Speech #930041719

Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of this bill to control the increasing number of illegal aliens in this country and commend the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee for his work in this area. The number of illegal aliens in this country now appears to be about 1.5 million with more coming in every day. While the problem is mainly in the Southwest United States and involves Mexican nationals. it affects every major metropolitan area to some degree. New York. Miami. Los Angeles. and San Francisco face particularly serious problems as port cities. These illegal immigrants take jobs away from American citizens and legal aliens. Since they are willing to accept lower wages. they tend to lower the entire scale of wages in an area. Many expand our welfare rolls and their children contribute to the overcrowding in schools. There is no question that this flow of illegal aliens must be controlled. To do so. we must eliminate the economic incentive to the employers and to the illegal aliens themselves. This bill provides a new provision in the law that punishes the employer who knowingly employs illegal aliens. In the past. many employers would call the Immigration and Naturalization Service to have his employees deportedjust before payday. This now puts the burden on the employer and will help greatly to remove the economic incentive for him. Similarly. by forbidding such illegal aliens the right to obtain welfare payments or by barring their children from our schools. they will not be attracted to this country thinking that they can easily get something for nothing. Two problems. however. have arisen in consideration of this bill. The first represents the very real fear on the part of aliens legally in this country and recently naturalized citizerks that employers will use the new law to discriminate against them. The unscrupulous employer may choose to deny jobs to all persons who he even suspects may be foreign and thus illegally in the country. The committee has taken cognizance of this possibility and eliminated initial penalties for a first offense. This gives the employer a greater degree of latitude and freedom from fear of mistaken prosecution. At the same time. it bears repeating that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 clearly prohibits any discrimination based on national origin. Employers may find themselves afoul of this law. should they choose to bar any foreign born person from their employ. A second problem was brought to my attention by Father Anthony J. Bevilacqua. Director of the Brooklyn Diocesan Migration Office. He points out that many illegal aliens are now settled in New York with their families and have obtained jobs. To deport them now. would cause great hardship for them and their families. The chairman of the committee has again taken the precaution to ask the Immigration and Naturalization Service to hold up any deportation proceedings until the committee has had an opportunity to consider this problem and the problem of quotas for the Western Hemisphere nations. While this bill will not correct all the inequities in the current law and may create some new ones. on balance it Is a good bill and deserves passage by this body. I hope all my colleagues will support it.