Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I say to Senator Thune, thank you for your leadership in offering a clear legislative proposal that will work. It is my observation that things that get proposed around here that do not work often are passed; things that will actually work are difficult to get passed. I say to Senator Thune, I do not know if you realize that all of the sponsors of the legislation have talked a good bit about fencing that might occur, having a report on fencing. What we do know is that it did not require fencing anywhere in the bill. But in case anybody had any doubt about that, Senator Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, offered an amendment that explicitly stated that nothing in the bill shall require the construction of any fencing at the border. So despite what others have heard about this being the toughest bill ever and it is going to do more for enforcement than we have ever had, it, in fact, weakens and almost guarantees we will not have additional fencing, which would certainly be a component, in my mind, of a stronger, tougher enforcement mechanism. Fencing barriers do, I believe, help the President, who should lead on this, who should say clearly to the world: Our border is secure. We are building fences and do not come. The number of people who would attempt to come would drop a lot if we made that clear statement. I thank the Senator for his good work.

Mr. SESSIONS

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 I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, coming up, we will be voting on some amendments. I just want to share a few thoughts as we gather in advance of that. One of the comments made earlier by one of our good Senators indicated a belief that this immigration bill is going to raise the salaries of American workers. I think that is what was said. I have to point out that is not accurate. This is a very serious issue we are confronting. This legislation does the opposite of what was said and creates an unprecedented flow of new workers into America--the likes of which we have not seen before-- and it will have a direct result of depressing job opportunities and wages of American citizens. It will affect immigrants who are legally here and also looking for work. It will impact the wages of African Americans, Hispanics, and any other group in America. Here is the reason why: Under our current law, the legal flow of persons to America would be 1 million a year, and that is the largest of any country in the world. Over 10 years, that will rise to 10 million people. At this point, we now have 11 million immigrants here, plus a backlog of approximately 5 million more immigrants, which will total approximately 15 million people who would be legalized in very short order under this legislation. Some say, well, they are already working here, so there is not a problem on employment. But many of those workers are in the shadows, underemployed, maybe working part-time in restaurants or other places, and all of a sudden they will be given legal status. At that point, they will be able to apply for any job in America. This will be good for them, but the question is, Is it our duty to give our first responsibility to those who have entered illegally? Don't we have a responsibility to consider how it will impact people who are unemployed today and are out looking for work? Since 1999, we know wages have dropped as much as 8 percent to 9 percent. Wages are declining, not going up in America today. One of the big reasons, according to Professor Borjas at Harvard, is that the flow of labor from abroad creates an excess of labor and that causes wages to decline. It is just a fact, and that is the way that works. In addition to that, we have our current law that allows temporary workers and guest workers who come for a period of time, and then they can work. What happens to that flow of workers today? They will double the number of people who will be coming in as temporary workers. Everyone has to understand that many of them come for 3 years with their family after which they can reup for another 3 years. They also compete for a limited number of jobs that legal immigrants would be competing for as well as citizens would be competing for. So there is this bubble of 15 million that is accepted at once and a doubling of the current flow of nonimmigrants. In addition to that, the annual immigrant flow into our country will increase at least 50 percent. It could be more than that. So that would go from 1 million a year to 1.5 million a year. Over 10 years, that is 15 million. There are 300 million people in this country, and as elected officials, they are our primary responsibility. If this legislation were to pass--the 8,000 pages in this bill--it would allow 30 million people to be placed on a permanent path to citizenship over this 10- year period, and that is well above what would normally be 10 million people. In addition to that, the flow of so-called temporary guest workers will be double what the current rate is. Madam President, how much time is there on this side?

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask to be notified in 5 minutes. I believe Senator Vitter's airplane has been delayed. His amendment is projected to come up. I don't know if it will be called up if he is not able to get back. He has an excellent amendment that deals with a fundamentally flawed part of our immigration system that the bill before us makes worse, not better. It absolutely and indisputably does make it better. This is the current situation: Six times Congress in the last 10 or 15 years has passed legislation to require an entry-exit visa system. It is required that it be biometric. In other words, it would require fingerprints or something like that. Normally, fingerprints would be utilized. People are fingerprinted when they come into the country. It goes into the system, but we are not checking when anybody leaves. People legally come on a visa, and they leave. Because we don't use a system when people leave the country, nobody knows whether they left. Forty percent of the people who enter the country illegally are coming through visa overstays. They get a legal visa, and they just don't leave. People don't even know if they left because they are not clocked out. The 9/11 Commission said this is wrong. We need a biometric entry and exit system at land, sea, and airports. What does this bill do? It eliminates that language that is already in law, passed by Congress, and inexplicably has never been carried out. The bill merely requires a biographic or electronic exit system. It does not require a fingerprint-type exit system. Not only that, it only requires it at air and seaports, not the land ports. The 9/11 Commission said that would not work because people come in all the time by air and leave by land, so we cannot rely on it. It will not establish the right integrity to know whether somebody overstayed. That makes perfect sense. Senator Vitter attempts to address that. He suggests that we have an integrated biometric entry-exit system operating and functioning at every land, air, and seaport--not just air and sea--prior to the processing of any application for legal status pursuant to the original biometric exit law, the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act, recommendations. That is what the current law says. In addition to that, before the implementation of any program granting temporary legal status, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary must submit written certification of the deployment of the system which will then be fast-tracked and approved through streamlined House and Senate procedures. This amendment is added to the current bill, and it will be effective in accomplishing what we need. In other words, it has a little trigger that says they don't get their legal status until the government does what they have been directed to do by Congress for over 10 years and have failed to do. We have had a pilot test at the Atlanta airport, for example, where people go to the airport, catch a plane back home to England, Jordan, India or wherever they go, put their fingerprints on a machine, and it reads them as they go through the airport. What they found was that out of 29,744 people in that pilot test, 175 were on the watch list for terrorism or warrants were out for their arrest or other serious charges were against them. They were able to identify them before they fled or left the country, and that is what the whole system was about. They found it didn't slow down the airport and that it didn't cost nearly what people are saying it will cost. Some have said it would be $25 billion, and that is totally inaccurate. According to this report, it will not cost anything like that. Police officers have fingerprint reading machines in their automobiles. You can go by there, put your fingers on there to read your print, and if you have a warrant out for arrest for murder or drug dealing or terrorism, you get apprehended. They recently caught a terrorist--actually from Alabama--and prosecuted him in Alabama. He was trying to get on a plane in Atlanta.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair, reserve the remainder of my time, and yield the floor.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, the prime sponsor, I suppose, of the immigration bill before us--this 1,000-page document--Senator Schumer, announced earlier today, based on the Congressional Budget Office report, that lower deficits were promised, and that the bill, indeed, produces lower deficits. I do not believe that is an accurate statement, and I will share with you some of my concerns about that. We have been through this before, where the budget numbers, in reality, have been utilized in a way that is not healthy, and it creates a false impression of what is occurring here. Secondly, I do not know that he talked about this--I doubt he did-- the CBO report is explicit. Under this legislation, if it were to pass, the wages of American workers will fall for the next 12 years. They will be lower than the inflation rate. They will decline from the present unacceptably low rate, and continue to decline for 12 years, according to this report. That alone should cause us to defeat this bill. We have been told it is going to create prosperity and growth, but what it is going to produce is more unemployment, as this report explicitly states. It is going to produce lower wages for Americans, as this report explicitly states. And it is going to increase the deficit. So I think we need to have an understanding here that something very serious is afoot: to suggest that you can bring in millions of new workers to take jobs in the United States at a time of record unemployment and that will not impact wages, that will not make unemployment go up, goes beyond all common sense. Dr. Borjas at Harvard has absolutely proven through peer-reviewed research that that is exactly what is going to happen. Wages go down, as they have been going down, and unemployment will go up. So this report confirms that. I will read some of the things that are in it. I am on page 7 of ``The Economic Impact of S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.'' S. 744 would allow significantly more workers with low skills and with high skills to enter the United States--. . . . No doubt about that. They say it is a move to merit-based immigration. But it is not a move to merit-based immigration. It increases low-skill workers substantially, as well as increasing other workers. Taking into account all of those flows of new immigrants, CBO and JCT [Joint Tax] expect that a greater number of immigrants with lower skills than with higher skills would be added to the workforce. . . . In other words, another group coming in, more lower skilled than higher skilled, just as I indicated and other commentators have indicated previously. The report said this: Slightly pushing down the average wage of the labor force as a whole. Pushing down the wage of the labor force as a whole. But they go on to say this. Get this. The next sentence: However, CBO and Joint Tax expect that currently unauthorized workers---- Illegal workers, in other words---- who attain legal status under 744 will see an increase in their wages. So I think this underestimates, if you read the report carefully, the adverse impact that the flow of workers will have on the wages of American workers and lawful immigrants who are here today. But at any rate, it is clear that is so. It goes on to say this, dramatically, I