Speech #1090084809

It is baffling. I say. If we dont have the time to address the illegal immigration that threatens our national security. then how do we explain to the American people out there that we somehow found the time to raise the level of imported labor each year? How do we do that? How do we do that? On pages 810 through 815. separate from the deficit reduction measures related to immigration fees. are provisions in the reconciliation bill that would raise the annual cap on employmentbased visas and exempt the spouses and children of employmentbased immigrants from that cap. In addition. those pages include provisions to increase temporary H1B visas for hightech workers by 30.000 each year. These are massive and destabilizing immigration increases. and they are hitching a free ridehitching a free rideon this reconciliation bill. a free ride on this reconciliation bill. Hitch on it to get a free ride. It is bad enough that so many American jobs are moving overseas and wages and benefits here at home are being curtailed to compete with Third World labor and unfair trade practices. Now these provisions would make it more likely that working Americans will find themselves in competition with foreign labor for work in their own country andandis being done through this reconciliation process right here where the immigration increase is clouded by budget provisions and where debate and amendments are severely limited. We are told that an immigration reform debate will take place early next year. Senators are casting themselves as toughtough. man. Senators are casting themselves as tough on enforcement and wanting to protect American jobs. Well. that pronouncement stands in stark. stark contrast to this effort under the cover of procedural protections and the guise of deficit reduction to increase the number of immigrants authorized to work in the United States by an astonishing 350.000 visas per year. These immigration provisions are not necessary for the Judiciary Committee to comply with its reconciliation instruction. nor are they necessary to achieve the spending cuts embraced by the congressional budget. The House Judiciary Committee reported legislation to assess a $1.500 fee on L1 visas for executives and managers of multinational corporations and that savings provision more than satisfies the budgets reconciliation instruction. So I hope that Senators will join me in striking these unrelated immigration increases and limiting the judiciary portion of this bill solely to an increase in the L1 visa fee. So the amendment that I will send to the desk is identical to the House language. excluding the provisions related to new judgeships. and would raise the L1 visa fee to $1.500 per application. Again. this amendment simply strikes the unrelated immigration provisions and would still allow the Senate bill to meet its reconciliation targets. My amendment has the support of the professional employee unions of the AFLCIO. as well as immigration enforcement groups like Numbers USA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform.