Speech #1090120090

We also think it is important to do two other key things. We should provide for work requirements in the future. with a temporary worker program. Let us forget for a moment the illegal immigrants who are already here. What the CornynKyl bill says is we are going to create a new temporary program for unskilled labor such as we have for skilled labor today. Today if you are a computer company and you need some more software designers and you cant get any from American universities. you can apply under a special American program for temporary workers to come from China or India or wherever they may come from. But they are only here for a temporary period of time. When you need those workers. you can apply for the visas. but when there are no jobs for those kinds of temporary workers. then visas are not issued. So it depends upon whether there is a job available that you cant find an American to do. We should do no more than that with regard to unskilled laborers because they present more potential problems in our society if times go bad and they dont have a job. So for unskilled. less educated workers. we need the same kind of temporary status. not permanent status. If. for example. in the construction industryand I have a statistic here which I will cite in a momentbut we have a lot of illegal immigrants working in construction today. In my State of Arizona. we cant find enough people to build homes. there is such a housing boom right now. Under our program. we would be issuing more temporary work visas for people to come in and help us build homes. But I also know there have been many times when I have lived in Arizona that a good American citizen with good carpentry skills cant find a job. There are no jobs to be had. The housing market has fallen through the floor because we are in a recession and people are looking for work and they cant find it. In that situation it doesnt make sense to issue more temporary work visas for foreign workers. foreign construction workers In that case you wouldnt issue those permits because there is no job here. Under the notion that you should have a willing worker and willing employer. clearly if you dont have a job. you dont want to be issuing work permits. Our program is designed to be flexible enough to issue permits when you need the workers and not to issue the visas when you dont need the workers. Contrast it with the bill that is before us. There is no such flexibility. The number of visas is set. and it doesnt matter whether there is a job for the individual. People can still come into the country. and they are entitled to stay here forever. permanently. They are even put on a path to citizenship. even if there is no job here for them. That is not right. Our bill. as distinguished from that. is for temporary periods of time only. Then. finally we deal with the illegal immigrants who are here already who could. by the way. join up for that temporary worker program. We dont penalize them to prevent them from doing that. All of the bills or proposals I have looked at. including the CornynKyl proposal. provide that on an effective date. the illegal immigrants who are here go check in someplace. There are different places where they can check in. but the bottom line is they turn in their bad documents and get a new document that would enable them to stay in the United States for a period of time. In our bill it is 5 years. The President has proposed a total of 3 plus 3. 6 years. The Kennedy and McCain bill that is part of the bill before us has another period of time. But all of them have them check in and get a temporary visa. Here. that is good for a period of time. You get to travel back and forth during that period of time with no restriction.