Speech #1010044324

Mr. President. last year the Senate passed a legal immigration reform bill with little substantive debate on the bill. I am glad to see that this year the Senate is spending some time on this issue. because immigration is a tremendously complex field which in many ways reflectsand shapesthe image we have of our society. In many ways. I think that the bill before us today makes important and worthy changes to our immigration system. But there are also elements of this bill which are deeply troubling. After carefully weighing the good against the bad. I have decided to support this bill. but with the hope that it may be modified before it completes its journey through the legislative process. There is no question that we need to reform our current system of legal immigration. There are waiting lists of millions of applicants whose hopes for finally obtaining a visa to come to this country are practically nonexistentthe wait from some countries is over 15 years. There are people from many countries who do not have any family connections in the United States and thus have no fair chance to come to this country. For these reasons and others. I support immigration reform and I was an original cosponsor of Senator SIMONs bill. S. 448. which addressed these problems. My difficulty with the KennedySimpson bill we are debating today. however. is that it departs from important principles of family reunification in immigration to which I believe we must adhere. Let me start by reviewing the positive aspects of the KennedySimpson bill. First. the bill expands the opportunity for "independent" immigrants who have no family ties in this country to immigrate to the United States. And it does so without significantly reducing the immigration opportunities available to those with family ties. Second. the bill increases the number of visas available under the second preference category. for spouses and children of permanent residents. This increase would help alleviate a backlog of eligible applications that now results in waits of up to 10 years in some countries. Third. in adopting the family unification amendment offered by Senator CHAFEE. we are providing relief from deportation for families where one member of the family qualified for legalization under the 1986 immigration reform bill. but where another member did not qualify for legalization. Fourth. the adoption of the MitchellDole amendment and the Gorton amendment provide additional protection for Chinese students here in this country who might otherwise face the prospect of punishment in China had they been forced to return. Finally. this bill rectifies an injustice done to certain Filipino World War II veterans. In March 1942 Congress amended the Nationality Act of 1940 to allow for the naturalization of Filipino veterans who served honorably in World War II. Unfortunately. due to an administrative decision made at that time. many of these veterans were unable to take advantage of the naturalization process. This bill would allow these veterans to be naturalized if they currently reside in the United States and if they meet the requirements set out in the 1940 act. Unfortunately. there is one provision in this bill that threatens to wipe out the benefits made by the reforms in this bill. That is the provision that offsets visas granted to immediate relatives against the number of visas available for other family preference categories. There is no advantage to increasing the number of second preference visas if none of those visas actually will be available. When immediate relative visas are offset against family preference visas under an overall cap on family connection immigration. we are pitting one relative against the other. If the number of immediate relatives coming to the United States continues to grow. as projected it will. there will be no visas for additional second and fifth preference relatives. It is true that the HatchDeConcini amendment mitigates the harm of this offset. We now have a floor of 216.000 family connection visas. the same number as is currently available. so that these family members will not be completely crowded out. But I do not see the need for this offset to begin with. The Simon immigration reform bill did not contain such an offset. even though it set a target level for overall worldwide immigration. I am also disturbed by the adoption today of the amendment that directs the Census Bureau to exclude undocumented aliens from the total population figures used for purposes of reapportioning the U.S. House of Representatives. I am convinced that this amendment is unconstitutional and thus should be stricken from the bill. I expect that the House will review this issue very carefully and will agree with my conclusion. Mr. President. let me conclude by saying that this bill makes many positive reforms in our legal immigration system. On the other hand. there are several aspects of the bill with which I do not agree. This is only natural. given the scope and complexity of this bill and the controversial nature of efforts to change our immigration laws. I am willing. however. to work with the managers of this bill and with my other colleagues in the Senate and the House to improve and perfect this measure.