learned in the 1986 amnesty was not to give amnesty again. You want to do the right thing, and we are going to do the right thing about the people who have come here illegally. We need to spend some time on it. We need to care about every single one of them. They are human beings with dreams and hopes, creatures of our Heavenly Father. Each one of them is entitled to respect, but they are not entitled to the same benefits a lawful entrant into our country has. Who would suggest that? I don't think that is a principled approach we can defend. We learned in 1986 that we should not give amnesty. It failed. No serious commentator believes the amnesty of 1986 worked. It was widely held to encourage illegal entry. There was a commission appointed by the Congress, a bipartisan commission, 6 years after 1986 to review what happened when the legislation passed that created amnesty at that time. They said it failed. It should not be done again. By any standard of the definition of the word ``amnesty,'' the bill that came out of committee is that. That is a loaded word. I don't want to be a demagogue with the word ``amnesty.'' But if amnesty has any meaning, it is that people who came illegally are given an opportunity to receive every single benefit, including citizenship, as a result of their illegal act. That is how we have always meant it. That is what was done in 1986. That is what was determined to be a failure. Secondly, we must deal with and eliminate, as T. J. Bonner said, the magnet of jobs for illegals. It will not be hard to stop the hiring of illegals by requiring biometric identifiers of foreign workers. It will be easy. Most businesses will comply with what they understand to be the plain law. If they are told they should require identification and it should be checked through the computer system that is being set up and will be set up to determine whether this is a lawful applicant, they will do so. It will not be easy to prosecute those cases. We have learned, however, that in 2004, only three cases of fines were assessed against an employer for bringing people into the country or hiring people who were here illegally. So it has never been enforced. It is a mockery of the law. You have it on the books, but nobody has ever enforced it. Businesses will comply. We will not have to prosecute all of them. As soon as they realize this is not the policy of the United States anymore, that the policy of the United States is you should check your workers before you hire them and make sure they are here legally, they will do so. All of a sudden, this magnet can be eliminated. Again, therefore, if you want to come to the United States to work lawfully, you are tipped into the idea of waiting in line, take your time, come and have your background check done to make sure you don't have terrorist connections and don't have a criminal record, those kinds of things, and then you can come in. Border enforcement is not easy. We have 1,900 miles on the border. People say we should not have a fence; it is something deeply wrong with that. I don't find anything wrong with that. I always heard the slogan ``good fences make good neighbors.'' It certainly has worked in San Diego. But in the most busy areas where illegal entry is occurring, that is a perfectly normal and natural thing. If we don't do that, it is an indication that we lack the will to see the matter through. The House has a bill that deals with this issue. It proposes up to 700 miles of fencing in the worst areas. It has worked in the San Diego area. It can work here. So it is a test. Are we committed to the enforcement question? The committee bill did deal with some important steps on enforcement, however. It had some important steps. I don't want to diminish that. I have used a metaphor to say, unfortunately, that it is like making an 8-foot leap across a 10-foot ravine. We are almost there, but we are not there. If we do a few more things, including barriers, including biometrics, including workplace enforcement and detention, not having anymore catch-and-release programs, those kinds of things, we could get there more quickly and more easily than most people think. We have made progress, but we are not there yet. I have discovered, as a former attorney general and prosecutor, U.S. attorney, from my local police officers in Alabama that they are not welcomed to even voluntarily contribute their abilities in immigration enforcement. For example, there is a clear message told to local law enforcement--and I meet with groups of law enforcement officers whenever I am in the State and enjoy that. I ask them how their drug laws are going, what are they seeing on the streets, what problems do they have. And I usually ask them about immigration. The standard answer is, they have been told by the immigration enforcement officers that unless they have 15 people illegally they have apprehended, don't bother to call. They won't come and pick them up. They are not interested. What does that say about our intention to have a lawful system as opposed to an unlawful one? I saw the front page of the Washington Times a few days ago. It had an article about an officer in the Midwest or the West who apprehended 15 illegal aliens. He called the immigration people and they said: Don't bother. Don't call us. This has been going on for years. It is the standard policy out there. So this indicates to me we are not serious about having a lawful system. It is absolutely possible for us to reverse this trend, to allow large numbers of people to come to our country to work, people who we know are not connected to terrorism or are not criminal elements, drug gangs and organizations of that kind. We absolutely can do that. But I am afraid the legislation we have moved forward does not do so. We are going to have some discussion about the majority leader's bill, the Frist bill. It is more focused on the enforcement question. It does not attempt to settle the huge, difficult human issue of how to handle in a humane and lawful way those who are already here unlawfully. That is a big deal, and we will have to spend some time on that. But I don't understand the purpose of it. We will spend a day or so on that and then apparently go to the committee bill. It came out of committee with a pretty large vote, six ``no'' votes on the committee. The Judiciary Committee has produced their legislation. It is on the floor now, and it will be the main part of the debate as we go forward. The only thing about which I will express concern to my colleagues is that we haven't read it yet. I see the Presiding Officer, such an extraordinarily valuable member of our committee who cares about this issue deeply. We haven't even seen it printed yet. We passed amendments, and we agreed to amendments on the floor. We passed the agriculture jobs bill that was up here a year or so ago that got blocked. We passed it in a 5-minute discussion. I think it was maybe 50 or 100 pages. This bill is over 300 pages. We substituted the Kennedy-McCain bill for the chairman's mark and passed that. Who has read that? Then they said: Well, it wasn't quite the same as everything you have heard about our bill. We have made improvements on it. What improvements? What does it say? I urge my colleagues to not announce too quickly that they are in support of the legislation that came out of our committee because they don't know what is in it yet. I don't know what is in it, and I am on the committee. We are dealing with one of the most momentous challenges of our time. We need to do it in the right way. We can do it in the right way. What I believe we should do is follow the lead of the House of Representatives. People say that is a harsh bill. It is not a harsh bill. It is a bill designed to make the legal system work. What is harsh about that? Unless you believe lawlessness is the appropriate way to handle business in America, unless you don't respect the rule of law. It is not harsh to create a legal system. They have concluded that the proper response to the crisis we face, with due respect to the concerns of the American people, is to, first, demonstrate that we can create an immigration system that actually works. That is what the House decided to do. That is what they focused on, and that is what they passed. They did not attempt, with a few hours debate, to deal with the colossal issue of human concerns of those who are here and to develop an architecture for who we want to allow to come in in the future and under what conditions. That is what we should do. That is what most of our hearings in the committee have been focused on. Then we will have some credibility with the American people. Let me share a couple of additional thoughts about matters I believe are important. The Judiciary bill--I don't want to call it Chairman Specter's mark because it was so altered and changed. It had quite a bit of difference. But the bill that came out of committee did a number of different things. One, it would immediately legalize the 12 to, some say, 20 million people who are here illegally. It would give them a green card in a relatively short period. It would then put them on an automatic path to citizenship. Once they become a citizen, they are able to bring in family members and even brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. It would double the number of legal visas, I think, to 400,000. Each one of those would not be as though you have a visa to come in. These visas are not just to come in to work for 6 months or a year and go back to your home country. This 400,000 will allow you to stay up to 6 years and then allow you, at the end of 4 years, to apply for a green card. And once you get that permanent green card, you can apply for citizenship. So it will be about another 400,000. We think, conservatively speaking, this bill would add 30 million people to our Nation in the next 10 years. We ought to spend some time talking about that. That is a big deal. That is a 10-percent increase in our population, and we ought to be