United States Senate 0900 - 1000
SENATE FLOOR DEBATE:
Final vote on immigration reform. It will resume consideration of S. 2611, Immigration Reform bill. Time agreement as follows: Cornyn #4097 w/ 60 mins equally divided. // Bingaman# 431 w/ 60 mins equally divided. // Feingold #4083 w/ 60 mins equally divided. // Ensign #413 w/ 30 mins equally divided. // Stacked votes followed by final passage. W.O. VOTE on final passage is expected early afternoon.
09:18:18.5 the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray.
09:18:33.5 almighty and eternal god, we thank you for our country. we praise you for her hills and valleys, her fertile soil, her trees, her plains and mountains. forgive us when we seek material power alone. forgive us if in our prosperity
09:18:56.2 we have been condescending to others or forgotten the invisible poor. forgive us too if we have neglected the admonition of your word.
09:19:10.8 lord, we confess our mistakes. use our senators today to keep us a nation, full of truth and righteousness. we pray in your wonderful name. amen.
09:19:33.9 the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible,
09:19:43.8 with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a comiewm case to the
09:20:00.1 senate. the clerk: washington, d.c. , may 25, 2006: to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3 of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable john nguyen van nghia, a senator from the state of new hampshire to der form the duties of the chair.
09:20:15.2 signed ted stevens, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, leadership time is reserved. senate will resume consideration of s. 2611, which the clerk will report clerk calendar number 414, s. 2611.
09:20:32.5 the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. specter: mr. president, we have a unanimous consent agreement limiting the remaining number of amendments with time agreements worked out. we would appreciate it if the
09:20:49.4 senators in sequence would be ready to go when the next amendment comes up. we anticipate a long session today. there will be other votes following completion of the immigration bill including a
09:21:03.6 vote on cloture of the nomination of brett kavanaugh for the court of appeals for the district of columbia. and i believe we are now ready to believe with the cornyn amendment. the presiding officer: the senator from texas.
09:21:18.3 mr. specter: mr. president, i should announce further that it is our intention to stack the votes at the conclusion of the debate on the remaining amendments. the presiding officer: snort from texas is recognized. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i'd like to call up amendment 4097 and ask for its immediate
09:21:37.8 consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from texas propeses an amendment number 4097. mr. cornyn: i ask unanimous consent that further reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i
09:21:52.2 believe in amendment is absolutely essential to the functioning of this comprehensive reform plan that has been shaped over the last two weeks on the senate floor. it is premised upon the concept of information sharing. and in a post-9/11 world, this is a concept that we have become
09:22:10.8 familiar with because the failure to share information between law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities and other agencies of the federal government were one of causes of the terrible disaster this country sustained
09:22:26.9 on september 11, 2001. this amendment, i believe, , striegz an appropriate balance between controversiality of the
09:22:44.7 records of applicants under this bill and fraud detection. the compromise that we've heard it has been carefully crafted by a bipartisan coalition here will
09:22:57.3 not in any way be unravelled or hurt in anyway by this amendment. finally, an illegal alien, i believe l not be deterred from applying because of the this amendment. this amendment does not remove
09:23:16.7 controversiality per se. it applies only after an application is denied the need for controversiality passes. the next is -- text is modeled after the violence against women
09:23:33.2 act and i would ask my colleagues if the limit on controversiality is okay in the case against women who are subjected to violence, why isn't it okay for workers who are simply here illegally?
09:23:50.9 this country's early experience about 20 years ago now with immigration reform shows that a legalization or amnesty program say magnet for fraud and can be ploited any -- exploited in a
09:24:07.2 number of ways. we know that this vulnerability can be exploited not only by common criminals but also by terrorists. three terrorists convicted of the 1993 world trade center bombing obtained green cards
09:24:23.8 through the 1986 amnesty including new york city cab driver mohammed abu s hamala through nestity.
09:24:42.3 "the new york times" called the 1986 amnesty -- quote -- "one of the most extensive immigration frauds ever perpetrated upon the united states government. government." within scruft a few years, it was reported that the government had already identified almost 400,000 cases of possible fraud.
09:25:02.0 one of the reasons there was so much fraud in the 196 amnesty was -- 1986 amnesty was because the law did not allow the government to share information even after an application was denied. yet the current bill contains the exact same text and the
09:25:19.5 exact same flaws. my amendment does not eliminate any controversiality -- confidentiality in the bill.
