Speech #1050013919

Mr. President. a soontobereleased study commissioned by the Immigration and Naturalization Service shows that the immigration law Congress passed last year will have a devastating impact on family reunificationespecially for working families. Members of Congress may think they voted last year to put aside proposals to reduce legal immigration. But in fact. as this new study shows. last years bill may have accomplished back door cuts that could not have been achieved through the front door. The onerous new sponsorship requirements are likely to cause a onethird reduction in the number of immigrants entering the United States to join close family members here. The new law requires immigrants and US citizens seeking to bring immigrant relatives to the US to meet strict income requirements. Anyone sponsoring an immigrant relative for admission to the US must earn at least 125% of the poverty level. For a family of four. 125% of the poverty level is more than $20.000 per year. The INS study examined sponsorship patterns under the old law. and found that 29% of family sponsors had incomes below 125% of poverty. That means 3 out of every 10 families who came here in recent years probably could not have been reunited with family members under the new 125% rule. In addition. 52% of immigrants who sponsored their spouses did not meet the 125% income threshold. In other words. over half of all immigrants who brought in husbands or wivesthe closest of all family memberswould be disqualified if they tried to bring them in today. In addition. according to the study. 29% of American citizens who sponsored their spouses earn below the 125% level. Thats 3 out of every 10 American citizen sponsors who could not be reunited with their spouses under the new law. The new requirement hurts both working American families and legal immigrants. As a result. large numbers of them cannot reunite with their loved ones. The new threshold means that the average construction workers with two children could not sponsor their immigrant spouse. We are talking about hardworking Americans and legal immigrants--people who have played by the rules. I doubt that anyone in this Congress wants to deny American citizens the opportunity to bring their spouse to America or watch their children grow up here. But. that is what the 125% requirement does. It denies hardworking Americans these opportunities because the full time job they hold doesnt pay enough. Supporters of the new requirement claim that the income requirement is intended to keep immigrants off welfare. But in reality. after last years sweeping welfare reforms. there is very little public assistance for which legal immigrants qualify. They are banned from receiving SSI and Food Stamps until they have worked and paid taxes for 10 yearsor until they become citizens. They are banned from Medicaid and other needsbased programs for their first five years in the United States. after which they receive assistance only if their sponsors are unable to provide for them. So even if their sponsors have only modest incomes. the immigrants they sponsor are ineligible for public aid. I supported measure to make sponsors more responsible for the care of the immigrants they bring In. But these requirements should not be so burdensome that they prevent American citizens from having their wives or husbands or children join them in the United States. We expect sponsors to be responsiblefar more responsible than we expect ordinary Americans to be. We expect sponsors to do it allpursue the American dream. hold a good job. and under the new law. hold a better job than almost a third of American citizens. The 125% requirement contained in the new immigration law puts family reunification out of reach for many hardworking Americans and the majority of legal immigrants. In addition. the study found that the 125% requirement disproportionately affects minority communities. Half of the immigrants coming from Mexico and El Salvador had sponsors who earned less than 125% of the poverty level. The same was true for a third of immigrants coming from Korea and the Dominican Republic. and a fourth of immigrants coming from China and Jamaica. So. future immigrants from these countries will have unfair difficulty reuniting with their families in the United States. Supporters of the 125% requirement often point out that the new law allows low income sponsors to overcome the 125% hurdle by lining up backup sponsors. What they fail to say. however. is that lowincome. working class sponsors usually have lowincome. working class friends. As a result. it is extremely difficult to find back up sponsors with income sufficient to meet the 125% requirement. In addition. because the new law makes sponsorship agreements legally binding contracts. nonfamily members are unlikely to agree to sponsorship. Friends and family know that if they agree to sponsor an immigrant. they can be sued by the federal. state. or local government if the immigrant needs public assistance. If the immigrant they sponsor is injured on the job and needs medical care. the backup sponsor may have to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills. Many families are not willing to ask their friends and other relatives to shoulder such a heavy burden. I hope that all of us in this Congress who are concerned about families in the immigration laws will work together to revise these harsh provisions. There is no justification for this blatant kind of bias in the Immigration laws. and Congress has an obligation to end it. I ask unanimous consent that a recent article from the New York Times on this new study be printed at .this point in the RECORD.