Speech #980210472

I thank my colleague. the gentleman from California. for yielding. and I rise in support of the bill and of the several amendments which will be offered to it. Mr. Chairman. last year the Immigration and Naturalization Service apprehended more than a million undocumented aliens along the U.S. southern border. Others were apprehended at the United StatesCanadian border and at ports of entry along the coast. Despite this record enforcement activity. a large number of unlawful aliens entered the United Statesfrom Mexico. Central America. Canada. and other parts of the world. The largescale. uncontrolled movement of people into the United States indicates very clearly the need for an overhaul of our Nations immigration laws. Although estimates vary considerably. the Census Bureaus best guess is that as many as 6 million illegal aliens now live in the United States. These undocumented immigrants constitute a growing subclassa class separated by its unlawful status from the mainstream. and detrimental to the interests of a free and open society. America values its legal immigrants. but we cannot afford to become a land of unlimited. illegal immigration. nor a land in which millions of people live in legal limbo outside both the reach and protection of the law. To quote the Hesburgh Commission: One does not have to be able to quantify in detail all of the impacts of undocumented/illegal aliens in the United States to know that there are some serious adverse effects. The Commission said that it is the U.S. citizens and legal resident aliens who can least afford it who are hurt most by competition for jobs and housing and by a reduction of wages and standards in the workplace. The Commission also found that a fugitive underground class is unhealthy for society as a whole and may contribute to ethnic tensions. The enormous influx of illegal aliens. it said. has undermined public confidencein our immigration laws and in our legal system. The Hesburgh Commission concluded that controlling illegal immigration should be a top priority. By voting to consider H.R. 1510. the House has taken a positive step in the direction of reform. and I commend the leadership for putting this item on our agenda. Bringing H.R. 1510 to the floor is especially courageous because it is an election year and the bill is enormously controversial. H.R. 1510 contains two essential provisions. both of them recommended by the Hesburgh Commission. We need an effective border policy and these two reforms will help achieve that goal. The bill will. for the first time. make it illegal for employers to hire aliens who enter the United States in undocumented status. That provision aims directly at the "magnet"-employmentwhich draws so many undocumented workers into this country. In addition. the bill will allow persons who came to the United States in undocumented status before January 1. 1982. to become legal residents. This provision will help shrink the "shadow" population and allow these individuals to free themselves from the exploitation to which they are now subjected and to participate openly and freely in our society. These two provisionssanctions and legalizationare essential to the SimpsonMazzoli compromise.