Immigration Policy

IMMIGRATION POLICY

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I rise to say a few words about our Nation's immigration policy.

Early this month, I applauded President Bush by talking about his principles which he believes ought to be embodied in comprehensive immigration reform. The President spoke courageously and forthrightly, and I urge Congress to heed the President's call.

We must acknowledge the truth. We need to be honest. The fact is, we have done far too little to repair a system that calls out-indeed, a system that cries out-for reform. Our homeland security demands an accounting of the identities of an estimated 8 to 10 million individuals currently living illegally in the United States, including their reason for being here and allowing an informed judgment on whether they pose a danger to us. For those who are deportable criminals, that judgment must be swift and sure.

The truth is the vast majority of undocumented immigrants in this country are not here as drug dealers, violent criminals, or terrorists. Rather, they are here doing the best they can to work hard so they can provide for their families. We can no longer deny the sheer number of undocumented individuals or the extent of our economy's dependence on the labor that they provide, nor can we ignore the horrible costs that many of these individuals pay when it comes to human smuggling.

In the wake of 9/11, much of the increased enforcement effort that we have made in terms of our border security has succeeded in blocking off the easiest transit points along our border, but that only means they resort to more remote and dangerous areas to cross, and sometimes with deadly results.

These individuals are also relying more on human smugglers, known as coyotes. Hundreds of undocumented individuals have died in the past 2 years. An immigration policy that ignores the reality of human suffering and death cannot be tolerated in a humane society.

For too long, the political extremists have dominated the debate about immigration. There are those who say they want to build a wall around our country, and others, on the other end of the spectrum, who cry for unconditional, complete amnesty. But both of these extremist proposals are unrealistic, and they leave many problems unanswered. What America needs instead is a comprehensive and fundamentally strong immigration system that bridges the gap between our economic and security needs. I believe a comprehensive, commonsense guest worker program is a critical first step toward fixing our immigration policies and adapting to modern realities. That is why last summer I introduced the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2003. I urge my colleagues to educate themselves about the contents of this bill and to recognize that we must act to bring our broken immigration system into the 21st century.

Here are the key elements of my proposal. We need immigration reform. I believe we need an immigration system that will put homeland security first. Any reform of our immigration laws must be able to distinguish between the benign and the dangerous. Our law enforcement resources, limited as they are, must be able to be focused and dedicated to hunting down the real threats to our Nation, whether they are the smugglers, the drug dealers, or the terrorists, not simply those who are merely looking for a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

Currently, the whereabouts of 80,000 criminal alien absconders, aliens who have been convicted of a felony and ordered deported, is simply unknown to our Government. They vanished and we don't know where they are. They are running free within our borders.

In addition, we don't know the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands of other undocumented aliens who are under final orders of deportation. They simply have no other appeal, they are under final orders to leave, and they simply, again, melted into America.

This must change. Our immigration authorities must be given not only adequate funding and resources but adequate priorities as well. They must be allowed to spend more time on those who are a threat to us and not just those who come here to perform work that Americans by and large will not perform. Ignoring the problem-something we have done for some time now-won't solve any of our border security or immigration problems, and it will not make our Nation any more secure. Identifying, detaining, and deporting real threats to our Nation and our families will.

Second, my bill will help bring millions of current undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and under the rule of law and onto the tax rolls. Under my proposal, guest workers will no longer fear the authorities but, rather, will come to see the law as an ally and not as an enemy. This, in turn, will help protect immigrants from exploitation and violence and help end the death dealing of human smugglers. We must bring these workers out into the open, out of the shadows, out of the cash economy, and onto the tax rolls, which I believe will ultimately help restore respect for the rule of law.

Third, our immigration system must give a real incentive for undocumented workers who come to this country to work on a temporary basis. It must give them a real incentive to ultimately return to their home country. I believe my proposal is unique in this respect-something we call "work and return." My proposal gives undocumented immigrants a real reason to come out of the shadows, to work within the law, to be accounted for, and then to return to their homes and their families in their home country, with the pay and the skills they acquire as guest workers in the United States.

In my recent visit with government leaders in Mexico City, I was repeatedly told that Mexico wants, indeed Mexico needs for its young, energetic risk takers and hard workers ultimately to come back home, and particularly to come back home with the capital and savings and the skills that they acquire when they work in the United States. They need these people to come back to their home country and to buy a house, to start a business, so that these small business owners, these potential entrepreneurs, can help strengthen the middle class in countries like Mexico. But our current immigration policy fails to give undocumented immigrants any real incentive to make a return to their home country.

Of course, I have mentioned Mexico, but this would hold true for many other countries that would also be covered by this program.

The fact is, there will be no end to illegal immigration across our southern border without economic recovery south of the border. Those of us in America cannot afford for our southern border to remain a one-way street.

Guest workers should, yes, be allowed to come out of the shadows and register for a program that will allow them to transit back and forth across the border in a way that they do not have to turn their lives and their fortunes over to coyotes and human smugglers. But ultimately real reform would make sure that these guest workers, after working here temporarily in the United States, must return to their country of origin.

President Bush called us to this task in his State of the Union speech just a couple of weeks ago now. I believe we in Congress have a duty to confront this challenge. We should hide our head in the sand no longer. We cannot, in my view, simply ignore the fact that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people under final orders of deportation. There are 80,000 criminal alien absconders currently loose in this country, and our law enforcement authorities simply don't know where they are. But as for those who are not a threat, those who want nothing more than the opportunity to work temporarily and return to their homes with the savings and the skills they need in order to have a better life in their home country, I believe we must move these temporary workers out of the shadows. We must at the same time ensure the security of our borders. We must restore respect for our law, and we must bring our broken immigration system into the 21st century.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.