Speech #1050089374

I think we would be moving through this whole process quite quickly. But I took this time and came to the floor after listening to some really flagrant misrepresentations about one aspect of the continuing resolution and of the appropriations process. and that is the question of the extension of section 245(I). I have heard it discussed as an amnesty provision and stay of deportation provision. Section 245(I) has nothing to do with that. Section 245(I) of the law. in the immigration law. is only available to people who are already eligible to become permanent residents. It is not an amnesty. it only applies to people who. under our legal immigration system. are now eligible at the particular time to adjust status. The only issue it deals with is where they can adjust status. whether they can adjust status in this country or whether they have to go back to their home country. take the airline. pay the airline. go into our consular office at our embassy or one of the Consulates in the foreign country. go in that morning. show their papers. pick up their visa. and in many cases on the very next flight. What we did back 3 or 4 years ago is say this is crazy. We are pushing a great deal of resources into our beleaguered embassies abroad for work that is not particularly relevant to anything in our national interests. We are giving money to the airlines. Let us raise the fees for that adjustment. Let the agency that is most equipped to deal with it. the Immigration and Naturalization Service. deal with it. incountry. for those people who are eligible. It simply permits these people who are eligible. who are in line. whose time has come. to adjust to legal status in this country as a permanent resident. to do that in the United States. It does not give illegal immigrants the right to live in the United States. It is not a defense to an action for deportation. It is not a stay of deportation. It is not an American necessity. It does not declare as legal people who have come here illegally. It does not change the order in which a persons claim is adjudicated. There is one single worldwide line for everyone who is waiting for their immigrant visa. There are category limits. there are country limits. and only when that persons number comes up and that persons time in line. he gets to the front of the line. can he then adjust his status. Mr. Speaker. we produce now $200 million a year in revenue. essentially by processing the people incountry rather than giving even greater amounts of that money to the airlines and costing our State Department far more to process them overseas. This frees up our consular officials to do the key work of screening applicants for visas in those countries. looking for terrorists. looking for people with criminal backgrounds. ensuring they do not come into this country. It has them doing the work we should be wanting them to do. not simply processing the paperwork for people whose turn has come through the legal immigration system. It is for that reason that an incredible array of organizations. almost every major business organization in the country. wants to do this. This is the most expeditious and sensible fashion for processing legal immigrants. So. I just hope as the appropriators go to a decision on the CommerceStateJustice bill. as we deal with this continuing resolution. that all of the scare tactics about amnesty and stays of deportation are seen for what they are. They are an effort to cloud the real issue in the 245(I) debate. Section 245(I) produces $200 million a year by allowing people whose time has come to adjust status through the legal immigration system to adjust in the United States. Eighty percent of that money goes for enforcement of our borders and to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States. and it makes a tremendous amount of sense from every point of view and from every type of analysis. I urge its adoption.