Immigration

Floor Speech

IMMIGRATION -- (Senate - June 27, 2007)

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I almost hesitate to talk after those kind comments from my colleague from Alabama. I am afraid anything I might say would be a disappointment. But let me try.

This immigration bill is leaving all of us with a sense of deja vu. That is the sense that we have been here before. Strangely, not much has changed. Once again we see that this process ignores the request, the stated desire of many of us, to have an open and transparent debate, an opportunity to offer amendments and to have votes on those amendments. As a matter of fact, I understand the condition upon which some of us are even being allowed to speak now is that we just debate, and we not even be so presumptuous as to seek to offer a unanimous consent request for amendments. This is a bizarre process.

As we have seen so far, we started off rather inauspiciously, where because of constraints being placed on Senators, denying them the rights they have--Senators, I thought, had--and the responsibility that each of us has on behalf of our constituents to try to improve this legislation, to debate it--because we have been denied those basic rights of a United States Senator, we find ourselves in a strange position now. We have motions to table being offered. I don't know whether all 26 or so of the amendments contained in this so-called clay pigeon device, this arcane procedural device used to usurp the authority and the rights of Senators in order to railroad this bill through the floor--whether we are going to see all of these amendments tabled; in other words, without debate, without an up-or-down vote on the amendments and with the American people scratching their heads and wondering what in the world is going on.

How much more out of touch can people inside the Capitol be than they are now? We continue to see a bizarre process going forward. Last night we received a 373-page, so-called clay pigeon amendment. This is the bundle of the 26 amendments that had been preapproved, screened, cherry-picked by the select few behind closed doors. You know what. We got that, the Members of the United States Senate and our staffs, after a special interest group had already posted it on their Web site. That is right. U.S. Senators and their staffs got a copy of this 373-page monstrosity, which nobody had a chance to read--we got it after a special interest group that had been participating in these closed-door negotiations got it and put it on their Web site.

Today, we are told: No, that is a work in progress. We are not yet through. Today we get a new 400-page version of the same package of amendments. I understand it is at the desk, but so far as I know, we have not yet received a copy of it. We have not had time, obviously, to review it and know what is in it. But that does not deter those proponents of this legislation on the floor who are going to keep charging ahead, regardless of our request to actually read the legislation, to understand what is in it, to offer amendments to improve it and to debate its contents. That is what I thought I was elected to do on behalf of my constituents when I came to the Senate.

I have to tell you, I think this all bodes very poorly for the likelihood that we are going to successfully accomplish true immigration reform and border security as a result of this legislation. I think we are heading toward a cloture vote tomorrow where it is looking increasingly like we are not going to be able to get the job done. I think it is a product, in large part, of secret negotiations.

I have to correct my comments. I just got the 400-page monstrosity known as the revised clay pigeon amendment. I look forward to reading it, hopefully, before the next vote is scheduled on the contents of this monstrosity.

As I was saying, by secretly negotiating this legislation, skipping the committee process, and then pushing it through the Senate without people having an adequate time to read it, we risk passing legislation which clearly is not thought out and which Members have not had sufficient time to review or to study in any detail, particularly because the language keeps changing, it seems, almost daily. This may, in the end--and this is the most important part--it may, in the end, do more harm than good.

For example, written into this legislation are provisions that will directly result in an increased likelihood that dangerous persons will get at least a probationary legal status that confers upon them a variety of rights and privileges that I do not think, on further reflection, we would want these people to have. These problems could be fixed if we had a rational process of debate and offering amendments and an opportunity to vote on those amendments but, without committee review, without ample time to have that kind of debate and vote on amendments, there is really no hope to correct these flawed provisions.

I have spoken before about the type of amendments which I personally believe would improve this legislation. I want to talk about them. I understand I am constrained by an agreement that I not bring up these amendments, so I am not going to do that now. I may do it later and see if attitudes have changed, but I do want to talk about six of the most important amendments which I believe could and should be added. These are only six of the amendments that I personally think would make this bill better. I know my colleagues have other good ideas on how to improve this legislation.

We are going to be living with this legislation for many years to come--decades. We find ourselves now, 20 years later, living with the consequences of unenforceable legislation that was passed in 1986. So I think greater care needs to be taken.

One amendment I would offer would prevent criminal aliens from getting an enforcement holiday by authorizing them to delay, and even possibly avoid, deportation by filing frivolous applications for legal status as well as appeals from the denial. That is right. It would prevent them from getting virtual impunity, even though they filed a frivolous application for legalization, as well as multiple appeals.

Another amendment I would offer would prohibit criminal aliens, including gang members and absconders, people who have defied lawful court orders and either have gone underground or have been deported and entered the country illegally--technically felons under the Immigration and Naturalization Act--my amendment would prohibit them from tying up the process, gumming up the courts by appealing the denying of a request for a waiver of grounds for removal.

The court clogging that would ensue without these two provisions is almost sure to cause extensive delay that will almost certainly increase the costs associated with this bill and frustrate the intent of Congress trying to pass a truly workable system. This is not a hypothetical concern. As we debate this bill there is a lawsuit pending by people who have been deported from this country and therefore were not eligible to receive the 1986 amnesty, but they have been litigating their request that the INS, and now the Department of Homeland Security, grant them a waiver from that part of the 1986 law that said they were ineligible.

This litigation is still going on, 21 years after the 1986 amnesty was passed. Don't you think we would like to learn from our mistakes? Don't you think we would like to try to fix those problems? Under this process, we are not given an opportunity to do that. My amendments would prevent decades-long litigation and frivolous lawsuits from occurring with respect to the provisions of this bill.

