Sen. Jeff Sessions: Impact of Senate Immigration Bill

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) today unveiled an impact analysis that shows the Senate immigration bill – should it become law – would permit up to 217.1 million new legal immigrants into the United States over the next 20 years, a number equal to 66 percent of the total current population of the United States.

Even if the maximum levels are not reached, the increase to the U.S. population caused by S. 2611 will be at least 78.7 million in 20 years, just over 25 percent of the total current population. This lower estimate assumes that the bill's escalating caps on certain visas will not increase at all over the next 20 years; if the bill's caps are hit each year, the total number will be the higher estimate.

“Until now, most of us have focused on securing the border and deciding how to treat the illegal alien population already in the United States,” Sessions said. “Few, if any, of us have looked ahead to see what the long-term numerical impact of the bill would be. My staff and I have just completed such a study, and the results are shocking.”

Link: U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican - ALABAMA.

Comments

[Ron Daye]

[Congressional Record: May 12, 2006 (Senate)]
[Page S4510-S4514]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr12my06-92]

IMMIGRATION

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to share some thoughts about the
immigration legislation that we will be dealing with next week. The
bill before us is a massive piece of legislation--over 600 pages, as I
recall, and deals with a number of extremely important issues. Little,
if any, thought has been given, and certainly no debate and discussion
or seeking of economic and scientific information to help us decide
what our future immigration policies should be.
I have studied that legislation in some depth. I am a member of the
Judiciary Committee, and have some fine lawyers on my staff. We have
been digging into it, and have become more and more troubled as we
studied what the legislation actually means and says. It does not do
what it purports to do, which is to create a guest worker or temporary
working policy for America. It has a number of other problems with it
that I think deserve the most serious consideration.
Few, if any, issues that we face in this Senate have greater long-
term consequences for our country than immigration. That is a fact.
Why are the American people so interested in this? Why have they
expressed such concern about it? Because it is very important. We are
responsible for them, and we have an obligation to them to think about
this very carefully. Unfortunately, we have not done so. It is an idea
that we have to do something. Yes, we need to do something. Let us all
agree on that.
I have suggested that we should first proceed, as the House of
Representatives did in a bipartisan, substantial majority vote decided,
to deal with enforcement first, and establish some credibility with the
American people that we can and will enforce whatever laws we have. To
pass a new law and enforce it no better than the one that we have
enforced in the past is no good.
That is the biggest frustration out there with anyone in our country
who believes in law and order, policy and fairness and decency. You
don't allow people to break in line ahead of others. How much more
basic can it be than that? That is what we learned in elementary
school. That is what we follow as adults in this country, but that is
not what we are doing at the border.
We all know the system is broken. It has made a mockery of the law,
and it is a terrible challenge for us, but one that we need to
confront.
We decided in the Senate, and the President believes, we can't fix
the law enforcement system first--we need to fix the entire scheme of
immigration.
We have not had enough serious hearings on the fundamentals of what
we are doing. I have asked for five hearings in the Senate on the
Judiciary Committee on the economic and social implication of
immigration. We were given one. It was a very valuable hearing but not
enough, in my view. Certainly, I do not think the average Senator is
fully engaged and aware of the serious concerns this legislation
raises.

