Speech #990183191

Then we were disappointed to find out it was going to be done in the first 2 weeks of May. And then to find out last Thursday that a majority of Members of the majority side of the Judiciary Committee had written the chairman of the Judiciary Committee saying. "Put it off." And to find out that it was put off. now. until June. The immigration reform bill has been held hostage in our committee for reasons that have more to do with ideology than public policy. I believe a controversy has been invented concerning the temporary foreign worker provisions for agriculture. The reason I say "invented" is because. to the extent that this institution still operates on the basis of democratic principles. there is no way that a responsible observer could construe the agricultural worker issue as the source of any deadlock. While every element of the bill is in its own unique way the source of some controversy. there are a number of issues that have evoked far more emotion in the debate. Whether it be employer sanctions. legalization. the establishment of an adjudicatory framework. which was even dropped from the bill this time around. money for the States or the discrimination issue. the question of immigration reform by its very nature produces a lot of heat. It is somewhat instructive to go back to the conference where we attempted to work out the differences between the Senate and the House versions during the last Congress. There everything fell apart in the waning hours of the 98th Congress.