Speech #1100048298

That would be 10 million over 20 years. not 53 million over 20 years. When it came out of committee. it was even worse. It would have increased the immigration levels by elevenfoldup to 217 million over 20 years. It actually could have gone that high under the bill as written. My staffCindy Hayden and her teamran these numbers. and they were later confirmed by the Heritage Foundation. We had amendments that brought it down to 53 million. So we do not know what the green card increases will be in the bill being talked about now. It is a critical question. So we need time to study that issue and make sure the numbers of people coming into our country are assimilatable. and also do not plummet the wages of American workers. particularly middleclass and lower middleclass workers. 1 am telling you. the numbers indicate that lowskilled workers in the industries where there are large amounts of illegal immigration have not shown wage increases. In fact. in many instances. adjusted for inflation. wages have gone down. We had expert testimony on that. From 2000 to 2005. wages in categories of workers. where immigration is heavy. showed a net decrease in income. So that only makes sense. If you bring in large amounts of lowskilled labor. you can expect the value of lowskilled labor in the United States to go down. I do not think the average American believes and expects that immigration reform will result in a large increase in immigration. I am pretty sure they think we are working on a comprehensive plan to create a legal system that works. and they probably expect immigration will be reduced. not tripled. So we have to look at that question. Another question would be: Will the temporary program be temporary? Last years bill contained a "temporary" worker program that was. in reality. a lowskilled permanent migration program for 200.000 workers. plus their families. annually. TPhis is the bill that is on the floor today that we will vote cloture on next week. Workers and their families were given 3year renewable visas. They could bring their families into the United States. They could be sponsored by their employer. the first year they are here. for a green card. to become permanent residents in the United States. They could continue to renew those temporary worker 3year visas indefinitely. as long as they were working and did not have a felony conviction. So in last years bill it was not a temporary worker program. It was a plan to bring in workers who were put on a virtual automatic path to permanent residence and citizenship. What will this new bill contain? We hear different things. One is that it contains a 3year visa. where workers are allowed to bring in their familiesI am not sure we can look our voters in the eye back home and say we are going to sponsor such a program again this year. Additionally. if we set aside 10.000 green cards a year for these new "temporary" workers to apply foras I am hearing the bill may doI am sure we cannot claim our intention is to create a temporary plan. So I am worried about that. All I would say to my colleagues is. lets be sure we have enough time.