Speech #1040203036

Mr. President. throughout the years legal immigration has helped to make our Nation great. America has attracted and continues to attract the best and the brightesteach year many highly skilled and exceptionally talented individuals legally migrate to the United States. In addition. many hardworking individuals who have come to this Nation and contributed their skills. ideas. and cultural perspectives. We must remember that we are and always have been a nation of immigrants. Illegal immigration is an entirely different matter and presents a whole host of problems that need to be addressed. We must pull together our resources to enforce our borders. streamline deportation of illegal aliens and increase penalties on those who traffic in illegal immigration. In doing all that we should to combat illegal immigration. however. we must be careful not to unfairly punish those who have entered this country legally. By dealing with the very separate issues presented by legal and illegal immigration separately. we can go a long way to ensuring that our desire to stop illegal immigration does not result in penalizing those who have abided by the law to enter the country. The Senate Judiciary Committee has already considered the very issue of whether legal and illegal immigration legislation should be addressed separately. They voted by a margin of 2 to 1 to keep the two separate. We should stay that course and give wellreasoned consideration to legal immigration apart from the discussion of the serious national problems presented by Illegal immigration. I understand that some of my colleagues wish to reduce the numbers of legal immigrants in order to eliminate the backlog of spouses and minor children waiting to enter this country. But we should address these issues when the matter before us is legal Immigration. Otherwise. legal immigrants who have long enriched this Nation. may be unfairly impacted by the negative views which understandably are associated with illegal immigration. In addition. we cannot give appropriate consideration to employmentrelated provisions of a bill discussing both legal and illegal immigration. Legal immigration has helped to strengthen Americas economic base. providing our Nations businesses with highly skilled individuals to meet critical needs in special fields and disciplines. American businesses who employ legal immigrants already must comply with a series of rules and regulations which can be very costly. Also. as a recent Cato Institute study makes clear. legal immigration does not increase the rate of native unemployment. Obviously. illegal immigration poses a different set of employmentrelated issues such as what appropriate sanctions should be levied against employers who hire illegal immigrants and the best and most efficient way to verify citizenship of potential employees. Again. I hope that my colleagues will remember that we are a nation of immigrants and that legal immigration has been a source of great strength and diversity. We can best and most fairly address any problems associated with legal immigration by discussing that issue separately from the far greater problems illegal immigration presents. Thus. I urge my colleagues to vote to keep illegal and legal immigration provisions separate.