09:25:34.7 my amendment simply allows the government to share and use information once a worker's application and all appeals are denied. my amendment is modeled after the current legal protections provided in the violence against women act which allows the
09:25:50.9 government to share and use information submitted in an application -- quote -- "when the application for relief is denied and all opportunities for that appeal of denial have been exhausted ." but that limitation is okay in that context, why is it not
09:26:09.4 appropriate in this context? i don't believe this amendment would deter any alien from applying for legal status. illegal workers seek a secure border and work site enforcement.
09:26:27.3 we may hear from some that in order to for undocumented individuals to come forward and take advantage of the legalization program provided by this lying bill that can he can't do anything that might cause them them to second guess or question whether they should
09:26:46.0 come forward. but the fact is, mr. president, i think there has to be a balance struck. i don't believe that any illegal alien will be deterred from participating in the very generous provisions of in lying bill because of concerns that if their application is denied that
09:27:02.5 that information can then be shared with law enforcement personnel. the fact is the kinds of things that we're looking out for are fraud, massive fraud schemes which would be designed to undermine the very structure of
09:27:19.7 this negotiated comprehensive immigration reform bill. paul virtue, president clinton's general counsel at the immigration and naturalization service testified before congress -- quote -- "that the confidentiality restrictions of
09:27:35.7 the law in 1986 prevented i.n.s.
09:27:39.3 from pursuing cases of possible fraud detected during the application process ." that was before the house judiciary committee on march 4, 1999. and according to one of our colleagues who was then in the
09:27:53.8 house of representatives, senator schumer, he was quoted in "the new york times" in 199 as saying, "one certain product of the agriculture amnesty program is that in developing immigration policies in the future, congress will be much
09:28:08.6 more wary of the potential for fraud and will do much more to stop it." mr. president, it's been said famously that those who refuse to learn from history are
09:28:24.9 condemned to relive it. and i suggest to my colleagues that we should have learned something from the massive fraud in the 1986 amnesty and we should not relive that in this bill today.
09:28:39.2 this amendment improves the current bill by preserving the confidentiality of applicants while allowing the government to share information and perhaps uncover massive fraud criminals trying to prevent and gain
09:28:59.0 access to our country and our immigration system in spite of massive criminal organized crime. so, i would ask my colleagues do we really want to grant impunity for fraud?
09:29:14.5 do we really want to in vite criminals and those who would perpetrate such fraud to do so again when we have the very tools at our command which would allow us to strike the proper balance between the prosecution
09:29:30.6 for fraud and yet at the same time encouraging those who would benefit from this program from coming forward. now, i've heard some suggest, mr. president, that the only way we're going to encourage people to come forward is if we make doing so an unequivocally
09:29:51.2 positive experience. in other words, it's all carrot and no stick. but i would suggest that the most practical way to deal with the current situation is both the combination of carrot and stick.
09:30:04.8 the carrot being obviously the offer of the great benefits and very generous benefits provided by this underlying legislation but the stick has got to be things like work site verification. ultimately that's the linchpin,
09:30:21.7 i believe, of the success of the entire program. not even border security, i believe, represents the linchpin for the success of this comprehensive immigration reform plan because 45% of illegal aliens currently in the united
09:30:36.3 states have entered legally like the three convicted bombers of the 1993 world trade center -- world trade center explosions. but we need a combination of border security, work site
09:30:54.7 verification and enforcement and employer sanctions for those who cheat in order to dry up the attraction of those who want to come to the united states to work. but in doing so, we can, i believe, provide a good balance
09:31:10.2 for those who are here and who congress has -- is in the process of determining should be available for certain benefits under this bill. but i believe do so in a way that would prevent and make far less likely the massive fraud
09:31:27.4 which undermined the 1986 amnesty. mr. president, i would reserve the balance of my time and yield the floor. the presiding officer: who yields time? the senator from massachusetts. mr. kennedy: mr. president, one
09:31:49.5 of the -- i was here in 196. i understand the 1986 act very well. i listened to my friend from texas describe the provisions that we have earned legalization saying effectively it's the same
09:32:05.3 that was offered in 1986 and, of course, it isn't because 1986 6 was a real amnesty. we've had this debate for ten days. we can have it again here today. what we're talking about in this
09:32:19.9 program is recognizing that people that have violated the -- the law are able to work and earn their way into a position where eventually they can apply for citizenship if they pay a penalty, if they demonstrate
09:32:38.3 that they paid their back taxes, they have no trouble with the law, and they are prepared to learn english.x and after the last person who's
09:32:50.6 in line now legitimately is able to gain entry in the yiewrks they can adjust their -- in the united states, they can adjust their status. but the 1986 failure is entirely different from what we have now because we had a proliferation of fraudulent documents.