suggest: The average wage would be lower than under current law over the first dozen years. CBO estimates that it would increase unemployment for at least 7 years. So this is supposed to be good for the people we represent? Of course, I would like to ask our colleagues to think carefully about our duty. Who is it we represent in this body? What kind of responsibilities do we have to decent, hard-working Americans who experts have told us have seen their wages decline every year, virtually, since 1999. Wages have declined by as much as 8 percent since 2009 for a number of reasons. One of the reasons, according to Professor Borjas, is that immigration is already pulling down wages by as much as 40 percent. So this will add to the problem. This report said, quite clearly, unequivocally, it is going to increase unemployment, and it is going to pull down wages. That is exactly the wrong thing that ought to be happening at this time. How in the world can we justify passing a bill that hammers the American working man and woman who is out trying to feed a family, get a job, that has a little retirement, a little health care, some money to be able to take care of the family, and hammer them with additional adverse economic impacts? I suggest to you this is not a report that in any way justifies advancing this legislation. Let me just take a moment. I wrestle with these numbers. I see the Presiding Officer who is on the Budget Committee understands these numbers. They say it pays down the deficit. Let me show you what it really says. This is the way they double counted the money to justify ObamaCare. Basically, they created, through cuts in Medicare, savings and they lengthened the life of Medicare, but they claim they used that same money to fund ObamaCare. At one point, Mr. Elmendorf, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, who wrote this said it was double counting the money. You cannot use the same money to fund ObamaCare and use that same money to strengthen Medicare. How simple is that? We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in double counting of the money. That is what is happening in here. Look at this report. Impact on the deficit over the 10-year period, 2014 to 2023, the budget deficit would increase by $14.2 billion. The debt would increase by $14.2 billion. But then they say the off-budget money would decrease the deficit by $211 billion. My colleague, Senator Schumer, said this is all great. We have a big surplus now. We have $200 billion in the off-budget account. But what is that money? What is that money? That is the payroll taxes. That is your Social Security payment and your Medicare payment. When more of the illegal aliens come in and get a Social Security number and pay Social Security and Medicare, the money comes into the government. All right? But is it free to be spent on bridges and roads and aircraft and salaries for Congressmen and Senators? No. This is money that is dedicated to Social Security and Medicare. This is the trust fund money that goes to Social Security and Medicare. Yes, when people are legalized, they will pay more Social Security and Medicare taxes on their payroll, but it is going to that fund to pay for their retirement and their health care when they retire. You cannot use that money. You cannot spend the money today and pretend it is going to be there to pay for their retirement when they retire. They are going to pay into Medicare. They are going to pay into Social Security. They are going to draw out Social Security and Medicare when they reach the right age. What we know is, as Mr. Elmendorf indicates, as I have said repeatedly, most of these individuals are lower income, lower skilled workers. Therefore, what we know is in that regard, the lower skilled workers who pay into Social Security and Medicare take out more than they pay in. So this is not going to be positive, it seems to me, particularly when you account for the fact that a lot of people have scored this, but they have not scored it from the fact that most of the workers who will be paying Medicare and Social Security are lower income workers and they will be paying the lower rates. Not a huge difference, but it is a difference. So I would contend, I think, without fear of serious contradiction, although I expect political contradiction, that the off-budget money is your Medicare and Social Security money. See, you paid into that. The government, if it takes and spends it, does not have anything now to pay your Social Security and your Medicare benefits when you get old. We know it is already actuarially unsound. Those programs are in danger of defaulting a lot sooner than a lot of people think. We need to be saving these programs, not weakening them. So in the short run you get this bubble effect. You get an extra group of money. Since a lot of the workers are younger, it will look good on the budget for 10 years. It looks good on the budget for 10 years, but this is not money to be spent by the government. This is money that is dedicated to their retirement and will be drawn out by these individuals when they go into retirement. So I would suggest that this 10-year score, 2014 through 2023, shows that the real impact is a $14.2 billion dollar reduction--increase in the deficit of the United States over 10 years in the general fund account. The off-budget section says it reduces the deficit by $200 billion. But that money is utilized--it has to be in the trust fund to be utilized for future payments to these individuals when they retire. It is not money we can account for. The mixing of these two matters is one of the most dramatic ways this country has gotten itself into an unsound financial course. We have double counted this money repeatedly. We have money coming in to Social Security and Medicare and we spend it immediately. We pretend it is still there to pay for someone's retirement. This is going to be the same except it is guaranteed to be a financial loser over the long run. Again, I know Senator Sanders has talked about this, my colleague from Vermont. In a free market world, when you bring in more labor, the wages go down. I think CBO is probably underestimating this, frankly. Professor Borjas at Harvard, his numbers look more grim than these. But this is what they came up with. They have been trying to do guesswork and tell the truth the best they can, but they are getting a lot of pressure from the other side. A lot of Members here seem to think we can just bring in millions of people and those millions of people will somehow create more revenue. We are going to be like Jack Kemp. You know, everything is wonderful. It is just going to grow. But we have to be prudent. We have to be responsible. What we know is that since at least 1999, the wages of average American people have not kept up with inflation. That means those wages are on a net serious decline. Professor Borjas says it declined by 8 percent. That is very real. My Democratic colleagues used to be very critical when it was President Bush because it was all his fault that wages were not keeping up with inflation, people were being hurt. So now they do not talk about that anymore. If they do, they blame it on President Bush even though he has been gone 5 or 6 years. The reality is, I came to believe there is truth to this. It is not just a temporary cyclical thing that workers' wages have not been keeping up. I think it is something deeper than that. I think it is several things. Businesses are getting very intent on reducing the number of employees they have to produce certain products and widgets. They are getting far more efficient. So we are making more widgets with less people. If you go into plants like I do, you see these incredible robotics where you get dramatic improvements of productivity for widgets with less people. This creates, in some ways, unemployment. Last month we had a moderate increase in jobs in May, but there was an 8,000-job reduction in manufacturing. The increase was in service industries like restaurants and bars and that kind of thing. The increase was also temporary. So this is not healthy. You have this unhealthy trend out there when you bring in large amounts of labor, a majority of which the CBO says is low skilled, and you are hammering the American worker. Further, Peter Kirsanow, one of the outstanding members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, along with Abigail Thernstrom, a brilliant lady who has written on these matters over the years, they wrote a letter recently that warned that passage of this bill will harm poor people in America, particularly African Americans. They said they had hearings on this matter. They have had the best economists come and testify. They studied those reports. They say not a single one of the economists they dealt with denied that the wages would be pulled down or unemployment would go up. That is what CBO told us today: Unemployment will go up, wages will go down. We have good Republican colleagues and they cannot conceive that we are in such a circumstance. They just believe growth is always good, and if you bring in more people you will have more growth. That is correct. Let me tell you the brutal truth based on the in-depth analysis by Professor Borjas at Harvard. He says the prosperity, the growth enures to the benefit of the manufacturers, of the employers who use a lot of low-skilled labor. Their income will go up, but the average wage of the average working person will go down. That is what large flows of immigration will do when there is high unemployment. Peter Kirsanow, a member of the Civil Rights Commission, in his letter, said that it is absolutely false that we have a shortage of low-skilled labor. He says we have a glut of low-skilled labor. The facts show that. The number of people employed in the workforce today has reached the level of the 1970s. That was before women were going into the workplace. As a percentage of the American population, the percentage of people who actually have a job today has been falling steadily, and it has now hit the level of the 1970s. Now they are going to bring in all these masters of the universe, these geniuses who have this plan that somehow is going to fix everything. We will just bring in more people. We had a Senator today say that it is going to increase wages. How can that be? What economic study shows that? Not any, to my knowledge. CBO says--wages are going to fall. Unemployment is going to go up, and it is not going to fix our deficit either. I feel very strongly that we have to put on a realistic hat. We are going to have to ask ourselves: Whom do we represent? Are we representing a political idea that is going to bring in more votes? Are we representing people who entered the country illegally? Are those our first priority? Do we have any obligation to the people who fight our wars, raise our next generation of children, try to do the right thing, pay their taxes, want to be able to have a decent job, a decent retirement plan, have a vacation every now and then, and have a health care plan they can afford? Don't we owe them that? Shouldn't that be our primary responsibility right now? I think it is. I think that is our primary responsibility. One says: Well, don't you care about people who are here illegally? I say: Yes, I care about them. I care about them deeply. I think we can work on this situation to not be in a position to say we are going to deport all of those who are here illegally. We can treat people compassionately. We are going to do the right thing about that. In the future, should we have a work flow every year in that doubles the amount of guest workers who come in for the sole purpose of working and not becoming an immigrant, and should we increase the annual legal flow of immigrants from 1 million a year to 1.5 million a year, increasing it 50 percent? Is that what good legislation would do? I mean, how did this happen? Thomas Sowell, a Hoover Institution scholar and economist at Stanford University, says there are three interests out here. One is the immigrants. They win. This report says their salaries go up. The other one is the politicians. They have it all figured out. They have written a bill that they think serves their political interests. The question is, Who is representing the national interests? Who is representing the American people's interests? Were they in these rooms when the chamber of commerce was there, La Raza was there, the business groups, agricultural groups, the labor unions and Mr. Trumka were there dividing up the pie, making sure