Speech #1090132045

BINGAMAN. Mr. President. as we ed. all know. the immigration bill creates ER. Without a new temporary guest worker program aimed at providing an equal and orresident. we derly process for individuals to come to Senator KYL this country and to work in sectors of in sequence. our economy where there is a shortage next. If they of available workers. the morning. We had good debate in connection ther amend- with the Dorgan amendment with reChairman gard to that guest worker program. Everyone who listened to that debate unnding that if derstands this is a new program which m New Mex- is being added to our immigration amendment laws. one which is not available today exico voted for anyone to use. amendment Specifically. the bill pending before RRY. so they the Senate allocates 325.000 temporary ereas it may visas for the first fiscal year. and in mendment is each subsequent year the numerical limit is flexible. tor from Ar- If the cap is reachedthat is. the full 325.000the number of available visas orrow mornt. the Kyl- would increase. It could increase by 10 perhaps we percent. it could increase by 15 percent. ess if we fol- it could increase by 20 percent in the next fiscal year. depending upon how sident. I ap- quickly those visas were used or taken. ment by Sen- In essence. what the bill providesd with Kyl- the bill pending before usis for an )w morning. openended automaticincrease mechah the Binga- nism that has the potential to signifiunanimous cantly increase the number of visas we ur equally di- are making available. When I say an gree amend- automaticincrease mechanism. we time evenly have all heard about compound interest. Everyone who has a checking acER. Without count knows the power of compounding interest. What we have here is not the Senator compounding interest. it is compounding immigration. because the ER. The Sen- 20percent increase over the previous years level continues indefinitely into 81 the future. You start with 325.000. plus President. I 20 percent. then you take the new figm Pennsyl- ure. plus 20 percent then you take the yielding to new figure. plus 20 percent. and it goes on and on. up Senate My amendment. which Senator FEINSTEIN is cosponsoring. would simply FICER. The put in place. instead of that. a hard cap of 200.000 on the number of visas availe clerk read able each year under this program. Of course. in addition to this program. we co [Mr. BINGA- all understand there are many other EINSTEIN. pro- programs that people can use to gain 13981. legal access into our country. esident. I ask Let me show a chart. This chart: he reading of guest worker visas issued under S. 2611. ed with. Now. the olivecolored wedge down at ER. Without the bottom represents the number of visas that would be issued over the next 6 years under my amendment. That is 200.000 per year. each year. for 6 years. or a total of 1.2 million visas under the guest worker program. If the Senate were to defeat the amendment I am offering and just go with the bill as it currently pends before the Senate. then it could take any of a number of courses. If there is a 10percent increase. because of the speed with which people apply for these visas. it would go up to 2.725 million visas by the end of 6 years. If it is a 15percent increase. it gets you to 3.222 million visas by the end of 6 years. And if. in fact. there are enough applicants for these visas to get you a full 20percent increase. then you get to 3.8 million immigrant visas issued over this 6 years. Now. why did I stop this chart at 6 years? The truth is. this legislation has no sunset. This legislation continues indefinitely until Congress changes the law again. So this chart could just as easily have been for 10 years or 15 years or 20 years. And if you really want to see the power of compound immigration. just like the power of compound interest. we should have developed a chart that takes us out 10 or 15 or 20 years. So the chart exemplifies how the number of guest workers may increase over this 6year period under these different scenarios. The chart could have been made for a longer period.