Speech #1040135889

Mr. President. immigration has been in the news a great deal over the past few months. The debate usually fails completely to account for the vast difference between legal and illegal immigration. Amidst calls for increased enforcement of our laws against illegal immigration to the United Statesenforcement which I strongly supportwe see proposals aimed at cutting back admissions of legal immigrants: those immigrants who play by the rules and enter our Nation the correct way. In general. I oppose the idea of further restricting legal immigration to the UnitedStates. and particularly oppose drastic cuts in familybased immigration. Those foreigners who demonstrate the initiative to move to the United States are among the most industrious and motivated members of their own nations. Like the immigrants who arrived in America before them. they come to this country to join their families and to carve out opportunities for themselves. In doing so. they enrich our country economically. culturally. and socially. Those who support cuts in legal immigration often do so without identifying any concrete reason for these cuts. repeating only that the "national interest" justifies restricting both legal and illegal immigration. I cannot see how preventing worthy immigrants from reuniting with their families is in our national interest. Today. I would like to focus on one particular category of legal immigrants who face the threat of a locked door to the United States: the brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens. who are currently eligible for immigrant visas under the fourth family preference category in our immigration laws. Currently. 65.000 immigrants enter the United States annually under this category. and hundreds of thousands of others face a backlog. Both Barbara Jordans Commission on Immigration Reform and various Members of Congress have proposed eliminating this family preference category outright. I have great concerns about these proposals on two levels. First. proponents of elimination of the fourth family preference justify their proposals by emphasizing that our familybased immigration system should focus on the nuclear family. and that the sibling relationships protected by the fourth preference category are too attenuated to qualify as a priority in our immigration policy. I think that if we were to survey the American public. we would find that people of every ethnic and racial background value sibling relationships so much that they wouldand dofully support an immigration system that reunifies siblings as well as nuclear family members. While the public is undoubtedly and justifiably concerned about illegal immigration. I have seen no evidence that it devalues legal immigration generally. or sibling relationships in particular. in the manner suggested by those who propose eliminating the fourth family preference. In fact. quite the contrary. Second. I am especially concerned about the effect of elimination of the fourth preference on those individuals who are currently in the backlog. These prospective immigrants and their sponsorswho are citizens of the United Stateshave expended substantial resources and funds in attaining eligibility for an immigrant visa. They have played by the rules. and waited patiently for their numbers to come up. As much as these individuals want to reunite with their siblings. they have decided against taking the rash but convenient step of entering or staying in the United States illegally. It would be fundamentally unfair for the United States to take the money and run without fulfilling its commitment to these individuals. I submit for the RECORD a New York Times article from September 24. 1995. which tells the story of Sonya Canton. a naturalized American citizen. She has two sisters. one of whom has illegally overstayed her visa to the United States. is living here today legally under the 1986 amnesty. and will soon become eligible for citizenship. and the other of whom waits patiently in the fourth preference backlog. having paid both her fees and her dues. Mrs. Canton states: "It is some kind of injustice when those who played by the rules cant get in. but those who broke the rules are now going to become citizens." I could not say it any better.