their interests were protected? Who was defending the interests of the dutiful worker who is out trying to find a job today? There was a report in the New York Times last week about an event in Queens. Apparently, there was a group of jobs that were going to be offered as elevator repair personnel in New York. The line started forming 5 days in advance. People brought their tents, they brought their food, they brought their sleeping bags, and they waited in line for days to be able to get a job as an elevator repair person. We have people saying these are jobs Americans won't do. That Americans won't work, and that's why we need more labor. Well, I always cut my own grass when I am home, but I am up here a lot, so there is a group that comes and cuts my grass in Mobile. These were two African-American gentlemen in their 40's. They came out, did a great job in the heat in Alabama, and took care of my yard. What is this--jobs Americans won't do? They want a job that has a retirement plan. They want a job that has some permanency to it. They want a job that has a decent wage. Americans will work, and all hard work should be honored. I will acknowledge that in seasonal work, temporary work, certain circumstances, we could develop a good migrant guest worker program that could serve this. Maybe in different times, if unemployment is low, we could justify bringing in even more workers than you would expect. But at a time of high unemployment, we have low participation in the workforce, and we ought to be careful about bringing in large amounts of labor that pleases rich businesses and manufacturing and agribusiness groups but doesn't necessarily protect the honest, decent, legitimate interests of American workers. I think they are being forgotten too often in this process. I wanted to push back to that. This report might look like it's saying that we are creating a service and we are reducing the debt. In one sense, on the on-budget analysis, the way we do our accounting around here, that impression is certainly created. It is a false impression, and it is that false understanding of the reality of the on-budget and off-budget accounting of revenue to America that has gotten us fundamentally in the problem we are now facing. Again, I repeat, the on-budget deficit, according to the CBO report, goes up over 10 years by $14 billion. It claims, though, that the deficit drops on the off-budget. Remember, that money is obligated. That is your withholding. That is your FICA. That is your Social Security, Medicare--withholdings on your paycheck. It goes up there, and it has been set aside for you, for your retirement, for your medical care when you are elderly. It is not available for us to spend today willy-nilly. And we think we have now created a circumstance where billions of dollars are being double-counted. Can you imagine that? That is what we are doing in this country. We are counting trillions of dollars--really double-counting it. Money that comes in we count in a unified budget as income to the budget, but it is dedicated income. We owe the people who paid it into their Social Security check, their Medicare coverage. It is owed to them. What we know is that when you have particularly lower--well, the whole program is unsustainable, but particularly the lower income workers pay in less than they will eventually take out over a lifetime. Adding all of these workers into the Social Security and Medicare system, where they pay in, will not place us on a sound path. Again, we need to be honest about where we are. The numbers do not look good. This Congress needs to wrestle with how to deal compassionately with the people who have been here a long time. We need to do it in a right way, but we have a responsibility, a financial duty to the people who sent us here to manage their money wisely and not make our financial situation worse than it is today. We have an obligation to try to figure out a way to reverse the steady, long-term trend of wage decline for millions of American workers. It needs to be getting better. What this report says is that if this bill is passed, this immigration bill is passed, it will make the long-term wage situation of Americans worse. How wrong a direction could that be? Look, if we let the labor market get a little tighter, we are going to find businesses that are willing to pay more to get a good worker. That is the free market. These business guys don't mind trying--Walmart seeks the very lowest priced product it can get, whether it is China or the United States. They are ruthless about it. It is free market, we say. We value it. OK, we support free market. But if there is a labor shortage, why shouldn't the laboring man be able to get a little higher wage for a change around here? This large flow of immigration will impact, adversely, their ability to find a job--unemployment will go up, according to the report--and we'll get a decrease in wages. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, last week I gave remarks on the floor that pointed out that promises made that the immigration bill before us was a significant move toward merit-based immigration and away from chain immigration--I dealt with that subject. I am not aware that any of my comments have fundamentally been disputed. The fact is that 30 million people will be given legal status as an immigrant on a pathway to citizenship over the next 10 years--that 30 million is three times the current legal flow of 1 million a year, which would be 10 million a year. It would triple the number of people put on a path to permanent legal residence and citizenship. Only 2.5 million of those would be admitted under this new, small, actually weak, merit-based section of the bill. This is nowhere close to the truly effective and popular merit-based immigration system which Canada adopted a decade--maybe more--ago and which is being followed and adopted in other developed countries around the world. Evidence has also been introduced that nonimmigrant guest workers-- that is, those who come not for immigration, to be a citizen and be permanent, but come to work for a period of time and return home--that group of workers will double under the legislation that is before us over current law. All of this is at a time of persistently high unemployment and when virtually all serious academics, economic experts agree that such a huge flow will depress wages of our middle-class workers and increase unemployment. Politicians blithely claim otherwise, but Professor Borjas at Harvard and the Federal Reserve in Atlanta and others have studied this, and they show otherwise with in-depth economic research. There is a long list of other promises. The reason I raise this is because these were promises that we are going to improve the working conditions of Americans, we are going to shift to a merit-based system. That is not correct. There are other promises. I made a speech and so have others that have clearly demonstrated that the triggers in the bill do not work. The triggers are supposed to say: You do not get legal status or you do not get green card status until these law enforcement issues are fixed, until the illegality is fixed. The triggers are ineffective. That has been documented. It really is not disputable, in my opinion. All the Secretary of Homeland Security has to do is to submit a plan that she says will work. It does not require any fencing or any other actions specifically. And she gets to determine whether it is working. If it does not meet the standards according to the Secretary, then a border commission is established, but the border commission has no power. It can only issue a report, and it dissolves in 30 days. So these promises that we have a very tough plan that is guaranteed through a series of triggers are not so. Today I will talk about the DACA program and how that has undermined law enforcement. Surely we can agree that congressional legislation is more than salesmanship, it is more than puffing, it is more than promises. Surely it represents a bill and a bill that must be read. The words of legislation are not a mere vision designed to touch our hearts. It is not something that the sponsors can come in and say: We believe the American people are correct. They want A, B, C, and D. We have a bill that does it. And then nobody reads the bill to determine whether it does it. So that is what I have been trying to do. Congress and the good American people do want to solve our immigration problems--problems that our politicians and government leaders have messed up for 30 years. The American people have pleaded with Congress to fix this system for 30 years. Congress has failed to do so. They continue to promise to do so but do not. Now, that is a fact. But legislative language is the real thing. Legislation is not a vision. Legislation has power--power to fix our broken system or power to allow the lawlessness to continue. Thus, it is legislation, not spin, that we will be voting on. A promise made by a gang is of no value if the bill language does not produce the results they promise. So that is the rub. That is the problem we face. Presumably there are ads running this very day which claim to be sponsored by conservative voices, founded by Mr. Zuckerberg of Facebook, no conservative to my knowledge, featuring Senator Rubio urging the passage of the bill. Indeed, Mr. Zuckerberg created a front group that is on the advertisement--they are called Americans for a Conservative Direction, that purports to be reflective of conservative thinking in America. I think that is a bit odd. It is odd right now that Senator Rubio, who is still talking to the American people on those ads and to my constituents in Alabama, is saying all of this on the ad when he has already said the bill is flawed and he cannot vote for it in its current circumstance. I think that advertisement ought to be pulled. Worse, virtually everything in the ad, especially in the voiceover-- not Senator Rubio--but the voiceover is false. It is not an accurate description of the legislation, what it does, how it will work. It is just not. If it was, I would be intrigued by this legislation and would be interested in thinking it should set sort forth a framework that most Americans agree would be a basis for immigration reform. So conservatives should be careful, no matter how sincere, in being part of promoting legislation that we do not fully understand or will not do what it claims it will do. A commitment to truth is a conservative value. I like all of the Gang of 8 members personally. I have worked with them for a number of years. I truly admire Senator Rubio. He is a fantastic new Member of the body. I understand the goals they articulate and would support most of those goals. So it is no pleasure for me to raise these uncomfortable points. But at this very minute, Mark Zuckerberg and his supporters are running these ads promoting legislation as doing something I do not believe it does. I think we should be working on that. I know we have had a number of our colleagues, another one of my good friends this weekend pronounced a political doctrine of the death spiral of the Republican Party. I have to tell you, we have a lot of people who make political prognostications. But the truth is who knows what political issues will dominate in 2016 or 2020 or 2030. Mr. President, is there a time agreement?

Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you. I did not realize that. How much time is remaining?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. The best politics, in my view, is to do the right thing for the right reason and to be able to explain what one is doing cogently and honestly to the American people, and then the people will decide. If they do not like your decisions over a period of time you are out. So be it. Is that not the way the system is supposed to work? It is not wrong to give respect to the opinions of the American people, to ask what they think about issues and how they react to issues. There is nothing wrong with that. Actually, we should do that. But it is not right to poll a large and complex issue to find out what people want and then propose legislation that you say fulfills their desires, when the legislation does not fulfill those desires. That is not the right thing to do, to promote good policy in America. As a matter of fact, polls show the American people want enforcement before amnesty by a 4-to-1 margin. Polls also show a clear majority actually favor a lower legal flow or the same amount of legal flow into our country from immigration.

