Speech #970226742

I support the legalization provisions of S. 2222 as part of this reform measure. Legalization has three major goals. The first is to avoid the wasteful use of the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) limited enforcement resources by attempting to locate and deport those who have come to this country illegally. The second is to allow currently economically dependent employers to continue lawfully hiring from this pool of labor. And the third. and most important. is to eliminate the illegal "subclass" of persons now present in our society. The costs to society of permitting a large group of persons to live in illegal. secondclass status are enormous. And mass deportations are not reasonable or realistic both for legal and humanitarian reasons. I opposed an amendment to strike the legalization program from the bill for these reasons. I did. however. after careful study vote for the Grassley amendment to amend the program. both to minimize its costs and to give legal status to those undocumented aliens with the greatest attachment and investment in this country. The Grassley amendment also authorized a program of block grants to impacted States who will most likely have to bear some excess costs attributable to this population. The third major component of the bill addresses reform of our legal immigration system by setting an overall ceiling. including immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. of 425.000 per year. although immediate relatives continue to be exempt from numerical limitations. The number available for other family reunification preference categories would be determined by subtracting the number of immediate relatives admitted in the prior year from the cap of 350.000. the total for family reunification. A cap of 75.000 is placed on independent preference categories. for a total of 425.000. S. 2222 also makes several changes in the current criteria for allocating numerically limited immigrant visas. Some of those changes I did not support and voted for amendments to retain current law. Unfortunately. both of these amendmentsone to reinstate the fifthpreference category for unmarried brothers and sisters of adult citizens and another to retain secondpreference status for adult unmarried sons and daughters of permanent residentswere defeated. I also opposed an amendment that would have put under a single numerical ceiling both refugee and immigration admissions. I support the separate refugee admissions system authorized by the Refugee Act of 1980 for several reasons. Present law provides for a "normal flow" of 50.000 refugees a year. It allows the President to increase this number after appropriate consultation with the Congress if it is Justified by humanitarian concern or is otherwise in the national interest. This system recognizes that immigration and refugee admissions serve different purposes. Immigration policy in large part reflects family reunification. Refugee admission levels are generally set in response to critical humanitarian situations or foreign policy considerations. The Huddleston amendment. to place refugees under the single numerical ceiling. did not take this difference into account and would have considerably reduced the ability of the United States to respond to refugee emergencies. The loss of this flexibility could have the unfortunate effect of undermining various foreign policy objectives. On balance. Mr. President. this S. 2222 is a major accomplishment in reform of our immigration laws. It attempts to address very difficult and complex problems. problems that will not be solved just by its passage. But it is a very giant step in the right direction and I urge my colleagues to support it.