Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the comprehensive immigration reform bill we will begin debating later today and for the rest of the month.

I thank my colleagues for voting yes on the motion to proceed, which will let us debate this very important bill which is critical to the future of our security, our economy, and our society. This overwhelming vote--a majority of both parties--starts this bill off on the right foot.

First, I will begin by saying that this has been the most open and transparent process we have seen in the past few years. Unlike most bills where only 1 or 2 Senators draft them, this bill was drafted by 10 of us here in the Senate.

I thank each of the four Republicans and four Democrats in the Gang of 8--my seven colleagues in the gang--for their great work. The agricultural program in the bill was drafted by Senators Feinstein and Hatch. We then held a number of hearings where we debated, considered, voted on, and adopted scores of amendments during the Judiciary Committee markup under the able leadership of Chairman Leahy. Many of those amendments were bipartisan or were amendments offered solely by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. These amendments dramatically improve the bill. Our bill is better and stronger today than it was when we introduced it.

Before the bill was marked up, this bill had been vetted by the eight of us. Eighteen of us here in the Senate have already had the chance to make our mark on this bill and consider all of the ways in which it should be changed. Now we are here on the floor, where all of my colleagues will have the chance to further improve the bill and discuss the changes they feel need to be made. We readily admit this bill is not perfect and can always be improved. It is undergirded by one thought about the present situation and one about the future that we hope to change. In the present situation, our country--amazingly and counterproductively--turns away hundreds of thousands of people who will create jobs and improve our economy, and at the same time we let millions cross the border and take jobs away from American workers. The system is backward and the status quo is unacceptable.

Our bill is based on one simple principle: that the American people will accept and embrace commonsense solutions to future legal immigration and to the 11 million now living here in the shadows if--and only if--they are convinced there will not be future waves of illegal immigration.

Our bill does three basic things. First, it ensures that we will never again have a wave of future illegal immigration. Second, it fixes our completely dysfunctional legal immigration system to make us the most competitive Nation in the world for both this century and the next. Third, it contains a tough but realistic path for making sure that the people currently here illegally are held accountable for what they did, but it also allows them to join American society on our terms in a fair and honorable way rather than by the current amnesty-by-inaction we see today.

I wish to make it extremely clear that, first and foremost, we are committed to ending the waves of illegal immigration we have seen in the last 30 years. We will accomplish this goal by building a very sturdy three-legged stool of border security, employment verification, and entry-exit. I will now explain what our bill does in each of these areas to prevent future waves of illegal immigration.

Make no mistake, our borders will be secured as a result of this bill. We appropriate $6.5 billion up front in this bill to bolster our security efforts, and that is in addition to the annual appropriations made for each year of border security.

Before any legalization can even begin, the Secretary of Homeland Security is required to come up with a plan on how to deploy $4.5 billion of those resources to acquire new infrastructure, technology, and personnel that will enable the border patrol to catch 9 out of 10 illegal immigrants who attempt to cross our border. Only after this plan is presented to Congress and deployment of the resources has commenced may the legalization program begin to adjust undocumented individuals to registered provisional immigrant status--what we call RPI status. All of the resources in the plan must then be deployed on the ground and working before anyone in RPI status can ever be granted a green card and gain citizenship.

After 5 years, if the Border Patrol is not catching 9 out of every 10 illegal immigrants who attempt to cross the border, a commission with border State Governors and elected officials will be empowered to make recommendations on how best to spend an additional $2 billion that this bill has already preappropriated in order to achieve this 90-percent effectiveness rate.

With minimal resources and with many fewer resources, we are more effective at the border. The effectiveness rate has gone up from 68 percent to 82 percent. Imagine what will happen with the resources we provide in this bill, all of which is paid for by provisions in the bill, both fees for those who wish legal workers to come to work for them and fines for those who have crossed the border illegally. DHS will implement the recommendations of the commission after they have been presented to the Secretary.

Think of this: Crossing the border without permission from the government is a crime. When we catch someone crossing the border and prosecute and deport them, we are solving the crime and punishing the criminal. Our bill will deploy the resources needed to catch, prosecute, and deport 90 percent of the people who cross the border illegally. Ninety percent of all border-crossing cases will be successfully closed. How does that closure rate compare to other violations of our laws? According to FBI statistics, each year we successfully catch, prosecute, and detain wrongdoers in less than 50 percent of the cases where a violent crime has been committed and in less than 20 percent of the cases where a property crime has been committed. Think about the much higher standard our bill is creating for border security--90 percent. Everyone knows 90 percent is an A grade, and our bill will achieve an A-rated border.