Mr. SESSIONS. They do not favor the huge increase of legal flow that is called for in this bill. Maybe later I will be able to talk about some of the difficulties of enforcement under current law. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I earlier reported on some points in speeches I had made about some of the promises from the Gang of 8 concerning the legislation they have offered and why they are not fulfilled in their bill; for example, the triggers, and the merit-based movement they claim is significant in their legislation. I believe both of those are inaccurate. Today I wanted to point out how government officials are refusing to enforce our current law and the unease that causes all of us. This bill does not fix that problem but gives even more power and discretion to the political appointees to waive, moderate, and get around the enforcement requirements of this new bill. These are the requirements of enforcement that our bill's sponsors say are important and must happen, but the bill does not require it to happen in many different places. The story I will be telling is effective to explain why, despite the pleas from the American people for 30 years, lawlessness continues to rise in the immigration area and why we now have 11 million people here illegally. Senator Durbin earlier made a reference to the DREAM Act that he has worked hard on. It does present, for the most part, some of the most sympathetic claims for some sort of legalization in the country. The reason Congress rejected his legislation is because it overreached, in my opinion, which is not necessarily to say that it would have passed had it been more narrowly drafted. It did not pass, but the President of the United States did it anyway. The President of the United States just did it anyway. He issued a directive to Federal law enforcement officers: Don't enforce this law, this law, and this law. Instead, do it as we tell you to. That comes from the President to the Secretary of Homeland Security, to John Morton, and all the supervisors down to the officers. Officers are up in arms about this. The ICE officers who enforce these laws have voted no confidence in Mr. John Morton. Today Mr. Morton announced his resignation after quite a long time being the center of this controversy. ICE officers said they had no confidence in him. He basically spent his time promoting amnesty, meeting with special-interest groups, not helping them do their job, and directing them not to do what the law plainly required them to do. It put them in an untenable position of having to follow their boss's political direction and violate their oath to follow the law. Indeed, and amazingly, the law enforcement officers filed a lawsuit against Secretary Napolitano and Mr. Morton. They are claiming they are being forced to violate the law. The judge has allowed this case to go forward, and it is being reviewed. It is in court right now. I never heard, as a federal prosecutor of nearly 15 years, of such a thing where the officers are suing their supervisors who won't let them follow plain law. This is the problem we are dealing with. Over a year ago, as Senator Durbin mentioned earlier, the Obama administration implemented a backdoor amnesty for an estimated 1.7 million, a Pew estimate, illegal immigrants through a program called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the DACA Program. It covers aliens who entered the country illegally when they were under the age of 16 and not older than 31 as of June 15, 2012. Congress dealt with legislation to that effect and rejected it. It did not pass it. According to the published Department of Homeland Security guidelines, each DACA applicant is required to submit biographic and biometric information along with other information to prove they are eligible for the program. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS, is to process the applications. In a little under a year, USCIS has approved an astonishing 291,859 applicants. On May 20, Kevin Palinkas, president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Service Council, the union representing the 12,000 USCIS adjudication officers who were supposed to adjudicate these matters, issued a press release reporting ``a 99.5 percent approval rating for all illegal alien applications for legal status filed under the Obama administration's new deferred action for childhood arrivals, DACA, policies.'' He reported a 99.5-percent approval. He attributed the exceptionally high approval rate to policies implemented by the Department of Homeland Security leadership that essentially made it impossible to make any real effort to eliminate fraud or identify dangerous criminal aliens. He goes on to say: DHS and USCIS leadership have intentionally established an application process for DACA applicants that bypasses traditional in-person investigatory interviews with trained USCIS adjudications officers. These practices were put in place to stop proper screening and enforcement. He is saying the new policies that eliminate the interviews ``were put in place to stop proper screening and enforcement, and guarantee that applications will be rubber-stamped for approval, a practice that virtually guarantees widespread fraud and places public safety at risk.'' That is a pretty gutsy thing to say for a person who works in the Department of Homeland Security about his supervisors. I am sure he gave great thought to that. This press statement goes on to say: The attitude of USCIS management-- These are the political appointees. is not that the agency serves the American public or the laws of the United States, or public safety and national security, but instead that the agency serves illegal aliens and the attorneys which represent them. While we believe in treating all people with respect, we are concerned that this agency tasked with such a vital security mission is too greatly influenced by special interest groups--to the point that it no longer properly performs its mission. That is a strong statement. It should be something we listen to as we evaluate whether we need to give more discretion to these supervisors when we pass a new bill. Mr. Palinkas sent a letter to Congress on June 5 of this year, a few weeks ago, reiterating his concerns in light of S. 744. He wrote and said this bill ``would lead to the rubber-stamping of millions of applications for both amnesty and future admissions, putting the public safety and the taxpayer at risk.'' He further stated: In addition to the impossible time constraints imposed on each and every adjudicator to complete our assigned workloads, we are currently lacking the manpower, training, and office space to accomplish our mission and achieve what our jobs demand. These challenges cry out for reconsideration of S. 744 in its present form. A few days ago, a report released by Judicial Watch revealed that documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act confirm all of Mr. Palinkas' concerns. The documents reveal the administration has abandoned official background check procedures in order to keep up with the hundreds of thousands of amnesty applications under the program. For example, according to a September 17, 2012, e-mail from Associate Regional Director for Operations Gary Garman, field offices could expect the benefits center to conduct just ``lean & light'' background checks with only random samples of modified cases being sent to the field for verification. It goes on to say about the inadequacy of the applications submitted for amnesty under the ``lean & light'' system, St. Paul Field Director Sharon Cooley e-mailed staffers in October of last year with the following observation: As you are already aware the [applications] will not be as complete and interview ready as we are used to seeing. This is a temporary situation--I just can't tell you when things will revert back to the way things used to be. That is the kind of situation we are in today. Then, on November 9, 2012, last November, the entire agency was directed to halt all background checks. It is unknown how long USCIS stopped conducting background checks, but apparently they did. They may still be approving applications without background checks. We must conduct background checks to protect against public safety and national security threats. We can say that we want to move people out of the shadows, but if we don't complete the necessary background checks, those who are criminals or terrorists would be out of the shadows, and hiding in broad daylight with the absolute protection of legal immigration status. We should not transform them from the shadows to legal status without some sort of serious analysis of who they are, as the USCIS adjudicators and ICE officers tell us. If nobody is checking, nobody is digging into it, then this will become a common thing. They will just submit some false documentation, nobody will look at it, and they are home free. That is not the way we should be doing this. It is the kind of sliding, slipping away from real enforcement that has helped put us in the fix we are in today. This is troubling because the bill of the Gang of 8 gives Secretary Napolitano the discretion to determine the specifics of the amnesty application process for the entire 11 million people who will be given legal status in the country, including the responsibility or the discretion to determine the specific information required of the applicant; the form of the application, paper or electronic--and electronic ought to be a big part of it because we can immediately check with the National Crime Information Center on criminal backgrounds. It would be easier whether any applicant is actually going to be interviewed or not. It also requires the Secretary to collect biometric, biographic, and other data the Secretary deems appropriate for use in conducting ``national security and enforcement clearances,'' which is left undefined. Knowing the administration is so determined to accelerate these other clearances, we can assume they would not be following strictly any of the law as it would be passed. This is why our law enforcement officers are concerned about the bill. This is what is causing them angst. If the administration does not currently do even minimum interviews under the DACA Program they are not going to do it in the future when we have 11 million people being cleared. These clearances should include checks against Federal and State law enforcement databases, both biometric and biographic, including the Department of Homeland Security and FBI databases, the consolidated watch list, and ``lookout,'' and the biometric immigration databases. They are there to identify people who may be in violation of the law, have warrants out for their arrest for murder, drug dealing, or robbery, and are on a terrorist watch list. That is why we have these systems. I offered an amendment during the Judiciary Committee markup that would have mandated those checks as well as allowed for electronic filing of applications so that information could be easily checked against the law enforcement electronic data bases. It would have required in-person interviews where national security or public safety concerns arise, not interviewing everybody--although we really probably should interview everybody. But my amendment just said for those where national security or public safety concerns arise. Under this legislation, the Secretary doesn't have to interview a single amnesty applicant. But my amendment was rejected. This is a quote from the bill's lead sponsor, Senator Schumer, when talking about requiring such safeguards being unacceptable because they would ``slow things down dramatically. It will be impossible--it could take a year, 18 months, 2 years before this would be effectuated. We hope that most folks could get in[to] within 6 months.'' So I would say this is the plan: We say we have an effective background check system for all those who are going to be applying to be put on a guaranteed path to citizenship. We say to the American people we have a system, while failing to require any of that in any effective way. Mr. President, I don't know, do we have a time limit on these remarks? I see some of my colleagues here.