thinking about what is in it. We spent very little time and we have spent very little national discussion in which the American people have had an opportunity to listen on this issue. It is hugely important. We want to do the right thing about it. Let me share this: The enforcement mechanisms we passed in committee--many of which are good, some of which failed that were needed--are only a promise. This is why the American people have a right to be cynical, they have a right to be nervous, they have a right to watch this Congress like a hawk because that is what happened in 1986. Once you pass the guest worker part of the bill--which is what it is being called, and I am not sure that is a very good description of it--that becomes law; the people become legalized; they put in for citizenship, and we double the number of people coming, et cetera, and that becomes our law right now. What about the enforcement? We authorized UAV, the virtual fence. Virtual reality is all that is. That UAV is to see if somebody is out there, but that is of very little value if you don't have somebody go out and pick them up. Anyway, we increase the bed spaces and increase some Border Patrol officers by authorization. All the Judiciary Committee bill can do is authorize those actions to be made. They have no ability whatsoever to fund them and to make sure they get carried out. What we learned after 1986 is that Congress hasn't funded the things necessary to make the border secure, and the Presidents--every one of them since that time--seem to have little interest in making sure it gets enforced. They don't come before Congress and say we have a problem at the border; we need more money, more agents, more detention space, and more barriers. They let it go. So this is a dangerous thing. I am not going to vote for any bill that is a ``let me see one hand and not the other.'' In other words, we are going to have one vote that will be a permanent decision about how to deal with those who are here illegally. But we will not be able to have any guarantee that the enforcement system is going to be made workable. That is why the House believes they should complete the enforcement mechanisms first, which is a good principle that we should be concerned about. The stress on our system is going to be incredible. Some in the immigration system say, when they think what this will mean, they cannot imagine how this will ever work. They have a huge backlog on applications to come into the country. Our immigration service is expected to make some background checks to make sure we are not allowing criminals and terrorists to come into the country. If we more than double the number that are allowed to apply and enter, then their workload is going to be incredibly heavy. It is not working now. We can do better. Finally, a lot of people have been unhappy with President Bush. They say he has been too much for amnesty. They say he is not serious about the border, and they have complained about that and so have I. I felt that he has not been sufficiently concerned about creating a legal system that works. But I have to tell you, the bill that came out of committee is way past that. Please know that, Senators. I heard Scott McClellan on the radio today, from the press conference he gave yesterday, and he stated the principles of the President. One of them is that those who come here illegally are not put on an automatic path to citizenship. That is what the President defines as amnesty. That is what he says he is not for. But that is what this bill does. The bill puts the people who came here unlawfully on an automatic path to citizenship. If that is not amnesty, what is? The President does not support what is here. It is beyond what he wants to do. He has a very generous idea about immigration. He wants to do the right thing. All of us do, but we cannot defend the principle of granting amnesty because we know what happened in 1986. It did not work. The independent commissions have said that. I will conclude by urging my colleagues to recognize how important this issue is to get right, how important it is that we do the right thing, so that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, we can be proud of what we did. And we can get there; we absolutely can. But this bill is not the vehicle to do it. We should not pass it in its present form. I say that with the caveat that nobody has seen the bill we will have on the floor. It hasn't even been printed yet. That is a pretty sad case, if you want to know the truth. It was so complex and rushed through our committee in such a hasty way. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and my colleagues for giving me a chance to share these thoughts. I urge each and every one of them to spend some time on this issue. Let's study this legislation and let's don't be stampeded by politics or protests or that kind of thing. Let's try to do the right thing and make sure that whatever we do is something we can be proud of and our children can be proud of.

Mr. SESSIONS. How much time remains?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are a Nation of immigrants. There are so many great stories of people who have come to this country and enriched our Nation and benefited their families and had great life experiences. There is no dispute about that. I don't think there is a single Member here who would deny that. But there is a suggestion that those who do not support the Kennedy bill--or whatever you want to call the bill that came out of the Judiciary committee, of which I am a Member and the Presiding Officer is a Member--if you don't support that bill, you want to run everybody out of the country and you want to lock them up and prosecute them. If you don't support this bill, you have bias against them and you don't believe in immigration. You don't believe in the great freedoms of our country. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is not right. What we are trying to do is to develop a system to deal with the immigration crisis that we have that is consistent with our values as Americans, that is consistent with the rule of law in this country, that treats people who do the right thing better than it treats people who do the wrong thing. That is what this debate is all about. We are trying to set policy for the future about the people who are allowed into our country, how many and under what circumstances. A Nation surely has a right to decide how many people it allows to come in. We are one of the most generous nations in the history of the world in allowing people to come here. But we have a right to decide how it should be done. Under this bill, we have provisions that actually allow a virtually unlimited number of unskilled workers to come in, but limits the amount of skilled workers that come in. How weird is that? This legislation came together in a most hasty way and violates a number of principles. One thing I would mention, the Presiding Officer, Senator Coburn, has been involved in these discussions. I know he and I share a common view about it. I thought we all agreed we would not have amnesty. The President, as much as he believes in bringing people into this country, as much as he believes in allowing workers to come here who want to work, has said: No amnesty. Our Democratic colleagues have said: No amnesty. This morning I said: The truth is, this bill is amnesty. It is exactly like the 1986 bill, and everybody said that was amnesty. They didn't even dispute it. I have the definition from ``Black's Law Dictionary,'' the one law students use to get legal definitions, and it uses the 1986 bill as an example of ``amnesty.'' Of course it was. And the bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee is the same thing. I have to tell you, Senator Specter's bill that we started with in the Judiciary Committee was not amnesty. Senator Frist's bill is not amnesty. But the bill that we came out with was. That is just a fact. I am going to go into some detail about that because Senator Kennedy has said it is false for me to say this is amnesty. We are going to talk about it. Senator Leahy said it is not amnesty. Why are they saying this now? I'll tell you what is going on. They are over there talking with the President and they are trying to get a compromise. They are trying to come up with something so they can come back and say it is not amnesty. They will claim that they moved in this direction and now they want to pass it. We are going to have to read this bill, and we are going to have to think about it because it is a major issue facing our country today. It really is. We need to do the right thing, and we can do the right thing. I am actually optimistic about our options and our capabilities of coming up with something that will work. But this bill is not it. It is absolutely not it. I want to say a couple of things first. We are going to pass legislation dealing with the entry of people into our Nation. We are going to pass legislation, and I will favor properly drafted legislation that will increase the number of people who come to our country lawfully. We want to pass legislation that treats fairly and decently and humanely the 11 to 20 million people who are here illegally. But I hope and trust we won't pass amnesty which gives the full benefits of legal entry into our country to those who come illegally. That is really what we are talking about, because what we learned in 1986 was that when you do that, before the ink is dry on the bill, other people come in illegally because they expect we will be right back here again in this Congress giving them amnesty again. So we need to reestablish the principle of law. That is all I am saying. We can treat people in a good way. We will not have to remove all of these people from America. They would not have to be prosecuted and put in jail. How silly is that? That can't be done. Nobody is proposing that. What we are working on is legislation that can bring law, bring principle, and bring integrity to our immigration