I will take a few minutes to go back over what I called in a speech a
few weeks ago loopholes in the legislation. Some of that speech was
based on the original Kennedy-McCain bill. I made that speech right
after a compromise, the so-called Hagel-Martinez bill, hit the Senate.
I will go back over these fundamental problems with the legislation. It
indicates the weaknesses that exist today under the bill which will be
in the Senate beginning next week.
As we go forward into the week, I will be discussing, and perhaps
others will as well, deeper flaws in the legislation that deal with the
fundamental guiding principles of this legislation: What should we be
doing? How many people should be allowed into this country? What skill
sets should they bring? How should those decisions be made? How can we
create a system which is enforceable, which will work to allow the
country to decide what is in its best interests with regard to those
who come here?
They say we are not supposed to talk too much next week. We are just
supposed to come to the floor, offer amendments and maybe ask for 30
minutes of debate. We can have 20 amendments, and we will talk for just
30 minutes on those amendments on each side. We have been told: Don't
talk too much, Senator, because we have to move this bill and get it
off our plate. They do not want to talk about it too much because
people back home might find out what is actually in the bill. That is
the honest truth. On both sides, Republican leadership and Democratic
leadership want to move something through. But ``something'' is not
good enough. We ought to do the right thing.
Now I will talk about some of the flaws that continue to exist in
this bill. I begin with loophole No. 1, illegal aliens. People here
illegally are going to be part of this mass amnesty. We have discussed
amnesty and whether the provisions in this bill are amnesty. I have to
say I spent 30 minutes in the Senate going back to the immigration laws
passed in 1986, and everyone admitted 1986 was amnesty when they passed
it. They promised they would enforce the law in the future. They got
the amnesty, and they didn't enforce the law. In 1986, they said there
would be 1.5 million people claiming amnesty, yet over 3 million people
claimed amnesty. They claimed we would have lawful immigration in the
future, and now we have 11 million people here illegally. Why should
the American people not have some doubts about the promises of Congress
and the President to carry out a legal system that will work?
Let me point out a few of the things we are dealing with. ``Blacks
Law Dictionary,'' which is the premiere dictionary that virtually every
lawyer in America has on his desk, has a definition in its section on
amnesty, and it is defined as the 1986 Immigration Act. It is included
as one of the definitions of what amnesty is.
What I suggest, essentially this current bill is probably less tight,
less enforceable than the 1986 act. If amnesty has any meaning, this
bill is amnesty. I don't want to get into any more debate about it, but
I do not back down on the fundamental concept that the legislation
before the Senate today is basically an amnesty for the people who came
here illegally in violation of our law. They have to do a few things,
they have to take some steps, but in no way will they be denied the
fundamental things they sought when they came here illegally.

[[Page S4511]]

We are a generous nation. We know we have a real problem. We are not
intending in any way to make all of these people who have come
illegally leave the country. We will have to work through this in some
generous and humane way to make sure we treat this sensitively and
justly, but it is a difficult problem when we reward people who violate
the law, for their very violation of that law. It is not a principle
that should be lightly traversed.
Now here are just some of the loopholes.
Loophole No. 1: Illegal aliens with felonies or three or more
misdemeanors will not be barred from getting amnesty under the
Immigration and Nationality Act.
Different crimes make different aliens inadmissible and deportable or
ineligible for benefits. As written in this bill, on page 347, it only
requires an alien to show they are not inadmissible to qualify for the
amnesty. However, some felonies make an alien inadmissible under the
act and others do not.
The Kyl-Cornyn amendment that we will deal with next week that was
blocked by the other side previously was designed to fix this loophole.
Senator Reid refused to allow these amendments to be voted on when the
bill came up before because he did not want to have his Members
recorded as voting for anything. I am not sure too many on our side
want to have any votes, either, but it was clear that the Democratic
leader was intent on moving this bill forward without any votes or as
few votes as possible so we would not have to deal with some of these
issues. This was a hot issue. We tried to get a vote on it, and we
could not get a vote. So the Kyl-Cornyn amendment which was blocked was
designed to fix this loophole. It will keep aliens with felony
convictions or three misdemeanors from being eligible for amnesty.
Why do we want to give amnesty to felons? The United States ought to
decide who it wants to be part of its citizenry. Since we cannot accept
everyone in the world who would like to come here, why in the world
would we not want to say: If you have a felony conviction, you are not
one of them. We will invite someone who is honest and decent who will
contribute positively to our country's growth, development, and
culture. We could not even get a vote on this to fix it.
We have to make this change. Hopefully, we will get a vote on it this
week to fix it. I believe we will have a vote in favor of not allowing
felons to be given amnesty, but I am not sure, given the mood of the
Senate today.

Loophole No. 2: Aliens previously barred from receiving immigration
benefits for life because they filed frivolous asylum applications will
be able to receive amnesty.
This is an interesting reversal of existing law. If you come in and
make some bogus claim that you are entitled to asylum, you can still
get amnesty. We have had a lot of problems with people coming from a
country, where maybe they were arrested for a legitimate crime and fled
to the United States, saying they are being persecuted back home, and
they want asylum. After looking into their claim, we find out it is
bogus and they were actually an armed robber in their home country. We
barred them from being able to get an application for any benefits
under the immigration laws. It is a form of saying: We are not going to
tolerate that. This bill reverses that.
Under INA section 208(d)6, if the Attorney General of the United
States determines an alien knowingly filed a frivolous asylum
application, he is to be permanently ineligible for any benefits under
the INA. This bill would change that. On page 345, it says:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the secretary
shall adjust an alien who meets the requirements for amnesty.

