Speech #1090135540

Mr. President. I also want to talk about another amendment which goes to the issue of the number of employmentbased immigrant visas admitted each yearthe number of employmentbased immigrants that we admit each year under the current version of this immigration bill as it stands in the Senate today. Let me first describe the big picture as I see it. as far as people becoming legal permanent residents under our laws. First. let me preface this entire discussion by saying that none of what I am talking about relates to the people who are here on an undocumented basis today. There are other provisions of the law that apply to them and that give them rights under this proposed legislation to adjust their status and become legal permanent residents at some stage down the road. So that is separate. I am not in any way talking about that. I know that has been a subject of great controversy in the Senate and in the Congress in general. but that is not the purpose of my proposed amendment. When you talk about people who are not here illegally today. there are basically two major ways that a person can become a legal permanent resident under our immigration laws. The two ways are through the familybased visa program or through the employmentbased visa program. This chart shows the numbers that have been admitted into the country up until the end of 2004 through the familybased and employmentbased programs combined. under both of those. You can see that those two togetherit comes out to somewhere around 800.000.