system, and I believe it is within our grasp to do so. But I am not going to support the legislation that is before us now. It is just not good. The question about amnesty and where we are arises from the nature of the provisions in the bill that passed the Judiciary Committee. I don't know what to call it. I guess it is the Kennedy-Specter bill. Senator Specter's bill, though, that he offered and we began with, did not do the unprincipled things that this compromised bill does. Senator Frist, the majority leader, has offered legislation that does not create a direct path to citizenship for the entire illegal alien population. His bill didn't do that. The original Specter bill did not create a new or direct path to citizenship for illegal aliens. Before the committee markup, the Specter bill would have given illegal aliens working in the United States a temporary work permit, renewable every 2 years as long as the individual was working. We still don't have the language that passed out of the Judiciary Committee. I know Senator Coburn has been around Congress for some time, and he serves on the Judiciary Committee with me. We still don't have the language we voted on Monday. I don't know for sure exactly what it is, but we sure should not be passing a piece of legislation when we haven't even had a chance to read it. But in the committee, a complete amnesty program was adopted for the illegal alien population and large, new permanent immigration programs were created for low-skilled workers. The committee bill, as reported, creates a direct pathway to citizenship for aliens who have broken our laws. You will hear claims that this bill is earned adjustment, earned citizenship. Those are descriptions, but they are misnomers. This bill really is--in the sense that we have been talking about it for several years now as a part of an American dialog, in every sense of what people mean by amnesty--it is amnesty. If it is not amnesty, it is the same thing as amnesty. That is what it is. There are four different amnesty provisions in the bill. These four amnesty programs are what you are voting for or against when you vote on the Judiciary Committee bill. Let me clearly describe to you the breathtaking enormity of the four programs that I believe clearly constitute amnesty in the Judiciary Committee bill. Element No. 1, the committee bill takes every illegal alien in the United States who pays $1,000 and was employed before January 7, 2004-- whether full time, part time, seasonally or self-employed--and puts that person on a direct path to citizenship. The family of the illegal aliens, their spouse and children, would also be given amnesty, even if they are not already in the United States. They would now be able to come and come legally. How will it be given out? How do you get on this direct path to citizenship? What is required of the person who seeks it? The truth is that other than illegal presence in the United States, very little is required. We have been following very carefully the draft of the bill that we were provided and that we had as we voted on this legislation in Committee. The final passed version, however, is still being cobbled together, but I am confident that what I'm saying is accurate with regard to these issues. All illegal aliens present in the United States before January of 2004, who have worked illegally here since then for any amount of time, will first be given an H-5B nonimmigrant status, good for 6 years. They are made legal for 6 years. Their spouses and children will be given the same status. After 6 years and another $1,000 fine, the aliens and their families will get green cards if the alien has been ``employed in the United States, either full time, part time, seasonally, or self- employed, or has met educational requirements.'' The education requirement is as broad as being in a 1-year vocational work program at ``an institution of higher education.'' These requirements are very broad. A self-employed person could be someone who worked 1 day a year, and there is no limit on that definition. A person who meets the work requirement through education has to prove that they had full-time attendance in as little as a 1-year educational program, not that they completed any educational program. Additionally, the work requirement and education requirement for the green card are completely waived if the alien is under 21. After getting the green card, illegal aliens will be able to apply for citizenship like any other lawful permanent resident. They are put in the same status as the people who came here legally. To satisfy the work requirement of being employed in the United States, either part time, seasonally, or self-employed, the bill states that an alien can conclusively establish his work history in the United States either by, one, presenting records maintained by one of the following: Social Security Administration, IRS or any Federal, State or local government agency or employer, a labor union, a day labor center, and ``organizations that assist workers in matters related to employment,'' or presenting two of the following: bank records, business records, sworn affidavits from nonrelatives or remittal records. However, the documents listed that conclusively establish work history are not even really required. Later on, the bill states that the burden of proof that the alien must meet to qualify is even lower than that. It says: ``The alien has a burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the alien has satisfied the requirements. An alien must meet such burden of proof by producing sufficient evidence to demonstrate such employment as a matter of reasonable inference.'' Reasonable inference? That is not a proof standard. It is a situation that allows everyone to qualify. Why would we want to do that? The bill then states: ``It is the intent of the 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.'' It is not that hard to prove you have worked. If you work for an employer, you can get the employer to provide a statement that you worked for them even if you don't have pay stubs. It is not that hard. This basically obviates any requirement of proof and allows anybody to qualify. I am just telling you that is what is in the bill. I wish it were not so. I am not making this up. I am reading to you what is in the bill. The work standard is not a work standard at all. In fact, the bill basically says that Congress is telling the Department of Homeland Security to accept pretty much anything as proof of work. This is an open invitation to fraud and will prevent Department of Homeland Security from vetting out fraudulent applications. It is a perfect example of why our immigration laws are so messed up. We have placed so many difficult obstacles in front of agencies that are required to enforce them that they have become utterly unenforceable. We say that we have a work requirement, and then we say it can be seasonal, it can be part time, and it can be self-employed. Then we say just about any records you can produce, or that you conjure up will be sufficient. But if you do not have records and you have a reasonable inference that you worked, they must let you qualify. Basically, that is what the Department of Homeland Security office is going to do. They are going to accept anybody's application. There is no way you could object to it. This standard appears to be a standard but is not one at all. What about waiver of the work requirement? What if you have not worked since January of 2004 and did not work before then. Does this bill leave you out? Does it mean you can't be a citizen now? Can you qualify for this type of amnesty? The answer is still yes. Even if you are an illegal alien who has never worked in the United States and cannot produce any evidence to reasonably infer that you have worked illegally in the United States, you and your family can get on the bill's direct path to citizenship. You get automatic amnesty, no requirement to prove work. If you have full-time attendance at an institution of higher education--graduation is not required--full-time attendance at any secondary school, as defined by State law, or you are a minor under the age of 21, what does qualifying for amnesty get you? The mere filing of an application for amnesty triggers the following things: Employment authorization for the alien, the alien's spouse and children, permission to travel abroad and return to the United States, protection from being detained, determined inadmissible or deportable or removed pending final adjudication of the alien's application for adjustment of status. Only future conduct or a criminal conviction removes these protections. Additionally, if you have already been ordered removed from the United States or if you are subject to mandatory detention for a criminal conviction, the Department of Homeland Security has to give you the opportunity to show you are eligible for amnesty before you can be removed. This will simply freeze the entire detention and removal operation of the Department of Homeland Security. If you are legally here in January of 2004 because you got a work visa before you came to the United States, you will not get the benefit of this amnesty. Repeat that: If you are legally here because you got a valid work visa or permit before January of 2004, you do not get the benefit of this amnesty. This amnesty benefits you only if you came here illegally. So we are only giving you a direct path to citizenship if you first broke our laws. If you came here the right way and did not break the law, you are out of luck. No new path to citizenship for you. They say this is a guest worker program. The second major part of Specter-Kennedy substitute amendment--that was an amendment that was substituted for the original Specter bill in the past--is a new program for bringing low-skilled workers into the United States, in addition to illegal aliens already doing these jobs. The program puts them on a direct path to citizenship. It is a new program. The new program