Another amendment I would offer if given an opportunity would require judges to consider national security implications before issuing nationwide injunctions against immigration enforcement. That is an essential provision to protecting our Nation, something that this bill claims to do but which it omits.

I would note that that provision passed in last year's immigration bill but yet was consciously omitted from this one. There is no good reason to weaken last year's bill in this regard.

Another amendment I would offer would limit the timeframe of any appeal from a denial of Z status to 2 years, so that any error is promptly corrected and so that court proceedings would not tend to drag on endlessly, wasting tax dollars and logjamming our courts and allowing a person who has been determined not to be eligible for legal status to stay in the country indefinitely, under the guise of appealing their denial.

Another amendment I have would prevent those who have committed terrorists acts or provided material support to terrorism from qualifying for legalization under the ``good moral character standard'' under this bill, something that seems to be inherently obvious to me. It ought to be included. I am shocked it is not included.

I will give you one example. Last year, Mohammed El Shorbagi pled guilty to providing material support to the terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas, by the way, is identified by our own State Department as a terrorist organization, as well as by the European Union. This individual's conviction did not specifically bar him from becoming a U.S. citizen because, under the law in effect, aiding an organization that routinely fires rockets on innocent civilians, families, and neighborhoods; people who abduct innocent individuals; and those who have most recently staged a violent coup in Gaza, does not in any way affect their good, moral character.

Don't you think the Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body, representative of the 300 million people of the United States of America, would want to fix this glaring omission in the underlying bill? Well, I have been told that, no, we are not interested in that amendment. We have our cherry-picked set of preselected, prescreened, preordained, and no one else is going to be able to offer one. In fact, you cannot even debate them, much less offer them and have a vote on them.

I appreciate that some have finally recognized the significant flaws and security risks that are inherent in the bill as it is currently written. I would note, though, that it was not until late yesterday afternoon that some agreed that such a change was needed to improve enforcement and protect U.S. national security and included a version in the divided amendment.

Now, as I mentioned a moment ago, because the so-called clay pigeon that includes 26 amendments is not yet--well, it was only a moment ago handed to me, hot off the press, I have not yet had time to study that version, I don't know whether the modified version that was sent to the desk today changes it. But at least there appears to be some movement toward closing that loophole.

But what other enforcement loopholes and flaws remain in the bill? I fear that under this expedited process, the train has left the station, and it is going to blow right through the middle of the Senate until we pass something without proper consideration, and we are going to make mistakes. I think that is a bad idea.

During the previous debate, I introduced an amendment that would bar criminals, felons, from ever being able to obtain Z status. While it did not pass during the previous debate, I am still clueless as to why that happened. I think now that people have had time to study it and to think about it, hear from their constituents about it, more members would be supportive of closing that loophole for felons. I have refiled this. This is another amendment I have that I hope we will be able to vote on eventually. I hope the Senate does not consciously allow felons the benefit of a pathway to legalization and American citizenship. I cannot imagine why in the world we would.

As I said, those are only six of the amendments that I think need to be offered and added to this bill. Let me mention one other thing. I see the Senator from Kentucky, who perhaps would like to add his comments. Let me mention one other glaring loophole that I talked about a little yesterday. This was a provision that requires a 24-hour background check for someone who applies for legal status. But failing that, the default position is they get a probationary Z visa. In other words, we put a provision in here that says: If the background check can't be completed in 24 hours--and it can't, I promise you--that the applicant will be automatically granted legal status on a probationary basis.

I am concerned particularly because what that does is not only gives them an ability to obtain a probationary Z visa or legal status, the White House has said: Oh, don't worry about it. If we cannot get the background check done in 24 hours, and we find out they are disqualified because they do not pass a background check, we will send someone out to pick them up. Do you know how many absconders there are in the United States who are under lawful orders of deportation and have simply gone underground and the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has failed to pick them up and to execute the lawful orders of our courts? There are 623,000 absconders who meet that definition. Are we supposed to believe that people who fail the background check for this probationary Z visa are now going to be picked up, when 623,000 people who have defied lawful court orders, who are on the lam, who have gone underground and whom the Department of Homeland Security has failed to pick up and deport, according to the lawful orders of a court, that now all of a sudden the policy has changed?

Trust us. Trust us. Well, I tell you what, the American people do not trust the Federal Government, particularly in this area. I hesitate to say it, but it is with good cause, based on hard experience, based on overpromising and underdelivering when it comes to our immigration program.

I support increasing legal immigration, looking at how to recruit the best and the brightest and allowing them to come here, particularly if they come to our universities and study at our world-class universities and stay, so we do not have to send them home and so they end up competing with us and taking jobs overseas.

I support comprehensive immigration reform. But I do not support promising the American people that, oh, yeah, trust us this time, we are serious, when there are such obvious flaws in the underlying legislation, that we are being prohibited by this railroad of a process from being able to offer amendments, to get votes on those amendments, to be able to fix the underlying bill.

I can see why the American people would be skeptical, because I am skeptical. I am increasingly skeptical as a result of the way this process and this legislation has been handled.

My hope is that should this cloture vote fail tomorrow, which I think, under the circumstances, looks increasingly likely, we will come back and reassess what we have done, or, moreover, what we have failed to do and try to be more serious, more deliberate, more conscious of trying to actually deliver on our promises rather than continuing to overpromise and underdeliver on this great issue of national concern.

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