Speech #960243058

Mr. President. the recent pattern of immigration to the United States indicates that it is out of control. If we count illegal aliens. normal immigrants and refugees. immigration is at its highest in our history as a nation. Although there are some who claim that each new influx is unique and will not be repeated. there is clearly no end in sight. Hundreds of thousands of foreign citizens have demonstrated that they are willing to become illegal aliens or refugees if there is a chance that they will get into the United States. A recent Kettering Foundation Poll found that one of every three South Americans wants to come to the United States. The massive Cuban influx and the continuing flow of Haitians is proof of the magnitude and permanency of the problem. The direct cost of this massive movement of people into the United States is growing steadily. Last year I introduced an amendment which. for the first time. required the administration to prepare a total refugee cost estimate. The reason for this legislation was that the cost was spread throughout various agencies and programs and it was thus almost impossible to assess the true cost. When issued earlier this year. the report concluded that our total refugee assistance efforts would cost the American taxpayers $1.7 billion in fiscal year 1980 and would increase to $2.1 billion in fiscal year 1981. By way of comparison. the Federal Government will only spend $770 million for the special supplemental food program for women and children and $264 million for preventive health services. Within the space of a few weeks. these high estimates have been outdated. On May 25. 1980. the Washington Post reported that the administration had released some very tentative estimates which indicated that we would need an additional $300 million during the next 4 months for the care of the Cubans. Since the Cuban arrivals have not been officially classified as refugees and therefore do not now qualify for the many refugee assistance programs. the funds for maintaining them are presently coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If we include the approximately $50 million FEMA has already spent for the Cuban "disaster." the total cost for refugee assistance will be over $2 billion in fiscal year 1980. This cost could be further driven up should these 95.000 people. or whatever the figure might be. be given some sort of official status in this country. assuming President Carter allows them to remain. as he asserts. The most likely status to be granted to them is that of "refugee." Prior to the Cuban influx. the Senate Budget Committee found that 435.000 refugees would be receiving Federal assistance in fiscal year 1981. Accepting an additional 95.000 individuals under "refugee" status could conceivably thwart Congress budgetbalancing initiative. as well as result in cuts to other urgent social programs in this country. An additional cost which is more difficult to assess is the cost of new unemployment. When the unemployment figures come out this month. there will probably be over 71/2 million people unemployed in this country. This number is expected to increase by another 1 or 2 million by the end of the year. The CBO estimated that every 1 percentage point increase in unemployment costs the Federal Treasury $29 billion. Uncontrolled immigration into this country will have a detrimental impact upon unemployment and exacerbate the associated costs. The adverse impact on unemployment and wages was confirmed by the findings of the Presidents Interagency Task Force on Immigration last year. This problem will be graphically demonstrated by the new Cuban arrivals. since a substantial portion of these are young males who will compete aggressively in the job market. The type of destructive social pressures this can generate is exemplified in the recent Miami rioting.