would bring 400,000 low-skilled workers per year into the United States on a 3-year work visa. This visa is renewable for 3 years. It is essentially a guaranteed entry for 6 years to work in the United States. This 400,000-per-year cap is supposed to be limited, they say to 400,000. This is several times what the cap is today. I am mistaken-- several times this 400,000 is how many will be allowed to come in under an illegal system. But the cap that purports to be is completely artificial. If the cap is reached and actually 400,000 come in that year and an additional 80,000 visas can be given out that year, the cap will go up automatically the next year as much as 20 percent. By the sixth year this program will immigrate 2.4 million new low-skilled workers, at a minimum, into the United States. On day one, when the worker arrives in the United States, the employer can sponsor the alien for a green card. It gives them legal permanent status. Normally the employers or family members sponsor the alien before they have the right to permanent entry and a green card. But this is a major change. The person can sponsor himself and make his own application. So after 4 years of work, the new immigrants can self- petition for a green card and then be eligible for citizenship. Normal grounds for inadmissibility, except for the most serious crimes on national security grounds, can be waived for a fee of $1,500. All legal permanent residents are eligible for citizenship after 5 years. All legal permanent residents, green card holders, after 5 years, are eligible for citizenship. If they have not been convicted of a felony, if they have basic English skills, they can become a citizen automatically. People all over this country and all over the world are waiting and hoping to be able to be selected to be able to come to the United States following the laws and rules. To be eligible to come to the United States under this low-skilled immigrant worker category, the alien is merely required to pay a $500 application fee, undergo a medical examination, and show they are capable of performing the labor or services required, and have evidence of employment from ``employers, employer associations or labor representatives.'' Those are probably some of the people who have been leading these protests the last few days. Under the bill language, you can qualify for this new program and come to the United States as a low-skilled immigrant even if you were in removal proceedings and signed a voluntary departure agreement but never left, or you were already removed from the United States and illegally reentered. If you had been removed and illegally reentered, you are eligible. One might ask, why does this program cover these people? I thought the program was for people who wanted to come to the United States to work in the future, not for those who are already here. This provision is specifically designed to make sure that illegal aliens who are not covered by the bill's amnesty provisions because they did not work in the United States prior to January of 2004, or because they were not legally present in the United States on that day, are not left without a direct path to citizenship also. This bill covers everybody. It should be called ``no illegal alien left behind.'' I am not exaggerating. It is fixed so that if they are not covered under this ``magic'' date, January 7, 2004, they are covered under the new exemptions of the 400,000 people per year. Element three, the Dream Act. That was brought up several times. It never moved in the Senate. But boom, in 2 minutes, Senator Durbin offered the Dream Act and we voted on it in committee Monday afternoon as an amendment to the bill. It took him less than 2 minutes to get it in the bill as an amendment. The Dream Act does two things. It grants amnesty to an unlimited number of illegal alien minors who graduate from a high school and enroll in college or the military for at least 2 years, or who perform hours of volunteer work, or who can show ``compelling circumstances for the inability to do any of those three,'' and, two, eliminates United States Code section 1623 which I will describe below, thus allowing all illegal aliens enrolled in college to receive in-State tuition rates. This means that while American citizens from Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Massachusetts, have to pay out-of-state tuition rates if they send their kids to the University of Virginia or the University of Alabama, people who have illegally immigrated into this country do not. How much sense does that make, to have people here illegally and they have more benefits than those who are here legally? Instead, they receive educational benefits paid by the taxpayers of Virginia and Alabama for in-State residents. I do not mean to suggest in any way there are not good kids out there. We need to figure out a way to accommodate them and work with those who have come here illegally. Maybe they came here a long time ago. Maybe they came here illegally as a junior or senior in high school. They came across the border and now they want to be on a direct path to citizenship. I am not saying we should not wrestle with how to treat them in a generous way, but should we give them more rights than we give to American citizens? When you do too much of this and you work at it too hard, pretty soon you end up with a mockery of law, an unprincipled bill that cannot be defended, and we are in the situation of wondering why would you want to bother to try to come into the country legally. Why not come illegally? So the Dream Act establishes a seamless process to take illegal aliens directly from illegal status to conditional permanent resident status, to legal permanent resident status, to citizenship. First, the illegal aliens who came here before age 16 and have been here for 5 years will be given conditional permanent residence through cancellation of removal if they have been admitted to college or have a GED or a high school diploma. So if you get your high school diploma or get yourself into college somewhere, whether you are passing or not, then you qualify for cancellation of removal. Step two, after 6 years, the alien will then be eligible to apply for a green card if they have attended 2 years of higher education, served 2 years in the military, performed 910 hours of community service for an organization that receives funds under the Combined Federal Campaign, or prove an extreme and unusual hardship, and you have good moral character and do not have a deportable offense. It is a guaranteed step forward if you do not do something wrong and get yourself convicted of a felony. After 5 years, those green card holders can apply for citizenship and cannot be denied if they meet the basic standards of English and have no criminal history. Current law provides ``that an alien who is not physically present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State or a political subdivision for any postsecondary educational benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such benefit in no less amount, duration and scope, without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.'' That is basically the law we passed several years ago, I think before I came to Congress. It said if you are here illegally, you do not get in-State tuition. We are going to reverse that. Congress just passed it 8 or 10 years ago. 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 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 a much higher tuition rate. In fact, that is being done probably in violation of law in some areas right now. Allowing all the illegal aliens enrolled in college to receive in- State tuition rates means that while American citizens from the 49 other States have to pay out-of-State tuition rates to send their kids to the University of Alabama or Virginia, people who have illegally immigrated into this country might not. Out-of-State tuition rates range from 2 to 3\1/2\ times what in-State tuition rates are. It has always struck me that one of the things you do to encourage people to come here legally and abide by the law, is not give benefits to those who come illegally. It is one thing not to prosecute them; it is one thing not to take them out of the country; but to give them benefits that people who do the right thing get? We should not do that. It is bad policy. So what about loans in the DREAM Act? I think this is still in the bill. We have not had a chance to see all of language. This was in the DREAM Act originally. I do not know if it is still in there under the Judiciary bill, but I assume it is. Under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, legal permanent residents and certain other eligible noncitizens receive Federal student financial aid, including Pell grants and Stafford student loans. That is part of the 1965 act. The committee bill will add illegal students, illegal alien volunteers, and illegal alien military members to the list of people eligible, by changing their immigration status to that of a legal permanent resident. This change in status would make them eligible for Federal financial aid. Pell grants and Stafford loans currently comprise 85 percent of postsecondary student aid available to citizens and eligible noncitizens. In fiscal year 2002, 8.8 percent of the individuals receiving Pell grants were eligible noncitizens over 380,000 people. We want to help people and be generous. But if you are in an illegal status, I do not see why there is an obligation to give the same extra benefits that you do to those who are lawfully here. Pell grants. The Federal Pell Grant Program is the single largest source of grant aid for postsecondary education funded by the Federal Government. There is already a current fiscal year Pell grant shortfall of over $2.5 billion. We have done a lot of different things to try to get money as high as we can get it this year. The fiscal year 2003 estimated program costs are approximately $12.5 billion. The annual appropriations is $11.4 billion. Now we want to open up Pell grants to illegal aliens? Although Pell grants are a discretionary program, the cost of increasing the number of eligible recipients in an award year is considered direct spending, when the appropriations and maximum grant award for that year are already set in law and a payment schedule is published. Thus, we could be facing a budget point of order with this bill. In other words, since in a number of these instances the right to have a Pell grant for qualifying persons is an entitlement, making more people eligible for this entitlement could subject this bill to a budget point of order. