Speech #1090100528

When I was first elected. I fought a small group of govemment contractors in the forestry and reforestation industries who were abusing their workers. A recent series in the Sacramento Bee newspaper documented that abuse of immigrant labor continues to be widespread in guest worker forestry programs. The new guest worker proposals are unlikely to improve that situation. Guestworker programs have also historically been used to break unions. The meatpacking industry is a prime example. The meatpacking industry broke the unions by bringing in lowwage immigrant labor. Once the union was broken. the industry cut wages and benefits for the immigrant workers. sped up conveyer belts. and just generally made working conditions miserable. The rate of worker injuries and workplace accidents are extraordinarily high. Its taken the industry back to the days described in Upton Sinclairs book The Jungle. I am wary of the impact on lowincome Americans and lowwage legal immigrants from guestworker proposals. Such proposals threaten to increase the lowwage labor pool in the U.S. by millions of workers. further eroding the pay rates and working conditions of tens of millions of Americans and legal immigrants. The nearly 20 percent of Americans without a highschool degree will be particulary hard hit. Under the leading guestworker program in Congress. the number of unskilled workers authorized to enter every year would be 400.000. In addition. 290.000 higher skilled workers would be allowed in every year. nearly double the number in current law. The Commission on Immigration Reform. created in 1995 by President Bill Clinton and headed by former Democratic Member of Congress Barbara Jordan. reported. "Guestworker programs have depressed wages" and reduced employment opportunities for "unskilled American workers. including recent immigrants." who can be easily "displaced by newly entering guest workers." A study by Harvard University professor George Bolas shows wages for Americans dropped 9 percent for high school graduates and 5 percent for college graduates in the wake of the unprecedented migration of undocumented immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s. Other studies. including research by the National Research Council and the Economic Policy Institute. show immigrants under "guest" worker programs are paid 1533 percent less than American citizens. driving down wages for all workers. I am also concerned that the administrative burden created by guestworker programs will disadvantage immigrants from around the world who are now waiting in line for their paperwork to be processed so they can enter the U.S. legally. Though they have complied with the law. filed all the required applications. provided all the needed documentation. and paid all the fees. it will be years before they have legal status. My staff and I devote countless hours every week to the plight of frustrated legal immigrant husbands. wives. mothers and fathers. and children trying to navigate the immigration maze. Families are separated for years and years going the legal route. and immigrants from the Philippines and Mexico often have to wait at least a decade to be approved with no chance to jump to the head of the line. H.R. 4437 is not a perfect bill. Far from it. Immigrant rights organizations. labor unions and others have rightfully pointed out that the bill does not in any way address the 1012 million undocumented workers already in the U.S.. no matter how long theyve been here or how much theyve contributed to their local community or the economy. I am concerned that the alien smuggling provisions are written in an overly broad way that could penalize the everyday actions of social service organizations. churches. and others who may provide humanitarian aid and counsel to immigrants. Further. a dubious amendment was adopted during consideration on the floor that requires the construction of $2.2 billion worth of fences along a part of the southern border. which. as evidenced by the failure of similar fences in Spain and along the Hong KongChina border. will do little or nothing to combat illegal immigration. but will certainly divert money from programs that could. Instead. this money could be spent to hire and equip 2.000 additional agents for 10 years and to improve technologies used to protect the border. We need to move this complex and emotional debate on border security and immigration reform forward. Although H.R. 4437 is flawed. I am voting in favor of the bill because it contains a number of provisions that I support related to border security. because this is the only immigration legislation the Republican leadership will bring to the floor. meaning it is the only opportunity I will have to go on record in favor of enhancing border security. and because I expect that the Senate will address the major deficiencies in the bill. Immigration will be debated again in the House next year after the Senate has worked through its own version of immigration reform and border security legislation and a conference committee has met and resolved the differences between the two chambers bills. I will reserve judgment on whether to support the final bill until I see the details.