Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I want to speak for a few minutes on the progress we are making on the immigration bill. In speaking about the progress, it also gives me a chance to say to my colleagues on this side of the aisle that I hope we can get an agreement to vote on amendments this afternoon, because it is not only Democrats who want amendments, we have got a lot of Republicans who want to put up some amendments. If we can get this tranche of amendments out of the way, then that gives us a chance to put up another tranche of 8 to 10 amendments is what I think we have the possibility of doing.

We have been on this bill for 1 week. We had one vote last week. That was on my own amendment. That dealt with border security. Of course, that vote was not a vote up or down on the amendment, it was a vote to table. We were refused by the majority to have an up-or-down vote on legislation that is part of the legislation that is some of the most important to the people of this country, securing the border before we have legalization. I quoted yesterday a CNN poll that said 60 percent of the people say border security is the No. 1 issue as far as immigration is concerned. It is a necessary predecessor to legalization.

Yesterday we had three votes. Unfortunately, they were 60-vote thresholds. Obviously, most of the time you have a 60-vote threshold, it is set up so that any amendment under that rule would fail. Yesterday the majority leader threatened again to keep us working all weekend. He stated he could file a cloture motion to cut off debate as early as Friday. Of course, I hope that is not the case, because we need an open and fair amendment process. We do immigration reform about once every 25 years. My colleagues hear me say we made a lot of mistakes in 1986. That is the last time we had a major immigration bill pass the Senate. So we need to get it right. People do not want us to do it in a fast and haphazard way. People want us to be very cautious about something you do once every 25 years.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I had a very good working relationship in committee. We still have a good working relationship with this bill out here on the floor of the Senate. But there are 98 other Senators involved. In committee it is a different situation than on the Senate floor. In committee, we did not limit the ability of any Member to raise an amendment. We had some tough votes we were all forced to take in committee.

But now there are other Members who want their chance to improve the bill. Of course, I said at the beginning of my remarks if we get these eight amendments out of the way that are in this tranche, then we can bring other amendments up, both Republican and Democratic amendments.

I realize there is a bipartisan group of Senators working on a border security amendment. This is supposed to be some grand compromise. The group is trying to find common ground somewhere between the bill as drafted, 1,075 pages in that bill as drafted, and the Cornyn amendment--middle ground.

At this point I am hearing from the other side as well as the Group of 8 that they think the Cornyn amendment goes too far. Some would say the Democrats will not negotiate in good faith because they have the votes to pass the bill as is. It is no secret the Democrats wish to have 70 votes at the end of the day. But even with 70 votes, in my view, that is not a big victory and may very well be a failure. It should not take much to get 15 Republican votes. It does not guarantee the House will take up the bill. In fact, this bill may be dead on arrival in the other body since they have their own approach and they have their own ideas.

It was reported today that this bipartisan group of Senators trying to find middle ground between this big bill and the Cornyn amendment on border security are having trouble finding that consensus. They are having trouble because the Democrats do not want any triggers or roadblocks to legalization. That is clear. In other words, some people are not willing to learn from the mistakes we made in 1986. We thought in good faith we were writing a piece of legislation that would stop people crossing the border without papers. We did that by making it illegal for the first time to hire undocumented workers. We did it by adding a $10,000 fine. So take away the magnet to work, the border is secure, legalize 3 million people at that time.

We found that legalizing illegality brings yet more illegality. So now there are 12 million people who either overstayed a visa or crossed the border without papers. We should learn from that mistake of 25 years ago, the last time an immigration bill was up. We should do something about border security. That something has to be stronger than what is in this piece of legislation. But it is apparent to me--I hear rumors that a lot of people on the other side of the aisle do not want any triggers or roadblocks to legalization. That is not saying you do not want legalization, that is only saying certain preconditions ought to happen before there is legalization. Those ought to be meaningful steps to take.

Yesterday the majority leader, as I said, said he was not in favor of triggers. Secretary Napolitano in this administration made it clear legalization should come first and triggers should not be a roadblock to legalization, the very same mistakes we made in 1986.

The group negotiating this broader amendment is trying to do the right thing, but I have real doubts that the other side of the aisle wants to do anything to secure the border. Because of this, the misguided, mislabeled bill before us could be falling apart. Those of us who question this big government bill appear to be making headway in exposing the bill for what it truly is, legalization first, enforcement later. Despite repeated promises, it is that, legalization first, border security when? Sometime down the road. Sometime never happens.

Sure, the proponents can throw money and dictate how many cameras and drones to buy, but that does not mean the border will be stronger or more secure. We need to do more than give them the capability of achieving specific metrics. We need them to prove their success.

