Speech #1040203043

Who are those people who have come here over the years to make a contribution? That is exactly these people. The notion of chain migration has been dramatically exaggerated here today. As the General Accounting Office study indicates. the average time between a persons arrival and their effort to sponsor somebody is 12 years. The chart. which attempts to depict huge Influxes of people coming as a result of one persons immigrationin fact. that covers half a century. That. I believe. is exaggerated at that point as well. The fact is that. under the law that we are considering. the illegal immigration bill. countless provisions have been placed in that legislation to prevent thissponsorship agreements that can be enforced. so that before people come over here. there has to be a sponsorship agreement by the person sponsoring. and that agreement can now be enforced under this legislation. That is not going to encourage immigration. it is going to advertise courage. It is a dramatically exaggerated contention. To the extent it exists. the illegal immigration bill will discourage it. To the extent that anybody is trying to exploit the system. this bill discourages it. This bill contains sponsorship provisions. deeming provisions. provisions which limit access to the Government services by illegal aliens and by noncitizens that are going to discourage any advantage taken of the system. which will leave instead the kind of country that so many people sought over its history. the kind of nation where people came here to play by the rules and make a contribution. and. Indeed. they have. An earlier speaker talked about immigration places a huge strain on the process. The type of immigration we are talking about. the ability of U.S. citizens to bring their children to this country. which this amendment would dramatically reduce. is not a strain on this system. To the extent any strain might exist. we have already addressed it In this illegal immigration bill by cutting off access to the kinds of services that may have been exploited. So. although I have several other things that I will bring back to the floor so other speakers get their chance. let me just conclude by restating two fundamental points. First. the Simpson amendment is an attempt. no matter how it is characterized. to bring very weighty. very complicated legal immigration issues and inject them into the illegal immigration bill. Those Issues should be considered separate and very comprehensively in the bill that is before the Senate that is already at the desk on legal immigration. To bring them in now. especially to bring them in piecemeal. is a mistake. The practical effect of the Simpson amendment. were it to be enacted here today. would be to place a higher priority on access to coming to this country on the children of noncitizens versus the children of citizens. It would place a higher priority on the children of illegal aliens versus the children of citizens. If we are to address. and effectively address. issues of legal immigration. then at least we should address them in a way that puts the priority the way it ought to be. Citizens of this country and their children should have a higher priority than noncitizens and certainly than those who are illegal aliens. Mr. President.