Speech #1040203118

Essentially. the amendment is a compromise between the Simpson amendment and what is in the bill as a product of the AbrahamKennedy amendment. I believe we need to stop the pierceable cap. and my amendment would place a hard cap on family totals of 480.000. which is the current law. without the anticipated increase. It would stop the spillover from the unused employment visas. the loophole in the current system. And it would not close out the preference categories. Under my family amendment. parents and adult children are guaranteed to receive visas every year. remaining consistent with the goal of family reunification. The amendment allocates visa numbers on a sliding scale basis for parents and adult children of citizens. allowing for increases in visas when the numbers fall within the unlimited immediate family category. always remaining within the hard cap of 480.000. It would allow a backlog clearance of spouse and minor children of permanent residents by allowing 75 percent of any visas left over within the family total to be allocated for this categorys backlog clearance. Now. to control chain migration. which Commissioner Doris Meissner told me is created by the Sibling of Citizens category. It places a moratorium on that category for 5 years. but if there are any visas left over with the hard cap of 480.000. the amendment would allow 25 percent of the leftover to be used for the backlog clearance of siblings. those who have been waiting for many. many years. The point of this is that if we do not address this issue. the numbers swell 41 percent over what we were indicated they would be in committee to nearly a million. This creates the hard total of 480.000. It permits the sliding scale down the family preference. and it eliminates what is the chain migration concern that had been raised by many in committee. I believe it is a modest amendment to control overall numbers. Coming from the State with the largest numbers. with the absence of classes for youngsters. with the cutbacks in welfare money. with the absence of adequate housing for people. we cannot keep taking 40 percent of the Nations total of legal immigrants. of refugees. of asylees. and therefore I think this is a prudent. modest. fair compromise. So. again. we would place a hard cap at the current law level. 480.000. We would close a loophole where unused employment visas spill over into the family immigration numbers. and we would guarantee that close family members of citizens get visas each year with flexible limits allowing an increase in the allocation of visas with decreases in the immediate family categories. I retain the remainder of my time and yield the floor.