Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007
Floor Speech
COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - June 06, 2007)
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy for yielding me time.
As I think we all know, this is a long and complicated bill. An important part of this bill deals with illegal immigration--how do we make sure we stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country; how do we finally begin to deal with employers who are knowingly hiring illegal immigrants; what do we do with 12 million people who are in this country who, in my view, we are not going to simply, in the middle of the night, throw out of this country. These are difficult and important issues.
On those issues I am in general agreement with the thrust of this legislation. But, Mr. President, I wish to tell you there are areas in this bill where I have strong disagreement, and one is the issue of legal immigration, what we are doing in terms of bringing people into this country who, in my view, will end up lowering wages for American workers right now.
Senator Kennedy a moment ago made a very important point. He talked about the truth that in our country today we have the highest rate of child poverty of any major country on Earth. That is a national disgrace. But on top of that, we have the highest rate of poverty of any major country on Earth. In fact, since President Bush has been in office, 5 million more Americans have slipped into poverty.
Today, in our country, as many people know, the middle class is shrinking. Millions of American workers are working longer hours for lower wages. In my State of Vermont, it is not uncommon for people to work two jobs, even three jobs, to make enough income to pay their bills. According to a recent Pew-Brookings Institute study, men in their 30s earned, on average, 12 percent less in 2004 than their fathers did in 1974, after adjusting for inflation. In other words, in America, we are moving in the wrong direction. Our standard of living, in many ways, is going down. If we don't reverse trends, our kids will have a lower standard of living than we have.
Now, in the midst of all of that, we are finding many large corporations, both those who employ skilled workers--professional workers--and those who employ low-wage workers, that are coming to this body and are saying, my goodness, yes, we are outsourcing millions of decent-paying jobs; yes, we have opposed vigorously raising the minimum wage; yes, we have done everything we can to make sure workers can't form unions, but what we want to do now, because we love the American people so much and we are so concerned about the American worker, what we want to do now is bring millions of new workers into this country, both low-wage workers and professional workers.
The argument there is Americans don't want to do the work. They say: We can't find American workers to do the work. That is a crock, in many instances. It is not true. One of the groups that has come to Congress to tell us how much they are concerned about the need to find workers because they can't find Americans to do the jobs is our old friends at Wal-Mart.
As many Americans know, Wal-Mart pays low wages. They often hire people for 30 hours a week rather than 40 hours a week, and they provide minimal health care benefits. Yet Wal-Mart has come in and said: Well, we can't find the workers. Bring us in more low-wage workers.
Well, guess what. Two years ago, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a new store in Oakland, CA, guess how many people showed up for that job in Oakland, CA, at a Wal-Mart. Eleven thousand people showed up--11,000 people showed up in Oakland--filled out applications for a job when only 400 jobs were available. Eleven thousand people for 400 jobs.
Wal-Mart says they need more low-wage workers coming in from around the world because they can't find workers. Well, that was a couple of years ago. So you might say: Well, that doesn't happen today. In January of 2006, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a store in Evergreen Park, just outside of Chicago, in your home State, Mr. President, 24,500 people applied for 2,325 jobs. Yet Wal-Mart and their friends are coming in here saying we can't find Americans who want to work.
Let us be clear. Wal-Mart does not provide good wages, does not provide good benefits, does not provide good health care, yet we are finding many people who want to do that because people in this country are desperate, because people in this country want to work at almost any job.
Some of the people at the other end of the economic spectrum, the people who are hiring professionals, make the same argument. There are organizations out there, including companies such as Motorola, Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, and Boeing, that say the same thing: We can't find professionals to do the jobs. I find it interesting that while these companies claim they can't find workers in the United States, some of these very same companies have recently announced major layoffs of thousands of American workers.
Let me repeat that. These companies are saying we desperately need to bring workers from other countries into America because we can't find people in the United States to do these skilled jobs. Yet, at the same time, they are laying off tens of thousands of American workers.
Let me give a few examples. A few days ago, the Los Angeles Times reported Dell would be eliminating 10 percent of its workforce, slashing 8,800 jobs. Dell is part of the group saying we need to bring more professionals into America. Meanwhile, as Dell has eliminated decent-paying jobs in the U.S., it applied for nearly 400 H-1B visas last year.
But Dell is not alone. On May 31, the Financial Times reported Motorola would be cutting 4,000 jobs on top of an earlier 3,500-job reduction designed to generate savings of some $400 million. This is nothing new. Motorola has cut jobs in this country year after year after year. But guess what. Motorola, part of a group saying they can't find American workers, recently received 760 H-1B visas. That was last year.
On May 30, Reuters reported IBM would be laying off more than 1,500 American workers, bringing total layoffs to that company of 3,700 last year. In April, CBS MarketWatch reported Citigroup announced it would be laying off 17,000 workers, yet Citigroup received over 330 H-1B visas.
Here is the point, and this is not a complicated point.
Many of the largest corporations in this country are supporting this legislation. And you know why? It is not because they are staying up late at night worrying about some Mexican kid in Detroit or Chicago and what will be the future of that kid. They are not worrying about that. What they want to see is a continued influx into this country of cheap labor. They are not content with outsourcing millions of good-paying jobs. They are not content with fighting against working people who want to form unions. They are not content with their opposition, successful until recently, of keeping the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour for 10 years. That is not good enough. Now they are saying: Gee, we can't move Wal-Mart from America to China, we can't move hotels to China, we can't move restaurants to China, so what is the best way to continue keeping wages low for those workers?
When I was a kid, I worked in a hotel. I was a busboy. There is nothing wrong with that job. Millions of people do that job. I resent very much the fact that many of these large corporations are continuing their war against the middle class and against the American worker. I think it is high time the Senate begins to stand up for the American worker rather than the large multinational corporations who have so much sway over what we do in this body. I would hope before an immigration bill is passed, it will respect the rights of American workers, both low-wage workers and professional workers, and say that is our major responsibility, to make sure our kids----
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Mr. SESSIONS. My question, I guess, Mr. President, would be something like this: Perhaps it could be true that the large number of job applications received by Wal-Mart facilities is because even though Wal-Mart does not pay great wages, they do have health care benefits and job security, as opposed to construction work. Would the Senator agree that if businesses raised wages at the construction sites, if they had jobs that had a more permanent status to them, and actually offered a retirement plan and health care benefits, they might get more people willing to work at the construction sites?
Mr. SANDERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. President, the Senator makes an important point, and that is we have all been educated that economics is about supply and demand. If you don't get the workers you want, you raise wages and you raise benefits. You don't simply open the door and bring in other workers at low wages.
The Senator makes an important point.
I thank the Chair.
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