Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act Of 2007--Motion To Proceed

Floor Speech

COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - May 21, 2007)

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, for over 3 months, I have engaged with a number of my colleagues and administration officials in an extraordinary series of meetings and discussions designed to reach bipartisan consensus for solutions to the many problems we face regarding our immigration system. I have done so in good faith and in keeping with my long held belief that we must have a comprehensive approach to immigration reform.

I believe we should continue to try to move forward, generally, and that this problem is too important not to come up with an appropriate solution.

That having been said--I am very concerned about the process that led to today. First, we have not undertaken the normal legislative pocess--bypassing the Senate Judiciary Committee--leading to a public perception of nontransparency and distrust. Second, most of the Members of the Senate and their staff did not receive even a draft of the ``final'' language until 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, just a little over 48 hours ago. Third, I am told that the bill will not go to Senate legislative counsel--a significant departure from the normal course and a departure that makes it more difficult for legislative counsel to draft amendments due to lack of familiarity with the text. Finally, I am told the CBO cost estimate for the bill will not come out until Wednesday--only 2 days before the legislation may well receive a final vote depending on leadership decisions in the coming days.

Moreover, I remain very concerned about the substance of the bill. For instance, my staff's preliminary review indicates that there are potentially
some very problematic provisions in the language. In addition, because of the ``rush'' to produce language to meet the Monday deadline for a cloture vote, there are a number of technical drafting errors which also have a substantive effect and were being worked on as late as this afternoon.

I have been open about my concerns with respect to interior enforcement--concerns that I still hold today. For example, the draft bill does not, to my knowledge, do enough to curb one of the core flaws that undermined the 1986 amnesty bill--that of unlimited judicial review. Indeed, just 2 weeks ago a judge ordered DHS to revisit whether a class of aliens should get the 1986 amnesty. It appears that if this bill passes, these aliens whose only real claim to participate in our system, will be able to take advantage of the new visa holder because they were able to delay through litigation. There are no limits on the number of motions to reopen the administrative process or times an alien can appeal to an article III court. If the American public is going to have confidence in this system, they need/to be assured there will be limits.

In addition, I would note that the New York Times wrote that the 1986 amnesty bill produced the largest immigration fraud in the history of the United States. President Clinton's INS general counsel testified that statutory restrictions on law enforcement's ability to use the information contained in amnesty applications impeded their ability to detect the fraud. To my knowledge, this bill continues to require confidentiality in certain cases where the application is denied.

In the end, as much as I believe we should continue to work together to reach consensus on the critical issue of immigration reform--a matter of national import but that is particularly important to my home State of Texas--I cannot in good conscience agree to proceed to legislation which we anticipate replacing with language we received at 2 a.m. on Saturday--without appropriate committee review--the text of which is hundreds of pages in length, the provisions of which are as complicated as any legislation we will take up and the impact of which will be felt, for better or worse, for generations to come.

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