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 58,500 additional Pell grants would have been given within 1 year if last year's DREAM Act had passed, with an average grant being $2,420. How many people do not get a dime who try to send their kids to college, out of State maybe, people who have worked hard all their life, middle-class Americans? They do not get a dime. But somebody who is here illegally gets $2,400? I do not think that is fair. I do not think that is being insensitive to legitimate interests of people who want to come to America, who want to participate in the American dream, or is inhumane in any way. What about Stafford loans? The Congressional Budget Office estimated under last year's DREAM Act--the one that was offered last year but did not pass--65,000 would enroll during the first year and meet all other criteria. Because 1 in 10 students borrow student loans, the student loan costs would increase by $22 million per year over the 2003-to-2012 period. While we were going about our business in committee, the AgJOBS bill was offered as an amendment. Well, we had a big fight on the AgJOBS bill last year. It was offered on the floor of the Senate. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, opposed the bill, offered a number of important amendments that I thought made it far more sane, far more appropriate, and the bill did not pass, after a great deal of debate. Well, in about 15 minutes, in the committee, Senator Feinstein offered the AgJOBS bill to the Specter bill, the committee bill. It was a 106-page amendment. It put 1.5 million illegal alien agriculture workers on a direct path to citizenship--just like that. How does it do it? After the Feinstein amendment, 1.5 million illegal alien workers who pay a $500 fine and demonstrate they worked in agriculture for 150 workdays in the last 2 years will be given blue cards and will be allowed to stay in the United States. Because a workday is defined as 1 hour of work per day, an alien who worked in agriculture for only 150 hours--there are 168 hours in a week--over 2 years will qualify. So if you work 150 hours over 2 years, you qualify. Spouses and children of illegal alien agriculture workers also get legal status and work permits, and they are not limited to working in agriculture either. The blue card holder is eligible for a green card in two ways: after 3 years of 150 additional workdays--1 hour per day is all that is required--per year or after 5 years of 100 additional workdays per year. Then, what about citizenship? For these who come here illegally, and they work 150 hours, what happens as to their citizenship? Even though they came here illegally, are they put on the path to citizenship? Yes. All legal permanent residents become eligible for citizenship after 5 years. On May 18, 2004, the Washington Times published a column by Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, titled ``Stealth Amnesty'' dealing with the AgJOBS bill when it came up back in 2004. The article correctly summarized the AgJOBS bill when it said this: By the legislation's own terms, an illegal alien will be turned into ``an alien lawfully admitted for temporary residence,'' provided they had managed to work unlawfully in an agricultural job in the United States. . . .Once so transformed, they can stay in the U.S. indefinitely while applying for permanent resident status. From there, it is a matter of time before they can become citizens. . . . If any were needed, [the AgJOBS bill] offers a further incentive to illegals: Your family can stay, as well. Alternatively, if they are not with you, you can bring them in, too--cutting in line ahead of others who made the mistake of abiding by, rather than ignoring, our laws. What about the safe harbor provisions? Under the AgJOBS bill, which was added to this committee proposal without much debate, an illegal alien is undeportable as soon as the amnesty paperwork is merely filed. So if you file your amnesty paperwork and you are otherwise deportable, it automatically stops. No adjudication of the application is necessary to kick start the legal status of the illegal alien. Once an alien receives a temporary work visa, it never expires unless the worker is otherwise deemed deportable or applies for permanent residence and is denied. There is nothing temporary about a single temporary work visa lasting indefinitely. It is not temporary. The alien's blue card status can only be revoked if the alien is determined to be deportable, the blue card was acquired through fraud, the alien is convicted of a felony, three or more misdemeanors, or an offense which involves serious bodily injury or damage to more than $500 of property. What about all the legal stuff that gets involved with this? How do you prove all this stuff? The AgJOBS amendment even goes so far as to provide 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.'' Not only will the AgJOBS bill give amnesty to 1.5 million illegal aliens, it would have the American taxpayer pay the legal bill of those 1 million illegal aliens. We are going to work on something here. We are going to pass some legislation--if not this year, soon--that will work through all these difficult human issues and treat people in a fair and just way. Nobody is proposing that we do not. I mean that. There is a consensus in this Congress that it is time for us to fix this problem, to deal with the 11 million people here illegally, to allow more people to come legally, and to shut down the border and stop people from coming illegally. But this legislation does not do that. People say: I want to vote for something. I want to fix it. Don't vote for this bill. It will not fix it. Not only does it give amnesty to 1.5 million illegals, it would have the American taxpayer pay the legal bills of the 1 million illegal aliens. What about the H2A farm workers? The sponsors of the AgJOBS bill will have you believe that farmers want the AgJOBS bill. They say: This is for agriculture. It has to be done. If you don't do this, the country is going to collapse. Maybe that is the case in the District of Columbia where the national groups get to write the letters and speak for their farmers and come in and tell us what farmers want, regardless of what the individual farmers have to say. One of those people talked to me about it. I said: That may be your opinion, Mr. Farm Leader, but if you took a poll of the farmers I know in my home State or the Presiding Officer knows in his home State, I will bet you 80 percent of them would agree with me that this is not a principled way to do business. This is not the right way to do business. We are not here to serve agribusiness. We are here to promote the national interests of the United States, to create an immigration system consistent with our generous values, and a legal system that will work, not to reward those who violate the law but provide the benefits to those who follow the law. Last year when we debated this bill, I received an open letter from the Southern Farmers Coalition. The letter is signed by a list of organizations and individuals who participate in the H2A program. The letter says: Overwhelmingly, the majority of H2A program users in this country--the list of signatories is expansive, including the North Carolina Growers Association, the MidAtlantic Solution, Georgia Peach Council, Ag Works, the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, the Virginia Agricultural Growers Association, the Vidalia Onion Business Council--I like Vidalia onions--and the Kentucky-Tennessee Growers Association. They all signed this letter. The cover page of the letter, contrary to what some national agricultural experts say, says this: Farmers in the southern United States are opposed to S. 1645-- the same bill being offered as an amendment today, as part of this bill-- introduced by Ted Kennedy and Larry Craig. It is an amnesty for illegal farm workers. It does not reform the H2A program. Please oppose this legislation. These are the farmers who are supposed to be helped by it. That is what they say about it: ``Please oppose this legislation.'' The text of the letter, which asked me to stand up and fight against this legislation, states: Ag JOBS is nothing more than a veiled amnesty. I am reading this letter from the farmers themselves. Ag JOBS is nothing more than a veiled amnesty. While everyone, it seems, agrees that the H2A program desperately needs reform, this legislation does not fix the two most onerous problems with the program--the adverse effect wage rate and the overwhelming litigation brought by legal services groups against the farmers using the H2A program. That is what the farmers told us. The letter goes on to say: The Craig-Kennedy-Berman reform package provides a private right of action provision that goes far beyond legitimate worker protections and expands legal services attorneys ability to sue growers in several critical areas. These lawyers, who have harassed program users with meritless lawsuits for years, will continue to attack small farmers under the new statute. Supporters of the Craig-Berman legislation have endorsed this alleged reform, believing, in a misguided fashion, that it will bring stability to the agricultural labor market. It will not. It will create greater instability. As the illegal farm workers earn amnesty, they will abandon their farm jobs for work in other