Speech #1090139003

My amendment would take two measured steps to address the brain drain. In exchange for financial support for their education or training. some foreign doctors. nurses. and other healthcare workers have signed voluntary bonds or made promises to their governments to remain in their home countries or to return from their studies abroad and work in the healthcare profession. The Durbin amendment will require people who are applying for legal permanent residency or for visas to work as health care workers in the United States to attest that they do not have an outstanding commitment to perform healthcare work in their home country that they have incurred in exchange for support for their education or training. If an applicant has made such a commitment as part of a voluntary agreement. the applicant would be inadmissible until he or she has fulfilled this commitment. This will enable underdeveloped countries to benefit from the investments they have made in their citizens medical education and training. and it will ensure that U.S. immigration policy respects commitments that immigrants have made. The Secretaryj of Homeland Security would be able to waive this requirement in certain compelling circumstances. The amendment will also allow healthcare workers who are legal permanent residents of this country to provide healthcare assistance in developing countries for up to 36 months without prejudicing their own immigration status. During the period when the healthcare worker is providing assistance. he or she would be deemed to be physically present in the U.S. for purposes of naturalization. Many immigrants who have come to this country would like to participate in the fight against global AIDS and other health crises. Under my amendment. they could lend their skills to developing nations without sacrificing their own American dreams. These small but important steps will not stop the brain drain. but they will signal American leadership in the effort to help stem the migration of talent from the poorest countries in the world to the richest. I am also pleased that this bill includes important reforms to the immigration court system that will improve the quality of judicial decisionmaking and help to protect due process. Just as important. the bill does not include provisions from the original version of this bill that would have undermined judicial review of immigration appeals. One provision would have stripped Federal appellate courts of their jurisdiction over immigration appeals and redirected these appeals to the Federal Circuit Court. a small specialized court whose caseload consists largely of patent Federal personnel. and Government contract cases. Another would have assigned all immigration appeals to a single Federal Circuit judge. who would have acted as a gatekeeper to full appellate review. Unless this single judge issued a socalled "certificate of reviewability." the appeal would be denied. In recent years. Federal appeals courts judges around the country have been outspoken about the serious problems with our immigration court system. Take the example of Judge Richard Posner. a highlyrespected conservative who sits on the 7th Circuit in my home state of Illinois. Last year. Judge Posner issued an opinion in which he concluded. quote. "the adjudication of [immigration] cases at the administrative level has fallen below the minimum standards of legal justice." After I reviewed the troubling provisions in the original version of this bill. I asked Judge Posner for his reaction to them. Judge Posner sent me a letter. which I circulated to the members of the Judiciary Committee. In his letter. Judge Posner concludes. "Funneling all petitions for judicial review of [immigration] orders to the Federal Circuit and authorizing single judges of that court to deny petitions without further review are neither just nor effective solutions." In the aftermath of Judge Posners letter. others stepped forward. The Judicial Conference. the policymaking arm of the Federal Judiciary. expressed their opposition to these provisions. John Walker. a Republican appointee who is the Chief Judge of the 2nd Circuit wrote in opposition to these provisions. concluding. "Reassigning petitions for review to the Federal Circuit and allowing their disposal by only one judge will neither reduce the backlog more efficiently. nor protect the aliens entitlement to adequate review. Indeed the reverse is likely." Dozens of other sitting and retired appellate judges. law school deans and professors expressed similar views. . In fact. as the Judicial Conference explains. the Fed. appeals courts are making progress in clearing the existing backlog of immigration appeals: "These courts have worked diligently to establish court management procedures to assist them in effectively and efficiently handling these cases. These measures are enabling the courts to process significantly larger numbers of cases than in prior years." Judges and scholars have concluded that the solution to the problems in our immigration courts is to increase their capacity. As Judge Posner says. "The only just and effective way of alleviating the burden of immigration appeals is by greatly augmenting the decisional capacity of the Immigration Court and the Board of Immigration Appeals." Similarly. Judge Walker concludes. "The principal problem with the current system is that both the Immigration Judges and the BIA are impossibly overtaxed... I firmly believe the most effective and sound way of addressing this problem is by allocating sufficient resources to expand the capability of the Department of Justice. rather than altering the procedures for judicial review." After considering the input of Judge Posner and other judges and scholars. I decided to offer an amendment to strike the provisions that would consolidate immigration appeals to the Federal Circuit Court and give a single judge the power to deny an immigration appeal. In response. Chairman Specter decided to remove these provisions from the original bill and they are not in the bill that we are considering today. As judges and scholars advised us. the bill does include provisions that would bolster the capacity of the immigration courts by. among other things. increasing the number of immigration judges and members of the Board of Immigration Appeals. I hope that the conference committee retains these improvements. Most important. this bill takes a comprehensive approach that is tough but fair. We would improve our border security by increasing manpower and deploying new technology. We would crack down on the employers that are hiring millions of undocumented workers. We need tougher enforcement. but in this bill we acknowledge something that the House of Representatives bill does not: A strategy that focuses only on enforcement is doomed to failure. In the last decade. we have doubled the number of Border Patrol agents and they have spent eight times as many hours patrolling the border. During the same period. the number of undocumented immigrants has doubled. We need a realistic and reasonable approach to address the 12 million undocumented immigrants living here today. As the Department of Homeland Security acknowledges. mass deportation is not an option. It is impractical and too expensive. Experts estimate that deporting all of the undocumented would cost over $200 billionthats five times the annual budget of DHS. Amnesty is not an option. It is not right to reward those who have broken the law with automatic citizenship. If we are serious about reform. we need to offer a chance for immigrants who work hard and play by the rules to earn their way to citizenship over the course of many years. Some people claim this is an amnesty. But under the Judiciary Committee bill. undocumented aliens can earn their way to citizenship only if they have a clean criminal record. have been employed since before January 2004. remain continuously employed going forward. pay a large fine. pass a security background check. pass a medical exam. learn English. learn U.S. history and government. pay all back taxes. and go to the "back of line" behind all applicants waiting for green cards. This is an IIyear path to earned citizenship. not an amnesty. Frankly. if we do not give people the chance to earn their way to citizenship. we will not solve the problem of illegal immigration. People who are living here illegally will stay in the shadows instead of coming forward to register. This would hurt our national security and hurt American workers. who are being undercut by illegal labor. And it is not the American way. It is important to remember that this is not just a national security issue and an economic issueit is also a moral issue. Scripture teaches us to treat immigrants as we would like to be treated: "The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you. and you shall love them as yourself. for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." That is why the Catholic Church and so many other faith communities support comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who play by the rules.