Speech #1100065931

I thank the Senator from Wyoming. a fine Senator and a great manager of legislation. I have to tell you we pretty well know this card check bill is going down like a lead balloon. We have an issue that has galvanized the attention of the American publicand we will be voting on that at the same timeand that is the immigration bill that we are about to go to. I think it is odd that the allocators of time allocated a rather small amount of time to Senator ENzI to allocate to those who oppose this legislation. Let mesince I only have 5 minutes and maybe now 4see if I can succinctly say to my colleagues why the legislation before us today is a bad piece of legislation. Yes. we need to reform immigration. yes. we need to reform immigration In much the way those who are promoting this legislation say it should be reformed. But the bill we are going to vote on will not do thatvery much like 1986. when the promoters of that bill said: Lets give amnesty to 3 million people and we will create a legal system in the future that will work. Why would I say that. that this bill does not work? Our own Congressional Budget Office. on June 4this monthdid an analysis of the legislation. They concluded that if this bill were to hecome law. illegal immigration would only be reduced 13 percent. What an astounding number. Only 13 percent? We have been hearing we must pass this immigration bill. and if you dont like amnesty. you must vote for it because that is the only way we are going to create a legal system of Immigration in America. My analysis. before CBO came out with theirs. was. that the bill would not be effective. it had loophole after loophole. They concluded the same. They say a 25percent reduction in the border security and an increase in visa overstays nets a 13percent reduction. That is in the CBO report. which is available to every Senator. We should look at that. How can we vote for legislation that we know is not going to work as it is promised to work? Second. I dont know that the American people or Members of this body realize it will double the legal immigration flow into America over the next 20 years. giving twice as many green card statuses. legal permanent resident statuses. as the current law provides. We are not going to get any substantial reduction in illegality. We are going to double illegality.