It owes much to hundreds. yes. even thousands. of Americans. even to those who are not Americans. The subcommittee itself conducted 18 days of hearings and 5 formal consultations on the myriad subjects related to this bill. In addition to these extensive hearings. we had access to all of the excellent prior work on immigration reform done in the past few years. including the efforts of the administrations of Presidents Ford and Carter. the final report of the select commissionand I attended a good many hearings and meetings of that fine group during that process. too. the very perceptive and interesting proposals of that fine and able senior Senator from Kentucky. DEE HUDDLESTON. the efforts of my able colleague from Massaehusetts. TED KENNEDY. the ranking member of the subcommittee. who chaired this subcommittee for 12 years and has given of his assistance and support through the hearings as has his capable and very bright staff. including the minority staff counsel. Jerry Tinker. the excellent ideas of the Reagan Task Force on Immigration. headed by our most capable and knowledgeable Attorney General Smitha real trooper on this issueand his staff. and. finally. the portions of the proposals and the bill submitted by the President in July of last year. Those various proposals and recommendations are remarkably similar. This should not be surprising to anyone. since they were all the product of intelligent. caring men and women who were attempting to deal with the same problemthat immigration to the United States is out of control. Because those of us involved in the drafting of S. 2222 faced the same problem. it is then not surprising that our solutions are not dramatically different from proposals of the recent past. The entire issue is a very. very tough one. It evokes feelings and accusations of guilt. emotionalism. and racism and it is so susceptible for a vehicle to engage in high drama. RON MAZZOLI and I have done our level best to prevent the national debate from going in that way. Some have suggested that now is not an appropriate time to debate immigration reform in the Congress. The mood is too "restrictive" they say. It brings out our "dark side." Fair immigration reform cannot be accomplished in such an atmosphere. I want to express my strong disagreement with that view. First. I do not believe there is an atmosphere of restrictiveness or mean spiritednessnot in any Member hereconcerning immigration reform in this body. Second. matters are only going to grow worse if we do not obtain control over immigration to this country. Now is the time to act. Every poll taken in the Nation shows that over 90 percent of the American people believe our immigration laws and policies are out of control and must be reformed. Pressures to migrate are increasing worldwide and some of the greatest pressure is on this country. As long as people around the world know that once they arrive in the U.S. illegally they will be able to obtain jobs. they will obviously continue to come in increasing numbers. I firmly believe that this is the time to reform our immigration laws. A wide diversity of public interest groups involved in immigration. the editorial writers of the major newspapers of this country. and the administration have agreed that this bill is a fair. workable. and humane approach to controlling illegal and legal immigration. If we do not act now in a rational way. I am deeply concerned that the debate in the future will become increasingly unpleasant and clouded by racism. restrictionism nativism. and other elements which we have successfully excised out of this reform effort.
Keywords matched
Immigration immigration