Secuirng America's Borders Act--Resumed

SECURING AMERICA'S BORDERS ACT--Resumed

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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to support the Judiciary Committee's superb product, the immigration reform, border security bill. I also wish to speak on an amendment Senator Brownback and I intend to offer. I gather we are not offering amendments now, but this is an opportunity to speak on this amendment. This would address America's treatment of people who come here seeking asylum.

I am pleased to be working with Senator Brownback. Over the years, my colleague from Kansas has done so much good work to protect the rights of refugees overseas and those who seek asylum on our shores for a host of reasons--that they might escape persecution for reasons of faith or politics. Senator Brownback is a partner I am truly proud to be working with on this matter.

This amendment rises out of a report that was issued in February of last year by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. It is a Commission established by law, by act of Congress. One of its duties is to issue annual and often more frequent reports. This report last February raised very serious concerns, objections about insufficient protections for asylum seekers arriving in this country. The Commission reported an unacceptable risk that genuine asylum seekers were being turned away because their fears and the real dangers of being returned to their home countries were not fully considered. The Commission also found that while asylum seekers are having their applications considered, they are often detained for months in maximum-security prisons without ever having had a chance before an immigration judge to request release on bond.

The Commission described conditions of detention that are completely unacceptable for a just nation to impose on people who are trying to escape war, oppression, religious persecution, even torture.

The amendment I am honored to be offering with Senator Brownback will implement the Commission's most important recommendations. It calls for sensible reforms that will safeguard the Nation's security, improve the efficiency of our immigration detention system, and ensure that people fleeing persecution are treated in accordance with this Nation's most basic values. Remember, our purpose was stated in the original American document, the Declaration of Independence, which said that the Government was being formed to secure the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which were the endowment of our Creator, not just to every American but to every child of God.

this Nation has been, over the decades, a land of refuge where people seek freedom and sanctuary from the deprivations they endured in the countries they were in. It is our attempt in this amendment to revitalize and make more credible and honest and true the asylum process that our country has to implement those ideals.

The amendment we are introducing would implement quality assurance procedures to ensure that Government employees carefully and accurately record the statements of people who say they have a fear of returning to their countries. Aliens not subject to mandatory detention would be entitled to a hearing--basic American due process--to determine whether they could be released. Providing bond hearings for low-risk aliens will also free up space for the cases that really ought to be incarcerated.

The amendment also promotes secure alternatives to detention of the type that the Department of Homeland Security, I am pleased to say, has already begun to implement. These new programs and procedures would also make our use of detention space more effective and efficient at an average cost of $90 per person per day. But, of course, that is the average. Often it is much higher. Detention beds have always been scarce.

Provisions in the legislation before us--the Judiciary Committee proposal--would vastly increase the number of aliens being held in detention. The underlying bill, which I strongly support, is a tough bill. It is so tough that it will inevitably increase the number of people who are not in legal status who will be held in detention. Our immigration system will need to prioritize available space because it is limited for aliens who pose a risk of flight, a threat to public safety, or are otherwise subject by law to mandatory detention.

For those who may remain detained, we are obliged as a just society to provide humane conditions at immigration facilities and jails used by the Department of Homeland Security.

The amendment we are introducing includes modest requirements to ensure decent conditions, consistent with our best American values, especially for asylum seekers, families with children, and other vulnerable populations. It requires improvements in areas such as access to medical care and limitations on the use of solitary confinement. It creates a more effective system within the Department of Homeland Security for seeing and inspecting these facilities.

The United States has been, is, and hopefully always will be a land of refuge for those seeking liberty. Many of our Nation's Founders, of course, fled here themselves to escape persecution for their political opinions, their religious beliefs, or even their ethnicity. Since that time, the United States has honored its history and its founding values by standing against persecution around the world, offering refuge to those who flee from oppression and welcoming them as contributors to American society.

That brings me now briefly to the larger immigration debate before us this week. I want to start with a bit of history. It was in March of 1790 that the first Congress of the United States began debating an immigration and naturalization act that would spell out how new arrivals could become citizens of our new Nation. The main requirement of the law finally approved was that an immigrant needed to live in the United States for 2 years and in the State in which he settled for 1 year to attain legal status. The Senator from Pennsylvania at the time, Mr. William Maclay, thought immigration would be such a benefit to the new Nation that he wanted those residency requirements removed. Senator Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, who I believe occupied the seat in the Senate that I am honored to occupy now in the succession, wanted the residency requirement kept in. Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania lost the debate and, frustrated, wrote in his diary afterward:

We Pennsylvanians act as if we believe that God made of one blood all families of the earth. But the Eastern people----

Parenthetically, he must have been referring to us nutmakers from Connecticut---- seem to think that he made none but New England folks.

I am sure Senator Ellsworth would have objected to that diary entry on behalf of himself and the people of Connecticut.