For days and weeks now I have heard Senators who would oppose any immigration bill. They say our bill does not secure the border, as if the $6.5 billion does not count. If anyone has a better idea, tell us. But to say this will not improve border security--some may disagree on whether it is the best way to do it or some may disagree on whether it does enough, but don't say it won't do anything to secure the border. History shows that of course it will. The eight of us believe it will do it well and do it strongly. It will do it far better than anything that has ever been envisioned.

Now let's take a look at what we can purchase for this money.

We are going to be building $1 billion worth of border fence. Our bill requires that it be built before anyone can get a green card. Our bill originally had $500 million more allocated for fencing, and the fencing money was actually decreased by the senior Senator from Texas, who thought we were building too much border fence in our bill.

Second, we will be purchasing sensors, fixed towers, radar, and drones that will cover the entire southern border. When this technology is deployed, we will finally be able to see every single person crossing our border, and we will know where to send our 21,000 Border Patrol agents to go catch people.

I visited the border with Senators McCain, Flake, and Bennet. It is huge. We cannot station enough people on the border. There are no roads on large parts of it. But with the drones, we can see every single person who crosses the border day or night, and we can follow their path, so they can be apprehended when they are 10, 20, 25 miles inland. It is a huge improvement. Simple math tells us we have more than one Border Patrol agent for every city block of the southern border. Imagine how low crime would be if we had a police officer on every block. Imagine, once we deploy this technology, how effective it will be.

For those who say the American people do not trust the government to get the job done, I say let's look at the facts. Providing additional resources to DHS for border security has an incredibly proven track record of success. In 2010 Congress passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill for border security. I worked on that with my colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain. It was $600 million. In 2009, according to the GAO, the national effective rate for the entire southern border was 72 percent. In 2011, a year after this was deployed, it went up to 82 percent.

Again, saying this will not improve border security at all or saying there is no security at the border is not fair, and it is not right. I urge my colleagues not to say it. Again, some may disagree with how or disagree with how much, but there is a heck of a lot of border security in this bill.

Most of the resources in the supplemental budget went to the Tucson border sector. In 2009 the effectiveness rate at the Tucson border sector was 71 percent. In 2011 it went up to 87 percent. Given that a mere $600 million supplemental appropriation was able to increase border security effectiveness from 72 percent to 82 percent, it is reasonable to assert that spending over 10 times that money on border security in the form of a $6.5 billion supplemental appropriation for personnel, infrastructure and technology will allow us to apprehend 9 out of every 10 people who try to cross the southern border illegally.

Second, visa overstays will be identified and apprehended when this bill passes. An estimated 40 percent of the 11 million people in unauthorized status are individuals who entered the United States legally but overstayed their visas. When a foreign national enters the country, he or she is fingerprinted and his or her passport or visa is electronically scanned against our data security databases. Amazingly, when this individual exits the country, no such scan occurs, leading to uncertain information as to who overstayed their visas. Forty percent of those who cross illegally do not cross the border; rather, they overstay their visas.

For individuals who enter the United States by air or sea, we will require those individuals to swipe their machine-readable passport visa on an electric scanner at the gate immediately before exiting the United States. To prevent identity theft when the person swipes their visa or passport, their picture comes up on a screen at the gate. The gate agent who is given the passport has to match the picture on the screen with the person giving their passport. The exit information will be given to all of the Department of Homeland Security components to generate an accurate overstay list of people who entered the United States by air or sea. Persons on this list will be apprehended, detained, and deported by ICE.

Persons entering the United States from the northern border will also be identified as exiting the country via the northern border when they are granted entry into Canada, and that is because the United States and Canada are willing to share entry information such that each country will be providing the other country with de facto exit information.

There is criticism leveled by opponents of immigration reform that the exit system must be biometric in order to prevent visa overstays and that using passport or visa pictures instead of fingerprints will not work. Although this criticism is not justified because we will be using picture-matching to prevent identity theft, our bill phases in biometric exit capabilities at our largest airports. During the first 2 years of enactment the bill will require the taking of biometrics for people leaving the United States through the 10 largest international airports. It will go to 20 more in 6 years. If it works better than the photo-match system, we will phase in the print system nationwide. We believe the photo system is just as effective and much, much cheaper. Why do we need to spend billions more to achieve the same result?