industries. Many of the attached signatories have been actively involved in negotiations surrounding this legislation. The following groups have broken ranks with the American Farm Bureau, the National Council of Agricultural Employers, the Agricultural Coalition for Immigration Reform, and the American Nursery and Landscape Association to oppose the legislation because those groups have decided an amnesty is more important than legitimate H2A reform. You are likely to hear that the majority of agriculture supports this bill. The industry, in fact, is split. History has demonstrated that the amnesty granted under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was a dismal failure for agriculture employers. Farm workers abandoned agricultural employment shortly after gaining amnesty and secured jobs in other industries. Of course, they did. So why should we pass this Judiciary bill, what I guess we can call the Specter-Kennedy package? Who supports the amendment? I know who supports the amendment. The national lobbying groups are really out of touch with the desires of the American people and the desires of farmers and the desires of those who want to see a good and decent system created. I don't believe I am out of touch on this issue. I believe I know what average American citizens and farmers want. They want real immigration reform that guarantees the laws we pass will be enforced and that people who do not honor our immigration laws will be punished, not rewarded with worker visas and green cards. So I strongly oppose the Specter-Kennedy bill that came out of committee, and I hope my colleagues will join in that. Now, earlier, Senator Leahy said that the 1986 bill Congress passed was amnesty. He said it was amnesty, and he admitted it was. ``Blacks Law Dictionary'' says that the 1986 bill was amnesty. It is the very definition of amnesty. By the way, when we passed that bill, it was supposed to fix the immigration problem. As I explained and talked about this morning, that is a very important concept. So the deal in 1986 was that we were going to give amnesty to 1 million people who we thought were here illegally. We now think there are 11 million here illegally. We are going to give amnesty to those, and we are going to create a legal system that encourages people to come legally and we won't have this problem again. Those who were dubious about it said: No, this amnesty would encourage more people to come illegally, but the pro-amnesty crowd won out and they passed the legislation and it became law. Well, what happened immediately afterward? It wasn't 1 million people who showed up to claim amnesty; it was 3 million--three times as many. I don't know how many will show up this time. Will it be 11 million or 33 million? Probably not 33 million, but I would not be surprised at all, based on our history, if we would have a good many more show up and claim amnesty. Six years after the bill passed, the Congress, in a very unusual action, voted to form a commission to review the legislation to see if it worked. The commission, a bipartisan professional commission, did a study and said it was a failure. It did not work, did not do what it was supposed to do. Well, the Citizenship and Immigration Services tried to say that 1986 was not amnesty. But everybody has agreed it was. CIS later explained what the 1986 bill did. I would like to go over it with you because this current bill does the very same things. It is just not disputable. So if we have any understanding of what an amnesty program is, we have the 1986 act to give us a guide. It says: The legalization program was not amnesty, but a targeted program that balanced the offer of legalization with stringent requirements. This is how they defended this problem. Legalization of applicants had to: prove to INS adjudicators that they had resided in the U.S. since January 1, 1982-- I went over with you how this bill said you had to be here since January 2004. If you came after 2004, you could still get in. That is a real stringent standard. You had to prove you resided there before that day-- pay a $185 fee-- We upped it to $1,000-- for principal applicants, $50 for each child, with a $420 family cap; accept ineligibility for most public benefits for 5 years after application-- We don't even do that in this bill. It says you could not go on welfare for at least 5 years. We did that in 1986. That is not in this bill today-- and complete an 18-month period of temporary residency. After that, and only after successfully completing an English language and civics requirement within a year-long one-time window-- Which is a very low-grade test for the most part-- and the payment of an $80 fee per applicant (with a $240 family cap) they were eligible to apply for permanent residency. In exchange, the applicant would be authorized to work, travel, and after becoming a permanent resident, petition for the immigration of certain family members. They could bring family members in from out of the country to join them. Then, of course, once you become a permanent resident, it is a matter of 5 years to become a citizen, if you have not been convicted of a felony and you can speak English. I don't want to be demagogic and say this is amnesty, amnesty, amnesty, and vote against the bill. I am saying that everybody agreed that 1986 was amnesty, and it did not work. Everybody I hear publicly talking about this bill says it is not amnesty. Senator Kennedy, I think, used the word ``lie'' after I said it was amnesty this morning. I think I have demonstrated that it is precisely the same scheme that was used in 1986, which we proved didn't work. If that is not amnesty, what is? Senator Leahy defended the bill and said it is not amnesty. President Bush said he doesn't believe in amnesty. All he believes in is immigration, and he wants us to do better and be as generous as we can possibly be. But he doesn't believe in amnesty. Scott McClellan, yesterday at the press briefing he does for the President, said that the President believes that a direct path to citizenship is amnesty, and he opposes that. This bill provides a direct path to citizenship for people who came to this country illegally. That is just the fact. If we want to have people say it is not so, we will keep talking about it every day this week. That is all I am saying. I wish it weren't so. It is not necessary that we do that. We can provide a humane and decent way to give people full opportunities to live and progress in our society without giving the people who come here illegally benefits over those who wait in line and come legally. That is what it is all about. So I will just say that, in this rush to move a bill through and to prove that we care, we have not thought it through. We spent 5 days in markup in the Judiciary Committee, and about 4 of those days we really spent some time dealing with enforcement and border issues. We talked about them in some depth. We went over the wording of the statutes with some care. We debated single words. Senator Durbin, who is here, is a great lawyer. He made some points, being the skilled lawyer he is. We changed words and did all kinds of things. But when we got to the last day, Monday, they offered an AgJOBS bill, with over 100 pages, in about 15 minutes, and it passed. We still had not seen the draft of it. During the debate in our committee on how to handle the 11 million people in a decent, fair, and just way, to not remove them or make them all leave this country in a permanent way or to abuse them or prosecute them, but how to handle this in a logical, sane way--we spent almost no time on it. I urged the committee to stay with the enforcement matters like the House did. Let's start hearings immediately and get the best minds in America. Let's find out who these 11 million people are, their desires and wishes; what would be a good and principled way to deal with them; who we should let into our country in the future; what standards should we use; should we have unlimited numbers come in for low-wage jobs and have limits on the high-wage people? Is that logical, what we want to do? How many more people do we want to allow into our country legally? This bill will allow every year, annually, at least 400,000, and that number can increase every year, forever. I wish to make one more point, and this is where the American people have to watch this Congress. If we pass this amnesty legislation, if we pass the legislation that makes all these status changes and makes them into law and they become law, that becomes a permanent decision of this U.S. Congress. But what about the promises that we are going to have enforcement? I offered an amendment in committee that was accepted to add 10,000 detention beds. That probably is not nearly enough, but it would make a big difference. That was accepted. I offered an amendment to increase the number of Border Patrol agents. It probably is not a large enough number, but it would ramp it up faster than the plan was, and that was accepted. Then it hit me. I have been in the Senate long enough, and I should have been more alert. This is an authorizing committee. The Judiciary Committee is an authorizing committee. We know what happened in 1986. They granted amnesty, they gave everybody amnesty, and they promised in the future they were going to fund an enforcement mechanism, but they didn't do it. It was the bait and switch. So what did we get? We got an authorization to step up enforcement on our borders, but we didn't get the money to do it. We don't have it yet. Who is to say we won't have a slowdown in the economy next year, and they will cut the money, we will never get the enforcement, and we will still have large numbers coming into the country illegally. That is a big concern to us. We need to tie this issue down so that we know and the American people can have confidence that the enforcement mechanisms will work and will be funded. That is why the House took the approach they did. I again say it is not true that those of us who oppose this bill oppose immigration. It is not true. We actually, at least as far as I am concerned, need to increase the numbers that come here legally. It is not true that we want to prosecute people. What is true is that it is important for our Nation to create a humane, fair, and just way to deal with the people who are here illegally and to make positive and thoughtful decisions about how we want to handle immigration in the future. I do not believe this bill does that job. It is not something I can support. I hope the Senate will not support it. We will see a number of amendments that can make it better. I hope our Senate colleagues will study the legislation and inform themselves of the great issues at stake so we can fix it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order with respect to S. 295, the China currency bill, be modified to reflect a date no later than September 29, 2006, or the last day of the second session of the 109th Congress, whichever is earliest, and that all other provisos remain in effect.