Speech #980213905

He can make the phone call from where he is. Presumably they may make contact in the cars in which they go out to the fields. One of the problems that has been brought to my attention by those in the agricultural community is their concern that if you are going to have a law that does have both civil and criminal sanctions with respect to employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers. that enforcement should be evenhanded and across the board. That was one of the major arguments in my amendment that was adopted yesterday about having the paperwork burden across all employers who have four or more employees. In other words. the sanctions should be on the basis of equity and not targeted against any specific sector of our economy. although there may be a high percentage of workers in agriculture who have traditionally been here illegally. However. the largest number. 85 percent of those in total who were here illegally work in other than agriculturalrelated positions. So what this amendment attempts to do is to suggest that in the situation of employer sanctions. in the context of illegal immigration and illegal workers. that the same requirements that would obtain in a case of illegal workers or alleged illegal workers working in a factory. within four walls. would obtain in a case where it is an open field. I realize the Supreme Court decision allows an exception to the search warrant provision but there they were dealing with an inanimate object. They were dealing with the growth of marijuana as opposed to human beings. who are the subject of the inquiry in an illegal alien search. So I do not think that my amendment that had been adopted in the full committee was quite so radical. It did change the law substantially in this regard but just because the gentleman from California and I join together for this is not a suggestion that it is necessarily radical.