One more thing on the possibility of working this weekend. Since I have been in the Senate, we have had a lot of weekend sessions. Generally what happens is you have a lot of debate and a lot of talk and a lot of wasted time on Saturdays. You have one vote at 2 o'clock on Sunday. For a guy like me, I am going to be here regardless, not because I am manager of this bill solely, but I have not missed a vote in the Senate since July 1993. I have cast about 6,700 votes without missing a vote. If there is only one vote Sunday afternoon I am going to be here. But I would suggest if we are going to have a weekend session, that action be taken to make sure we are actually doing something and voting, that if we are going to be in session, that there is not some sort of accommodation made, usually for the majority party and sometimes the Republican Party, but right now it is the Democratic Party to make a provision so people who want to fly home can do it. Either we are here to work on the weekend or we should not be here.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, yesterday we had the good fortune of receiving the Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of the immigration bill before the Senate, and I would like to mention two findings from the CBO report.

It says the bill will drive down wages. For legal American workers, the CBO estimates the bill would drive down their average wages.

Secondly, it says the bill will not stop illegal immigration. Despite promises of a secure border, the bill would slow future illegal immigration by only 25 percent, according to the CBO. In the next couple of decades, that would mean 7.5 million new undocumented immigrants coming to the country.

Before I dive into these two findings, let me remind my colleagues what was said by the authors of the bill. They said that undocumented immigrants and, hence, illegal migration would be a thing of the past. They said their bill included the toughest enforcement measures in history.

In their framework, the Group of 8 said they would write a bill which would ensure that the problem does not have to be revisited. They implied that their bill--similar to the 1986 bill--would take care of the problems once and for all. The obvious fact there is that the 1986 legislation said it would secure the border, but it never did secure the border. So we see the Group of 8 legislation before us as making the same mistakes we made in 1986.

As to what the Group of 8 said--that they would write a bill that would ensure that the problem does not have to be revisited--we find the Congressional Budget Office thinks entirely differently.

I may not always agree with CBO. I disagree with the fact that CBO has used dynamic economic effects to score this bill, when they do not use it on anything else. Yet they refuse to provide the dynamic scoring particularly on revenue bills. But everyone knows what the CBO says goes.

I always say on the Senate floor, CBO is god. If they say something is going to cost something, and you want to dispute what they say, you have to have 60 votes in this body to overturn a point of order against the CBO. It is very difficult to get 60 votes in the Senate, so that is when if they say something is something, it is something, and that makes them god around this town.

So I ask the proponents about these two key findings that I have pointed
out: What do the proponents say about the fact that the influx of new immigrants would have the effect of bringing down the average wage for America's workforce?

This is exactly the point Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, argued before our Judiciary Committee on April 19. He said illegal immigration has a negative effect on the wages and employment levels of low-skilled workers, particularly African Americans.

The second question to the group: Is the fact that S. 744 will drive down wages acceptable to those who support the bill?

In the report, the ``CBO estimates that, under the bill, the net annual flow of unauthorized residents would decrease by about 25 percent relative to what would occur under current law.''

I wish to put in front of that 25 percent my own words: You mean if we pass this legislation, according to CBO, this legislation is only going to have the effect of lowering the illegal immigration by 25 percent, when we are led to believe they are going to overcome the problems we did not foresee in 1986, when we legalized--thought we did it once and for all; that would take care of it--and we find out now it did not take care of it. We legalized 3 million people, and now we have 12 million undocumented people here as well.

So let's just see. If the CBO is correct and the net flow of unauthorized residents would only decrease by about 25 percent, does that not indicate we will have to revisit the immigration issue again?

It is obvious this bill will not ensure that we are not back in this same position down the road, contrary to the promises of the Group of 8 that: We are going to write this legislation in a way that we will not have to revisit it. We said that very same thing in 1986, but here we are 25 years later with four times the number of undocumented workers than we had then.

The CBO also reported that while ``enforcement and employment verification requirements in the legislation would probably reduce the size of the U.S. population,'' other aspects of the bill will, in fact, ``probably increase the number of unauthorized residents--in particular, people overstaying their visas issued under the new programs for temporary workers.''

This bill favors legalization before border security and, apparently, will have no noticeable decrease in the net annual flow of unauthorized residents. The CBO says the bill will not stop the flow of illegal immigration.

If proponents are serious about stopping people from living here illegally--contrary to our law, a nation based upon the rule of law--they need to adopt commonsense legislation that will stop this flow, not merely reduce it by just 25 percent.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source