Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I know the Gang of 8 members who were responsible for the basic framework of this legislation have done tremendous work and have advanced the substance and tone of our discussion immeasurably since 2007, which is the last time we had a major immigration bill on the floor.

I think the American people now understand the status quo is simply unacceptable. We have a broken immigration system which, in the words of my friend from Florida Senator Marco Rubio is effectively a de facto amnesty, because we have a system that is lawless and it is uncontrolled and it operates neither in the best interests of our country economically nor represents our values.

The American people are famously generous and compassionate. As a society we believe in second chances. All of us have benefited from second chances in life, and I believe the American people believe those who have come here to America in violation of our immigration laws, if they are willing to step up, pay a fine, register, and live in compliance with our laws, should get a second chance as well.

As a matter of fact, polling shows the American people support a permanent legalization program for 11 million immigrants living in the United States but only--only--if they are convinced the Congress has made sure they will never ever have to do this again. In other words, I believe the American people believe if the borders were controlled; if they believed we had a biometric entry-exit system which would track visitors who enter the country and who never leave, which is 40 percent of illegal immigration; if they believed we actually had an effective E-Verify or employment verification system that would determine at the worksite when someone shows up to work they are legally qualified to work in America--I believe if we had those three legs to the stool in place, the American people would do, once again, the generous thing, the compassionate thing, and give second chances to the 11 million people who are here.

But the problem with this bill--and I say this more out of sadness than anything else--the promises of this bill have simply not been kept. We were told 6 months ago the pathway to citizenship was contingent upon border security and these other enforcement measures taking place. When it wasn't, I proposed an amendment which would condition the transfer for probationary status to legal permanent residency on a certification that the objectives on operational security of the border had been met. I believed that by doing so, we would realign all of the incentives for the political parties--for Independents, for conservatives, for liberals--everybody would be focused like a laser on how to get this done, how to hit the mark.

I believe, if we had a mechanism in this bill which did not depend on Congress keeping future promises of performance, we could regain the trust and confidence of the American people such that we could get to a successful outcome.

Unfortunately, as the Presiding Officer knows, the proposal I made to do exactly that has been rejected. In fact, the assistant Democratic leader made the point recently in June that permanent legalization has now been delinked from border security.

But I believe the problems of this legislation go well beyond the border. When I offered 5,000 Border Patrol agents, I was told that--even though the Gang of 8 bill offered zero Border Patrol agents, I was told that was a budget-buster. It was simply unaffordable--5,000 new Border Patrol agents. But now we find 20,000 additional Border Patrol agents provided for in this bill. Now we have been told that we have essentially a surge of law enforcement to the border and a huge investment in new technology and boots on the ground.

The only thing missing is a plan to make sure those people are actually effectively deployed and that technology will actually be deployed in a way that secures the border. I know the surge worked in Afghanistan, but I am not so sure we need a military surge in South Texas, and particularly in the absence of any plan to make sure people are going to be effectively utilized.

What is more, I would say I do not believe the promises made in this bill will ever be kept. I do not believe we will ever have an extra 20,000 Border Patrol agents. I do not believe the huge investment in technology will ever be made because it depends not just on this Congress and this administration but future Congresses and future administrations.

So we have, in essence, the American people being asked to grant the gift of a pathway to citizenship, to demonstrate the typical American belief in second chances and demonstrate their compassion. But, in essence, they have been tricked, once again, to trade that in exchange for hollow promises of future action. I think it is an unacceptable deal.

The problems with this legislation also extend beyond that. This bill grants immediate legal status to people with multiple misdemeanors and convictions for driving while intoxicated and spousal abuse. As a matter of fact, a person can have been deported out of the country for having committed a crime yet be eligible for reentry into the country and eligible for probationary status under this bill. I think that is shocking. I understand why we would want to give people who are economic migrants an opportunity to get right with the law and to get on with their lives, but why in the world would we want to extend that generosity to people who show nothing but contempt for the rule of law?

This bill also hinders law enforcement by making confidential the information contained in applications for probationary status that are rejected. This happened back in 1986. And I remember a quote, I believe it was from the senior Senator from New York after that time, to the effect that that was one of the biggest sources of fraud in the amnesty of 1986. My hope would be we would not repeat that mistake again by keeping that information confidential and away from law enforcement authorities, thereby hindering their efforts to root out fraud and make sure only people who legally qualify for this generosity are able to do so.

The other problem with this bill is it simply is a budget-buster. I was told 5,000 Border Patrol agents that would be paid for out of the $8.3 billion trust fund created by this bill was too much, but now we have $30 billion more in additional spending being promised. The argument is that somehow this is free money and it doesn't cost a penny because under the CBO score, there will actually be a reduction in deficits. The problem is that is double-counting the money. It is the money coming into the Treasury because of people who are now registered, who are paying into Social Security and the like. But it takes that money to spend on these other programs and does not appreciate or recognize the fact that money is also going to need to be available to pay future benefits for these same people. That is double-counting. That is phony bookkeeping, and we ought to reject it.

The truth is, this bill adds to the budget deficit an additional roughly $14 billion as presently written. At a time when our debt is at $17 trillion, it strikes me as the wrong thing to do to say we are going to add further to that debt and jeopardize our fiscal health for the country as a whole going forward.

I will close with this. It gives me great pain to say that I think this is an opportunity we have failed to take advantage of. I think we could have done better and we should have done better. This bill is unworthy of my support and it will be unworthy of support by a number of Members. But my hope is the House of Representatives takes up this issue and we can somehow find our way to a conference committee with the House and produce a bill we can eventually put on the President's desk. It will not be like this bill, I am confident of that. The House has far different views. But what we do have that we didn't have in 2007 is I think a true bipartisan consensus that the status quo is unacceptable and we have to do better. Unfortunately, this bill doesn't keep the promises that were made originally, and for that, I truly regret it.

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