Speech #1040148315

But. Mr. President. curbing or even stopping illegal immigration is not enough. Why do I say this? A major reason is that the American people are increasingly troubled about the impact legal immigration is having on their country. Poll after poll shows us this. The people have made it so very clear they believe the level of immigration is too high. The people have been saying more or less the same thing for a very long time. According to a recent article in the American Enterprise. which reviewed 11 major polls taken since 1955. well over 60 percent of the American people favor a reduction in immigration. according to most polls since 1980and that has always included legal immigration whenever it was specifically asked about. Yet. what do people see going on. year after year after year? They see steady increases. In 1953. 170.000 new legal immigrants. In 1963. 306.000. 1973. 400.000. 1983. 560.000. in 1993. 904.000. Thus. in these 40 years since 1953. the annual level of new immigrants has gone up fivefold. rising from 170.000 to 904.000. The American people have become increasingly restless and dissatisfied at seeing their will ignored. Proposition 187 may be only the first of many indicators of their real displeasure. Mr. President. there are individuals and groups who are actively and obsessively working against the efforts of those of us here and in the other bodyand on the Commission on Immigration Reformwho are all doing our level best to develop and enact into law an immigration policy that will better promote the longterm best interests of this entire Nation. These individuals and groups form an unholy alliance composed of. one. those wanting to preserve the historically high current level of immigration and all aspects of current law which enable a person to bring to this country extended family members. not even part of the nuclear familya nuclear family being spouses and minor childrenjoined with. two. certain employers who want to avoid paying wages high enough to attract U.S. workers. or to preserve their "right" to bring in the employee they really want. notwithstanding the impact on any U.S. workers. I submit that we must break through all of this clatter. We must not allow these defenders of the status quo to deter us from the national interestbased policy the American people so deeply want--and deserve. Now. I have recently read that one in the other body claimed that to reduce legal immigration is to "punish legal immigrants" for the actions of the illegals. That is surely quite an extraordinary claim. To use the word "punish" in this way is another fine example of rhetorical exuberance--not uncommon around this village. of course. But. still. let us try to keep at least one foot on the ground. No one has the "right" to immigrate to the United States. Hear that. There an apparently hundreds of millions who would like to do so. but none of them has any "right" to do so. For the citizens of this country and their legislators to decide to reduce the level of legal immigration is not to "punish" anybody. "Punishment" is something imposed because of a judgment that the punished person has done "something wrong." It is most usually meted out with an intent to encourage more acceptable behavior. The issue involved in legal immigration reform is not whether individual aliens abroad. who would like to be legal immigrantsor even aliens who have already succeeded in becoming legal immigrantshave done anything "blameworthy." It is simply that the annual addition of 800.000 new residents. including hundreds of thousands of new workers. has some major consequences--and some of these consequences are ones the American people simply and clearly do not want. No mystery here. no evil reasoning. Taking it as a given that a majority of the American people believe that immigration. under current law. has consequences which are harmful to their interests. it is appropriate that they demand change. And that is exactly what they are doing: demanding changenot punishmentbut change. Mr. President. the American people are so very fed up with being toldwhen they want immigration laws enacted which they believe will serve their national interest and when they also want the law to be enforcedthat they are being cruel and meanspirited and racist. They are fed up with the efforts to make them feel that Americans do not have that most fundamental right of any people: to decide who will join them here and help form the future country in which they and their posterity will live. We must not allow ourselves to be distracted by these wretched rhetorical excesses and the confused non sequiturs and the babble used by so many of the opponents of the direly needed reform. Let us focus our attention always on the main issue: What will promote the best interest of the entire Nation. We are so fortunate in having the substantial assistance in our efforts of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. who have worked so diligently and so well to produce their recommendations on changes to be made to the system of legal immigration. Their ideas have been of immense help to me. As I describe my bill.