Speech #1030015866

Mr. President. I rise to introduce legislation which would permit spouses and children of permanent residents to receive visitor and student visas. This bill is designed to correct an inequity which has kept foreign individuals from visiting their spouses or parents in the United States. Under the Immigration Act of 1990. Congress increased the number of visas for spouses and children of permanent residents. In recent years. however. a 2to 4year backlog in the processing of immigrant visa petitions has caused lengthy separations for many families. While applicant spouses and children have patiently waited for the day when they could legally enter the United States as immigrants. they have remained in their home countries. apart from their loved ones. In an effort to see family members in the United States during the multiyear waiting period. many spouses and children apply for visitor or student visas. Under current State Department policy. however. U.S. consular officials routinely reject these temporary visa requests. Because the spouses and children conveyed a desire to immigrate to this country in their permanent resident petitions. American consulates imply that they would stay indefinitely in the United States against the terms of their visitor or student visas. Following this policy. consular officers deny the visas. preventing immediate relatives of permanent residents of the United States from even seeing family members in this country. The legislation that I am introducing todaycontaining the same language as S. 2385. which I sponsored in the 102d Congress--would remedy this situation. It would eliminate the implication that the existence of a petition for permanent residence implies that an applicant will not return to his or her home nation and would remain in the United States after the expiration of a temporary visa. This equitable solution simply grants to immigrant family members the same opportunity to visit the United States as all others desiring to come here as visitors or students. This legislation anticipates the possibility that some may violate the terms of their visas by overstaying the period which the visa provides. It penalizes spouses or children of permanent residents who overstay their visas by allowing the Secretary of State to delay their permanent visa petitions for I year if visa durations are violated. Mr. President. this legislation has received widespread support in Congress. In the Senate. the chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs. Senator KENNEDY. is a cosponsor of the bill and has formally expressed his support for the measure on the Senate floor. Additionally. the bill has garnered several bipartisan cosponsors.