Speech #1090138995

We could never imprison or deport more than a tiny fraction of these millions of peoplepeople who have laid down roots in our communities. If we were to even try. the cost would be prohibitive and would turn our society into something approaching a police state. Virtually all of the undocumented immigrants living in this country came here to work hard and support their families. They pay taxes and they respect our laws. They would like nothing better than to become members of our society. on an equal footing. and pursue the American dream like so many immigrants before them. The alternative is keeping millions of families in the shadows. where they can be preyed upon and exploited. And by welcoming those hard working and law abiding people. we free up resources we need to seal our borders and pursue the real dangers of terrorists. drug traffickers. and other criminals. Undocumented immigrants will not get a free pass to legal residency and citizenship. They must earn it. Under the bill. undocumented immigrants who have been present in the U.S. for at least 5 years will be able to apply for a work visa lasting 6 years. They would have to pay thousands of dollars in fines. clear background checks and then must remain gainfully employed and law abiding. After 6 years of working in the U.S. on a temporary visa. an immigrant could apply for permanent residency a process that takes 5 years provided he or she paid an additional fee. proved payment of taxes and could show a knowledge of English and United States civics. Only after a combined period of 11 years could the immigrant apply for U.S. citizenship. Those who have been here between 2 to 5 years would have to apply through a stricter guest worker program. and would have to wait even longer before they could win legal residency. None of these undocumented immigrants would earn legal residency before we cleared the backlog of people waiting to receive visas to enter the U.S. Immigrants living in the U.S. legally have been waiting far too long to be reunited with their spouses and young children. This bill will clear those family reunification backlogs. and undocumented immigrants will have to get in the back of the line. Each component of the plan depends on the others for any of them to be effective. and the new guestworker program that the bill creates is an essential component. Even with the provisions I have already outlined. we would still face the prospect of future illegal immigration. Currently hundreds of thousands enter the country illegally. This illegal migration has fueled a lucrative and extremely dangerous market for human smugglers.