Mr. President. I have been a Member of the Senate. now in my 26th year. and one of the issues that I have some regret about is voting for amnesty in the 1986 immigration bill. the last time that we had amnesty for people who illegally came to our country. Another regret I have that has followed on is that probably we have not done enough to keep on top of our laws of anticipating when there was labor or workers needed from outside the country to come into our country. and we havent provided then maybe the workers that we need when there arent enough Americans to fill various jobs. That could be laborers in the case of construction. it could be service workers in the case of hotels. it could be engineers. if we dont educate enough engineers. And probably those two regrets I have relate to how I feel about the present legislation before the Senate. I have looked back at my vote for amnesty. and I have tried to recall as best I can 20 years back. But it seems to me that I was convinced at that time that if we had amnesty along with worker verification. along with sanctions against workers. which I think was set in the law with a $10.000 fine. we would solve all of our illegal immigration problems. Well. at that particular time. we did not predict and foresee the development of an industry of fraudulent documentmaklng. so that if I came to this country illegally and I went in to get a job and I showed a passport that looked like the real thing but was fraudulent. and the employer didnt see the difference and they hired me. then he was absolved of any responsibility for willfully hiring a person illegally in this country. And amnesty was supposed to work with that to legalize 1 million people who were illegally In the country at that particular time.
Identified stereotypes
People will use fraudulent documents to get jobs.