09:33:09.6 that's the history. we understand that. and we had republican and democratic administrations that refused to enforce the 1986 laws. that's history. we can go out here an complained about 1986, but 1986 is not 2006 and what we did in 1986 is not
09:33:25.9 2006. now, we can talk about how some of the terrorists got into the united states. most of the terrorists got into the united states as a result of 9/11 through saudi arabia, and the reason they got in is
09:33:40.8 because the c.i.a. didn't talk to the f.b.i. or the immigration service. the majority of those that came on in here and were part of the 9/11 were known by the central intelligence agency and they never shared that information
09:33:56.1 with the immigration service or with the f.b.i. they didn't need fraudulent documents. they needed the f.b.i. and the c.i.a. to work together. but having said all that, mr. president, we hopefully have got the better relationship between the central intelligence agency and the f.b.i. now than we certainly had then.
09:34:14.0 but that is the past. we have to learn from the fast. i listened to the senator say that. and what we need is tamper-proof documents. if you don't have tamper-proof documents, this system is not going to work. tamper-proof documents. that is what we are committed
09:34:32.0 to, tamper-proof documents to try and deal with the fraud. now, people can come on the floor of the united states senate and talk about the fraud in our immigration system and that is true. what we're trying do with this legislation is remedy that, is remedy that.
09:34:49.1 i don't know what the alternative is from the senator from texas. i know what his concerns are, but i don't know what his remedy is. on this, we are talking about tamper-proof documents. we're talking about tamper-proof documents for guest workers,
09:35:04.8 we're talking about tamper-proof documents so that the law can be enforced against employers who are going to hire undocumented individuals that don't have the tamper-proof documents, and we're talking about tamper-proof documents for those individuals that want to try and play by the
09:35:21.8 rules and go by earned legalization. now, the language in this legislation is very clear, mr. president, and that is, if you lie on your application, you lose all your rights.
09:35:36.8 you lose all your rights. and you are subject to deportation. but if you commit an innocent mistake on your application, that can be considered and not be the -- used as a vehicle for deportation.
09:35:52.9 now, that is the principle difference, mr. president, and i don't think that that's an unreasonable one. now, the senator, i know, believes that if we don't -- if we don't change what we got in our law to what he wants so that
09:36:13.8 people will be, if we accept his amendment, people will not be discouraged from coming forth -- of course they will he a be
09:36:25.3 discouraged from coming forth. they find out the application is mistake.
09:36:41.3 we don't want them to be deported if it's going to be subject to the court and amendment, why they going to come forward and share information if they know if they share information confidencely they'll going to be deported? so we're undermining an essential aspect of this
09:36:57.1 legislation bringing people out of the shadows. we want people -- of the millions of people that are here are people that have come here because they want to work hard, they want to provide for their families, they want to be a part of the american dream, they're
09:37:13.9 prepared to learn english, they're prepared to pay their taxes, they're prepared to pay their penalty, and they want to have a sense of pride. they practice their faith and they want to be -- have a sense of pride. and they want to be able to come on in and be able to adjust their status so that they can be
09:37:29.2 legalized so they can have the respect of their children and their family and their
09:37:35.2 community. that's what the great majority of the people want, and that is what we are trying to do. but if we follow the cornyn amendment, people come on in there in good faith and somebody
09:37:50.3 flyspecks that application and says, no, this is a question of whether this is a case of criminal intent, boom, you're gone. you're deported. we are going to have a very difficult time.
09:38:03.0 we have crafted this legislation so that those who are going it lie on the application and those who are going to be involved in criminal activity, bang, they are subject to depour taismghts no if's, and's or but's. but we understand there are
09:38:18.9 going to be innocent mistakes made and we don't want to subject people to deportation because that isn't what all of this is really about, mr. president. and it does seem to me that honest people who submit a good-faith application to earn legalization should not be
09:38:36.0 signing their own deportation orders. otherwise, why should anyone apply? that effectively is what the cornyn amendment does, and i think effectively undermines the whole purpose and thrust of the legislation.
