Speech #1020052923

I rise reluctantly in opposition to this bill because it is a relatively short extension of time. It appears on its face to be innocuous in that regard. but it has hidden impacts that were. unfortunately. not addressed in the full committee. The extension requested is and has been correctly portrayed by the distinguished chairman of my subcommittee and my committee chairman as being in respect to the fact that earlier this year the Immigration Service did not get the program off the ground as early as they expected to do and there were some glitches. But I am advised by the Immigration Service. and I think it is quite accurate. that indeed the time delay involved in this because of notice requirements and that sort of thing and the question of the fees being determined really as a practical matter only amounted to 2 months. not 4 or 6 or any other figure. and yet this bill extends the time to 4 months. or at least 2 months more than I think it should be. I offered an amendment which was not accepted in the full Judiciary Committee before this bill came out under suspension that would have reduced the time from 4 months to 2 months. in which case I could have supported the bill. Well. one can say what is the difference between 4 months and 2 months when you are extending some of this time? But it is very significant because the Immigration Act of 1990 is effective the first day of October. The first day of October is the day after which the immigration authorities need all the resources they can possibly muster in order to begin the administration of the law that we enacted last year in many broad ways. It is a very dramatic change in lots of the laws. and the needs for personnel are very. very strong. These same personnel right now who are working on this particular application process for the Salvadoreans and the others who get this temporary stay will need to be used in October. and after October for quite a while in a very intense way to handle the major Immigration bill. It seems to me that it Is foolish. if it is not absolutely necessary. for us to take these personnel away from the job that they are supposed to do in October of this year and delay in essence or hamper the carrying out of the main act that we were passing. and it does not seem at all necessary. Two months would have done this. Unfortunately. again the bill is out here on suspension. no opportunity for amendment. and we are dealing with the fact that it is 4 months and it does carry us from June to October 31. I would submit that the reasonable thing to do. and whether it can be done here. obviously we cannot amend the bill under suspension if it passes. is that somewhere along the way in a conference with the Senate or however it might be. the reasonable thing to do is to arrive at a compromise of a 2month period rather than a 4month period that is currently written into this particular bill. That way you free up the immigration personnel and you do not have them doing the kind of work they will be doing at the end of this period. and it is very important in the sense that it is the most intense time at the end of any application period where more personnel are needed. More applications are processed at that time than they are at any other time. So. for example. right now the sense is if this comes to a conclusion. we have more people applying this week than we would normally have had or we would expect to have throughout the entire rest of the period of time involved in the application opening. That is true for any immigration program. That is a historical fact. So if you end this program in October. it Is October that you are going to have all the need for the personnel to be Involved and all the time of the Immigration Service personnel. If you end this program instead in August. which would be 2 months instead of 4 months from now. you would get at the end of August all this time and resources being used. So I say.