Speech #1010092242

President. it is my intention to discuss an issue in this report at greater length at a time when offering an amendment after the vote on the conference report. But I wanted to use this occasion to explain why I am going to vote "no" on the conference committee report. In the 1986 session of the Congress. one of the most important pieces of legislation considered and adopted was reform to the Nations immigration law. As part of that legislation. and a particularly vexatious issue. was the status of the large but indeterminate number of illegal aliens who were in the country at the effective date of that law. how they would be treated. That issue had held up. for several sessions of Congress. the passage of a new immigration bill. The compromise which was contained in the 1986 immigration bill was one that provided for a process of legalization of those persons who had entered the country without legal status prior to the effective date of the law and a very delicately struck compromise with the States. as to who was going to pay the cost for those persons who now. because of their legal status. would be eligible for various forms of public assistance. particularly in the health and education areas. At that time I happened to have the privilege and responsibility to be chairman of the National Governors Association committee which had jurisdiction over issues of immigration and refugees and therefore was very deeply involved in that negotiation. It had been the position of the National Governors Association and other Statebased associations that since immigration and naturalization was a Federal responsibility under the Constitution. and since it was to be a Federal policy as to how the large number of illegal aliens would be treated under this law. and since it had been essentially a Federal decision of nonenforcement. or at least ineffective enforcement that had resulted in the large number of illegal aliens being in the country in the first place. that it therefore should be a Federal responsibility to assume those costs that were going to be incident to the legalization of these individuals. The compromise that was arrived at was that there would be. essentially. a division of this cost. that the Federal Government would commit for 4 fiscal years. beginning in 1988. to provide $1 billion in each of those 4 years for a total of $4 billion into a fund which would be available for a 7year period. beginning after the effective date of the 1986 act and running through 1994. It would be available to those States which could aptly demonstrate that they had numbers of these recently legalized individuals within their State and were incurring costs relevant to their assimilation as they moved toward selfsufficiency. That was an essential part. and I suggest probably a critical element. that allowed the passage from a political standpoint of the 1986 immigration law. That agreement has been honored for 2 years. in 1988 and in 1989. The Congress appropriated the $1 billion which has been placed in a trust fund and has been available to the States for a spendout between those dates and 1994.