Speech #1100054109

I could go on. But my point is. there are people living in countries where. if they can find a job. they are going to be paid 30 cents an hour. 20 cents an hour. 11 cents an hour. and they take a look at this country. and they evaluate: Perhaps I need to go to the United States and be a part of that great country. Well. because so many want to come here. we have immigration laws and quotas. We actually allow into this country. under legal quotas. a good many immigrants every single year. Well over 1 million people come into this country every single year legally as part of our immigration quota system. We have quotas for various countries and regions of the world. and we accept legal immigration from those countries. We would have had last year over 2 million people come into this country legally. with both agricultural workers and also under the legal immigration system. But think for a moment if we decided to do it differently. after what we have spent well over the last century building in this country to expand opportunity. expand the middle class. and create an economy that is the wonder of the worldthe real economic engine of the world is this economic engine of ours. Think of the consequences if. in fact. we said this: We have a new policy on immigration. Our policy is that anybody in this world who wants to come hereto stay here. to live here. to work here. to be part of the American experiencecome right ahead. with no restrictions. Come into this country and be a part of our great Nation. If we said that. if. in fact. that were our countrys policy. we would be literally overrun by those who wish to come to be a part of this American experiencean America with opportunity. an America that offers hope to people living in squalid poverty. people working for 11 cents an hour. We would be overrun. As a result. what we do have is a series of immigration laws that provide for legal immigration. It restricts numbers who come in. but we still have a pretty substantial number who come in legally into this country. Now. we are told we have a new immigration proposal put together by a group of Senators in the Senate with. I understand. the assistance of the White Houseor at least the involvement of the White Houseand brought to the floor of the Senate saying: Here is a new plan. It is 20 years after the last plan. which was in 1986. It was called SimpsonMazzoli. It was the immigration plan of 1986. That was a plan that. back then. promised it would end the problem of illegal immigration by choking off the demand for illegal labor through tough enforcement and guest worker programs and also through amnesty of people who were then in the country at that point in time. Let me read some quotes for what was done in 1986. Here are quotes in the The guts of immigration reform are here. All of it. Employer sanctions. increased enforcement. worker authorization system. verification systems. and legalization is [all] there. That is what was promised 20 years ago. One Senator said: This bill also . . . should help the Immigration and Naturalization Service to Increase Border Patrol personnel by 50 percent. Border enforcement. employer sanctionswell. they said: We are going to ramp up border security. provide employer sanctions. so you dont have the lure of a job and. therefore. we. at the same time. will provide amnestythis is 1986to about 1 million illegal immigrants. When amnesty was in fact granted following that. it turns out there were 3 million or so. Everyone was pretty stunned to learn there was so little control over the borders then. But now. todayfastforward 20 yearswe have a bill on the floor of the Senate that promises almost exactly the same thing: tougher border enforcement. employer sanctions. guest workers. temporary workersexcept now. 20 years later. after we solved the problem 20 years ago. we have 12 millionit is estimated 12 millionpeople who came here without legal authorization. We do not know that for sure. We think it is somewhere around 12 million people. So we have "comprehensive immigration reform." Well. let me go back for a moment and show you that this issue of border enforcement and employer sanctions is all a matter of enforcement and will. I have just taken the period from 1999 to 2004. The current administration. as you can see. has had almost no worksite enforcement. In fact. in 2004 there were three cases in the entire Nation brought against employers who hired illegal aliens. Think of that. In the year 2000 there were 213 cases out of all of this country:. out of the millions and millions of employers in this country. there were 213 cases. In 2004. it dropped to three. which meant there was no enforcement at allno will. no interest. nothing. Is it surprising. then. that the employers in this country would decide: Why dont I just risk it. just hire illegal aliens because nobody is checking? Here on this chart are the fines that have been levied with respect to employer sanctions. As you can see. $118.000 for the entire country. You can see what has happened under this administration. They apparently decided: We are not going to enforce this at all. The result is a dramatic increase across the border of illegal immigrants. Now. I know some do not like the term. and I do not mean the term as a pejorative term. but it is what it is. We have immigrants who come into this countrysome legally and some illegally. That is just a fact. So there has been virtually no enforcement by this administration or really any administration. although the previous administration did much better. But now we are told this new plan has an ability to solve this problem. We are going to have employer sanctions. we are going to have border enforcementsound familiar? Yes. it was 20 years ago that was promisedand we are going to have temporary workers. They now call them guest workers. but they are temporary workers.