No provision of the bill states that the alien is ineligible for
amnesty if they previously committed immigration fraud by filing a
frivolous asylum application. The bill gives benefits to aliens
previously barred from all immigration benefits. We give amnesty to
them. If we want to keep those who have committed immigration fraud in
the past from getting amnesty, we have to change that. We need to
change that by closing this loophole.
Why did they put that in there? Who wrote this bill, I keep asking. I
am sure the sponsors of the bill do not know the implications of all of
these provisions. I don't know who put this together.
Loophole No. 3: All aliens who are subject to a final order of
removal who fail to leave pursuant to a voluntary departure agreement,
or who are subject to the reinstatement of a final order of removal
because they illegally reentered after being once removed from the
United States are eligible for amnesty.
Pages 358 to 359 of the bill clearly state that certain grounds of
inadmissibility in the act will not apply to aliens who apply for
amnesty under the bill. The current inadmissibility provisions that are
waived include aliens with final orders of removal for document fraud.
If you file a false claim to the Government as an American citizen,
that is a felony. These charges are providing false documents, offenses
that are felony offenses.
I repeat, the current inadmissibility provisions that are waived
under this bill that will be in the Senate this week include aliens
with final orders of removal for document fraud. They have been
apprehended, caught, found to be here as a result of making false
claims to the Government, failed to attend removal proceedings, were
allowed to be out on bail, asked to come to court and answer the
charges, and did not show up. They violated a court order to show up.
They did not attend their removal proceedings. We call them absconders.
And aliens who already have final orders of removal and many other
categories are exempted.
This means aliens who have already received their day in court, they
have had their cases fully tried and have failed to depart the United
States unlawfully, will now be rewarded for not leaving. They will
qualify for amnesty. They will be able to become citizens of the United
States. This will include many of the 37,000 Chinese nationals China
has refused to take back whom we have ordered deported. If we want to
enforce the laws against illegal aliens who already had their day in
court, this loophole must be closed.
Loophole No. 4: Aliens who illegally entered multiple times, which is
a felony, qualify for amnesty.
The first time you come into the country illegally, it is a
misdemeanor. If you are apprehended and deported and you come back the
second time, it is a felony. Aliens who have illegally entered multiple
times--that is, chargeable with felonies--are eligible for amnesty. The
bill, on pages 12-23, requires that the illegal alien be continuously
present in the United States since 2001 to qualify for amnesty.
However, the bill allows the alien to have left the United States for
``brief, casual, and innocent departures.''
Let us remind ourselves that criminal laws are being broken each time
an illegal alien crosses the border of the United States. Title 8,
section 1325, of the United States Code says that illegal entry into
the United States is a misdemeanor the first time and a felony
thereafter. I don't think multiple illegal felonies are casual, brief,
or innocent. It rewards those who have not followed the law.
Loophole No. 5: The bill allows aliens who have persecuted anyone--a
persecutor on account of race, religion, national membership in a
particular social group, or political opinion--to get amnesty. It fails
to make persecutors ineligible for amnesty.
I would have thought this was an oversight until we noticed that on
page 375--there are a lot of pages in this bill, over 600--line 22
makes these heinous acts bar aliens here between 2 and 5 years from
amnesty. The same bar is left out for the 8.8 million aliens who have
been here for more than 5 years. This can only be interpreted by any
court as an intentional decision that Congress has made to allow
persecutors who have been in the country more than 5 years to be able
to stay here. I do not think we want to do that. Let's close that
loophole.

We are told that people who come here come here to work, and for many
that is certainly true. And many are fine, decent, good workers.
Loophole No. 6, however, is that there is no continuous work
requirement for this amnesty. We have been told that you have to earn
your citizenship, earn your amnesty by working. But there is no real
requirement for that.
To be eligible to adjust from illegal to legal status under the bill,
the alien

