Speech #1090118262

We gather here today to begin debate on our effort to correct a great historic wrong. For decades. this country has turned a blind eye to the plight of the stranger in our midst. and looked away in indif.52. Pt. 4 March 29. 2006 ference as undocumented immigrants have been exploited at the workplace and have been forced with their families to live in constant fear of detection and deportation. We have ignored the tough conditions endured by the undocumented. and the harmful ripple effects undocumented employment has on some U.S. workers. For decades Congress has failed to take sensible steps to end undocumented immigration. and some of our policy choices have even contributed to the current crisis. We first confronted this problem directly in 1952. passing a law known in the parlance of the time- as the "Wetback" bill. which made it a crime to harbor or abet undocumented immigrants. But at the same time. over the vigorous objections of President Truman. Congress carved out the Texas Provisoso called because it was drafted by agricultural producers from that Statewhich made it legal to employ undocumented immigrants. This decision protected the "economic pull factors" which have sustained illegal migration since that time. In 1961 the Edward R. Murrow documentary Harvest of Shame directed the Nations attention to the miserable conditions under which migrant farm workers toiled to bring cheap fruit and vegetables to our table. Congress responded by terminating the deeply flawed Bracero guestworker program. and strict limits were imposed for the first time on labor migration from Mexico. I was part of that effort in the Senate to end that unacceptable and outrageously exploitive program. These changes to our immigration policy were wellintentioned. but with hindsight their result was predictable: by ending legal migration. but allowing employers to bid for immigrant labor. Congress all but guaranteed a generation of undocumented immigrants would emerge. Since that time. economic disparity between the U.S. and its neighbors increased. globalization made travel in and out of the U.S. easier. and two whole generations of foreign workers and U.S. employers came of age in an economic system organized around illegal migration. In truth. Congress has done little since then to confront this problem. In 1986 we passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. but IRCAs employer sanctions provisions have never been enforced. Rather than confront the structural causes of undocumented immigration. Congress has repeatedly attacked the symptoms of this disease: building more fences and placing more agents at the U.S.-Mexican border. and imposing more restrictions on immigrants legal rights. These blunt enforcement tools have not quenched employers thirst for immigrant workers. and they have not given families the tools to be reunited with their loved ones. Instead. enforcementonly approaches have driven immigrants farther into the desert and deeper underground. For decades. we tolerated undocumented immigration because it seemed like a winwin exchange: employers and consumers were given access to cheap labor and lowcost goods and services. but Congress was not required to make politically difficult decisions about expanding legal lowskilled immigration. But. of course. undocumented immigration has not been costfreefar from it. And recent changes make continued indifference to this crisis impossible. Undocumented immigrants now live in every State in the Nation. and whole sectors of the economyfrom construction. to food services. to health care. to agriculturedepend on undocumented workers to stay in business. Labor and business alike now demand a system in which workers rights are respected and in which workers are no longer vulnerable to deportation. Millions of U.S. citizens now demand a system in which their husbands. wives. parents. children. and neighbors can plan for the future. And the continued health of the American economy demands a system in which all of these workers join the formal labor force. pay their taxes. and play by the rules.