Speech #980246791

To the leaders in my own party I say. let us solve this problem now while we still have a viable opportunity to do so. Lets clear the decks on this issue now. because next year we will need all the maneuvering room we can get to deal with a multitude of serious economic problems. Democrats represent all of the people and it is time we realize that immigration reform will benefit everyone in this country. The effects of uncontrolled immigration on our country are dramatic and damaging. Take the effect of uncontrolled immigration on employment. both unemployment and conditions of work. In recent years. we have had new evidence of the displacement of American workers by illegal immigrants. Former Under Secretary of Labor Malcolm Lovell reported that 40 million Americans compete directly with illegal aliens for jobs. Some uninformed people will tell you that Americans would not take the jobs that illegals hold. However. tell that to the 40 million Americans who worry every day about whether their boss will fire them so he can hire an illegal alien. Many other experts and studies confirm that illegal immigrants hurt American workers. Illegals take jobs that Americans want and need. and by taking lower wages and accepting poor working conditions without complaint. they hurt American workers wages and working conditions. The average wage of an illegal immigrant apprehended in Denver in recent years was $6 an hour. Studies now show that the average illegal immigrant today is no longer doing "stoop labor." but rather. is working in a city in a good paying job as well. When we talk about creating more jobs in this country. we should be aware that many are being created for illegal aliens and not for outofwork Americans. Even though unemployment has decreased in recent months. we still have a serious unemployment problem and we need to do more about job creation. Let us not forget that one of the easiest and least expensive ways of generating jobs is to do something about uncontrolled immigration. Let us go after one of the real problems in unemployment. something that will solve immediately one of the causes of unemployment. The Wall Street Journal called the immigration control bill the biggest jobs program around. I agree. In conjunction with this. we should not forget the Congressional Budget Office finding that each unemployed person costs the Federal Treasury more than $7.000 a year in 1978 dollars. If we could replace 1 million illegal aliens with American unemployed workers. we would save $7 billion in 1 year. That money would be saved for necessary entitlement programs. which have been cut in recent years. for American citizens. It was once correct to talk about the poor. starving illegal immigrant who came here because he or she could not get work in their home country. We have to change that image today. however. because it is no longer the poorest and least skilled people who come here. Often. it is the most skilled. middleclass worker who comes here illegally. Today. we are taking the "cream of the crop" of the Third Worlds elite. and. the flow is increasing steadily as depressed economies continue to cause more unemployment in foreign countries. These new sophisticated illegal aliens are not as afraid of taking Government benefits as were the illegals of the past. In recent years. we have seen new evidence of just how easy it is for illegal aliens to get social services and benefits from American taxpayers. We all know of the Supreme Court order which requires Texas to provide more than $400 million in public school tuition to illegal alien children. Another example is a study by David North of the New Transcentury Foundation that found that millions of dollars in prohibited unemployment compensation payments are made to illegal aliens. Although I will not go into a great deal of detail. I have to mention the effect that uncontrolled immigration has on our population and our resources. Immigration now makes up more than half of our population growth. While Americans are sacrificing to have smaller families. our population keeps growing because so many people enter this country each year. This population growth means that our scarce resources. like water and energy. will be used up fast. Can we really afford to allow all of our difficult conservation efforts to be balanced out by illegal immigration? Mr. President. the effort to reform our immigration laws and regain control of our borders has brought out the best and the worst in our political process. If we had more leaders at the national level like Senator SIMPSON and Congressman MAZZOLI. I am confident that we would now have a fair. generous. and effective immigration system in this country. I strongly urge the national leaders in both political parties to get behind a good faith effort to develop an acceptable compromise out of the two bills that have been passed by the respective Houses of Congress. If we dont find an acceptable solution to this problem now. I am convinced that pressures will build until there is a fullscale backlash against all Immigration. Let us act now. while there is still time to bring about a reasonable and fair solution to the problem. There is still time to act.