Speech #1090132598

That makes all of these distinctions meaningless and. in fact. ridiculous. We need to close these loopholes. We need to require more significant proof and documentary evidence than a simpie affidavit signed either by the illegal alien himself or any third person. That is what my amendment would correct. If a Senator wants to be half serious about making this work. if a Senator wants to put any meaning behind his or her words in favor of enforcement. clearly we need to fix these glaring deficiencies in the bill. In summary. my amendment would close just some of the loopholes in section 602 of the underlying bill. These loopholes would not only allow fraud but create incentives for illegal aliens to commit fraud. My amendment would strike the language allowing an alien to prove employment history by providing a selfsigned sworn declarationnothing more than a piece of paper with the illegal aliens own signature. My amendment would require that sworn affidavits from nonrelatives who have direct knowledge of the aliens work be corroborated by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and include contact information of the affiant. the nature and duration of the relationship. his name and address. and the phone number of the affiants relationship. In other words. these types of affidavits can at least be checked. At least the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and his personnel can put some rigor into the process to see if these statements by third persons are true. My amendment would make the types of other documents provided to prove work history the same for those illegal aliens who have been living in the United States for over 5 years and those who have been here between 2 and 5 years. bringing some more rigor. some more demand for objective evidence into the enforcement mechanism. My amendment would clarify that the alien has the burden of proving his or her employment history by a preponderance of the evidence. Again.