In any case, the key to our bill is that we will ensure, soon after passage--even as this biometric exit system is being deployed--we will be able to detect, detain, and deport individuals who enter the United States legally from Canada by airport or seaport and then overstay their visas.

We also make the completion of this entry-exit system a trigger for the path to citizenship. The path to citizenship cannot happen unless this entry-exit system is deployed.

Third, even if a small number of people are able to cross the border illegally or overstay their visa--neither system will be perfect--they will still not be able to find work legally in the United States due to our bill's mandatory employment verification system. Even if someone is able to get here illegally or overstays their visa, their main goal for being here--working--will be impossible after the bill is passed.

That is why we have illegal immigration. The people who cross our borders are very poor people. Most of them are living in poverty and they want a job. They want some money. If they can send $10 a week home to their wife, father or children, they will cross the border to do it. But if they can't get jobs, they are not going to come.

We have 11 million people here today, and we do not have a problem whereby these folks are besieging us with terrorist acts. They are simply here working and feeding their families.

If we eliminate the jobs magnet, we will eliminate illegal immigration. Under this bill, every employer seeking to hire a worker must determine, using our employment verification system, whether that prospective employee is here legally and can work. If the prospective employee is either a noncitizen with work authorization, a U.S. citizen with a passport or a resident of a State that agrees to share a driver's license with DHS--and all 50 States now have driver's licenses--then the prospective employee will have to produce that form of identification to their employer that matches the photo pulled up on the E-Verify database in order to work legally. This will eliminate the identity theft problem that plagues the current E-Verify system.

If the prospective employee is a U.S. citizen who does not have a passport or is not from a State that shares driver's licenses with DHS, then that individual--it is a very small number--will have to answer questions about their identity, generated randomly from their Social Security number, in order to prevent identity theft. Credit card companies have used this system to huge and positive effect.

Employers who do not use E-Verify or who hire illegal workers will be given severe penalties and be jailed for repeated violations. I know many on the other side have wanted to make E-Verify mandatory and permanent. We have heard that for years. Now, all of a sudden when we do it, it is not good enough.

Fourth, this bill also fundamentally alters the cost-benefit analysis for coming to the United States illegally by creating a new W visa worker program to encourage people to come here legally. Because of the bill's significantly enhanced border security, entry-exit, and employment verification, any person intending to come to the United States illegally will have to take great safety risks, at great personal and financial costs to come here. Once they are here, they will find there are no jobs available to support themselves.

Alternatively, they can choose to come legally and work as part of our W visa work program that is created for individuals to work in jobs where employers cannot find American workers but only if they can't find them. Up to 200,000 visas a year will be made available for this purpose. We start with a program that can grow as our economy grows and creates more jobs and is flexibly related to the rate of unemployment.

In addition, a new agricultural program will be set up to replace the previously illegal flow of agricultural workers. Given that the Census Bureau and the Pew Hispanic Center have estimated the illegal flow in past years to be around 400,000 people per year, there should be enough visas to meet any demand for additional workers that might exist.

If more legal workers are needed, the newly formed Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research can provide additional visas to permit more workers to enter in occupations they find have shortages of workers.

Given these new programs, it would no longer make any sense for intending illegal immigrants to spend tens of thousands of dollars and risk their lives to come here illegally. Illegal immigration will be a thing of the past.

Fifth, the bill will protect American workers in four ways: Because of the new employment verification system Americans will no longer have to compete for jobs with unauthorized workers who can easily be exploited. I say to so many of my colleagues who are worried about this, I ride my bicycle around Brooklyn early in the morning. I see on various street corners congregating young men, mainly, and some guy on a truck comes over and says: I will give you $15 to work on roofing on a few houses I am building. I guarantee he doesn't say he will pay them $2 above minimum wage and give them an hour off for lunch. Those illegal immigrants are driving down the wage base, particularly in lower skilled places. That will end.

Second, in the bill's legal worker programs, Americans must be recruited first before any foreign worker will be hired.

In addition, all foreign workers will be required to be paid the same wage as an American would be paid for that job, meaning that a foreign worker will never be hired to undercut an American worker's wage.

All foreign workers will be given portability to change employers if they don't like their current employment situation. This means employers will no longer choose foreign workers over American workers because they have more control over those workers.

Finally, this is also a very fair bill--and we have, of course--I don't go into it here for lack of time--an H-1B system and a system that says if you are a foreigner who studies in an American college and gets an M.A. or Ph.D. in STEM--science, technology, engineering, and math--you will get a green card. These are the very people who in the past have created new companies and created tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of new jobs in America. Now, if they want to come to America after they study here or stay in America, we send them away and they go to Canada and Australia. That would not happen anymore under this bill.

Finally, it is a very fair bill for legal immigration and resolving the status of the people who are here. We create a system, as I mentioned, that allows America to attract and retain the best and brightest minds from around the world in science, math, finance, technology, the arts, and more, fundamental to maintaining America's preeminence in a an increasingly competitive global marketplace. We also provided a JOLT--J-O-L-T--to our travel industry by making it easier for foreign nationals to come to the United States and spend their lucrative vacation dollars here instead of somewhere else.

Of great importance, and perhaps the dividing line between some in this Chamber and the rest of us, we give the 11 million people here a chance to come out of the shadows and earn a path to citizenship after spending 10 years on probation, working, keeping their nose clean, learning English and civics, and paying their taxes. It is a tough path to citizenship, but it is a fair path, and it is a path we make sure will happen, providing the specific metrics in our border security provisions are met.

Our bill requires all of these important enforcement resources I have described to be put in place before we give the individuals a path to citizenship. We in the Group of 8 agree that is fair to ask. The Federal Government should have to put the resources in place that we promised, as necessary, to get the job done. That is entirely within our control and we will live up to our work. But by the same token, we will not leave these 11 million people in immigration limbo forever. It makes no sense to have people living here permanently who have not invested in America. This is the huge mistake Europe has made. We see the ill effects every day on the news of what happens in European countries that have not integrated their immigrant populations. Those populations become affected by a sense of alienation, a lack of opportunity, a lack of upward mobility. That is not America. Here we give people the chance to be all they can be through their hard work. We want people here to be serving on juries, serving in the military, and saying to people that they are just as American as anybody else.

In my city--the city in which I was raised and in which I live--there is that beautiful lady in the harbor with that bright torch. That has been America, and that lady has said through the centuries: If you come here and work hard, stay clear of the law, no matter who you are and what your economic level is, we welcome you. We want you to become an American.

We are not going to take that away. That would be just as dramatic a change in this country we love so much as tearing up the Bill of Rights. It has been part and parcel, warp and woof, of America.

To those who suggest having some secondary status, to those who say let's put into the bill an excuse so someone 3 years from now can say no one can become a citizen, we say: No. We have some basic principles we will not compromise and that is at the top of the list.

In conclusion, I wish to send this message loudly and clearly to all who might be listening today. We are interested in compromises that will make this bill even stronger and more secure. Our group does not claim to have a monopoly on wisdom. We will hear out any of our colleagues from either side of the aisle who have good-faith suggestions on how to improve this bill.

I have heard some say we should not consider any further changes to the bill and dare the other side to vote against it. I reject that approach. We are not interested in scoring a political victory to help one party; we are interested in passing a law that changes the awful status quo, solves the problem, and makes America an even greater and better place. Just because the process has been, to date, so encouraging does not mean we can take anything for granted. So we welcome constructive input from our colleagues and we want to work with them. But the one thing none of us will do is condition the path to citizenship on factors that may not ever happen in order to appear tough.

We are committed to border security. We are committed to ending illegal immigration. But we are equally committed to allowing people the right to earn their way to become an American citizen if they work hard, play by the rules, learn English, and avoid criminality.

Just as I believe to my core that border security should not be a bargaining chip, I also believe to my core that leaving people in immigration limbo, uninvested in America and its successes, is also something we should not do just to pass a bill.

I commit in good faith to every one of my colleagues in this Chamber who wants to work with me to improve the bill that I am open to any ideas. But for those of my colleagues who will not support this legislation, I simply ask the question: How would you solve this problem? The answers are not simple. That is why it has taken us months to get to where we are today.

This bill represents our best chance for a broad bipartisan compromise on a complex issue that we have had for decades.

I hope all of us take this opportunity very seriously. I hope we all do what we can to show the American people that their lawmakers do still have the ability to solve difficult problems that affect every one of our daily lives.

With that, I ask that my colleagues will agree to work with us in good faith to improve this bill and to give a resounding vote--from both sides of the aisle--of support for this bill when it comes to final passage.

I yield the floor.

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