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. A quick turnaround of applications seems to be far more important to the Gang of 8 than the issue of identifying people who may be a threat to public safety--criminals who may have warrants out for them and who may have been arrested or served time for felonies. We need to know that. They are not supposed to be given status if they have been convicted of a felony. This is despite what we learned from the 1986 amnesty. The failure to conduct adequate background checks in 1986 and vet for national security threats enabled both criminals and terrorists to be legalized. A 2009 report by the Homeland Security Institute, prepared at the request of the USCIS Ombudsman in anticipation of immigration reform concluded: The potential volume of new cases generated by immigration reform legislation could overwhelm USCIS capabilities and capacities. I think that is true. The report also warned: It is important to recognize that every ineligible illegal immigrant who comes across the border during the preparation and implementation phases of any new legalization program intending to apply for legal status entails yet another possible fraudulent application for a limited number of adjudicators to weed out. In other words, we are going to have people coming right now--the immigration flow has picked up dramatically--once they hear amnesty is afoot. If we don't have any ability to do the kind of fundamental checking here, everybody will be successful and fraudulent applications will be cleared in large numbers. The bill does not require the Secretary to interview a single amnesty applicant, including those who might pose a national security risk. Even the 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill mandated in-person interviews, with terrorism concerns being one of the reasons. The 1986 amnesty required face-to-face interviews, but no routine interviews are being conducted under the President's DACA Program--his amnesty for those who came here as teenagers--and there is no reason to expect there will be anything done in this program either, which is 22 times larger. Interviews are very important. Not interviewing applicants for admission to the country facilitated the 9/11 hijackers, hundreds of terrorists who have entered the country since the 1990s, and most recently was a contributing factor to the Boston Marathon terrorist attack. The 9/11 Commission concluded that: There were opportunities to stop both World Trade Center pilots in secondary interviews at the border. That did not happen. We also know that not having a fifth man on the Pennsylvania flight mattered as well. Al-Kahtani's turn- around at Orlando International Airport after an extensive secondary interview meant there were only four hijackers on the flight headed for either the White House or the Capitol. That plane was overrun by the passengers who knew their plane was headed for disaster, and gave their lives to stop the hijackers. This one secondary interview prompted by two astute border inspectors in Orlando determined how many hijackers the passengers had to fight on Flight 93. Press reports indicate that Boston bomber Tamarlan Tsarneav was watchlisted, but because of a ``downgrade'' on the watchlist, he was not placed in a secondary interview when he returned from six months in Russia in 2011. If Tsarneav had been interviewed, and even slightly questioned about where he had been and why, knowing he was already watchlisted, then he could well have been further interviewed by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. Because the bill does not require basic checks, the bill will continue to allow terrorists and criminals to exploit weaknesses in our immigration system and use it to gain legal status. Indeed, the bill specifically permits the Secretary to streamline applications for adjustment of status of those who were recipients of the administration's DACA initiative. In fact, in the Justice Department's brief recently filed in Crane v. Napolitano, in which ICE agents have sued DHS leadership over policies that they believe require them to violate the law and their oath, the Obama administration made clear that it believes it ``inherently'' has almost unbridled discretion in the matter of immigration enforcement. It even argued that the federal court has no jurisdiction to review or question DHS's decisions. The court disagreed. This bill surrenders to the executive branch's overreach. In fact, many provisions inexplicably weaken the law with regard to future illegal immigration and we are going to talk more about that as this debate continues. If this bill is going to secure the border and end illegal immigration ``once and for all'' as its sponsors say it will, these provision that weaken law enforcement must be removed. The American people rightly expect their government to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and keep its promises. But given this administration's refusal to enforce the laws currently on the books, the American people have no reason to believe that the loopholes, waivers and discretion granted to the administration will not be used, as they are being used now, to reduce enforcement and public safety.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to take a moment to do something special. This week, the Senate community will say goodbye to Marcus Peacock, my staff director on the Senate Budget committee. During his tenure with the committee, he has been a constant warrior for sound finances and this country that he so loves. I am going to miss his exemplary service, and the Nation will miss his service. Marcus has been with me since I became ranking member on the Budget Committee. During that time, he has helped my staff and me negotiate and navigate the intricacies, quirks, and arcana of the budget process, which, as anyone with budget experience will tell you, can be a most daunting and frequently frustrating task, even for the most savvy budgeteer. He has approached every task and every challenge with his trademark sunny disposition, remarkable unflappability, and can-do attitude. During his tenure with the Budget Committee, Marcus was instrumental in crafting the Honest Budget Act--we need that around here-- legislation that I introduced in 2011 that exposed some of the most egregious budget gimmicks, gimmicks that are often utilized to get around budget requirements. Together we have achieved a string of victories on budget points of order. I think as many as maybe seven consecutive times the Senate has failed to proceed with spending bills that exceeded our budget limits. That is a very significant achievement. He has been able to therefore expose, and frustrate, some of Washington's spendthrift ways. I was very glad to have him at my side when the Senate finally produced its first budget in 3 years. It had been so long since the last budget that everyone was a little rusty, and I was grateful to have his counsel. Marcus brought invaluable experience to his leadership of the Budget Committee staff because he's spent his professional career creating and implementing ways to measure and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government programs. Whether he was managing oversight efforts on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, leading the Performance Improvement Initiatives at the Office of Management and Budget under President Bush, or ferreting out waste and inefficiency as the Deputy Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, Marcus has always been a careful steward of taxpayers' dollars. It is their money. It comes to us in trust. We have an absolute duty to show fidelity to it. Marcus imposed those same principles at the helm of the Senate Budget Committee, turning back 15 percent of his staff budget every year, coming in 15 percent below the allocated amount--something I was very proud of. I would be remiss if I also did not thank Marcus' wife Donna and their two lovely daughters, Iona and Mey, for loaning his time to public service. Hours on the Hill can be long and I know he's missed a recital or sports match here and there, and probably several ``date nights'' too. So thank you Donna, Iona, and Mey. Truly, Marcus Peacock is one of the finest public servants I have ever had the honor to work with. His character and integrity are sterling. He honors his family. Surely he is a role model for a high public servant. Marcus, I know I speak on behalf of the entire staff of your Budget Committee when I say that we will miss your wit, your leadership, and your dedication to good government. I wish you the very best of luck. I know our paths will cross again.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to share some remarks, and I appreciate the eloquence of my friend and colleague from West Virginia on the issue he just mentioned. The committee did reduce almost by half the amount that contractors could bill, and we may see further changes in that issue. But when we are talking about money, real money, there is a problem we have with the bill that came out of committee. It is such a grim, serious matter that we have to talk about it, we have to be up front about it, and nobody can be confused about it. I was pleased with Chairman Levin. He is a wonderful chairman of our committee. We have consistently had bipartisan votes. I wanted it to be a bipartisan vote for the bill and voted for it today, but I am not sure that was the right vote because I said during the committee that we have a serious problem in the amount of money that was appropriated for the bill, $52 billion over the current law. There is a hope and belief that we can fix that gap between now and the time it comes to the floor. Secretary Hagel was before the Budget Committee yesterday. I am the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. He indicated he is working on a plan to help us be within the law. He also indicated that to Chairman Levin and Ranking Member Inhofe on the Armed Services Committee. But let's be sure what the situation is. August 2011 we had run up huge debt. We had hit our debt ceiling again. The administration and the President wanted to raise the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion, one of the largest--or maybe the largest--raise of the debt ceiling in history. That was supposed to take us 2 or 3 years. Well, we have already hit that debt ceiling again now it appears. Soon we will be having to pass legislation. All the little extensions and maneuvering to extend the debt ceiling a little longer are being exercised, and we will soon have to vote again to raise the debt ceiling. But in August of 2011, after much intensity of effort, legislation passed. I opposed it. One of my biggest concerns was what it was doing to the defense budget. But the bill passed. It set up a committee, and the committee was to deal with future cuts and long-term entitlement programs and other programs. That was their goal. They were given that challenge. Fundamentally, the bill that passed raised the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion, but it reduced the growth of spending over the next 10 years by $2.1 trillion. Unfortunately, those reductions in the growth of spending fell disproportionately on the Defense Department. I will mention that in a minute. But the agreement was clear. There were no tax increases. There were no other gimmicks to it other than the spending level would be reduced over 10 years by $2.1 trillion. We were then spending at the level of $3.7 trillion a year, which would mean $37 trillion over 10 years. We were on track to spend $47 trillion over 10 years--a substantial increase from the current level. So the agreement was that it would reduce the growth to $45 trillion instead of $47 trillion. There was a hope that the committee would reach an even more historic agreement in which entitlements--Social Security and Medicare--would be put on a firm foundation, and we would get the country on the right track. The committee failed. They did not reach an agreement. So in law there remains the BCA, and within the Budget Control Act there was the sequester, and the sequester would take another $500 billion. The BCA took about $500 billion out of the defense budget, and the sequester part of the BCA took another. When the committee didn't reach an agreement, that was another $500 billion to be taken out of the Defense Department, $1 trillion. The Defense Department represents one-sixth of the Federal budget, almost $1 trillion out of the defense, one-sixth of the government. That is one-half of the cuts that were to be taken from our entire government. When we look at the numbers over 10 years, the defense budget adjusted for inflation would take a 14-percent reduction in its funding, whereas the remaining five-sixths of the Federal Government would have a 44-percent increase in its funding. This is the kind of malapportionment of belt tightening that ought not to happen. So I thought--and I believe the American people thought--that we should get together with the President and see how we can avoid this problem and spread the cuts out through other agencies and departments, many of which had no reductions whatsoever. Of course, Social Security had no reduction whatsoever. Medicaid--one of the fastest growing programs of all--had zero reduction in spending under sequester. Food stamps had gone from $20 billion to $80 billion, increased fourfold in 12 years, and got zero cuts. A lot of other programs got zero cuts; whereas, the Defense Department was getting hammered. People think, well, the war is coming down and the Defense Department can handle it. No, that is not the way it works. The war costs are entirely separate. This is a reduction of the base defense budget, where we pay our soldiers, pay our electric bills, maintain our aircraft, our ships, our ports, and our bases around the world. That is what is being cut, the fundamental strength of the military, and it is too much. Can they survive it? Not without doing some damage. Sure, they will survive it, and they will be able to get by. But what ought to be done is we ought to get together with the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military, work with the Secretary of Defense, former-Senator Chuck Hagel, get together and figure out a way to have some other parts of this government take some of the reductions in spending that have fallen disproportionately on the Defense Department. It is just that simple. I suggested to Secretary Hagel yesterday at the Budget Committee that, yes, he ought to be talking with Congress; yes, we have eventually the power of the purse; but nothing is going to happen in the Senate that President Obama doesn't agree to. Senator Reid is not going to support anything President Obama doesn't agree to. It looks to me like the Members of the Democratic caucus are going to stick together on this issue. They have so far. Months have gone by and sequester hasn't been fixed. So I said: I assume, Mr. Secretary, you have the phone number to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I think you had better call over there to the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military, who has an obligation to the men and women he is deploying all over the world and sending into harm's way, and who has an obligation to maintain the strength of our military. Yes, it can be more efficient. It has already taken $500 billion in cuts, and it may take a little more. But these cuts are more than can be easily assimilated. I just believe this has drifted to a point where we are in a serious predicament. The military has already had to lay off civilian