Speech #1100054473

There are many more I could quote along that line. But I hope. therefore. that every member of our body who understands the Congressional Budget Office and the work that organization does. how it is designed to analyze statutory language in our legislation to give us a budget score and other analysis of what that legislation is all about. they made a tremendously significant announcement yesterday. one that is quite frightening and all of us should pay attention to. According to tbe Congressional Budget Office. the new Senate bill will only reduce net annual illegal immigration by 25 percent. It will add 550.000 visa overstays to the illegal population by 2017. and up to I million visa overstays by 2027. In the section titled "Effects on the United States Population." the CBO states. and I quote their article. their report: 013o estimates that implementing those requirements [enforcement and verification requirements] would reduce the net annual flow of illegal immigrants by onequarter. Twentyfive percent. Then they go on to note the problem with visa overstays. in addition. saying this: Otber aspects of the legislation are likely to increase the number of illegal Immigrants. in particular. through people overstaying their visas from the guest worker and HlB programs. OBO estimates that another 1. million people would be added by 2017 as a result of the guest worker program. about half of them authorized workers aod dependents. the remainder the result of unauthorized overstays. That figure would grow to 2 million by 2027. What I want to say to my colleagues is--and those people who have worked hard on the 1)111 to try to create a piece of legislation that politically they think can be passed. and they worked together with special interest groups and everybody but the U.S. Border Patrol. and everybody but the American people who had an interest in immigration. they all plotted on how to write this thing up so they can eliminate political problems and split babies in halfall of that is supposed to create a system that first and foremost would create a lawful system of immigration. would eliminate the illegality and create border security. Now we have the Congressional Budget Office telling us that at best it is only going reduce illegal immigration 25 percent. As a price for that. we are supposed to grant amnesty to 12 million people who are here. provide options for chain migration to continue for 8 years. denying during that time highly competitive people from all over the world who want to come here an opportunity to come here. and delay some of the things in the bill that I think are positive and ought to become law. I want to tell my colleagues once more. think about this as you consider whether you can justify supporting the legislation. Because if it is going to reduce the illegal flow into this country by 25 percent. and actually through the guest worker program is going to allow more people to overstay. then we have got a problem. You see. visa overstays are already nearly 40 percent of the illegal population. Those are people who come into the country legally. they stay here through their allotted time. they just do not leave when the time is up. They stay. they overstay.