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 414, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that yesterday's action on S. Res. 410 be vitiated, that the resolution be agreed to, that the technical amendment to the preamble which is at the desk be agreed to, and that the preamble, as amended, be agreed to.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I assume Senator Inhofe will have time after I conclude my 10 minutes and I ask unanimous consent to that effect. He is on the other side of this issue. The Wyden amendment provides a new advantage for those who want bigger and more expensive Government. Senators who want time to study a bill before granting consent would have to put their names in the Record as objecting to it even though they may quickly decide they do not have an objection to the bill. First, the Senator from Oregon stated that this amendment--and this is a good example of what happens in the Senate--that this amendment was being blocked by a secret hold. But there was no secret hold. The leadership of the Senate knew that I had an interest in participating in the debate, but I had a meeting at the White House this morning and so I asked if they could accommodate that and set the debate at a time I could participate. That apparently was worked out. Under the Senator from Oregon's amendment, I would have had to submit a written request to the majority leader in order to participate in the debate, but I was at the White House and that was not very practical. Is telling my leader I would like an opportunity to be in the Senate to debate this issue now an unreasonable request? The Senator from Oregon has also stated that the intelligence authorization bill is being held up based on a secret hold. In truth, it is not a secret. I will tell the Senator who is holding that important intelligence bill: It is the two Senators from Massachusetts. Senators Kennedy and Kerry have objected to considering the bill because they want to offer amendments. Some say they are poison-pill amendments, but they are amendments they want to offer. So if the Senator has a problem about that, he should talk to his colleagues. The Senators may say this only applies to proceeding to a bill. This is an important thing, because in 99 percent of the cases, proceedings of the bill and passage of the bill happen at the same time. The bill is called up and asked to be passed by unanimous consent. It is all the same request. Frankly, the problem with this bill goes further than the mechanical application. It makes a statement. It basically says that passing bills is inherently a good thing, and we should assume any Senator who has never heard of a bill should consent to it. Anyone who dares not to grant promptly and immediately any such consent is some scoundrel who needs to be exposed to misdeeds. Senator Coburn has offered an amendment that says if we are going to have this hold amendment, he would offer one that says if you want to pass a bill and there is no quorum present, and you want to ram it through with no quorum present, you need to have a petition signed by 100 Senators saying they are prepared to let the bill go through. Why not? It is not practical, perhaps, but the system is not designed to be practical. Frankly, it is too easy to pass bills. Bills flow through this body like water. I want the American people to know how bills are passed in this Senate. We were talking about some sunshine here. Let's talk about it. There is a system we have called a hotline. What is a hotline? In each Senate office there are three telephones with hotline buttons on them. Most evenings, sometimes after business hours, these phones begin to ring. The calls are from the Republican and the Democratic leaders to each of their Members, asking consent to pass this or that bill--not consider the bill or have debate on the bill but to pass it. Those calls will normally give a deadline. If the staff do not call back in 30 minutes, the bill passes. Boom. It can be 500 pages. In many offices, when staffers do not know anything about the bill, they usually ignore the hotline and let the bill pass without even informing their Senators. If the staff miss the hotline, or do not know about it or were not around, the Senator is deemed to have consented to the passage of some bill which might be quite an important piece of information. So that is the real issue here. The issue is not about holds. The rules say nothing about holds. Holds do not exist. The issue is consent. Nobody has a right to have an individual Senator's consent to pass a bill. They act as though you have a right to get it. You would expect if you are going to say you have unanimous consent, you have consent. But that is not always the case. If staff do not have time to read the bill--some of these bills are hundreds of pages long--they frequently assume someone else has read it. Staff in the Senate offices do not read all these bills, and they go back to whatever they were doing before the hotline phone rang. Presumably, some committee staffer has read the bill at some point along the way, but in almost no case have actual Members of the Senate granted their intentional consent to the bills that pass during the day's wrapup that we often see late into the night on C-SPAN. In many cases, even Senators sponsoring the bill have never read it, unfortunately. Committee reports are filed on bills. Very few staff have read the committee reports. How do I know about this? I have the thankless task of chairing the Senate Steering Committee. One of our commitments is to review every bill that is hotlined in the Senate. My staff actually reads them. It is a service to my colleagues, I suggest. They read the CBO scores which tell how much the bill costs the taxpayers. A lot of times they do not want you to know that. Some committee, group, or someone has moved a bill on the floor--they move it along--and nobody has read the score. Many contain massive, new spending programs. Some bust the budget. We think Senators who are looking out for the taxpayers and taking the time to study bills should have the same rights as Senators who are willing to let big spending bills pass without reading them. This amendment is not good government. It will make it more likely that bills will pass in the middle of the night filled with pork and who knows what else. The current process established by the two leaders provides for 72 hours for Senators to withhold consent and to read a bill. Beyond that, the objections become public. Under this amendment, if a Senator in an offhand conversation with the leader says, ``I think we ought to take a hard look at this bill,'' does that mean his name should be printed in the Record? That is not workable. If I am on the floor, and the leader asks me if we ought to go to such and such a bill, and I say, ``No, don't do that, I think something else should go first,'' do I then immediately have to go to the floor and publish that in the Record? According to this resolution, any communication with the leader suggesting we not proceed to a bill would need to be printed in the Record and submitted to the leader in writing. However, if I communicate to the leader that we should proceed to some big spending bill, I can do that in secret. This gives a new advantage to those who want to pass legislation without review. Now, I take very seriously holding up a bill. We stay on our team, and we look at the matter promptly and try to give an honest response. And if we have a problem with a clause or two in a piece of legislation, we share that with the Senators who are promoting the legislation. Usually an agreement can be reached, and usually the legislation is cleared, anyway, without any significant delay. Line 4 of the Wyden amendment says: The majority and minority leaders of the Senate or their designees shall recognize a notice of intent of a Senator who is a member of their caucus to object to proceeding to a measure or matter only if the Senator (1) submits the notice of intent in writing to the appropriate leader or their designee; and (2) within 3 session days after the submission under paragraph (1) submits for inclusion in the Congressional Record and in the applicable calendar section described in subsection (b) the following notice: ``I, Senator [blank], intend to object to proceeding to [blank], dated [blank].'' If a Senator tells their leader on the phone they have concern with a bill that was offered that night, must they quickly run down to his office and hand the leader a piece of paper? This says it must be submitted in writing; otherwise, the leader cannot recognize it. If the leader decides against proceeding to the bill, does that mean he has violated the rule? How can we prove that the leader did not simply change his mind, but rather that he illegally recognized an oral hold, which was not submitted in writing? Who is to make such a determination? Is the Parliamentarian going to be put in the uncomfortable position of