workers of the U.S. Government for 11 days, furloughed without pay, and done other things to try to stay within the financial constraints they are now under because the cuts are beginning to bite. So that is the situation. I want to say to my colleagues, I do not believe the Defense bill that came out of committee--and we had a nice discussion today on multiple issues that are important to America's defense, and we had a good collegial feeling. I don't believe that bill should pass the Senate--I don't believe it will pass the Senate--if it violates the spending limits we voted on just 2 years ago. Just think of it. We agreed to reduce the growth of spending from $37 billion now at that rate 2 years ago. We were going to let it grow to 47, we reduced the growth to 45, and we come back to the American people and say we can't effect that now? We can't reduce the growth and spending just that little bit? We promised you that we would raise the debt ceiling, but I know it made you angry, American people. You were mad at us because we mismanaged your money. But we promise, we will reduce the growth of spending by $2.1 trillion. Trust us. We will do it. And here we are. President Obama, 6 months later, produced a budget that wiped out all those cuts and increased taxes, taxes and spending. This has been the pattern we have been in. I have to say, we do not need to have this happen. So I am prepared to meet with the President. I am prepared to meet with the Secretary of Defense, the Office of Management and Budget, and talk about where we can find other reductions in spending and reduce some of the reductions on the Defense Department. We need to reduce a good many of those, frankly. Then the Defense Department can phase in some reductions in spending over the outyears. They can do that. But too much too fast is destabilizing. No business would do that. So we have to figure out a way to make this system work. I was pleased to work with Senator Levin and Senator Inhofe today. I want to be cooperative and be positive in our efforts. I like much of what we did with the authorization bill in the Armed Services Committee, but we just didn't talk about the elephant in the room; that is, the sequester, the real danger we have there. We are going to have to discuss it now. It will be part of the floor discussion and debate if it is not fixed. It can be fixed. I think we are all prepared to work for it. I don't believe this country will sink into the ocean. I don't believe this country is going to have to close its ports. I don't believe this country is going to have to end tours at the White House to reduce the growth of spending by $2 trillion, from $47 trillion to $45 trillion over the next 10 years. I don't believe that is going to bankrupt us. But we ought to do it in a smart way. We should have every agency and department of government tighten their belts, not just some. We slipped into this when the sequester was written to try to effect some political result that didn't occur, and now, as a responsible Senate, we have to consider what is right for America. The right thing is to have all agencies and departments tighten their belts and reduce the pressure that is now falling on our Defense Department. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, one of the things I have found intriguing, and was glad to hear, was the bill sponsors of S. 744--the comprehensive immigration bill--indicated they had a plan that would move us to a more merit-based system of immigration. They made that promise. It is something I advocated in 2007. I had the opportunity to meet with the chairman of the Canadian system while in Canada and we talked about their merit-based system. It is a very significant system, a major change in how they handle immigration in Canada. He was very pleased with it. Fundamentally, they sought to admit people into Canada who would have the best chance of being successful in Canada. They can't admit everybody into Canada. No other country I know of has no limit on the number of people who enter. But they wanted to say who could be the most successful, who would do the best, and who should flourish in Canada, so they gave points for people with more education, people who already spoke English, people who had the job skills Canada needs, younger people, and matters such as that. It was designed to serve the Canadian national interest. It has been in place for a number of years now, it actually works, and they are very happy with it. So when I heard this might be a part of the immigration reform bill, I was pleased. It is important to emphasize, first, that merit-based immigration is separate from the doubling of the guest workers who come in under the bill. Because guest workers come in under other categories. I am referring now to immigrants--people who come to the country with plans to stay permanently. The merit-based system, as I understood it, was to focus on that group and rightly so. The merit- based provisions don't include the temporary workers. They have their own category. But when I actually review the bill, it is clear this promise of a merit-based system is not met. The promise is not met to any significant degree. It is another example of the promoters of the legislation overpromoting and selling something that is popular, but when one reads the bill, it is not there. So I wish to talk about the legislation and go through it on this particular subject. The bill is 1,000 pages and deals with quite a lot of issues and each one of them are very important. The merit-based system has had almost no discussion in the process so far and it needs to be discussed. It is the reason, I believe, we would be better off to have brought up pieces of legislation that deal with the characteristics of the people we would like to have enter the country in the future, to deal with border security, to deal with the visa system, to deal with workplace enforcement, and to deal with internal enforcement, individually and separately. But, no, we have this monumental 1,000-page bill, with all kinds of things in it. The sponsors say: We have taken care of this problem. We have taken care of border security. We have taken care of the visa system, and, by the way, we have a great plan. The system is going to be merit based now. The proponents of the legislation have said the bill decreases annual family-based immigration by reducing the cap on family-based visa systems. These are immigrants who come to the country based on relationships with people here. They say: We will reduce that from 226,000 to 161,000. However, the bill actually increases overall family-based immigration by allowing an unlimited number of visas each year for children and spouses of green card holders. It grows the number further by allowing the visas that would have gone to them under the old system to be used by other family-based visa applicants. The bill also does not change current law, which allows an unlimited number of family-based visas for parents of U.S. citizens each year. One of the largest and fastest growing chain migration categories is parents. According to the Department of Homeland Security yearbook statistics in 2012, 124,210 parents adjusted their status to legal permanent resident through this category. Canada does the opposite. Canada says it benefits more if they have young people come. They have a full working life, they pay into the pension plans, and that is fine. That works well. But they give less points for older people for the very same reason. This is a big increase we are seeing there. And the number of merit- based visas pales in comparison to the family-based visas under the bill. So the total number of merit-based visas in this category is much smaller than the family-based visas in this legislation. For example, the new merits section allows for up to 250,000 a year. These are people who would apply and claim they have certain merit qualities that justify being ranked higher on the list. That is almost exactly the number of petitions that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services currently receives every year in just sibling and married sons and daughters family-based visa category. So the 250,000-- the maximum number under the merit system--is almost exactly the same as the number of brothers and sisters and married sons and daughters in the family-based category. According to the liberal group the Center for American Progress, the annual flow of family-based immigrants will be over 800,000--three times higher than the number of merit-based visas offered each year. The Migration Policy Institute notes this: The Senate bill would lift numerical limits and increase the number of permanent visas issued on the basis of nuclear family ties. The Migration Policy Institute effectively and correctly notes this: The Senate bill would dramatically expand options for low- and middle-skilled foreign workers to fill year-round longer term jobs and ultimately qualify for permanent residence. So this is a serious matter. Does the bill move to a merit-based system or does it dramatically expand immigration of low- and middle- skilled foreign workers to fill long-term jobs and move to qualify for permanent residence? I think there is no doubt about it. The Migration Policy Institute is correct in that analysis. It would be so good if we had moved a lot further in the merit-based system, but the bill just doesn't. The bill's proponents also suggest that the bill reduces chain migration by eliminating siblings--brothers and sisters--and married children categories from the family-based visa system. However, the bill awards points in the new merit-based system to siblings and married children, allowing the same chain migrants to receive merit- based visas ahead of many highly skilled and educated merit-based visa applicants. So what I am saying is that the merit-based system gives points, but it also gives points if you have family here--a lot of points. Proponents of the bill argue that the merit-based system will ensure that more highly skilled and educated aliens will receive visas because the point system favors education, employment, and English proficiency. However, points are also allocated for nonmerit-based factors, such as family ties, civic involvement, and by virtue of being an alien from a country from which few aliens have emigrated. That is sort of like the former diversity visa. The merit-based visa system favors chain migrants over highly skilled and educated applicants by allocating more points to nonmerit-based factors. Let's look at it. For example, an alien who wants to apply to the United States who has a college degree, a 4-year bachelor's degree, is given 5 points because they have more education. However, an alien who wants to come to the United States can also receive 5 points for simply being a national of a country from which few aliens have been admitted. Also, an alien who is a sibling of a citizen of the United States would receive the same amount of points as an alien with a master's degree-- 10 points--and 5 more points than an alien with a college degree. So this brother or sister would also receive more points than an alien with 3 years of experience in an occupation requiring extensive preparation, such as a surgeon. So what I am saying is that through a backdoor way they claim they have a merit system, but, again, vast advantages are given based on family connections. So we could have two people from Honduras apply to come to the United States. One was valedictorian of his high school class, has a 4- year college degree, speaks English, and is anxious to come to America and go to work, and the other one dropped out of high school, doesn't speak English, and doesn't even have a high school degree. Well, if that one had a brother in the United States, he would be accepted before the more educated student graduate. I think that is wrong. In tier 2, a brother or sister of a citizen would receive the same amount of points as an alien lawfully present and employed in the United States in an occupation that requires medium preparation, which can include air traffic controllers, commercial pilots, and registered nurses. But this is only a fraction of the chain family-based migration that will occur over the next 10 years under this legislation because the 11 million illegal immigrants who are given green cards and even citizenship will be able to bring in their families as well over time, and they can be approved on an expedited basis. For example, there are an estimated 2.5 million who would benefit under the DREAM Act provisions of the legislation. If they came here as children, they get accelerated process; they will be eligible for citizenship in 5 years. Again, that 2.5 million will be able to bring their parents also. DREAM Act beneficiaries will also be able to bring in an unlimited number--without any count--of parents, spouses, and children, and those spouses, children, and parents will get permanent legal status in an additional 5 years and will be eligible for citizenship in 10. An estimated 800,000 illegal agricultural workers today would become legal permanent residents, green card holders, in 5 years and will then be eligible to bring in an unlimited number of spouses and children. An estimated 8 million additional illegal immigrants who are here today would be given legal status, including recent arrivals from as late as December of 2011. Millions of visa overstay persons will receive legal status and work authorizations. These 8 million will be able to bring in their relatives as soon as 10 years from now, and those relatives, over time, will be able to bring in spouses, children, and parents. None of those will come in on a merit-based system. They are not depending on their education. They are not depending on their health. They will just be able to come under the rules that will be set forth in this bill. There are an estimated 4.5 million aliens