Securing America's Borders Act Amendment

SECURING AMERICA'S BORDERS ACT AMENDMENT

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I return to the floor to speak about the pending amendment to the border security and immigration bill that was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I am proud to serve. I want to explain to my colleagues and anyone else who may be listening why I oppose this amendment. I believe that, while there are many good things in the bill, or amendment, one of the bad things it contains is that it provides amnesty to those who have violated our immigration laws. As I have said before and I will say again, I cannot accept amnesty as part of any comprehensive solution to our immigration crisis. But more important, it is not a question of whether I can accept this as part of the solution. I don't believe the American people will accept amnesty as part of the solution either.

Unfortunately, at its core the committee product includes an amnesty. Let me explain in some detail because I think there are those who see amnesty in every solution that has been offered. Some say the guest worker program that the President speaks about is an amnesty. I don't necessarily agree with that because it is a temporary worker program, as he has used that term, not an alternative path to citizenship such as the Judiciary Committee bill. But I do think that there are some things that can justifiably be called amnesty; that is, if words have any meaning.

The reason why I conclude that this Judiciary Committee bill provides an amnesty is because it creates a new path to citizenship for approximately 12 million people who have entered our country in violation of our immigration laws. I want to be quick to interject, we understand why it is that people come to America. It is the same reason that everyone wants to come to America, and that is because we are the beacon of hope and freedom and opportunity for the planet. We understand that and we harbor no ill will or grudge against people who simply want to provide for their family. We understand that. But as a sovereign nation, sovereignty implies control of our borders, and we do not have control of our borders today. It also implies that we will do first what is good for America and American interests, and then if we can, and certainly we do, we could go help our neighbor. But we simply can't throw our hands up in the air and say we give up when it comes to controlling our borders and enforcing our laws.

First of all, that would violate the sacred oath that we have taken as Senators, as Members of Congress, to defend and uphold the laws of the United States, including the Constitution. So what we are talking about is not a matter of wanting to be unnecessarily harsh or punitive toward those who have come here for what are all understandable and human reasons. But I do not believe the American people will accept a proposal which includes amnesty because they understand that American citizenship is a very special privilege, and they reject the notion that we have no choice but to give it out because the Federal Government has simply failed to enforce the law.

I strongly believe that we need comprehensive immigration reform, including border security. I think we need to provide a path to the 10 million people who have come here in violation of our immigration laws, who already live in the United States. But I have a fundamental disagreement with the approach contained in this amendment.

I believe we must start with the rule that people who have come to this country in violation of our immigration laws should be required to go through the same process as all other legal immigrants.

Let me say that again.

I believe we must start with an approach that people who have come to this country in violation of our immigration laws should be required to go through the same process as all other legal immigrants.

But this committee product does exactly the opposite. It is a solution of sorts based on weakness and the self-fulfilling prophesy that we cannot enforce our own laws. The message this amendment sends to the American people is that because we can't enforce our immigration laws, the only way to address the 12 million people who have come here in violation of our immigration laws is to reward them with a special pass, a permanent resident status, and citizenship.

Some say this legislation--the committee bill--is the only way to realistically deal with people who have come to our country in violation of our laws. But I reject this point of view--this defeatism. In fact, when I hear someone say that only amnesty will work, what I really want to ask them is: Why do we have immigration laws at all?

There are those, as I have said earlier, who see amnesty behind every bush and call every proposed solution to the problem amnesty. I am not addressing those people with my remarks today because I don't think they will ever be convinced otherwise.

But I do think there are ways to determine whether a proposal is amnesty, and I suggest to you the best way is to look at what this country did in 1986 and to compare the proposal in this Judiciary Committee bill with that 1986 law because that 1986 law is unarguable, undisputed. No one argues that law did not create amnesty. And if there are two things we can agree on, it is not only did it create an amnesty, but it was a complete and abject failure.

Amnesty didn't work in 1986 and it won't work today. That is because amnesty encourages disrespect for our laws, and it shows disrespect for those who have earned or are trying to patiently earn U.S. citizenship lawfully.

As I have said in this divisive debate, surely we can all agree that the 1968 law was amnesty and that it was a complete failure. Some argue that the committee amendment is not because it is different from the 1986 amnesty. But I don't agree the two proposals are that different. What I would like to do is show this chart to those who are listening and watching. In 1986, these are the elements of the 1986 bill that was signed by President Ronald Reagan. It creates a two-step amnesty process.

First, illegal aliens obtain temporary resident status. At the end of that period--just under 4 years--they could apply for a green card. That is for a legal permanent resident. But before they could get that green card, the 1986 bill required applicants for the green card to pay a fee and learn basic citizenship and English skills.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is because it is exactly the same model carried forth in the legislation voted out of the Judiciary Committee, which is the basic bill that we are working on as part of this debate.

As you can see from this chart, both bills--both the Judiciary Committee product that we are now debating and the 1986 amnesty--are strikingly similar. And in some respects--this is really curious--the 1986 amnesty was tougher than the one currently before the Senate.

