Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006--Continued

COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2006--CONTINUED

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Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I thank my friends from Alabama and Colorado for this opportunity to rise in support of Senator Sessions and our colleagues who are raising a budget point of order on this bill. I have said throughout the entire debate and since I introduced legislation last fall that we have to secure our borders first.

The budget implications of this all-encompassing, do-everything bill are just overwhelming, but what concerns me the most is that we are not doing enough to secure our borders first. We shouldn't spend one dime on any sort of amnesty provisions until we secure our border first. We shouldn't attempt to guess how many billions of dollars we are going to spend on how many millions of people might be coming into our country until we secure our borders. It is a very simple equation. We will never get a real grasp on solving the problem of illegal immigration in this country until our borders are secure. Border security first.

The deficit is real, and the problem of illegal immigration is also real, and we should make a serious investment in securing our borders. But to adopt an all-encompassing, do-everything bill with a multi-billion-dollar price tag that won't match up with what the House has passed, and that doesn't do nearly enough to secure our borders, is irresponsible, and I can't support it.

That is why I am here today to support Senator Sessions and the budget point of order he intends to raise against this bill.

If we don't get a bill out of Congress this year--and when I say out of Congress, I am talking about out of committee as well--the costs associated with this illegal immigration issue that we have right now will only continue to go up. That is why investing in border security first is, in fact, the right investment.

Now, not only does this do-everything bill cost a considerable amount of money--although we can't be sure exactly how much, but we do have some idea from the CBO estimates that for the first 10-year window, it could be as much as a net of $52 billion, and direct spending from 2017 to 2026 could be at least at $108 billion. So while we don't know everything about the costs, we do have estimates that would suggest that the cost will be significant and even end up costing us more.

So we do have to address the border security first. Until we do, the implications and the costs will continue to grow at an alarming rate.

Mr. President, there is an old saying that I imagine every parent has told their child: When you are in a hole, the first thing you have to do is stop digging. We have to stop digging. We must secure our border first, and we must shut down illegal immigration, and only then--only then--can we move forward in a financially responsible way that secures our border and, at the same time, gives us an opportunity to put an end to illegal immigration and deal in a comprehensive manner with the illegal immigration that we already have. We must, in fact, stop the problem from getting bigger in terms of the number of illegal immigrants before we can deal with the problem of what we do with illegal immigrants already here.

It is not mean-spirited to want to protect our borders, to want to close the back door on illegal immigration and look at opening the front door to legal immigration. There is nothing irresponsible about wanting to secure the borders with appropriate barriers, fences, and walls to make sure that we are secure against not simply illegal immigration for people who want to come to work, but also against the drug dealers, the smugglers, as well as the gang members from Central America who continue to come over the border at an alarming rate. We have a security issue. I stand today to support the budget point of order.

I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor.

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