09:38:52.1 which hold the balance of my time. -- i withhold the balance of my time. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i have enormous respect for the knowledge and passion that the senator from massachusetts brings to this issue. i think he's reading more into the amendment than certainly i intend, and i'd like to explain
09:39:09.6 that. first of all, i don't want to get into an argument with him today about what is and what is not amnesty. we've had that debate, and i think we'll leave further discussion of that for another day. but i agree with him that what undermines the 1986 amnesty,
09:39:28.7 which i think we both agree was an amnesty, was the proliferation, as he said, of fraudulent documents. and he acknowledges -- and i think correctly so -- that coming up here now five years post-9/11, that it is important
09:39:45.3 that all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies communicate with one another in a way that protects the american people. he talks about tamper-proof documents. this bill does not provide for such a tamper-proof document.
09:40:02.4 in fact, it maintains the current regime of allowing people to prove their eligibility to work by showing some combination of up to 20 different documents. that is where fraud has such
09:40:18.4 great potential because we know that there are document mills, there are criminal organizations that will generate a passport, a social security card, a driver's license, you name it. and some of the quality of their work is very high and easily
09:40:38.4 passes as a valid dolt. -- and easily passes as a valid document. and we don't have that in this bill and i hope that we will agree among ourselves that that
09:40:49.9 is an essential part of this comprehensive immigration reform. but what i am getting at is if someone uses a fraudulent document to apply for the benefits under this bill and they are denied the benefits under this legalization program,
09:41:09.6 then that information ought to be shared with the f.b.i., with potentially the c.i.a. in cases where their jurisdiction is invoked, and this has the opportunity not only to lead our
09:41:23.5 law enforcement personnel to shut down these fraudulent document mills, but also potentially to crack criminal syndicates that are engaged not only in generating false documents but trafficking in persons, in drugs, in guns, and even potentially terrorist
09:41:40.9 organizations. i think it's absolutely critical that we have the department of homeland security able to share that kind of information with the c.i.a. and the f.b.i. it's important that we bring
09:41:58.0 down those stovepipes that prevented the information-sharing that might have prevented 9/11. now, i'm not suggesting that a good-faith mistake in an application for the benefits under this bill would result in
09:42:13.1 deportation. to the contrary, i'm glad to hear the senator from massachusetts say, if you lie, you lose, you get deported. but i believe that we need to have a common-sense availability
09:42:29.7 of this information, not on a
09:42:33.7 widespread basis. we're not going to publish it on the internet. but i think that law enforcement ought to be able to share in this information on a case-by-case basis in a way that is designed not only to root out
09:42:48.4 and prevent crime and punish crimes that have already been committed but potentially protect us against future terrorist attacks of the and i just can't for the life of me understand why this is controversial, particularly coming up as we are on the fifth anniversary of 9/11.
09:43:05.0 i would withhold the balance of my time and yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kennedy: mr. president, first of all, under title 3, there are only four documents. there are not 20 documents. there are four documents. title 3, four documents. they are eight passports, the
09:43:21.3 realide i. i.d., the green cards and the employment authorization documents and they are basically biometric documents. there are four documents in title 3, not 20. secondly, the senator from texas is describings the conditions that we -- is describing the
09:43:36.2 conditions that we had in 1986, not in this legislation. there is the encouragement of the immigration with the department of homeland security and the f.b.i. when we have document fraud or when there is fraud, we can't make -- we make that extremely
09:43:54.6 clear. that was not clear, as the senator appropriately pointed out, in 1986. there was not that kind of cooperation. there was some but not nearly what it should be. we're all for that. the confidentiality clause in the underlying bill does not
09:44:08.7 protect the criminals. on the contrary, the bill requires d.h.s. and the state to disclose all information furnished by legalization applicant to law enforcement entities conducting criminal activity and national security investigations.
09:44:24.3 now, we learned from what we call irca, the 1986 act, and we have got that in the legislation. i will -- on page 38 of the legislation, it talks about other documents, "not later than
09:44:42.5 october 26, 2000, every document other than an interim document issued by the secretary of homeland which may be used as evidence of an -- has an acy asylee, shall be
09:44:58.7 tamper-resistant and shall incorporate a biometric identifier to allow the secretary to identify it electron lick eye, the status of the alien. so i am a strong believe their that's what we need. this legislation isn't going to
09:45:12.1 work unless we have an effective system. unique, special. but other countries have this, mr. president. and we ought to be able to do t many of the countries in the far east, brazil, south america, we can do it and we should do it.
