Speech #1010042204

No one wants to address it. There is no issue like it. It is filled with emotion. fear. guilt. and racism and traditions of the Statue of Liberty and traditions of our classic immigration heritage. We are a nation of immigrants. Senator KENNEDYs roots are in Ireland. Mine are in England. Ireland. and Holland. There is not one of us who is not a child of immigrants. a grandchild of immigrants. a great grandchild of immigrantsimmigrants. or descendents of immigrants. That is the uniqueness of our country. I think a national level of immigration is very important for us to predict. our future demographic profile. our future population size. our future housing and social services needs. and our environmental needs which are very critical. What is the ideal population of the United States? It was interesting in our work on the Select Commission that we had difficulty in funding studies on what the population of the United States might or should be with regard to the carrying capacity of this remarkable land. No one chose to address that. There are a host of other factors that any prudent government should attempt to predict. and I hope that setting a national level of immigration and reviewing it continually. and addressing it on the level of the Presidency and the Congress will force us to do what we should do in that area. The second thing the bill does is to increase the number and proportion of visas that are awarded to immigrants that have certain skills and abilities that are very much needed in our country. These immigrants would either come to work for specific U.S. employers or they would come here because their skills would contribute to the national economy. I hope our colleagues will listen to this debate and remember that we are not talking about illegal immigration. we are not talking about refugees. we are not talking about extended voluntary departees. we are not talking about humanitarian parolees. We are talking about legal immigrants immigration. Only 5 percent of all immigrants coming to this country are now admitted because of their special skills or abilities. This bill would raise that figure to 20 percent while concurrently increasing familybased immigration. We are not reducing it. That is not an appropriate explanation or comment about this bill. We are not reducing familyconnection immigration. But we have seen a situation arise where currently 85 percent of all immigrants to our country come from only two regions of the world. I think we should diversify our immigration flows by an appropriate degree. and this bill will do just that. Finally. I think the bill will open up some remarkable new opportunities to immigrants from countries that do not send us many immigrants todaythose countries we describe as being adversely affected. In 1986 we opened a type of lottery system. if you will. for those people and literally millions applied for those very limited visas. But it is not a good way to do business. It is ad hoe legislation. We ought to do our business through changes in the immigration law. Immigration Nationality Act. and not through a piecemeal process of trying to reach the 34 or 36 nations that are adversely affected. Let us do that by legislating and not by some patchwork effort. Finally. at some course in the debate will come an issue which should not be in any way looked upon as being racist or exclusionary or harsh. and the concerns that are set aside for a point system.