awaiting employment and family-based visas under current cap limitations. We have 4.5 million who have applied to come, but there are limits on how many people can come per year under the current law. But large parts of those caps and limits will be completely eliminated under the legislation. So an estimated 4.5 million who are waiting now outside of America for their time to come will be cleared over a period of years, not subject to the family-based annual cap, thus freeing room for more family-based migration that would be subject to an annual cap. Over the next decade the bill would legalize well over 30 million applicants. Colleagues, we need to understand that. Under current law, our processes call for the legalization of 1 million people a year. We are the most generous Nation in the world, but you have to know that if this bill passes, we will be giving permanent legal status to 30 million people in the next 10 years. Over 2.5 million of those people would be through the new merit-based system. So out of 30 million, only 2.5 million would be admitted under the merit-based system, and even among those 2.5 million, many will be admitted because they get extra points for being family members. But there is a larger issue as well. Median income has declined in America since Congress last considered immigration reform. Income in America for working Americans has been declining. I hate to say it, but it is true. I have seen recent statistics. From 1999 to today we have seen an 8-percent reduction in real take-home pay of working Americans. Some say that for the last 30 years we have had a basic erosion of the salary base of working Americans. That is very serious. Yet this bill roughly triples the annual flow of legal immigrants--largely low- skilled legal immigrants, not high-skilled college graduates--and doubles the flow of temporary guest workers, which is an entirely separate group from the one I have been talking about. Do my colleagues have any concerns about how this will impact the falling incomes of our middle-class American citizens? Has any thought been given to that? Has anybody considered that if we bring in more people than the economy can absorb, this will create unemployment, place people on welfare and dependency, deny men and women the ability to produce an income sufficient to take care of their families, make them dependent on the State because we simply don't have enough jobs? Well, we don't have enough jobs now. That is an absolute fact. We had an increase in unemployment this last month. We had a decline of 8,000 jobs in manufacturing. The bulk of the increases in jobs was in service industries, such as restaurants and bars, and part-time workers. We have a serious problem, and our colleagues need to be asking themselves, can I justify this kind of huge increase in immigration when we can't find jobs for current Americans? And what about the millions living in poverty today and chronically unemployed? What about the nearly one in two African American teenagers who are unemployed today? They need to get started in the workforce, but if they have to compete against somebody who came here under a work visa program who is 30 years of age who would be glad to work for minimum wage or lower, they don't have a chance to get started. Can one of the sponsors explain to me the economic justification for adding four times more guest workers than proposed in the bill in 2007 at a time when more than 4.6 million more Americans are out of work today than in 2007? Can one of the sponsors answer this basic question: How will this legislation protect struggling American workers? How will it help them? Oh, it may help some meatpacker or some large agribusiness. They may get a gain from it. But will it help the millions of middle-class working Americans who need jobs, need pay raises, need to be able to have health care and retirement benefits? I am worried about that. We need to talk about that. Some people are talking about it on the outside, but it is almost not discussed within this Chamber. Will the flowing of this many new workers raise wages or reduce wages? Will it make it harder for a husband or a wife, a son or a daughter, a grandchild or a granddaughter to get a job at a decent wage? Wages have been going down, unemployment is up--the lowest percentage of people in the workforce in America today since the 1970s. How can we justify this? Somebody needs to talk about it. We have people who are optimistic. They think we will just bring in millions of people and somehow jobs will accrue, but it doesn't appear to be so. To whom do we owe our loyalty? To some business that would like to have more labor? Or to the American people who fight our wars, obey our laws, raise their children and pay their taxes to this country--when they are working and can pay taxes? To whom is our loyalty owed? We need to ask those questions. I appreciate the fact that the Gang of 8 has stated they believe in a merit-based kind of program that would bring in more people and convert our system from low-skilled immigration to a higher skilled immigration. Unfortunately, it makes far too little advancement in that regard. We cannot accept such a meager alteration in our system. Canada went much further toward a merit-based system than we did, and that is what we need to do. There are a lot of statistics out there that show that an immigrant who comes to America with 2 years of college or more, speaking English, does very well in our country. They tend to flourish, tend to do well financially. They tend to pay more in taxes than they take out. But for those who are less skilled, the opposite is true. It is obvious the Nation should seek to advance its national interest by welcoming more people who have the ability to be successful and flourish in our great country. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would note that Senator Grassley just offered in a few minutes to commence voting on two amendments in the normal way we proceed. I think that was a very reasonable request. We have to be careful. These amendments represent important changes to a historic piece of legislation. We cannot just throw up a bunch of amendments here at the beginning, when people have not had time to digest them. So I think that as we proceed, we are going to need to be sure that it is not some situation where people are bringing up an amendment and it has to be voted on an hour or so later. People have not had time to fully digest it. I think the offer by Senator Grassley is very reasonable.

Mr. SESSIONS. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield to Senator Cornyn such time as he would consume.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we have before us a 1,000-page bill that is extremely difficult to read and to understand. We are being asked to vote on it, and Majority Leader Reid indicated that he wants a list of amendments, and presumably no more would be agreed to, and he is going to pick and choose which ones he would approve by the end of this week. I believe that is very premature. I do not believe that is the way we should be proceeding. We have to have the time to sufficiently analyze all the complexities that are here. I have to say to my gang members who produced this bill, this tome, that you spent months working on it with special interest groups and lawyers and the Obama administration's staff, and you produced a bill, and now we have to rush it through the Senate, and I don't think that is the right thing to do. Let me read from one of the sections in the bill. And I hope my colleagues know that if they begin to read the bill, they will know how hard it is. This is not an easy bill to read. You have to study it, and you have to have lawyers reading it, and you have to find out what the exceptions are and what the limitations are and what the additions are. The lawyers who wrote it know. The Gang of 8 doesn't know, I assure you. They don't know all the details that are in this legislation. It is not possible for them to do so. The people who are writing it--the special interest groups, union groups, business groups, ag business groups, meat packers group, LaRaza, immigration lawyers association-- all of them were working on it. They know what the impacts are. But how about this section right here from the guest worker section. This is subparagraph (B), Numerical Limitation. This apparently has to do with the number of people who would be admitted: Subject to subparagraph (D), the number of registered positions that may be approved by the Secretary for a year after the fourth year referred to in paragraph (1)(A)(iv) shall be the equal of--get this--subparagraph (i), the number of such registered positions available under this paragraph for the proceeding year, and, subparagraph (ii), the product of subparagraph (I), the number of such registered positions available under this paragraph for the preceding year, multiplied by subparagraph (II), the index for the current year calculated under subparagraph (C). Do you think that is easy to understand? But it has meaning, and what it basically means is that this bill is going to allow more workers to come into this country than we have ever allowed before at a time when unemployment is extraordinarily high, our ability to reduce unemployment is down, wages are down, and our workers are falling below the inflation rate in their wages for years. How about the second paragraph? Now, I am just reading this. So we are going to rush this through? Really? Subparagraph (C), Index: The index calculated under this subparagraph for a current year equals the sum of subparagraph (i), one-fifth of a fraction, subparagraph (I), the numerator of which is the number of registered positions that registered employers apply to have approved under subsection (e)(1) for the preceding year minus the number of registered positions approved under subsection (e) for the preceding year and, subparagraph (II), the denominator of which is the number of registered positions approved under subsection (e) for the preceding year. I am sure we all got that. I am sure we know exactly what that means. And it goes on: Subparagraph (iii), three-tenths of a fraction, subparagraph (I), the numerator of which is the number of unemployed U.S. workers for the preceding year minus the number of unemployed U.S. workers for the current year and, subparagraph (II), the denominator of which is the number of unemployed U.S. workers for the preceding year. And then it goes on: Subparagraph (iv), three-tenths of a fraction. It goes on. Somebody knows what that means because you had special interests in charge of writing this big monstrosity. They were there. They wanted their deal. I would say to my colleagues and to those in the Gang of 8--and I know they want to do the right thing and have worked hard, but they got off on the wrong track. The papers reported for weeks: Well, the unions are here and the chamber of commerce is here and the ag workers and ag industry people are here, and they want more workers for this, and this one is demanding more workers for that. And our Senators are over here somehow letting them all hammer it out, and that is how this writing comes up. It came from them. The Senators didn't write this. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were putting in numbers to get certain workers that businesses wanted so they can have more employees and they can keep wages down. That is what the scheme was-- more workers, less competition for labor, loose labor market, fewer pay raises, less overtime, fewer benefits because the employer has options. Remember, these are guest workers. These are not people on a citizenship path. They are not here to form corporations and hire millions of people and cure cancer. These are workers who come in and work for existing corporations. I would emphasize that some thought needs to be given to that. We haven't talked about that yet. We are going to talk about it. This large of an increase in immigration into our country has real impact, and a lot of the numbers and a lot of the data that is out there has not been challenged, and the data indicates that we are already at a point where the flow of immigrant labor into America is depressing wages, and it is a big factor in the cause of workers' wages today being 8 percent, in real terms, below what they were in 1999. Wages haven't been going up. Democrats used to talk about it. They used to hammer President Bush on it all the time. Now that Barack Obama has been in office for 5 years, you don't hear them talking about it anymore. Well, Senator Sanders talked about it on the floor last week. I give him credit for that. Of course, he is an Independent. But I haven't heard my Democratic colleagues continue to repeat the fact that steadily we are seeing a decline in wage rates in America, making it harder for middle-class Americans to get by--and what about even finding a job? So it is not a small matter. We are going to have to talk about this. We don't need to rush this through. It seems quite clear--crystal clear--to me that the Gang of 8 never discussed this. They certainly didn't call Professor Borjas at Harvard. Dr. Borjas is the leading expert on immigration and labor and the impact of it in America. He has written books on it. I believe his study says that a 40-percent fall in wages for American citizens is attributable to the current flow of immigrant labor into America. It pulls down wages. It is free market. If you bring more cotton into America, the price of cotton falls. If you bring in more labor, the price of labor falls. That is the way the market forces work. He said this is a factor right now. But we need to understand that if 15 million people are legalized virtually immediately and the guest worker program appears to double the number of people who will come in and the immigrant flow, permanent immigrant flow of people who want to become citizens will