Speech #970256786

Tyler Independent School District et aL v. Doe. Guardian. which forced the state of Texas to provide free education benefits to children of illegal aliens. will be extended to include other benefits. This is yet another incentive for a family to move illegally to the United States. The employer sanctions in the bill are equally ineffective. Illegal aliens drawn by the "economic magnet" to the U.S. will not be hindered. Supporters of the bill will argue the employer sanctions will turn off the "economic magnet." However. this is not true. The employer sanctions were considerably weakened in the full Judiciary Committee. The burden of proof in enforce. ment of immigration laws has now been shifted from the government to the employer. Employer sanctions must be stronger for the magnet to be turned off. Illegal aliens must not have an incentive to come or to stay in this country. The amnesty provisions in the bill are an admission that employer sanctions will not work. because they are weak and ineffective. Blanket amnesty is unfair to the hundreds of thousands of immigrant applicants. some of whom have been waiting as long as 10 years to come to this country legally. We are saying to these people they were stupid for obeying the law. If they had come here illegally. they would be rewarded. However. because they decided to abide by our law. they are penalized. We are keeping law abiding applicants out of the country while giving resident status to lawbreakers. There also will be a negative impact in the years to come on these prospective applicants if illegal aliens are granted amnesty. When the amnestied aliens are granted citizenship. they will bring into this country millions of relatives who are not subject to any numerical limitation. According to a Washington Post editorial of September 13. 1982. a single citizen filed petitions for 69 relatives. In certain areas. the current wait. ing period for relatives to enter this country is as long as 12 years. What will happen to family reunification when you add millions of newly eligible petitioners? What will the waiting periods be then? Finally. it seems ludicrous to be granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens at a time when our country is suffering from such high unemployment. The Congression. al Budget Office shows that each unem. ployed American receives $7.000 annually in unemployment benefits and from public as. sistance programs. With 10 million unem. ployed. the American taxpayers are spending a minimum of $70 billion annually. Our country should be considering ways to remove the illegal drain on the work force. Former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall stated that removing illegal aliens from the work force could cut the unemployment rate in half. This would amount to a savings of at least $35 billion per year. It has been said that illegal aliens are not a drain on the labor force because they work at Jobs "no Americans want to take." After legalization. there will be incentive for them to move away from their traditional employment fields and put them in direct competition with American labor. thus causing further imbalances in the labor market. I would hope the U.S. could continue as much as possible its "open door" tradition and policy toward the displaced. the perse. cuted. and the ambitious of the world. However. the reality of our economic and resource situation is that we simply cannot continue to be a nation without borders. We must limit the influx of aliens and immigrants and have an orderly and fair system for admitting those we are able to absorb. The SimpsonMazoli measure as reported by the House Judiciary Committee provides neither. so it cannot be regarded either as a true "reform of our messed up Immigration laws or as the first step toward restoring order to our immigration system. If it cannot be amended on the floor of the House to remedy these deficiencies. it should be defeated. For all of the above cited reasons.