Hearing of the House Judiciary Committee's Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law Subcommittee: Wasted Vistas, Growing Backlogs

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REP. LUIS GUTIERREZ (D-IL): Thank you.

Mr. Edson, I'd like to ask you, because I have your bulletin here -- and English is my second language, so bear with me. But it says sets an annual minimum -- you kept using the word "limit" -- family- sponsored preference at 226,000. And then when I go to Immigration Nationality Act, it says in no case shall the number be computed -- (inaudible) -- be less than 226 (thousand).

So is 226 (thousand) the maximum, or a minimum? What is it? Is it a floor?

MR. EDSON: If I could defer to my colleague, Mr. Oppenheim.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Sure.

MR. OPPENHEIM: Yes. The 226,000 was established as a floor.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Okay, good. It's a floor. So the next time I get in line at Target and it says no limit 10, I shouldn't feel like I should use the Oppenheim rule here and say I can bring 20, right? It actually means 10.

MR. OPPENHEIM: Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ: So your whole argument about, well, we don't want to exceed, you actually don't want to exceed the minimum, the floor. So there really is no limit. It says shall not exceed. It says, I'm reading this -- and you said it's a floor, just using your word. You said it's a floor -- shall not exceed the annual minimum family-based preference of 226 (thousand). And it says minimum, and in the statute it says shall not exceed.

MR. OPPENHEIM: The minimum floor is the limit for the year, though, that we are not allowed to exceed.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Really? Where's that in the statute? I just read you the statute. (Chuckles.)

MR. OPPENHEIM: Well, the computation -- the way the annual limit is determined, we start out with a maximum level of 480,000 visas. From that we subtract the amount of immediate relatives who were processed the preceding year. Then we add back in any potential unused employment numbers. Whatever that result is would be the annual limit.

If it were 250,000 --

REP. GUTIERREZ: So there's another part of the statute.

MR. OPPENHEIM: Yes. If it were -- if that resulted in 250,000, that would be the family limit. But if the totals was --

REP. GUTIERREZ: Thank you. It's just that I read your bulletin. I think you might want to add that to the bulletin, because if I read the bulletin, it says minimum. And as I read the statute, it said shall not exceed. So when I look at those two parts of it, obviously not understanding your comprehensive understanding of the way it works, that that would be it.

So if we went back and -- trying to respond to the minority here -- we went back and captured all of these family-based visas and went back to 1992, as the gentlelady chairwoman proposes to do, we'd recapture how many?

MR. OPPENHEIM: Approximately 95,000 which have not already been recaptured in one form or another.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Okay. So 95,000 would reduce the waiting limit for someone waiting for their brother in the Philippines from 21 years to 20 years?

MR. OPPENHEIM: Potentially.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Well, you guys issued the bulletin.

MR. OPPENHEIM: Correct.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Okay. So -- okay, let me just ask you what's the max that you know of family reunification under these visas for a brother, immediate family member? What's the maximum waiting period from any country?

MR. OPPENHEIM: For the Philippines, it would be March 8th of 1986.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Okay. So that's -- so I'm not off-base here. It's 22 years. So if we recaptured all of these visas, maybe we'd cut six months off of that wait for that brother? So instead of him being -- if he's 21 -- 43 years, he'd get here when he was 42-and-a-half years. And who's ever applying for him, if they were 30, he'd only be like 50-some years when he finally got his brother here.

I just wanted to put this in some context since we heard about all these people coming and all this surge to America and how this might impact the surge. Indeed is it not true that these visas, for the most part -- I mean, on the family, we're talking about a husband, a wife, right, for permanent resident. Just stop me when I name a person that isn't included in here. We're talking about children, right? Children. And we're talking about brothers and sisters. Not talking about aunts and uncles and cousins are we? Those aren't included right? It's got to be in the immediate family.

Well, it seems to me to be the great American tradition according to my colleagues on the other side about family values and bringing families together. I would think they would be cheering on and applauding us as we wish to bring a husband and a wife, brothers together, husbands and wives and children together. So I just wanted to kind of put in some kind of context the kind of surge language that we heard earlier. And hopefully, on the second turn -- I have some more questions if the gentlelady gives me a second chance -- I'd like to ask you a few more questions.

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REP. LUIS GUTIERREZ (D-IL): Thank you.

First of all, I wanted to thank all of you for your work and your public service. I didn't say that the first time around. I really mean that, because my staff is always calling you folks, because we have hundreds of people that stream into our office, literally hundreds every week, and most of their questions are directed either to the visa bulletins, which is pretty easy -- we give them an answer; we tell them where they're at in the queue -- or you've got the application and we want to get that application.