increase 50 percent, then we will have one of the largest increases in flow of labor to America we have ever seen, and we cannot get jobs with decent pay for American workers right now. That is real out there. People are worried about their families. They are worried about their children's ability to get a job. They are worried about their grandchildren's ability to get a job. They are about to graduate from high school. They don't have a college degree. Maybe they don't plan to go to college. They are willing to work. Jobs are not that plentiful. Did you see the article, in Philadelphia, I believe it was, that they said they had job openings to try to help people who have had a criminal conviction in their background. They expected 1,000 people and 3,000 showed up. They had to cancel it and reset the whole deal because they interviewed people who said you cannot find a job in Philadelphia. In New York, one of the boroughs of New York, there was a very interesting article just 2 weeks ago about job openings for elevator mechanics. People waited 5 days--they took tents out--to stay in line to try to get those jobs. The number of people waiting in line was 20 times the number of jobs that were out there or more. So we are going to reward people who entered the country illegally? We have to understand in this bill right here, if the bill is passed, the people who have come here--many are in the shadows and that is correct and that is a sad thing and it is a difficult thing--but those individuals also will be able to go apply for the elevator mechanic job. They will also be able to compete for employment in Philadelphia, where right now they might not be so able to contribute. It raises real questions. I wish to mention this. This is from this Saturday from the Washington Post. You heard that there are good job numbers, right? The job numbers were not so great it appears to me: 175,000 jobs were created last month, according to the Washington Post, based on new government data that was released Friday. The Labor Department said unemployment went up from 7.5 to 7.6, so the unemployment rate went up, even though the number of jobs was 175,000 created. What I wish to point out is this fact that is in the report: The bulk of the gains in May were in the service industry, which added 57,000 jobs. Still, about half of those were temporary positions-- Those were temporary, not real jobs. I continue-- suggesting that businesses remained uncertain of consumer demand. Missing from the picture were production jobs in industries such as construction and manufacturing. Those were not the kind of jobs being created. Meanwhile, manufacturing shed 8,000 workers. American manufacturers reduced employment last month and those are the better jobs with the retirement pay and with health benefits that come with a good manufacturing company. We are creating more and more competition for lower wage jobs. The article goes on to say this in addition: Some economists have raised concerns about the types of jobs being created. Sectors such as retail, restaurants, bars have been adding plenty of jobs, but those positions tend to pay low wages. Friday's report showed workers' average hourly earnings rose only a penny in May, to $23.89. For the entire year, wages have risen 2 percent. Again, that is below the inflation rate. Again, we continue to have this situation in which wages trail inflation, which means the average American is having a hard time getting by and many of these jobs are part-time, not permanent. They are the kind of jobs a lot of people would look to advance from, whether working in a restaurant or something such as that. They will be looking to move forward. The kind of manufacturing jobs we would like to see more of are not there. I mentioned the work visas in this process. Despite a huge increase in the numbers of those who are going to be legalized and put on a path to permanent residence and citizenship, we have a large number of people in this total number. For example, under the bill, it is widely conceded that we would legalize 11 million people. They would be put on a path to legal permanent residence and into citizenship, 11 million, all of whom entered the country illegally and are here in violation of the law. What is not mentioned is that there is another 4.5 million who are in--they call it a backlogged status. They are basically chain migration members, family members who want to come, but under our current law we have a cap, a limit on how many family members are allowed to enter each year. As a result, the backlog, they call it, has moved up to 4.5 million. So now we have people say this. They have been saying we should not give the 11 million here illegally advantage over people waiting in line. That was a problem for the Gang of 8. I can see them sitting around, dealing with that. How can we give somebody here, waiting in line patiently and lawfully, status behind that of someone who has been here working in the country with false documents, illegally? That wouldn't be right. How did they solve that? As Washington does, they legalize them too. You say 4.5 million are waiting? They just let them come in too. We will be initially processing 15 million people. Then what about the annual future flow? Now it is the most generous flow in the world. We admit a little over 1 million people a year under our legal flow into the country. What about that? In light of all this accelerated admissions and legal status, should we reduce the number of people who are coming here each year lawfully now for a while? Oh, no, that is increased--50 percent, according to the Los Angeles Times. It could be more. I will accept that number. So instead of 1 million a year, that is 1.5 million. Over 10 years, that is 15 million. That results in 30 million people in 10 years being given lawful permanent status in America. Already that is 10 percent of the entire population of America, and overwhelmingly this group is low skilled. Over half of the people here illegally do not have a high school diploma from their own home country and they are not able to take the better jobs. They will be competing for the lower wage jobs in America. If they are legalized, legal immigrants who entered the country a few years ago, they are going to find--maybe they were legalized in 1986, maybe they have come legally since, but that immigrant population is going to find their wages pulled down by this large amount of flow of labor into the country. I do not think there is any doubt about that. We will go more into detail about that as we go forward, but we are talking about 30 million being given legal status on a path to permanent legal residence and citizenship over the next 10 years. They will be given that status. We have not discussed that. I asked Senator Schumer at the committee twice: How many will be admitted under your bill? He refused to answer. I am not sure they know because these numbers are not all the numbers. There is an additional group of people who will come under the chain migration theory, the family-based connection and other special provisions in here that have no caps, no limits on how many would come. He refused to answer. The sponsors who are producing legislation for us today will not say how many people they expect to enter into our country if their bill passes. Why not? You don't know or you will not say? Either one is an indictment of this monstrosity and that is why it cannot pass. Even Senator Rubio is now saying he can't vote for the bill unless it is improved. He was in the Gang of 8. This is legislation that is flawed legislation, fatally flawed, and it should not become law--it just should not. They said a lot of good things about what they expect the bill to do. If it did those things, we would be more interested in it. We would have a framework for a bill that could actually do some good. I would say that for sure. As we go forward, we need to ascertain with absolute clarity what the best economic data shows about how many people this country can absorb in a reasonable way and be able to provide a decent place for them to work without pulling down the wages of an already-stressed American workforce. We need to talk about that. So far as I can tell, that was never discussed in the groups. What was discussed pretty much in the groups, it seemed to me, was businesses demanding more workers, La Raza demanding more people and basically open borders and they were the ones writing the legislation, in large part. There were some union objections to some of this. It needs to be listened to. Republicans say that is a union objection. If they make a good objection, so be it. I think they made some points but went along with this in a way that is not effective. We have to talk about the economic impact of it and we will. We need to ascertain the second aspect: The 30 million people I just mentioned, those 30 million are people who come permanently. They are on a path never to return to their country. They have a legal status that allows them to get legal permanent residence and then get citizenship. Normally, as I say, we do 1 million a year, which would be 10 million over 10 years. This will increase it to 15 million over 10 years, and that does not count the 11 million, plus the 4.5 million who will be given legal status. It is pretty clear to me it is indisputable that we will have 30 million people put on the path to citizenship in the United States of America, and I ask my colleague, if they have a different number, they should share it with us. Maybe in these bills, subparagraphs, numerators and denominators and fractions and all, they have a different number. I would like to hear it. We think we figured it out. The Los Angeles Times agrees. The only analysis I have seen agrees with it, as best we can do in the time since the bill was introduced. Then we have the worker programs. That is what I was reading about earlier. Let me mention those programs. These are programs that have generally been referred to as the guest worker programs. We believe, and I think data shows, that the bill doubles the number of guest workers who would be allowed into the country. Every year we bring in a certain number of people. Some work in agriculture, some work in landscaping, some work in others things. In a time of high unemployment, with Americans doing landscaping, Americans are working in meatpacking plants and doing farm work. But temporary, seasonal jobs are often hard to fill and guest workers can do that. I am not opposed to a guest worker program. But at this point in history, should it be double the number on top of the 30 million I just mentioned? This is an annual flow on top of that. For example, it adds four times more guest workers than the 2007 bill that the American people and Congress rejected. There are four times the number of guest workers in that bill at a time when 20 million more Americans are on food stamps than in 2007. Teenage unemployment is 54 percent higher and median household income is 8 percent lower than in 2007? Are we so desperate now we have to bring in twice as many guest workers? Where are they going to find work? Are we going to disappoint them? What if they cannot find work? Will they be able to say: Well, I will work for minimum wage? What happens to the young American who is 20 and would like to do some work? Perhaps he has a child and is trying to learn a skill and get started as a carpenter, bricklayer, or equipment operator. Will that make his ability to find a job harder? What if a young guy had a drug offense? I used to be a Federal prosecutor. Just because somebody was arrested and prosecuted for drugs, we don't want to make it so they can never get work again. Who is going to take care of them? We know this: We know if people don't have a job, the government has transfer payments, such as food stamps, Medicaid, housing allowances, and other benefits. So now does the taxpayer have to pay for even more people who are subsidized by the government because they honestly cannot find a job? My colleagues need to focus on this, and there has been almost no serious discussion about it other than what we hear from certain squeaky wheels and special interests. How many of our colleagues know the difference between the H-1B visa, the H-1B-B1 visa, the H-2A visa, the H-2B visa, and the H-4 visa? How many will come in under each one of them? What standards will they use? Do we actually have to make sure we have advertised and offered the job to an American first before using this visa? Those are just the H visas. What about the W-1 visa, the W-2 visa, and the W-3 visa? There is also the E-3 visa, the E-4 visa, and the E-5 visa. Let's not forget the X visa and the Y visa. It goes on and on. That is how we have a doubling of the number of people coming in under the guest worker program. Our sponsors have spent 4 months bringing this up. Clearly, they should have spent much more time because the bill is fatally flawed. The only thing that clearly works in the bill--the only thing that is guaranteed to work--is the amnesty. Once this bill has passed, it is guaranteed that people who are here illegally will be given legal status. They will then be placed on a path to legal permanent residence and then citizenship. That is what is guaranteed. All we have, as in 1986, is a promise that we will have enforcement in the future. A lot of us have been around here for several years, and we know that is not going to work. This promise is just that, a promise. We don't have the backing to make it sure. Senator Cornyn has an idea that he thinks will strengthen that, and I know it will strengthen it. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to share these thoughts. Senator Cruz is now in the Judiciary Committee dealing with some other important issues of which I am glad that able lawyer is there. He will be speaking about this later. Mr. President, how much time remains on this side?