Securing America's Borders Act

SECURING AMERICA'S BORDERS ACT

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I rise to speak in opposition to closing off debate on the underlying bill. We have heard at great length how the opportunity to file and argue and have votes on amendments has been effectively denied by the Democratic leader. It would be a travesty and, indeed, it would be a farce for the Senate to close off debate before we have even had that debate on the substance of this bill.

Why it is that the Democratic leader and others who might vote to close off debate would want to deny the Senate an opportunity to exclude felons from the scope of the amnesty provided by this bill is beyond me. Why it is that there could be those who would want to deny American workers the protection of a fluctuating cap on temporary work permits such that American citizens would not be put out of work because those who have come to the country in violation of our immigration laws and would be given a guaranteed path to American citizenship is beyond me.

Why it is we would want to deny countries such as Mexico and the Central American countries the opportunity to develop their own economies and to provide opportunities for their own citizens so that fewer and fewer of them would have to engage in part of the mass exodus from those countries to the United States, leaving those countries hollowed out and unable to economically sustain themselves and create opportunities for their own citizens, is beyond me.

I understand there are those, on both sides of the aisle, who happen to like the Judiciary Committee bill that is the subject of this cloture motion. While there are portions of the bill I like very much, particularly those which have to do with border security, we know that the bill as yet still does not have a worksite verification provision, to my knowledge. My understanding is, because of jurisdictional conflicts, the Judiciary Committee could not complete work on that portion of the bill, and that is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Finance Committee. We are still waiting for that title III to this bill to come to the floor and be offered as an amendment and be made part of this legislation. Without a worksite verification requirement, this bill will not work, notwithstanding how much we do at our borders, which is very important.

This bill will not work unless we make sure that only people who come forward and submit themselves to background checks and we know are not criminals or terrorists and we know in fact they are qualified and eligible workers--unless we have a system in place to make sure of that, this will not work and we will not have done everything we can and should do to make sure this bill will work.

Indeed, in 1986, as part of the amnesty that was signed in that year, the quid pro quo for the amnesty of some 3 million people was an effective worksite verification program and employer sanctions for those employers who cheat and hire people on the black market of human labor.

We know, because the Federal Government failed to provide that effective Federal Government worksite verification program, that now we are dealing with approximately 12 million people who have come here in violation of our immigration laws, and we are confronted with the monumental challenge of how to address those 12 million in a way that both respects our legacy as a nation that believes in the rule of law while we continue to celebrate our heritage as a nation that believes we are indeed a nation of immigrants and better for it.

This is not the Senate working according to its finest traditions. The only way the Senate works is if each Senator has an opportunity to debate and to argue and to offer amendments. We understand not all of the amendments will be accepted. I am happy--maybe not happy, but I am willing to accept the fact that there may be amendments I will offer that will not be successful. But that is the way the committee process worked under Chairman Specter in the Judiciary Committee. Each of us had a chance to have our say, to offer amendments, and to have a vote. That is the way democracy works. But the idea that we will somehow try to jam this bill through here without Senators having a chance to debate and vote on amendments is a farce. I hope my colleagues will not support it and that they will vote against cloture so we may offer those amendments and have the kind of debate and process that represents the finest traditions of the Senate.

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as we all know, there has been an announcement of a resolution or a settlement among a group of Senators relating to the border security and immigration reform bill that is pending before the Senate, although I would note that the entire Senate has yet to sign off on that agreement. I, for one, want to talk for a few minutes about my concerns regarding the proposal.

Last night we were told at approximately 10 o'clock that this agreement was struck with a group of Senators. It consists of 525 pages and I dare say not many people have read it yet. But my review of the agreement causes me some serious concerns about whether it represents something that reflects good policy or something that would warrant my support.

First, I believe there is a grave risk that the proposal would represent a repetition of the mistake of 1986 when the Congress passed major immigration legislation. My colleagues will recall that it was that year Ronald Reagan signed a bill that was acknowledged to be now, in retrospect, two different things. The first is it was an amnesty for 3 million people who entered our country in violation of our immigration laws. The second thing we have come to realize in retrospect is it was a complete and total failure when it came to securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws.

Some have speculated it was the Federal Government's failure to provide employers a means to verify the eligibility of prospective employees that they could work legally in the country, and certainly the failure on the Federal Government's part is a large part of what is to blame. The corollary of that is the lack of employer sanctions for hiring an illegal workforce. In the past year, we have seen only three sanctions filed against employers for hiring illegal aliens to work in the United States.

Some have said the reason that bill failed is because it didn't have any provision for a legal workforce. I am somewhat sympathetic to that argument because I do support comprehensive immigration legislation, but starting first with border security. We know our inability to control our borders is not only resulting in massive waves of illegal immigration, but we also know it is a national security risk because anyone who has the money to pay a human smuggler or has their wits about them enough to make it over here on their own could literally walk or swim or drive across our border because it is wholly unprotected between the authorized ports of entry. We know our Border Patrol is sorely undermanned with only about 11,000 Border Patrol agents for a 2,000-mile southern border, and contrast that with 39,000 police officers in the city of New York alone.