And the citizenship stuff is working. At least in Chicago, it's working very well and people are -- the citizenship applications, we've noticed people more quickly becoming citizens and getting through the process. So I want to thank you about that. I know we have to talk about nationally too. But I'm excited about meeting the 1 million citizenship goal in this year. So I think that that's a really exciting prospect. And we're going to do everything we can to keep you busy and keep all those people employed. We have another 8 (million) to 9 million permanent residents out there that we want to keep coming your way.

I did want to ask, because as I look at this -- and without getting into conspiracy of Republicans and Democrats, but it seems that, as I look back to '92 through the current year, that there is a difference in the way the visas were allocated in terms of reaching the maximum number.

Under Clinton, for example, from '93 through 2000 -- I'll throw in 2001 -- there were -- you had difficulty reaching the number of employment-based visas, much more difficult problem reaching those than you did reaching families. I mean, there were some years under the Clinton administration it was zero, literally zero in families.

Then when we got the Bush administration in and you see President Bush came in in 2001, then it was zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. Except for 2003, it's been zero in the employment; just the opposite. So you guys have done a stellar job on employment. But then we got increases in families.

Is there any reason, other than someone would think we were pro- business and get the business ones done and maybe family took a back seat, since it's zero for 80 percent of the years of the Bush administration and obviously an increase in family?

MR. NEUFELD: If I could, one -- thank you for the question. One of the things we haven't spoken about yet is demand by immigrants to come to the United States. In the '90s, until the .com boom, thereabouts, the numbers were available. The visa bulletin each month, month after month, said that the number was current. Anybody who wanted an employment-based visa could get one, and there wasn't the demand. And I think that's a large part of what you're seeing there is that fact.

REP. GUTIERREZ: So the reason there were so many unfilled is there was a lack of demand for them.

MR. NEUFELD: Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ: And there was an increase in demand when Bush became president of the United States, because you go to zero. If I follow the logic --

MR. NEUFELD: It was an increase -- there was increase in demand in the late '90s, early part of this decade.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Okay. So after the year 2000, there's just an increase in demand for worker-related petitions, right?

MR. NEUFELD: Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ: And therefore, you easily reach zero --

MR. NEUFELD: Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ: -- because you don't have -- you have a full demand, because Mr. Aytes told us that this was a question of demand is greater than the supply. But here we have a demand and supply issue once again.

MR. NEUFELD: Right.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Okay. Well, that clarifies it. I won't give a speech or a sermon or anything about a conspiracy or trying to keep families separated. It's just a logical thing about how it works and the supply and demand. That sounds very, very logical.

Then let me ask you, if you could, just so that I understand it, since I explained to you earlier, as I read it, it said no less than 226 and, you know, minimum, and then Mr. Oppenheim used -- I think he (took ?) that word back. It was a floor for family visas.

If you could reconcile -- not right now, but reconcile in writing and say, "Hey, Congressman, you got that part right, but here's the part you forgot," so that I could better explain it to other people in the future so we won't have another conspiracy that you guys aren't just meeting the minimum but actually the maximum, and then -- because I think it's important.

So Mr. Oppenheim, because I know you have the numbers, so I'm a permanent resident. I'm from Mexico. I apply for my wife. How many years do I have to wait for my wife to get a visa to come to the United States? I'm a permanent resident.

MR. OPPENHEIM: Probably seven -- (inaudible).

REP. GUTIERREZ: Okay. And if we recaptured all those family reunification visas that we're talking about in this legislation, the 95,000, and half of them went to spouses, that reduction would be from seven to what? How many years would I have to wait for my wife?

MR. OPPENHEIM: Maybe six.

REP. GUTIERREZ: Maybe six. Good. So this is really not going to cause a wave of people, and this is really about husbands and wives, people who are here legally in the United States. You guys don't do any undocumented workers. You don't have a bulletin, because if you do, I want it so I can take it back to Chicago. I'm sure people would be happy to see it. You're talking about legal permanent residents and citizens to the United States. That's what you issue visa bulletins for.

And those are the only thing Mr. Aytes tried, at least to the best of his ability, to process in his agency, although I am happy the FBI lost that case, I have to tell you just quickly, because I think they weren't doing their job. So that's what -- so when people say without numerical limits, we're not talking about -- we're talking about those without numerical limits are American citizens, right? That's without numerical limits.

I just want the other side to understand, when they use the words "without numerical limits," they're talking about the ability of American citizens. And I don't think that Congress, when it enacted the legislation, did not contemplate that an American citizen should not be able to bring his wife to America or minor children -- minor children, non-married minor children -- immediately to America.

So I thank you for your testimony. I thank the gentlelady and the chairwoman of the committee for her work on this. We kind of put this in the STRIVE Act, but we didn't go all the way back to '92. We kind of captured five years and then recaptured them because we thought it was important. I like this little piecemeal kind of reform of immigration.

I thank the gentlelady and I thank her for her time. Thank you so much.

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