trying to divine the motivations of a party leader? I am not sure what the purpose of the 3 days is, but here is what its effect is: If a bill is hotlined at 7:30 at night, and the leaders say it will be passed at 7:45 unless there is an objection, and my staff calls them to say please do not proceed, we would like to review the bill, rather than reading the bill, they would have to run to the leader's office with a piece of paper saying we object to the bill. Then, let's say they run back to the office, start reading, and after review, the bill looks fine. Let's say they even call back within the 15-minute window that was given. The bill passes that night. The next day it passes the House, and is signed by the President. It is now law. On the third day, I would still need to insert a statement in the Congressional Record saying ``I, Senator Jeff Sessions, intend to object to proceeding [blank], dated [blank].'' I intend to object to a bill that has already been signed into law? The amendment has been so poorly drafted that it is not even clear what it does. This is what we are dealing with. This poorly drafted amendment is intended to stack the deck, in favor of other poorly drafted legislation passing in the middle of the night with little or no review. Let's look at section (c) line 18: A Senator may have an item with respect to the Senator removed from a calendar to which it was added under subsection (b) by submitting for inclusion in the Congressional Record the following notice: I, Senator [blank], do not object to proceeding to [blank], dated [blank]. This is the flip side: Maybe you looked at the bill and do not like it, but are willing to let it pass by a voice vote. Now, to get the ``scarlet letter'' I removed, you need to put a statement into the Record saying you do not object to the bill, which may not be altogether true. Further, what if you simply want to offer an amendment, or debate, but the leadership wants to pass the bill clean. How does this bill apply? I suppose one interpretation is it would not apply at all, because it only purports to apply to ``proceeding to a bill.'' What if you want to offer a thousand amendments? What then? What if you prefer to proceed to a different version of the bill? What if you would simply like a rollcall vote on the motion to proceed, or would like time to debate, but the leadership does not want to grant you that. Technically, you are objecting to proceeding under those circumstances. I could stand here for hours discussing all the many ways this amendment is going to damage the Senate, and the many ways this amendment is absolutely worthless as a tool to prevent blocking of legislation in secret. But what I object to most is that this amendment says passing legislation is always preferable to slowing it down, that letting a bill pass is good no matter how poorly drafted, how costly, how late in the evening, or how few Senators have studied or even heard of the bill. How much pork is there? Passing bills is good: In many cases, that is not correct. There is a widely quoted story about the ``coolness'' of the Senate involving George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was in France during the Constitutional Convention. Upon his return, Jefferson visited Washington and asked why the Convention delegates had created a Senate. ``Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?'' asked Washington. ``To cool it, `` said Jefferson. ``Even so,'' responded Washington, ``we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.'' The Framers intended the Senate to deliberate, to thoughtfully review legislation, not be a rubber stamp. This amendment says those Senators who are willing to grant consent to legislation they have never read or have perhaps never even heard of--those are the good Senators. But those Senators who dare to say: I would like time to read this legislation, to see how much it costs, to see whether it is within the national interests--they are the troublemakers. These scoundrels need to be exposed to the public. So, in summary, here is where we are. Passing midnight spending boondoggles with two Senators in the Chamber: Good. Reviewing legislation: Bad. Objecting to big spending legislation: Really bad. Lobbyists must be thrilled with this. Lobbyists who are pushing special-interest legislation will now have a ready-made target list. All they need to do is get the leadership to hotline the legislation, and within 3 days they will know who they need to talk to or jump on or ``sick the dogs on.'' I believe we need to return to the ``cooling'' Senate, not a ``freezing'' Senate, where obstruction is the rule, nominees are blocked endlessly; not a ``greased'' Senate, where bad legislation passes at lightning speed late at night with no time for review, but a Senate where Senators are encouraged to take the time to pick up a bill and read it, to weigh the consequences for the American taxpayers. This amendment runs directly contrary to the spirit of reform this bill purports to address. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have been allocated 10 minutes to speak on the Wyden amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I see several of the sponsors of the amendment here. Probably they disagree with some of my views, but I think they are worthy of their consideration. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. I seek to use that time.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for highlighting an issue that is important to the Armed Services Committee, the authorizing committee. A lot of work is already going on to deal with this problem. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, said rising health care costs are the No. 1 issue when he spoke to our committee. This amendment would cost $10.4 billion over 5 years and result in an increase in taxes by that amount. The authorizing committee does need to focus on it and is focusing on this issue. I ask the amendment be defeated.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I think back to a young Senator Inouye, serving in our military, putting his life at risk and nearly losing it for our country. One thing he had a right to expect of his Congress was, as a soldier, he would be supported in the conflict. We are here today hearing of a resolution presented by Senator Feingold to censure the President of the United States. It is baseless. It is not sound in law, and it is not sound in policy. We, by over a three-quarters vote, voted to send our soldiers in harm's way. This Senate voted to do that. We authorized the President, in a use of force resolution, to identify those responsible for attacking us and to attack and destroy them, to use such military force as he deemed appropriate to attack and kill them. And our soldiers have been doing that. The Supreme Court recently had to deal with the situation in which an American citizen was captured abroad, Hamdi. They caught him. It went before the Supreme Court of the United States, and the issue was whether he was entitled to a trial. The question was, Was he entitled to a trial? The Supreme Court held otherwise. The Supreme Court said that he was a prisoner of war, and the authorization of military force authorized the military to attack and kill enemies of the United States. It also authorized them to capture them. That was incident to the use of military force. It is quite plain that our history of military affairs supports the concept that surveilling in a time of war is incident to the carrying on of war. In the same way that we have a right to take an American citizen and lock them up in jail without trial if they are identified to be with the enemy, we can surveil the enemy's communications. The President authorized simply this: al-Qaida conversations in which one of the parties to that conversation is outside the United States could be monitored. We know it was through those kinds of communications that 9/11 occurred. We had sleeper cells here activated by foreign communications. It is wrong to undermine this President while we have our soldiers at war and at risk, to suggest that he has done something wrong and needs to be censured.

Mr. SESSIONS. I express my strongest disapproval of the propriety of this resolution.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in expressing our sincere sympathy to Senator Inouye on his loss. He is certainly one of the finest, most respected Members of this body. He is one of the great Senators who have served here and has been a true American patriot, serving his country with such fidelity and putting his very life on the line, and nearly losing it, and winning the Nation's highest honors in the course of serving his country. So I would just say from this Senator, and on behalf of so many of us, we are sorry to hear this news, and our prayers and support are with Senator Inouye at this time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, what is the time agreement?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the budget point of order is not a technical budget point of order. It was a technical point of order with regard to the asbestos bill. This bill would provide $1 billion more in 2006 than the budget authorized. If we are going to spend $1 billion more than the budget authorized, how can that not be in violation of the budget? There are two aspects: first, you say it is paid for in the future. That is irrelevant to whether the Budget Act is violated, even if it were paid for. Second, we have been around here long enough to know we are not going to cut LIHEAP next year by $1 billion. We know that. As much as we would like to accommodate this spending--I can understand the desire of the Senators to do so--we should not do it because it violates the budget in a very fundamental way. It clearly is an unfair allocation of funds compared to my State, which receives $17 million less if it were distributed according to the discretionary plan, as opposed to the fundamental formula. I yield back my remaining time.