Speech #1040262327

Mr. President. just a few moments ago the Democratic conferees that had intended to meet in conference between the House and the Senate to consider the immigration bill were notified that conference was indefinitely postponed. No time was established when there might be a followup conference. The issues of illegal immigration are of enormous importance to this country. There are a number of States that are directly impacted by illegal immigration. but the problems of illegal immigration also affect Just about every State in this country in one form or another. There has been considerable discussion and debate about what policies we ought to follow to address the issues of illegal immigration. For a number of years. we have had special commissions that were set up by the Congress to look at various immigration issues. We had the Hesburgh Commission. The commission was bipartisan in nature and made a series of recommendations both with regard to legal and illegal immigration. The Congress acted on both of the recommendations. Subsequently. because of the enormous flow of illegal immigrants coming to the United States. the Hesburgh Commission called for the United States to respond to the problem. After all. it is a function of our National Government to deal with protection of the borders. and also to guard the borders themselves. This area of public policy presented an extremely important responsibility for national policymakers. Beginning just about 2 years ago my colleague and friend. the Senator from Wyoming became the Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee. I have enjoyed working with him on immigrationwe have agreed on many. many different items. we differ on some issues. and some we have had the good opportunity to debate on the floor of the Senate on various occasions. In fact. we agreed on many of the provisions in the Senate immigration bill. I welcomed the opportunity to support the legislation which passed overwhelmingly97 to 3. Although the legislation was not perfect. it represented a bipartisan effort to try to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. I can remember how Chairman SIMPSON dealt with the issues over a year ago when the Jordan Commission was winding up their consideration of illegal immigration issues. There were many who felt we ought to rush to judgment. That we ought to provide amendments on different pieces of legislation. Senator SIMPSON said. "No. we are going to follow a process and a procedure." He spoke as a senior legislator and as someone who has provided important leadership on the issues of immigration. So we consulted the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and later the full Judiciary Committee. and we consulted with the Jordan Commission. We had extensive hearings. We moved through the process of markup.