For example, the 1986 amnesty, like the current proposal, required that the person applying for legal status had to be in our country before a specified date. That date was you would have to have entered before January 1, 1982. That is 5 years prior to enactment. And the proposal on the floor says that you have to have come into the country before January 7, 2004.

This is an important concept when considering amnesty because there are always reports of rushing to the border by those working along the border as aliens seeking to make their way here to take advantage of the amnesty.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD an article in the Washington Times entitled ``Illegals Acted on Rumors of Amnesty.''

Part of this article says:

Nearly 35 percent of the illegal aliens captured trying to enter the United States in the 19 days after President Bush proposed a still-pending guest-worker program say they were trying to take advantage of what they saw as an amnesty.

I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the RECORD at the end of my remarks.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

(See exhibit 1.)

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, in 1968 Congress recognized it was important to grant amnesty only to those aliens who had been here more than 5 years. In contrast, the pending legislation puts the date of eligibility to January 2, 2004, a little over 2 years ago.

This chart also addresses other eligibility requirements. As Senator Kyl and I discussed yesterday, the 1986 amnesty required that applicants be admissible under immigration laws and that they not have been convicted of a felony or more than three misdemeanors, compared to the current proposal that simply requires that the applicant be admissible under immigration law; that is, they might still come to the country and be eligible for amnesty even if they are a felon or even if they have committed more than three misdemeanors because of certain de minimis provisions of the immigration law.

Hopefully, our amendment will cure that omission, which will now ensure that felons and those who have been convicted of at least three misdemeanors cannot take advantage of the amnesty.

My hope is that we will at least make this bill as tough and set standards as high as they did in 1986, which certainly is not the case for the current proposal pending on the Senate floor.

Continuing under this chart, in 1986, the law created a new temporary resident status that lasted for 43 months. The current amendment creates a new conditional nonimmigrant status valid for 72 months. That is step 1, a temporary status.

Much has been made under the committee proposal about the hurdles that those who are currently in violation of our immigration laws but are nevertheless here in the United States will have to achieve in order to obtain a green card which then, of course, is a pass to citizenship. It is described by critics as a difficult process because illegal aliens will have to learn citizenship skills, pay a fee, pay back taxes, and continue working here in the United States.

But as the chart shows, the 1986 amnesty also required applicants to learn basic citizenship skills, including understanding ordinary English and history of the Government of the United States and to pay a fee.

But the most important point beyond the similarity of the amnesty in 1986, which everyone agrees was amnesty, the most important point is that we all can see that the amnesty in 1986 did not work and was a complete and total failure.

All you have to do is look at the fact that about 3 million people who have come into the country in violation of our immigration laws benefited from that 1986 amnesty.

Here we are 20 years later and we are not talking about 3 million people, we are talking about 12 million people, and maybe more.

That is part of the reason some people regard amnesty as a magnet that will attract further illegal immigration across our border and only to have us agree to another amnesty and then meet the next wave of people coming across our border who have perhaps a future amnesty.

Some people are very upset with the Federal Government and its failure to enforce our laws and to secure our borders. But the American people are a very forgiving people. I think if they believed that Congress is actually trying to solve this problem, as I believe we are, they will perhaps forgive us for not having secured our border before, made sure we had enforceable worksite verification and employer sanctions for those who hired people in violation of our immigration laws.

But there is one thing the American people won't forgive; that is, if we try to trick them again by trying to sell them an amnesty in 2006 when they know good and well that the amnesty in 1986 was a complete and total failure.

I am earnestly interested in finding a solution to this problem. I believe the better starting point for solving this complex problem is with fairness. That means treating the people who have entered our country in violation of our laws no better than those who patiently wait outside of our country for their chance at the American dream through legal channels.

This can be done by allowing those who have come here illegally a second chance to depart and then reenter the country legally. This is the model that was contained in legislation that Senator JOHN KYL and I introduced well over a year ago. We did so after holding about half dozen hearings on the broken immigration system and ways to fix it. Both of us, like all of our colleagues, but particularly Senators from border States, are earnestly interested in trying to find a way to fix it. But I recognize--and I believe Senator Kyl does as well--that there needs to be flexibility built into any proposal.

We recognize there will probably have to be humanitarian exceptions for the elderly or third country processing for those who have no country to return to. Senator Kyl and I are working on proposals to make these concepts work as part of a comprehensive bill. But then for the 12 million illegal aliens in this country, I am confident for their personal situations we would all agree that some special consideration is warranted. No one can test that.

But when creating a Federal policy that will impact tens of millions of people in the years to come, there has to be agreement and consensus on a general rule. That is why I disagree with the Judiciary Committee product. The general rule under their proposal is that illegal aliens will be rewarded with a special pass to citizenship and that person will be allowed to break in line ahead of those who have attempted to come to this country legally and are patiently waiting outside the country for their chance.

As you can tell, it is no secret that I oppose the committee product. I oppose it because I think it is bad policy and will reward illegal behavior. I believe it is a proposal built on an assumption that our immigration laws cannot be enforced. That is something I will never agree with because that is simply to give up and to admit defeat.

But, most importantly, I oppose it because I believe it repeats a mistake that our country made 20 years ago which, if repeated, will never be excused or forgiven by the American people.

I yield the floor.

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