[[Page S4512]]

must simply have been ``physically present in the United States on or
before the date that is 5 years before April 5, 2006,'' and have been
employed ``in the aggregate'' for ``at least 3 years during the 5-year
period ending on April 5, 2006,'' and employed for ``at least 6 years
after the date of enactment'' of this bill.
But it does not say--on pages 346, 347--that the alien must be
employed continuously or that the requirement of employment be full-
time employment.
The bill will be interpreted to allow the alien to be eligible if
they have been employed in the United States either full time, part
time, seasonally, or self-employed. It also allows the time of
employment to be shortened if the alien is in attendance at a school or
is under 20 years of age.
The employment requirement under the language as written is as broad
as possible. Essentially, any alien who worked in the United States for
3 out of 5 years at any time prior to April 5, 2006, will fulfill these
requirements. This is not any kind of rigorous standard. It is designed
to let everybody qualify. It is so broad that if the Immigration
Service were to try to go to court and challenge it, almost any alien
would be able to meet and defeat the challenge and be able to have a
judge--who is required to enforce the law as we write it--not enforce
that law.
Loophole No. 7: The bill tells the Department of Homeland Security to
accept ``just and reasonable inferences'' from day labor centers and
the alien's ``sworn declaration'' as evidence that the alien has met
the amnesty's work requirement.
Under the bill, the alien would meet the ``burden of proving by a
preponderance of the evidence''--that is all the burden is, a
preponderance of the evidence--``that [he] has satisfied the [work]
requirements'' if the alien can demonstrate employment ``as a matter of
just and reasonable inference.''
An alien can present ``conclusive evidence'' of employment in the
United States by presenting documents from Social Security, the
Internal Revenue Service, employers, or a ``union or day labor
center.''
The bill then states:

[I]t is the intent of Congress that the [work] requirement
. . . be interpreted and implemented in a manner that
recognizes and takes into account the difficulties
encountered by aliens in obtaining evidence of employment due
to the undocumented status of the alien.

What does that mean? It means it is unenforceable, if you want to
know the truth. I was a prosecutor for 15 years, a Federal prosecutor.
How are you going to enforce the language? What kind of prosecutor is
going to go to court when the Congress has basically said: ``It is our
policy that anything goes. Any documents they present, any inference
that is raised would be sufficient to allow this to occur?''
Then it goes on to say that even if the lax standards I mentioned
cannot be met, in order to make sure everybody meets the standard of
being allowed to work here, it allows them to self-submit affidavits,
``sworn declarations for each period of employment.''
The invitation for fraud cannot be clearer. Congress is telling the
Department of Homeland Security to take the illegal aliens' word for
it, to accept pretty much anything as proof of work.
These provisions are all contained on pages 349 and 350. If we want
to make sure the fraud that occurred in the 1986 amnesty does not occur
again in the 2006 amnesty, these loopholes have to be closed. Why do we
have these standards? Because politicians want to say that everybody
here are workers, and we are not going to give amnesty to people who
are not workers. OK. That sounds good. But when you read the bill, it
does not require that. There is no way this can be enforced. And the
authors of the legislation know it. They know it cannot be enforced.
That is why they wrote it the way they wrote it, to let everybody
qualify. So it is not true that this is a bill that requires earned
amnesty by work. It does not.
Loophole 8: The bill benefits only those who broke the law and not
those who followed it and got work visas to come to the United States
or those who left when their visas expired.
I want you to understand this, colleagues. It is important to point
out the unfairness that is inherent in the bill. Page 346 lays out the
requirement that you must have been ``not legally present in the United
States on April 5, 2001.'' So to qualify for the benefits here, you had
to be illegally present in the United States on April 5, 2001. Illegal
presence allows people to qualify for the amnesty and the pathway to
citizenship that the amnesty provides.
The bill goes on to define ``not . . . legally present'' to include
visa overstays--an ``alien who has violated any conditions of his or
her visa''--making sure that illegal alien visa overstays qualify for
amnesty.
So if you were here legally on April 5, 2001, meaning you followed
the rules, and you got a work visa to come here, you will not get any
benefits from this amnesty. If you had a visa in 2001, but it expired
before April 5, and you, therefore, followed the law and left the
United States before April 5, you will not get the benefit of this
amnesty. This amnesty benefits you only if you did not leave the United
States, as the visa required, and you stayed here illegally or you came
here illegally.
Another loophole, No. 9, deals with this guest worker concept. The
bill's future flow ``guest worker'' program in title IV of the
legislation leaves no illegal alien behind. It is not limited to the
people outside the United States who want to come here to work in the
future, but includes illegal aliens currently present in the United
States who do not qualify for the amnesty programs in title VI,
including aliens here for less than 2 years.
Now, we are told if you have been here for less than 2 years--you
came since we started talking about this legislation in 2004--that you
do not qualify for the benefits of the program, and have to go home.
That has been part of the mantra. You have heard that debate: If you
have been here for less than 2 years--and the reason for that is, We
are giving notice to people around the world who might want to come
here: Don't rush into our country while we are considering this
amnesty, to take advantage of it, because if you come in after we
started discussing it, then you are not going to get the benefits of
it--a fairly legitimate approach to things, I would suggest. And we are
told the legislation does that. But it does not do that, I have to tell
you.
Under the language, you can qualify for the new H-2C program to work
as a low-skilled, permanent immigrant even if you are unlawfully
present in the United States today. The bill specifically says:

In determining the alien's admissibility as an H-2C
nonimmigrant . . . paragraphs (5), (6)(A), 7, (9)(B), and
(9)(C) of section 212(a) may be waived for conduct that
occurred before the effective date. . . .

By waiving these grounds of inadmissibility, the new H-2C program is
specifically intended, I submit, to apply to, No. 1, absconders--those
are people who were apprehended, ordered to leave the country or
ordered to come to court, and they have skipped and did not leave and
did not come to court; 400,000 of those we are trying to find this very
day to deport them to enforce the law--No. 2, it applies to illegal
aliens who were in removal proceedings and signed a voluntary departure
agreement but violated that agreement and did not leave, and, No. 3, it
applies illegal aliens who were already removed from the United States
but who illegally reentered.
The bill covers everybody. No illegal alien will be left behind. No
illegal alien will have to go home--not this 2-year group, as has been
said. So once again, the rhetoric about the legislation does not match
the reality.
Loophole No. 10: The annual numerical cap on this program is
completely artificial. The bill's sponsors say that the new H-2C guest
worker program is limited to 325,000 people and their families per
year.
However, the cap has a built-in automatic escalator. If the 325,000
limit per year--the cap on the number who can come here legally--is
reached, the cap automatically adjusts itself to make more room, by
adding an additional 20 percent, which is 65,000 more visas the first
year. So if somewhere in the year the cap limits are being met by
people who want to come here, that very year the cap goes up by 20
percent. And then, the next year, automatically the cap will not be
325,000, it will be that number increased by 20-percent. And if that
cap number is met, it goes up that

[[Page S4513]]

