Speech #990084591

In addition. it provides guarantees that the workers admitted will return to their countries of origin when the work for which they were brought to this country is completed. Without such a program. the needs of the farmers in New Mexico and throughout the West would not be met. I also support the prohibition of an adjustment to status for an individual who overstays his or her visa. There currently is a loophole in the law which allows a person to enter the country under a student or tourist visa and overstay the visa and then apply for permanent resident alien status. This backdoor method toward immigration flies in the face of the orderly process which the law imposes and is unfair to all those persons who comply with the law yet who are unable to immigrate because their nations immigration quota is being eaten up by adjustments to status. In addition. I am pleased that this bill was amended to prohibit officers of the Immigration and Naturalization Service from entering a ranch or farm to search for illegal aliens unless he has a properly executed search warrant. Current law requires the INS to obtain a warrant before entering any place of business. except where that place of business is a farm or ranch. It thus singles out ranches and farms as areas which the INS can search without a warrant. This amendment. which I cosponsored along with Senator McCLURE. remedies an injustice in the current law and assures that farms and ranches will be treated the same as any other place of business by the INS. In doing so. it protects the rights of ranchers and farmers and their employees. Finally. the provisions increasing funds for immigration enforcement and increasing penalties for immigrationrelated offenses are long overdue. Another provision on which I believe we all can agree is the requirement that the Immigration and Naturalization Service produce an internal efficiency report to highlight areas for improvement in agency functioning. Yet. regardless of a number of beneficial provisions in the measure before us. I cannot support this bill. We must realistically face the fact we are not going to keep illegal aliens from entering our country by passing this bill. The issue is economic. As long as we have poverty in high proportions in the world. the illegal aliens are going to come. They will come in spite of employer sanctions or any other obstacle that we can put in their path. A job in the United States means surviving or not surviving economically to these people.