So we can see the Border Patrol has been vastly out manned and outnumbered when it comes to the number of people coming across. There were 1.1 million illegal aliens apprehended last year alone.

The problem with the 1986 amnesty is that it led to additional illegal immigration, and we now have approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants--people who have come to this country in violation of our immigration laws. And we have come to learn that our booming economy is a vast magnet for people who want a better life. While we can all understand that on a very basic human level, we also know the U.S. Government and the people of this country cannot accept anyone and everyone who wants to come into this country in violation of our immigration laws. Thus, we have a right, as every sovereign nation has, to regulate the flow of people across our borders in our Nation's best interests.

I worry that the legislation that is now pending before this body, the so-called Hagel-Martinez compromise, would actually result in a further magnet for illegal immigration because it, in part, rewards people for coming into the country in violation of our immigration laws.

It causes me great concerns in other respects as well. For example, the proposal would not be closed to felons and serial criminal offenders. Nor would it be closed to people who had their day in court but failed to comply with the deportation order, showing tremendous disrespect not only for our laws but for the safety and welfare of the American people.

We also know the current bill that is pending before us prevents information sharing by the Department of Homeland Security to root out fraud, which is another problem with the 1986 amnesty because people were able to generate fraudulent documents to qualify for that amnesty. We know that false documents are a tremendous vulnerability of the American people to terrorists and criminals and others who want to come across our borders, and this bill does not do enough to allow us to protect ourselves by investigating and prosecuting that kind of fraud, by sharing information, and that is why we need some amendments to be argued and voted on by the Senate to fix the serious gaps in this bill.

But perhaps one of the gravest concerns I have is this proposed compromise does not protect American workers. Indeed, under this bill, up to 12 million people will be able to get green cards. In other words, they will gain the status of a legal permanent resident and a path to American citizenship. This is without regard to whether our economy is in a boom status as it is now, with about 4.8 percent unemployment, or whether our economy is in a recession, where Americans are more likely to be out of work and competing with these 12 million new green card holders for employment. So I believe we need a provision in this bill that provides for a true temporary worker program that can reflect the ups and downs of the economy.

Under this bill there will be a massive one-way migration of people from countries in Central America and Mexico and South America into the United States, and no incentives for their return and for maintaining their ties to their family and their culture and their country in a way that ultimately benefits their country as well. No country on Earth can sustain an economic body blow of a permanent migration of its work force out of that country. But this proposal this creates a temporary worker category that is not temporary, but is instead an alternative path to citizenship. So even though there are some who have talked about a guest worker program or a temporary worker program, this is neither. This is an alternative path to citizenship for 12 million people, permanent status in the United States, regardless of whether our economy is good or our economy is bad. And when it is bad, these individuals will prove stiff competition indeed for America and people born in these United States, or legal immigrants.

There is also no provision in this bill--and this is another concern I have for the American worker--that there be a willing employer and a willing employee. In other words, under this bill individuals can come into the country and self petition for green cards or legal permanent residency. Thus, here again, another important protection for the American worker is totally ignored under this bill.

Another grave concern I have, and this goes back to 1986, is there is absolutely no provision made for employer verification of the eligibility of prospective employees. As some have said, this is deja vu all over again because the Judiciary Committee, as you know, Mr. President, and as the distinguished ranking member knows, did not have jurisdiction over that provision of the bill, so it had to be drafted by the Finance Committee. Yet there is absolutely no amendment pending. I don't know of any plans--maybe there are plans that I am just unaware of--that would provide employers the means to verify that individuals are indeed eligible to work in the United States and discourage, if not eliminate, the use of fraudulent documents to claim that authority to work in the United States. Without that, without border security, without interior enforcement, and without employer verification and sanctions for those who do not play by the rules, this bill provides another invitation to massive illegal immigration and constitutes a reward to those who have come into our country in violation of our laws.

My ultimate concern is we will have a vote on a motion to close off debate on this compromise tomorrow morning. There are a number of pending amendments that I intend to offer. Of course we know the Senate largely operates by unanimous consent. There is also a desire by Senators right before any recess to get on to their homes and their families and back to their States. But this is an extremely important bill, I would say, even more than most of the issues we consider here because it is a matter of national security. It is a matter of maintaining the confidence of the American people because, frankly, the American people believe we let them down in 1986. They believe the Senate is not serious about border security, is not serious about workplace enforcement, and the only way we are going to be able to demonstrate that we are serious is to have a full and fair debate, to allow amendments and votes on those amendments on the floor. So far, all we have been met with is obstructionism because we have been denied the opportunity to have an up-or-down vote on essential amendments that are necessary to improve this bill.

I know we will have a vote tomorrow morning. Unless there is some good-faith attempt to reach some accommodation to allow Senators to offer those amendments that would improve the bill in the respects I have pointed out, then I expect that we will have a long weekend, and perhaps beyond, so there will be an opportunity for us to have the kind of debate that is reflective of the world's greatest deliberative body and which discharges the responsibility we have to protect the American people, to secure our borders, to make sure we are absolutely serious about enforcing our laws, while at the same time we enact comprehensive border security and immigration reform.

I yield the floor.

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