Speech #1090131962

I think the real reason for a guest worker program is not what we hear about. oh. well. otherwise there will be more people sneaking across the border. or we are short all these workers and we dont have workers for construction jobs. transportation jobs. food preparation jobs. manufacturing jobs. and the like. but it is really to set up. in my view. a permanent number of workers who are prepared to work at very cheap wages. That would be bad for the American workforce. If we take this guest worker program out of this bill. we will have. my colleagues. a far better bill. a bill that we can all feel good about. a bill that does. in fact. reach out and say to undocumented workers who have worked here 5 years. 10 years. 15 years. 3 yearsand they have clean records and they have paid their taxes and they are willing to come forward and pay their fines. and the restwe will have a good bill for them. we will have a good bill that strengthens the border. which I strongly support and have supported for years. we will have a balanced bill. that includes the AgJOBS piece. But if we do not take this out. we have a bill that I believe is going to hurt many American workers. So I think the real reason this was put in was to have cheap labor. a cheap labor workforce.