Speech #1100054114

Any amendment that would allow them to morph into legal permanent residency and citizenship would convert that from a temporary worker program to a permanent worker program. and that would violate the basic understanding of the bill. We already have a permanent worker program. Now. speaking of that. we were very careful to try to balance that permanent worker program. the socalled green card program. legal permanent residence. based on worker visas. We carefully calibrated that with family visas and the need for high skills versus low skills. We developed a meritbased system that establishes points for that and allocated the different visas for different groups. It would be a deal killer. a killer amendment. a breaking of the bipartisan agreement here if that is substantially altered. There is an amendment out there that would in fact substantially alter it by increasing by something like 300.000 per year the number of green cards that would be provided for employers to dole out to their prospective employees. as a condition of employment. basically. This is not a green card applied for by the individual. This is a green card the employer applies for and says to a prospective employee from another country. if you will come work for me for 5 years and take substandard wages. I will give you a green card at the end of that 5year period. I remember studying in school the concept of indentured servitude. You come and work off your debt for 7 years and then you get to stay in the United States of America. It is not the same thing. but it is analogous. What we say here is we are going to make visas available for both the employee to apply for and the employer. and we are going to substantially increase the number of those visas. But we are not going to substantially increase it and then add another 300.000 on top of that. That would break the deal.