Speech #990079780

It is a way to take the pressure off the system. acknowledge those folks that are here. upgrade that date. and I think we can solve a lot of problems with that particular provision. I just have one other point that I would like to make. if the gentleman continues to have the time. and I would like to talk for just a minute about some other options besides registry. If this House would decide. as it works its will on immigration. that we are going to keep some form of amnesty or legalization. I would hope that that date would be something like 1980 or 1981. It has a lot to do with the numbers. it has a lot to do with whether or not we send that signal to folks still wanting to come in that they can come in anyway. But I am willing to engage in some compromise that I think might be realistic. One of the things that we can consider would be the limitation on who would be eligible for sponsorship under the permanent laws of immigration. under the legal quota system once that person who came in with unclean hands. in violation of all principles of equity and fairness. came here illegally. but was deemed now to be a permanent resident to have legal status and now 5 years later. or 3 years later. by virtue of marrying one already here. becomes a permanent citizen. is then eligible to sponsor. We can say you can only sponsor the unmarried brother or sister. That would be a form of checking the hemorrhage from the outyear numbers that would be legalized or able to seek legal entry to the country. or we could do something like indicating. whether it is a debate between the nuclear family and extended family. we can argue that times have changed and it is not like the Italians who immigrated or the English immigrating. where we were trying to keep the whole family together. we can argue that the economic consequences are too dire. So we could say. "On the date that you were legalized and raised your hands and we wiped the slate clean because you are here. just because you are here. that you have to list on a piece of paper that would be kept in your immigration file all the names of your relatives subject to immigration under legal terms." So mothers. brothers. sisters. fathers. spouses. and offspring thereof. children of these combinations. you would have to list all their names and addresses so that on that date 5 years later when you become a citizen and seek to legally sponsor those people to come into the country you could not have the midnight divorce and marriage and all of the adoption and paperwork committed by perjury and fraud. manufactured say. "Well. now I have a brother that I did not have when I illegally entered the United States. Now I have a sister who has since married. and they have five children." but those five children are not in the family registry or the family history or birth records of that country. but someone procured documentary evidence to support the petition filed for the legal immigration of all of those relatives. So you could do some things to at least eliminate the chance for fraud and abuse and further doctoring of records for illegal entry to the country. That would help to guard against the abuse of entry that I think many of us are concerned about as a consequence of blanket amnesty.