Speech #1090137568

Mr. President. I rise to speak in support of the point of order and my colleagues efforts to point out that this immigration bill is ill conceived and. I am afraid. misrepresented and oversold. I would like to say up front that I appreciate all of my colleagues attempts to solve a big problem for our country. Illegal immigration is a huge problem which we must address. But. unfortunately. as this bill has moved along. I am afraid it has gotten worse instead of better. I am afraid that we are failing to look out 10. 15. 20 years to see the financial tsunami. the category 5 fiscal crisis we have as nation. and we are adding costs without thinking about it. I am afraid the supporters of this legislation would have us believe that it is a rather harmless effort to incorporate illegal immigrants into our culture and that this bill will not have a detrimental impact on our society and. more importantly. on the Federal Governments finances. The truth is this bill would add billions of dollars of debt. And tomorrow. our children and grandchildren will have to pay for our irresponsibility today. Let me point out a few examples. This legislation would allow an unprecedented wave of immigrants. and we cannot possibly assimilate that many immigrants in that period of time. The Heritage Foundation estimates that the number of legal immigrants entering this country under this legislation would be 66 million over the next 20 years. And this doesnt include the continued stream of illegal immigrants who are projected despite what we say we are doing to the border. This bill also does not prohibit tax credits for illegal work done during illegal periods that these immigrants were here. We are going to force them to do their tax returns. and some will pay taxes. But most. we suspect. will actually qualify for an earned income tax credit worth perhaps thousands of dollars. One projection is that illegal immigrantsthe average in the United States since 1986--could qualify for up to $88.000 in earned income tax credits. We must not force our fellow citizens and taxpayers to pay their bill. In addition to this bad policy. it would also allow immigrants to get Social Security benefits for the work they performed while in this country illegally. The Senate rejected efforts to prevent Social Security benefits from being awarded to immigrants for the time they worked illegally in this country. We need to realize that they will be working with stolen Social Security numbers. which often causes chaos in the lives of Americans who have had their identities stolen. We cannot reward this behavior with Social Security checks. The bill would also provide some immigrant workers with greater job protection than American workers. The bill supposedly would protect U.S. workers by ensuring that new immigrants would not take away jobs. However. the bills definition of "U.S. worker" includes temporary foreign guest workers. so the protection is meaningless. Foreign guest farm workers. admitted under this bill. cannot be "terminated from employment by any employer . . . except for just case." In contrast American agriculture workers can be fired for any reason. Hence. there is really no protection for Americans. who could be terminated for almost any reason. while providing more protection for those who are here under temporary work visas. In addition. this legislation straps States and local governments with additional unfunded burdens that could cost $16 billion over the next ten years. while providing no relief. This is perhaps the biggest hidden cost in all of this legislation.