Speech #1090132045

This task force is charged with assessing the impact of the guest worker program on wages and on labor conditions and the employment of American workers and with then making recommendations about whether the numerical cap should be lowered or raised. But then you go on with the legislation. and the increase mechanism is not in any way tied to the recommendations of the task force. The overall number of visas could significantly Increase automatically. regardless of whether the program is determined. by this temporary guest worker task force. to be hurting American workers. So if Congress wants to raise the caps. we have the authority to do that every year. We meet here every year. We can raise the cap. But we should not provide for an automatic increase in the number of temporary visas irrespective of how that increase is affecting American workers. Just to be clear. reducing the number of guest worker visas to 200.000 a year is not a drastic measure that undercuts the bills goal of providing a more realistic framework for immigrants to legally come into this country. According to the Congressional Research Service. under this overall bill. we will at least be doublinghere is a chart that shows what is going to happen to the projections for employmentbased legal permanent residents coming into this country under this legislation. We will at least be doubling the flow of legal permanent immigration under the bill in the first year. We increase family- and employmentbased numerical limits. and we exempt categories of individuals from these caps. Overall. the bill does provide for many legal avenues for individuals to legally come into the United States and to work.