Immigration

Floor Speech

IMMIGRATION -- (Senate - June 28, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I wanted to come to the floor to offer a few thoughts and observations on the important vote we had earlier today on the immigration bill. I know many people are puzzled when they watch us debate big and important issues such as this. What usually happens is our views are reduced to a bumper sticker. Particularly on complex topics such as immigration, a bumper sticker doesn't tell the whole story. So I wish to offer a few thoughts on the way forward on this important issue.

I have not found an issue in my short time in the Senate, now about 4 1/2 years, which has been more closely followed and on which there has been more passion than the subject we have been debating this week and which we voted on this morning.

Sometimes, as we all know, passion can produce more heat than light, but what we need is some light and some clear thinking and some better solutions to our broken borders and our broken immigration system than we have had so far.

I don't say that with the intent to criticize the hard work that people have put into this effort. I am proud of the fact that since I have been in the Senate, I have tried to constructively contribute to a solution to this problem. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a former chairman of the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee of that Judiciary Committee, now as the ranking member, I have tried my best to contribute
to a solution. But I think the one message I would take away from what we saw happen earlier today is the American people, my constituents in Texas, are profoundly skeptical of big Government solutions with a lot of moving parts based on big, grandiose promises, when our history has been one of not delivering consistent with what we promised. Let me mention what I mean by that.

In 1986, we had a big immigration bill, supposedly one to fix all the problems. President Ronald Reagan signed that bill. I remember Ed Meese, his Attorney General, wrote a piece in I believe the New York Times explaining what was going through President Reagan's mind as he signed that amnesty for 3 million people. Ed Meese explained that President Reagan was told in 1986 that if you do this amnesty one time, that will be the end of it; you will never have to do another one, as long as we have enforcement of our laws that go hand in hand with that grant of amnesty for 3 million people.

Part of the skepticism that I think the American people and certainly my constituents in Texas have had about this bill is that they saw coupled with a path to legalization and ultimately American citizenship for roughly 12 million people that we mean it this time, we are going to get serious about border security, we are going to get serious about eliminating the document fraud and identity theft that makes our current worker verification system virtually unworkable, and they saw a repetition of 1986.

There were components of this bill that I thought were actually pretty good, that represented an improvement over the status quo. But I think some of the debate got a little bit hard to believe such as when people said the only way you are going to get border security is if you agree to a path to citizenship for 12 million people. The American people are pretty smart. They can see through that, and they know there is no obvious linkage between border security and a path to citizenship for 12 million people. They know if we were serious about border security, we would have already done it.

So I think, at least the lesson I have learned from this vote this morning is not that we can give up because the problem is not going to go away. It may get caught up in Presidential election politics and maybe part of what we need to do is continue this grand national conversation about how do we solve this problem because I don't believe there is any problem that is too big for the American people to solve. Certainly, they are not waiting for some pronouncement from Mount Olympus in Washington, DC, about here is the answer and you have to swallow it. We work for the American people. We work for the constituents who sent us here. The power we get to act on their behalf comes from the bottom up; it doesn't come from the top down. I think part of the rejection that we saw of this particular bill was the sense that Washington was trying to dictate a solution about which the American people had a lot of questions and a lot of reservations.

I think we need to go back to basics. We need to go back and listen to our constituents. We need to talk to them and explain to them what the problem is. We need to have a transparent process that is an interactive process where we can listen to them and we can tell them what we have learned about this issue and about some of the problems and try to come up with a solution.

One of the lessons may be that big, multifaceted, complex programs such as this bill offered, particularly on something where the Federal Government doesn't have a whole lot of credibility when it comes to actually enforcing the law or securing the border, the American people are not going to accept it, and I think that was reflected in the vote we had today.

That is not the same thing as saying give up, because we can't give up. This problem is not going away. As somebody who represents a border State with about 1,600 miles of common border with Mexico, I say we have to find a rational solution to this problem.

I know that passions have run high, but I, for one, am very pleased with the level of the debate in the Senate because, as we all know, sometimes this topic is susceptible to some pretty irresponsible language and dialog.

This was not a rejection of our heritage as a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. And I think what the American people saw--certainly my constituents in Texas saw--is the status quo of a kind of lawlessness and a lack of commitment to simple law and order which they wanted to see restored. I think if we demonstrate that we have heard the message they have sent us--if we demonstrate that, yes, we are serious about border security; yes, we are serious about enforcing the law--then I think we can continue that conversation and talk about the other aspects of this legislation that we need to continue to work on.

What are the legitimate needs of American employers for legal workers? Certainly, we would prefer that they get legal workers rather than workers who are not respecting our laws. Certainly, we would all want, I would think, to have a system whereby someone can show up at a workplace and present a tamper-proof, secure identification card and virtually guarantee that they are legally eligible to work in the United States as opposed to the kind of document fraud and identity theft that now runs rampant and which makes it impossible even for good employers trying to honor the law to know that the person standing before them can actually legally work in the United States.

We recently had an example of a company, a Swift meatpacking plant, which was the subject of a raid by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service in multiple States, including my State of Texas. What they found was this company was using the only Government program--the only Government program--known as Basic Pilot, to try to match up the identity of people who came to work there with a Social Security number. Basic Pilot confirmed that, yes, that is John Cornyn, and that is John Cornyn's Social Security number, but that is about all Basic Pilot could tell them. What they wouldn't tell them is if it was somebody else masquerading as John Cornyn and claiming his Social Security number.

That company sustained a huge business loss because the Federal Government failed it by not providing it with a reliable means to determine whether people who claim to be American citizens and eligible to work were, in fact, eligible. So we have a lot of credibility we need to restore at the Federal Government level when it comes to enforcing the law and securing our borders.

I think if we perhaps break down this big problem into smaller solutions, step by step, and work our way through this, we can continue to find an opportunity to solve this problem bit by bit and piece by piece. What I saw rejected this morning were big, grandiose government solutions where our credibility was seriously lacking because of a lack of followthrough on earlier promises, particularly when it comes to enforcing our laws and securing our borders.

I would just like to say to all my colleagues who have worked so hard on this issue that you have my commitment that I will continue to work with you in good faith to try to solve the problems. That is what I thought my constituents wanted me to do. That is what I know they want me to do. They do not want us pointing the finger of blame. They do not want us calling each other names. And they do not want the sort of ``hyperpartisanship'' that unfortunately too often characterizes our activities in Washington. But they also don't want to be sold a bill of goods. They do not want to be promised a lot when they know we are going to deliver little.

So this is a big issue, one that is worthy of the greatest deliberative body in the world--the U.S. Senate--and it is an issue on which I assure each of my colleagues that I intend to do my part to try to solve.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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