Speech #1040203004

Mr. President. this is the first of two amendments that are In order this morn.ng that will make the very modest and very temporary reduction In legal immigration to the United States. This first amendment deals with family immigration. The other amendment concerns employmentbased immigration. Under these amendments. legal immigration to the United States will. for 5 years. be held at a level of 10 percent below the current total of regular nonrefugee admissions. This does not have anything to do with refugees or asylees. Under the amendment I am proposing there will be immediate family numbers of 480.00027.000 for diversity visas under a previous proposal we passed in 1990. with a reduction from the original 55.000 the House has accepted this figure of 27.000. Mr. President. 100.000 on employmentbased visas. That is a total of 607.000 per year. That is the total of regular nonrefugee admissions under the amendment. Under current law it is 675.000. So. 607.000 under the amendment. a reduction of 68.000. a reduction of 10.1 percent. The first amendment will also. during the 5year breathing space. establish what is really a truepriority system for family immigration categories. giving visas first to the closest family members. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard in the last months. "We should first take care of the family." That Is exactly what this amendment does. giving visas first to the closest family members who are the most likely to live in the same household with a U.S. relative who petitions for them. Only if there are visas unused by these closest family members will the visas then go down or fall down to the next lower level priority family category and so on. Under this amendment. all 480.000 family visas will be available first to the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. I think everyone would want that. That is a spouse and minor children. the socalled nuclear family. plus parents. After this highest category and priority is established. the remaining visas will be available to the secondpriority category. Unlike current law. there will be no guaranteed minimum number for the lower priority category. That Is what we established in 1990 with the socalled pierceable cap. that we had to do a certain amount for those in those categories. According to the INS estimates. immediate relativesand we do think we can rely on the INS estimates. but after yesterday It makes one wonder a bit If we can believe them In totalitybut they are telling us that immediate relatives will range from 329.000 to 473.000 In the next 7 years with an average of about 384.000. Under my proposal. If Immediate relatives are admitted at that level In a particular year. there will be about 100.000 visa numbers available for the other family category. We are not shutting them out. The visas available after admission of immediate relatives of U.S. citizens will flow down to the second prioritythat is the nuclear family of lawful permanent residents. In other words. going to their spouses and minor children. We have 1.1 million people in America who are here under our laws and totally legal who are unable to bring to this country their spouses and minor children. while we continue to give visas to adult brothers and sisters. I hope that people will understand what we do here while we talk about spouses and family and the categories of family values and all those things. So they will go to lawful permanent residentsin other words. as I say. spouses and minor children. Any visas that are not needed in that category will flow down to the third priority. which is then the unmarried adult sons and daughters of U.S. citizens. then to the fourth priority. this is married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens. then to the fifth priority. unmarried adult sons and daughters of permanent residents. and finally to the sixth and last priority. brothers and sisters of citizens. Now. you have Just heard something which sounds like Egyptian. Actually. it is English. but much in the INA. the Immigration and Nationality Act. Is not in English. It is a most difficult system to understand for the layman because It then gets into situations where people can play upon it and use emotion. fear. guilt. and racism. They have done it magnificently in this instancemagnificently. So. here we have a situation where the only ones that really strive in the present language of preference systems and the confusion in the INA are actually the immigration lawyers of America. They are very adept. I can promise you that and they have been very adept here. very. very adept.