Speech #1100056125

For decades. American businesses have been able to sponsor valued employees. The bill before us changes that policya policy that. while imperfect. has worked well. and this bill will now replace it with a new. untested. unexamined system to provide visas to immigrants who look good on paper but who may not have any familial or economic ties to our country. I have serious concerns about this new experiment in social engineering. not only because of the lack of evidence that it will work but because the bill says the new point system cannot be changed for 14 years. For that reason. I come to the floor today. joined by Senators MENENDEZ and FEINGOLD. to offer amendment No. 1202 to sunset the point system after 5 years. I am pleased that immigration experts. religious organizations. and immigrant advocacy organizations have all endorsed our amendment. These groups have endorsed our amendment because the point system in this bill constitutes a radical shift in immigration policy. premised on the view that there is something wrong with family and employersponsored immigration. If this program were merely supplementing the current system rather than significantly replacing it. it would not have caused as much concern. Religious organizations and immigrant advocacy groups have also endorsed my amendment because the decisions about what characteristics are deserving of pointsand how points are allocated for those characteristicswere made without a single hearing or public examination. They support the amendment because the new points system shifts us too far away from the value we place on family ties and moves us toward a classbased immigration system. where some people are welcome only as guest workers but never as full participants in our democracy. Indeed. the practical effect of the points system is to make it more difficult for Americans and legal permanent residents with family living in Latin America to bring them here. Our current immigration system delivers the lions share of green cardsabout 63 percentto family members of Americans and legal permanent residents. while roughly 16 percent of visas are allocated to employmentbased categories. The hill before us would reduce visas allocated to the family system in order to dramatically increase the proportion of visas distributed based on economic points. Once implemented. these new economic points visas would then account for about 40 percent of all visas. while family visas would account for less than half of all visas. with the remainder going for humanitarian purposes. Under the new system. just a few of the current family preferences would be retained in any recognizab~le form. Spouses and children of U.S. citizens would still be able to come. but parents of U.S. citizens would no longer be counted as immediate family. Thus. most parents seeking to join their children and grandchildren in the United States would be denied green cards. The rest of the current family preferencessiblings. adult children. and many parentswould be eviscerated. The new points system would also eliminate employmentbased green cards altogether. forcing employers recruiting workers abroad to rely exclusively on shortterm 11lB3 and Y visas. This proposal takes an admittedly problematic employmentbased visa system and replaces it with a far more problematic temporary worker visa system. The design of the points system leaves numerous questions unanswered. Beyond pushing workers from Latin America to the back of an endless line with no hope of ever reaching the front. the new points system leaves unspecified the crucial question of how migrants with sufficient points will be prioritized. Government bureaucrats would thus be left with unprecedented discretion to determine which immigrants have acceptable education. employment history. and work experience to merit admission into the country. Taken together. the questionable design of this points program and the fundamental shift away from family preferences in the allocation of visas raises enough flags that we should not simply rubberstamp this proposal and allow it to go forward. Let me be clear. Senators MENENDEZ.