year 20 percent. And the next year, that additional 20-percent increase
will be the cap.
It is an utterly escalating cap, without any thought whatsoever as to
how many people this country needs in our workplace or otherwise in the
Nation. They can be readily assimilated and made a part of this
glorious and wonderful country. What kind of language is that?
We calculate if this cap is reached each year, the number of people
allowed under this one program to enter this country legally, 10 years
from passage--hold your hat--would be 2,012,314. I am not kidding. That
is an automatic provision in the act. We have given no thought, no
serious evaluation, whatsoever, to how many people ought to be brought
into this country.
And even if the cap never increases and stays at the 325,000 per
year, we will have a minimum of 1,950,000--almost 2 million--low-
skilled workers who are permanent immigrants in the first 6 years of
the program, which is the length of an H-2C visa if the individual does
not file for a green card.
In 10 years, we will have immigrated 3,250,000 low-skilled workers
and their families. Understand, each and every one of these 3 million
people who would enter under this provision alone--and there are others
where the impact is large--all of these workers will be eligible for
green cards.
What does that mean? A green card means you are a permanent resident.
They say these are temporary workers and guest workers. Within the
first year, they can obtain a green card if their employer requests it.
After 4 years, if their employer doesn't and they don't have an
employer, they can self-petition for a green card. This is a big change
in our policy since immigrants under this provision were supposed to be
workers and it allows them to petition for a greencard even thought
they are not working for anybody. They can self-petition under this
bill. That is a big change. This is pretty thunderous in its impact.
Loophole No. 11, a new H-2C guest worker does not have to prove they
are essential to the economy to come to the United States or to stay or
to apply for a green card once they are here. Nothing about the H-2C
``temporary guest worker program'' is temporary. They can say it is
temporary until they are blue in the face, and it is just not so. That
is why we need to be talking about this legislation. To be eligible for
an H-2C visa, an alien merely has to establish that they are ``capable
of performing the labor or services'' they have an intent to perform in
the United States. So page 250 of the bill only makes them prove they
are capable of performing a labor they have an intent to perform when
they come here, and they have received a job offer from an employer who
has complied with the requirements.
To stay in the United States once they enter, the H-2C holder simply
cannot be ``unemployed for 60 or more consecutive days.'' If they are
unemployed for that period of time, they are supposed to leave. Such a
requirement, of course, is absolutely and utterly unenforceable. Who is
going to be checking on this? They will say: It is not enforceable. If
a guest worker is out of work for 60 days, 2 months, it is obvious that
the economy does not depend on them. The fact that H-2C status only
terminates after 60 consecutive days of unemployment means an alien is
still essential to the economy and able to stay in the United States if
they are working for as little as 1 or 2 days every 2 months. That is
what it means. If somebody has to try to enforce this law, that is the
kind of thing they would be dealing with when they go to court.
More importantly, no Government entity is going to spend their time
searching over the country to determine if aliens have been out of work
for 55 or 65 consecutive days, because the bill allows the alien worker
to move from employer to employer and then, as noted on page 263,
specifically exempts employers from having to notify the Department of
Homeland Security when the alien is fired or voluntarily quits. This
will ensure that the Government will never have the information it
needs to enforce the 60-day requirement. Employers are not required to
notify. If they bring in somebody, they certify they need them to work,
they have them work for 6 months, they no longer need them and lay them
off, there is no requirement that they notify the Department of
Homeland Security or Labor or Commerce that they are no longer needed.
The bill contains, more importantly, no economic trigger enabling us
to send workers home when the economy dips. This has been a matter of
some dispute. I hear it asked by Senators. I have been asked several
times. Some have stated publicly to the contrary. We have read the
bill. This is what the bill says about the economy. What if we go into
a recession and have brought in these 3 million workers. Now we have 40
million workers in the next 3 or 4 years, 5 years, 8 years, and we go
into a recession. They are temporary workers. What is the deal? They go
home? Do we not use those workers? We don't need them any longer and
they have to go home? No, there is no trigger that reduces the number
of workers here if the economy goes into recession. It is not in this
legislation. There is an automatic increase every year, as I noted, if
the applicants reach that level. It can go up to as much as 3 million a
year, but there is no way to reduce it unless we pass a bill in
Congress.
More importantly, once the H-2C worker is in the United States, they
will be here permanently. On day one, when the alien begins to work in
the United States, their employer can sponsor them for a green card. If
they come here under this program, the employer can sponsor them for a
green card that first day. That means 5 years later, they can be a
citizen entitled to all the benefits. As a green card holder, they are
entitled to bring their wife and children immediately. Five years
later, they can become a citizen. Five years later, the wife can become
a citizen. Do you know what the wife can do then? She can bring her
children in as a green card holder. He can bring in his brothers and
sisters, and she can bring in her brothers and sisters, once they
become a citizen under the chain migration rules. It has tremendous
implications for us.
Those are matters that are very important. I have a couple more
points. I see my distinguished colleague from West Virginia. I think I
can wrap up in about 3 or 4 minutes, if that is OK with him.
I would also say, I am honored to have worked with Senator Byrd, the
senior Senator from West Virginia, former Democratic leader and
majority leader of the Senate, on a realistic approach to immigration.
I asked, are we able to enforce our borders, are we able to do things
together. We had Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Senator Byrd of West
Virginia, both Democrats. We worked together. We presented some very
good proposals. Not enough of them have been accepted and made part of
this legislation, unfortunately. But there is a genuine bipartisan
concern here that we are moving too fast and getting the cart before
the horse in a lot of different ways.
Loophole No. 12, a work requirement for a blue card can be satisfied
in a matter of hours, under the AgJOBS portion that was added in
committee with about 30 minutes of debate. Under the AgJOBS component
of this substitute bill, illegal alien agricultural workers who worked
150 workdays in agriculture over the last 2 years will receive a blue
card allowing them to live and work permanently in the United States.
Let's get that straight. We keep talking about the guest worker
program, the seasonal worker program. Why we don't have that in the
bill, I can't understand. Almost every provision puts people on the
route to permanent citizenship.

So under the AgJOBS portion that was adopted in committee without
debate, agricultural workers who have worked 150 workdays--that is not
a full day--over the last 2 years, less than half time, will receive a
blue card, and that will allow them to live and work permanently in the
United States. However, because current law defines an agricultural
workday as 1 hour of work per day--that definition is reinstated in the
bill on page 397--an alien who has worked for as little as 150 hours in
agriculture over the last 2 years will qualify for a blue card.

