Speech #1040206056

Mr. President. I applaud the hard work of the Senate Judiciary Committee on this immigration reform legislation. This bill contains many important provisions that will help stem the rising tide of illegal immigration to the United States and reduce the costs to taxpayers from any continued illegal immigration. I take this opportunity to emphasize that I voted against an amendment offered by Senator LEAHY that would have stricken summary exclusion provisions from this bill and the recently passed antiterrorism bill because we must curtail asylum abuse in order to fully address our Nations serious problem of illegal immigration. I also want to address a provision in the immigration bill that would allow an employer to ask an employee or potential employee for additional documentation to establish the employees authorization to work. This provision creates an intent standard which provides that an employer does not violate fair labor standards in requesting additional documentation from an employee unless the employer intended to discriminate on the basis of race or national origin. Under current law. an employer may not request any documents in addition to those contained on a prescribed list of documents when verifying an employees eligibility to work. At the same time. employers fearing sanctions for hiring an illegal alien often feel compelled to request additional documents from individuals. especially when they have constructive knowledge that an individual is not authorized to work. I understand that some have expressed concerns that changing the law could make it more difficult to prove discrimination in document abuse cases. However. cases decided before current law was enacted show that our immigration laws protect against such discrimination even without a harsh strict liability standard. Thus. I believe this change in the law strikes a proper balance between the need to protect against discrimination and the need not to punish employers who reasonably suspect that an employee or applicant is not authorized to work. Again. I commend the Senate Judiciary Committee on their excellent work in crafting this immigration reform legislation.