Speech #970223881

Mr. President. a careful comment. please. that must be carefully heard. because it is easily misunderstood and easily distorted. If immigration is continued at a high level. and yet a substantial portion of these new persons and their descendants do not follow the historical patterns of earlier immigrant groups in becoming full participants in American society and our public culture. then they have the potential to create here a measure of the same social. political. and economic anguish which exist in the countries from which they have voluntarily chosen to depart. That is reality. Mr. President. now that the problem has been presented. I should like to outline what we believe to be the solutionthe form of immigration reform which we believe the American people desire and deserve. and which Americas future requires. First. I wish to firmly make the general point that immigration can always continue to benefit the United States if the law is reasonably amended to be appropriate for contemporary conditionsif the amended law can be enforced. Mr. President. the major provisions of S. 2222 contains provisions intended to reduce the problem of illegal immigration. The potential benefits and protections of even the most carefully designed statutory standards for determining who may enter the United States. as well as for how long and under what conditions they may remain. will not be available in practice if those statutory standards cannot be enforced. All objective. comprehensive studies of the problemof illegal immigration. including those by the Ford. Carter. and Reagan administrations. as well as the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. have concluded that adequate enforcement of U.S. immigration laws cannot be achieved by direct enforcement alone. Why? Because as long as greater job opportunities are available to foreign nationals who succeed in physically entering this country. intense illegal immigration pressure on the United States will continue. and that pressure will decline if the availability of U.S. employment is eliminated. or if the disparity in wages and working conditions is reduced. either through improvement in the Third World or deterioration in the United States. The United States. of course. should always assist in Third World development activities but the achievement of substantially higher living standards in those nations is a prospect only for the long run. Since deterioration in the United States is certainly not an attractive resolution. only one approach remains: To prohibit the knowing employment of illegal aliens. S. 2222 provides for penalties against employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens and also against persons who knowingly and for a fee recruit or refer for employment such illegal aliens. In order to protect persons subject to penalties and also the members of minority groups legally in this country. the bill provides for a system to verify that employees and potential employees are U.S. citizens. legal aliens. or authorized to work in the United States. It has been claimed that any new verification system would be "too costly" and that it would pose a threat to privacy and to civil liberties.