Loophole No. 13: Once an illegal alien worker receives a
blue card, the blue card never expires. Blue cards, the new
category of cards given to aliens who are amnestied under the
AgJOBS provision of this bill,

[[Page S4514]]

never expire. The blue card holder can choose to pursue a
green card, legal permanent resident status, by working for
more hours in agriculture, but that is not a requirement to
stay in the United States.

Page 399 specifically states:

An alien in blue card status shall be provided an
employment authorized endorsement or other appropriate work
permit, in the same manner as an alien lawfully admitted for
permanent residence.

This means that once the illegal alien has a blue card, he or she can
live in the United States and work in any job permanently. They can
adjust to a green card status and move on the path of citizenship,
bringing in their aging parents and have them receive the great
benefits of health care in America.
Loophole No. 14, free legal counsel: The AgJOBS amendment goes as far
as to provide free legal counsel to illegal aliens who want to receive
amnesty, page 421. In a paragraph entitled ``eligibility for legal
services,'' the bill lays out that recipients of funds under the Legal
Services Corporation Act can ``provide legal assistance directly
related to an application for adjustment of status under this
section.'' So not only will AgJOBS give amnesty to 1.5 million illegal
aliens, it would have the American taxpayer pay the legal bills for
filling out the applications of those 1 million illegal aliens.
Finally, I will mention loophole No. 15. There are a lot of other
provisions that concern me. I will only mention 15. It deals with the
DREAM Act. The bill makes in-State tuition and other higher education
benefits available to illegal aliens. Current law, some years ago, was
passed to deal with a perceived abuse in the system.
So the current law that is in effect today says:

[A]n alien who is not lawfully present in the United States
shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a
State (or a political subdivision) for any posteducation
benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is
eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration,
and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national
is such a resident.

The DREAM Act portion of this bill, page 503 through 520, eliminates
this provision and will allows a benefit to those who came here
illegally even when all United States citizens are not afforded those
same privileges. The bill goes further making other types of higher
education assistance available through the illegal aliens that receive
amnesty under the bill, student loans, Federal work study programs and
Federal services to access this assistance.
One of the first things you want to do if you want to reduce illegal
immigration is not provide benefits to people who come illegally. How
much more commonsensical can it get than that? You don't provide
inducements, generous social benefits that we would like to provide to
more people in the country but can't, to people who come here
illegally. That does not make sense and it is not a principled
position.
I will conclude by saying, I urge my colleagues, with the greatest
sincerity, to look at this legislation and to think about these
loopholes I have mentioned. While they are very real and evidence an
intent by whoever drafted the legislation to go far beyond what they
are publicly saying the bill does, read it carefully and make sure that
you feel comfortable supporting it. When amendments come up, we will
fix some of these things, although there will not be sufficient time in
the debate or sufficient amendments allowed to fix all the problems.
They need to vote for those amendments to make the bill better. More
importantly, we have continued to study the legislation. My concerns
have deepened that we have an unprincipled, not well thought out policy
for future immigration that increases legal immigration to an
extraordinary degree, far beyond what those people think is part of
this legislation.
It is permanent and it allows those who are outside our Nation to
decide when they come. It is similar to an entitlement. If you are a
veteran, you walk up and you get your entitled benefit. If 10 times as
many people showed up for that benefit as we expected, all of them get
that benefit--American citizens, veterans. That is an entitlement.
In this legislation, we basically create an entitlement to let people
who are noncitizens of the country decide how many are going to come
in, without this Nation making those decisions. Canada has a point
system. They limit immigration, and they review it based on what their
needs are. The more the immigrant has qualities and education and
training that meet what they need, the better chance they have of
entering. If you don't have qualifications and abilities that are
relevant to Canada's needs, you don't get in. Our bill does none of
that. I urge my colleagues to be more focused on the actual wording of
the legislation.
I thank the Senator from West Virginia for showing leadership and
recognizing that we need to do better in this legislation on
immigration.
I suspect that the Senator from West Virginia might talk about
Mother's Day. I have had the honor to be in the chair--and I see
Senator Isakson--when Senator Byrd in previous years has spoken about
his mother on Mother's Day. I think we are all in for a treat.
I yield the floor.

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