Speech #980217812

Chairman. I have maintained from the very beginning that legalization is necessary. I had the honor to serve on the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy where we voted 16 to nothing recommending legalization. There simply is no other humanitarian option available to us. If you want to look at this as a failure of immigration policy. of enforcement policy over the last decade. fine. but it is certainly our responsibility and there is nothing we can do in the way of rounding these people up. So. the question is what date to use. The yardstick that we did apply throughout our considerations in the Subcommittee on Immigration and in the full committee in the last Congress and in the 1st session of this Congress was that the failure to provide a substantial legalization ignores the equities of those who have lived in the United States for a number of years. It perpetuates the existence of a large underclass of undocumented aliens and it continues to subject citizens and lawful permanent residents. as well as the undocumented. to enormous social cost. On the other hand. if the legalization is overly broad it serves as too strong a magnet for future flows. There is no question. despite some of the comments that have been made here. that the talk during the years 1979 and 1980 of the Select Commission thoughts on legalization. of the deliberations in our subcommittee and in the Senate subcommittee. have coincided with the largest surreptitious entry flows in our history. These have occurred in the last few years and obviously are related to the talk of legalization. If overly broad. it would also bestow a gift on many who came here temporarily to work and had no idea of staying. and suddenly are told that they can if they wish apply for permanent resident status. This is simply not fair to the 1.400.000 people who have approved petitions waiting for visa numbers abroad. An overly broad process confers immediate petition rights on persons who came here illegally. putting them in direct conflict with lawful permanent residents who are in the United States. competing for the single pool of the worldwide quota against which those peitition rights. including the second preference would be exercised. The Lungren amendment is the balanced amendment between those who want 1982 and those who want nothing or the registry date of the early seventies.