Speech #970274748

We need to remind each other and we need to bring to the American publics attention some of the basic facts about the problem at hand and the gravity of it. What we are talking about is the very quality of life of the American people. What we are talking about is the quality of life that we are going to have in this Nation in the future for our children and our grandchildren and for those to come. and whether or not that quality of life made for us by our ancesto res is carried forth by this generation to the next. so that we can have this great quality of life for the immigrants who do come here and for their relatives that they bring here to become new citizens. Now. with that said let us think about the precise nature of the problem. First of all. there has been said to be in excess of 12 million. perhapsnobody knows the figureillegal aliens in this country today. That alone is not the sole question. The problem is seen more clearly when we consider the fact that for about the last 3 years or so we have had about half of our population growth from immigration. either legal or illegal. and about half that or a quarter of the total growth of this countrys population from illegal immigration. We cannot absorb and assimilate that type of numbers of people coming across our borders. In addition to that fact. in some of the major hospitals in this country every year there are born thousands of children to illegal alien mothers who are not even counted in those figures because they are citizens upon the day they are born here in this country. The kinds of problems that are faced in not only my home State of Florida. but in many of your States. is a problem that simply cannot be ignored and brushed aside. Traditionally we have said let us continue to work on the problem of increasing the border patrol. working with a country such as Mexico from which the problem has come. And I encourage doing all of that. We have increased in this past year the number of border patrolmen and the allocations and resources. But I have been to the borders. I have been there as a member of this Subcommittee on Immigration. I am aware not only of the problems of my own State. with its water borders and boundaries. with the difficulties of managing them. but I have been in the State of California. to the border at Chula Vista. with the members of the subcommittee. and watched and looked and seen that it is absolutely impossible for us ever to expect to control the immigration flow illegally into this country across our land and water borders if we are going to solely rely on the Coast Guard vessels and the border patrolemen. We have got to have another solution. And that other solution is the heart and guts of this Immigration Reform Act. That portion of the bill which deals with employers sanctions is an absolutely essential ingredient to our ever being able to gain control of illegal immigration and to preserve and have some hope of having the quality of life for future generations that we have been so blessed to share. When we talk about employers sanctions. we are talking about making it illegal to knowingly hire an illegal alien. What is embodied in that is not discrimination against those so concerned about it. It is in fact an opportunity for the first time to say to those who would come over here for a Job because they have a poor economic condition in their country that we are not going to give them that magnet or that opportunity for that Job. I submit to my colleagues and to those of the American public listening and watching tonight that this is absolutely the only way we have any hope of gaining control. I have no desire to snuff out the torch at the end of the Statue of Libety. I think we need to always have an orderly flow of immigration in this country. It is what has made our Nation great. where our forefathers by and large came from. with the exception of our great traditions of the American Indian. and we have an obligation to future generations to have that same orderly flow. But we must gain control of the runaway problem of illegal immigration. The second major feature of this bill that is terribly important is a complement to that. If we are going to snuff out the opportunities to employ illegal immigrants for those who are employers in this country of what are today literally thousands and millions of illegal immigrants that are working in the fields and in the plants of our country. those employers who have come to depend upon the availability of this labor. while at the same time doing what this bill does. which is to provide a better opportunity for American citizens to gain employment. we are going to have to give them a hope for relief in those unusual circumstances that do arise when there are no reasonably available employees who are American citizens to do in a timely fashion the harvest of the crops and the taking of the chores at hand. And that is why the liberalization of the H2 program embodied in the committee bill from the Judiciary Committee is so important to be maintained. to allow an orderly flow of temporary workers into this country when that is indeed required to harvest the crops and to do the work at hand. And this bill provides that. The third very critical feature of this bill. in order to have an orderly immigration program. rests in the changes in the adjudication part of the legislation. We in Florida particularly have experienced an extraordinary time where we have had our courts clogged and we have seen the failure of the current programs inside of the Immigration and Nationality Act to deal with processing those who seek political asylum and to handle the problems of exclusion and deportation. This bill sets up a procedure to expedite that process. While I do not fully agree with the final manner in every detail and have offered legislation and amendments to further what I believe will be a speed up of the process. it is a vast improvement over what we have today and it is a portion of the bill that I wholeheartedly support and I think is critical for us to do the other aspect that we do not treat in slowing down the flow into this country. and that is to get people who come here illegally and wrongfully claim the right to stay back out of the country again while still giving them due process.