President. this amendment is offered by myself and Senator CANTWELL. The purpose of this amendment is really pretty simple. We as a nation are in the process of addressing how we handle the illegal immigrant situation and immigration generally. We are about to basically give a large number of people10 million. maybe 12 millionwho arrived here illegally the opportunity to get in line and earn their citizenship. Those people. for the most part. dont have any unique skills that made them special to American society. They came here. they were willing to workwhich is. of course. greatand they are hard workers. in most instances. We didnt seek them out because we felt they were going to create jobs in the United States. But we do have this program called the lottery program where we essentially say to anybody in certain countries which are alleged to be underserved and have few people. immigrating into this country: You can get into the lottery and you can get in line. get a green card. and become an American citizen. There are 50.000 winners handed out every year. It just seems to us that if we are going to have such a program in the context of overall immigration reform. we ought to be saying that people who participate in this lottery are people who we as a nation actively need in order to make our Nation stronger socially and economically. rather than simply saying to everyone in the Ukraine: You can participate in the lottery. We might get a cab driver or an unemployed cab driver as a winner of the lottery. We would say to the people in the Ukraine: If you have an advanced degree which America feels would be constructive to our society in making us a stronger society. then you can participate in the lottery.
Keywords matched
immigrating illegal immigrant green card immigration