Speech #1100064965

The sad fact is that the bill language does not keep the promises of its drafters. According to the Congressional Budget Office. a nonpartisan group that works for the Congress that helps us analyze legislation. Cost Estimate released on June 4: Implementing the bills enforcement and verification requirements will only "reduce the net annual flow of Illegal immigrants by onequarter." So that is a 25percent reduction. approximately 2 million over 20 years. Twentyfive percent. do you think that is enough of a result for comprehensive reform? But wait. there is more. CEO also estimates that the bills temporary worker provision will add approximately 1 million illegal visa overstays over the same 20 years. The bill will add an additional number of illegal overstays. more illegal overstays than under current law. That is because we already have a lot of temporary worker visa programs. and when you create new ones that will bring in more temporary workers. then more people are going to stay illegally. CBO goes on to say this in their careful analysis: Other 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. CBO estimatesThis is their reportthat another 1.1 million people would be added by 2017 as a result of the guest worker program. about half of them authorized workers and dependents. the remainder the result of unauthorized overstays. That figure would grow to 2 million by 2027. Twenty years from now. The net result is that according to CEO. a mere 1.3 million less illegal immigrants will enter this country and live in this country in 2027 than would be expected under current law. where we expect 10 million under current law to come illegally. They go on to say: CEO expects that the enforcement measure and the higher number of overstayers would on net diminish the number of unauthorized immigrants by about 500.000 in 2017 and about 1.3 million in 2027. What that means is when you take the 25percent reduction of illegality at the border and an increase in visa overstays illegality. it comes out. according to their numbers. to only a net 13percent reduction in illegality. So we are going to double the legal number. see. and as a result we are only going to get a 13percent reduction in illegality. I say to the Members of the Senate. that is not what we are getting paid to do. that is not what we promised to do. that is not what we should do. That is not acceptable. I wish it were not so. I wish we had legislation before the Senate that would do better job at reducing illegal immigration. that would comprehensively fix our illegal immigration. but we dont. I have been warning my colleagues about this and pointing out the flaws in the bill. and other Senators have pointed out flaw after flaw. We have this official report that indicates we have only a 13percent reduction in illegality. and it is not right. We cannot pass such a bill and then go to our constituents and say we did something good for you. we fixed a broken system. We just cannot do that. I urge my colleagues. no matter how much they want to see our immigration system reformed. no matter how much they have hoped that this legislation would be the vehicle to do it to consider my comments before you vote. A careful reading of this bill indicates it will not create the system they are envisioning. and we should not pass it. Once again. didnt the promoters of the legislation promise more than this. that it would actually secure our border. that it would end lawlessness? Isnt that what they promised? Isnt creating a lawful immigration system for America a national imperative? Isnt it something we must do? No wonder the American people are cynical and angry.