Today, this Senator from Connecticut is proud to stand with one of the two Senators from Pennsylvania today, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter, and my fellow New Englander, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, in supporting the balanced, strong, practical, progressive immigration reforms that they have reported out of the Judiciary Committee.

I thank them and congratulate them on this balanced and bipartisan bill. I also give special tribute to Senators KENNEDY and MCCAIN for all of the work they did in introducing their initial legislation, which I was proud to be an original cosponsor of, much of which has now been embraced in the Judiciary Committee bill.

The proposed legislation before us, the underlying bill, would enhance our national security, promote our economic well-being, and create a fair and just path to citizenship for those who come here to work hard, pay their taxes, respect the law, and learn the English language.

We all agree we have to do more to secure our borders and control illegal immigration. What we are doing now simply doesn't work. This debate has to be about practical solutions, about fixing that problem. That means we will never fix our broken borders without fixing our broken immigration system, in my opinion.

People talk about this as a choice between better border security and immigration reform. That is a false choice. Not only do we need both, unless we have both we will not achieve either better border security or the practical immigration reform we need.

The bill reported out of the Judiciary Committee contains all of the essential security and enforcement provisions in the bill introduced by the majority leader. Both bills substantially increase Border Patrol and immigration enforcement personnel, detention beds, border fences, resources for border security systems and technologies. Both bills create new criminal penalties or make existing penalties more severe. Both bills establish new mandates and authorities for detaining and deporting aliens.

However, the Judiciary Committee bill omits a couple of parts of the majority leader's bill which ought to be omitted--those that criminalize the so-called Good Samaritan behavior toward undocumented immigrants and those who would criminalize the undocumented immigrants that we have. To me, that is foolish; it will not work. In fact, it will push the undocumented immigrants further into the shadows because now their status is not only a violation of immigration law but it would be a crime. It would subject them to much greater exploitation by employers in this country and, in that sense, constitute increasingly difficult competition for Americans who want to work. But overall, this bill on border security contains all of the provisions, except those two, in the majority leader's proposal to toughen border security.

I think history should have told us something--that as important as tough border security measures are, they are not going to solve the problem of illegal immigration because people want so desperately to come here. I have said before, and I will say it again: With very few exceptions, the 11 million undocumented immigrants that we have in the country today came to America for the same reasons my grandparents did. But my grandparents arrived at Ellis Island and they were let in. Why did the undocumented come then and today? For freedom, for opportunity, for a better life for their children--to be Americans. Think about it: freedom, opportunity, and a better life for our children, which are American values and the American dream.

I think history has shown us that border security ought to be toughened, but it is not going to stop this flow. Let me cite this statistic for you to prove it. In recent times, from 1993 to 2004, the number of Border Patrol agents was tripled because of concerns about illegal immigration. Spending on border enforcement quadrupled. We have 10,835 Border Patrol agents and almost $4 billion a year is spent--quadrupled on border enforcement. What happened to the number of undocumented immigrants in that time? It has doubled, from 4.5 million to 9.3 million. The reason, obviously, is that as long as we fail to provide legal channels to these people who desperately want to come to this country, they are going to find some way to come here illegally. They are going to come here to work.

You have all seen the Pew Charitable Trust studies that show that 95 percent of the working-age men who are undocumented immigrants have full-time, year-round jobs. In fact, they make up 5 percent of the American workforce overall.

So the reforms this bill adopts, creating a path to earn citizenship, not only is the right thing to do for our economy, but it is consistent with our values. It is also the most practical thing to do to deal with the problem of illegal immigration and border security and, as others have said, would free up resources at the border to stop the few coming over who come in for bad reasons. Particularly, I focus on potential terrorists and those who want to deal in controlled substances, drugs, in this country.

I will wrap up now because I see my friend and colleague and supporter of this legislation, the Senator from Colorado, on the floor. I support it strongly. I think we have an extraordinary opportunity in this Senate to do something right this week, and to do something practical to fix the immigration crisis in our country. The immigration system is not working now and this bill gives you an opportunity to make it work. I know there has been discussion of possible compromises. I think the Judiciary Committee bill itself is a compromise, and a good strong one. Although the particular compromises that have been floated in the last 24 hours I don't accept, I am encouraged by them because they speak to momentum in favor of coming together across party lines, regional lines--every line you could imagine--as Americans, to do what is right and practical, and to assist our security and our economy.

I close with a wonderful quote I found from Thomas Jefferson going back to the initial days of immigration when he said:

Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should, your right to join us in society.

It is that spirit Jefferson articulated right at the beginning of the American experience that I think challenges us, informs, and elevates the proposal before us. We have a real opportunity to act on that ideal this week. I can't help but go back to what that wise Senator from Pennsylvania once said: God, in fact, made all the families of Earth of one blood.

I yield the floor and thank the Chair.

http://thomas.loc.gov/