Speech #970044439

Mr. President. during the last several months. a Cabinetlevel task force has been reviewing our immigration and refugee problems in order to make policy recommendations to President Reagan. Copies of the option paper prepared for the President have been obtained by various newspapers and articles describing the preferred options have appeared in recent weeks. If we assume that these articles are correct in their information on the option paper. it is interesting to note the similarity between the Cabinets recommendations and the Immigration and National Security Act of 1981. S. 776. which I introduced 3 months ago on According to the New York Times on May 30. 1981. the report recommends enacting "legislation prohibiting employers of four or more employees from knowingly and willfully hiring ilegal aliens." S. 776 would also make it illegal for employers to knowingly hire illegal aliens. Most experts agree that the only effective way of controlling the flow of millions of illegal aliens is to take away the one thing they come to this country forjobs. The method recommended for verifying employment eligibility would be to require job applicants "to show identification. including a new. counterfeitresistant social security card * * *" My bill would establish a verification system using a new improved social security card. However. my bill provides for a simplified callin procedure which is similar to that now utilized by thousands of businesses for verifying credit card purchases. A verification system such as this is necessary in order to give employers a simple and certain means of verification. The social security number is the most logical system to use since it is already an established national system. The Times article goes on to state that: In the final draft. the panel also recommends a "moderate increase" in the enforcement budget of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. S. 776 beyond a "modest" increase and specifies an increase in the Border Patrol to 6.000. Although the degree of the increase may differ. there is agreement that there is a need to beef up the law enforcement personnel of INS. The report next recommends that there be a general amnesty for illegal aliens who were present in the country before January 1980. S. 776 contains an amnesty provision. but one which is much more restrictive than the general one recommended in the report. Amnesty should not be a reward for those illegal aliens who knowingly violated our immigration laws to enter this country. Nor should it encourage illegal aliens with minimum ties to this country to remain. The provision in my bill is based upon the premise that only those who meet the criteria for immigration under our present immigration laws be qualified for amnesty. Another article in the Washington Post on June 12. 1981. reported that: The presidential task force has decided to recommend that the Reagan administration take drastic action to prevent any new flood of Cuban and Haitian refugee3 into Florida * * * A section of S. 776 would require the administration to develop a plan for dealing with mass asylum situations such as we have experienced in Florida. If such a plan had been in existence before the recent Cuban influx. I do not believe that we would be faced with the problem of what to do with the 125.000 Cubans who flooded our shores. Nor should we be experiencing the continuing arrival of large numbers of Haitians. If these newspaper reports are accurate. it appears that the Reagan administration is ready to recommend major and necessary revisions on our immigration laws which closely resemble those in S. 776. If these are the recommendations which the administration makes to Congress. I believe that they will find strong bipartisan support and a willingness to move forward with them. The only significant difference between the recommendations that these newspapers describe is the number of legal immigrants to be admitted each year and the process of deciding which are admitted. Under our present immigration system. each country is limited to a quota of 20.000 immigrants to the Uhited States each year. This quota was established in order to treat ethnic and national groups fairly and not to give preference to any one group. The recommendation outlined in the New York Times would retreat from this equity concept and give special treatment to one countryMexico.