Speech #1040008921

Mr. President. I introduce legislation which will provide the Immigration Service with some badly needed tools to further the goal of achieving control over immigration. The bill will also reduce the abuse of the public welfare system by immigrants. For years. as chairman or ranking member of the Immigration Subcommittee. I have advocated strong measures to control illegal immigration so that we can maintain a legal immigration program that will have the support of the American people. This legislation will continue that effort by authorizing additional Border Patrol officers and an increase in the personnel who investigate alien smuggling and the hiring of unlawful aliens. Most important. the bill will provide for the establishment of a now verification system to enable the Immigration Service. and employers. to verify the work authority of new hires. The system will also verify the eligibility of applicants for public assistance. Alien smuggling has become a serious and growing problem. This measure will provide new authority to the Justice Department to assist them in combating what the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has referred to as a "modern day slave trade." The manufacture and use of fraudulent documents has reached such proportions that one can obtain high quality Social Security cards. drivers licenses. voter registration cards. or whatever. simply by placing a morning order on a Los Angeles street corner and picking up the documents later that day for less than $100. My legislation will increase the penalty for such document fraud. It will also provide new penalties for false statements in documents required by the Immigration Service. To combat the abuse of our immigration laws by persons who arrive at our portsofentry with no documents. or with fraudulent documents. the bill will provide for the expedited exclusion of such aliens. To more effectively remove persons found to be unlawfully in the United States. the bill will streamline our deportation proceedings. In recent months we have seen the Attorney Generals parole authority being used to admit groups of persons for permanent residence in the United States. This is an abuse of the spirit. if not the letter. of the law allowing the Attorney General to parole aliens into the United States in certain circumstances. This bill will limit the use of parole authority to individual cases for humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. and will require that the number of parolees who remain more than a year must be offset by a reduction in regular immigration. In recent years many unlawful aliens have discovered the key to extending their stay in the United States. By claiming fear of political persecution at home. they are able to delay their departure for years as they remain here and work while awaiting their hearing. There are over 400.000 persons in the backlog of such asylum claimants. This legislation will make clear that asylum claimants are not necessarily entitled to work authority. and it will provide increased resources for addressing the asylum application backlogs. The Refugee Act. passed nearly 15 years ago. set the "normal flow" of refugees to be resettled in the United States at 50.000 per year. But the number of refugees resettled here in those 15 years has exceeded that number by hundreds of thousands. Every single year since the Refugee Act passed in 1980 refugee admissions have far exceeded the "normal flow." This legislation will require congressional approval for the admission of more than 50.000 refugees in a fiscal yearexcept in a refugee emergency. Thirty years ago. in order to provide a legal status for the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who had fled Cuba after Castros Communist intentions became clear. Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act.