09:45:29.0 and we will do it. and we have developed the language do it. so i don't -- we are for prime documents that have been accepted and recommended. we worked with the department o homeland security on the -- what
09:45:46.7 documents. there are four. i've mepged them. and we have insisted on the cooperation between the f.b.i. and the department of homeland security and the justice department in any of the areas of criminality. so we are all for at least what i understand the senator has
09:46:02.8 said. we're glad to clarify that. but we believe that we've attended to that. there's no question that in 1986 that was not the case. that was not -- we had -- we were rife with fraudulent
09:46:18.7 documents, failure to enforce the law in terms of against employers, separations between the i.n.s. at that time and the f.b.i. we didn't have the department o homeland security. and all of that we have learned from.
09:46:33.2 we have learned from. and i we have, i think, addressed the principle issues and questions that the good senator has outlined. and i withhold the balance of my time. the presiding officer: who yields time?
09:46:49.2 mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i appreciate the comments of the senator from massachusetts, but looking at the page that he refers to, on page 38 of the bill, it refers to "it says "not later than october 26, 2007, every document other than an
09:47:07.1 interim document issued by the secretary of homeland security "-- so forth and so on -- "shall be machine and tamper-resist tamper-resistant." in the past few days though we
09:47:23.9 have postponed the implementation of the western hem sphere initiative card for another 18 months. there is no certainty that that
09:47:32.5 will happen by that date, and what happened -- and what happens in the interim? let me provide a couple of examples. in 1995, the ex-president of lulac was found guilty of immigration fraud after he filed
09:47:46.1 fraudulent applications under the 1986 amnesty. let me just parenthetically note, mr. president, in talking to ameal yo gonzalez, the current head of citizenship and immigration services, he tells
09:48:02.1 me that they're still in litigation over some of the 19 -- the cases covered by the 1986 amnesty. still in lit gaismghts but getting back to mr. valez's case, he said the task force that brought him down resulted
09:48:18.9 in guilty pleas or convictions of 20 individuals who together are responsible for filing false legalization aly cations for in excess of 11,000 unqualified aliens.x between march of and january
09:48:36.4 1991 he and his coconspirators submitted approximately 3,000 fraudulent applications. in connection with the 1986 legalization program, there were 920 arrests, 822 indictments and 513 convictions for fraud and
09:48:54.2 related criminal activity. and i would just return to something i said at the outset. what we're talking about in this amendment is essentially the same language contained in the violence against women act. the language in that act which
09:49:08.8 is designed to protect battered women and family members states that the controversiality pro-- confidentiality provisions end -- quote -- "when the application for relief is denied and all opportunities for appeal of that denial have been exhausted."
09:49:25.0 i would subject that if that language is enough for the protection of women against whom violence is committed, isn't it good enough for a worker who is simply ought of status? this is not designed to undercut the compromise or the overall structure of the plan that is
09:49:42.1 here on the floor. this is designed to mark it -- make it work. i want to make sure that we are committed not only to comprehensive immigration reform but that we're actually going make it work. that's all this amendment really does and i would ask for the support of my colleagues and
09:49:59.2 yield the floor and reserve the balance of my time. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: i yield one hour of my post cloture time to the senator from massachusetts, senator
09:50:15.7 kennedy. the presiding officer: the senator has that right. mr. specter: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. specter: mr. president, earlier this morning, as we do every morning before coming to the floor to debate the immigration bill, a group of senators sat down to consider
09:50:32.8 and analyze the a.m.s which were on the -- amendments which were on the list for today. and in discussion the -- discussing the amendment by the senator from texas, there was candidately doctor candidately
09:50:55.5 more confusion than we have seen so far. when the senator from texas says that the immunity is eliminated only after only after the
09:51:08.2 application is denied, then the reason for confidentiality ends, i disagree with him about that because the reason for the confidentiality is to get the applicant to be candid and
09:51:24.8 complete and honest about all of the information in the application. so that if the applicant knows that at some point the confidentiality is gone, there
09:51:41.2 is no longer the motivation to be completely open and completely candid in making out the application. what we're really seeking here
09:51:53.3 as a public policy matter is to get applicants to be candid and forthright and complete in the information which they are providing. if there is evidence of fraud in
09:52:10.7 the application or if there is evidence of crime, than will be provable by evidence outside the scope of the application. there is another aspect of
09:52:28.6 confidentiality and that is the
09:52:31.8 confidentiality or safe harbor which applies to the employer. when the immigrant makes an application there is material which has to be supplied by the employer, illustrative of which
09:52:50.9 is a check stub which authenticates that the applicationant has a job. now the confidentiality applies to what the employer provides as well.
09:53:07.4 and the safe harbor or confidentiality protects the employer so that the employer doesn't run the risk of providing some information which ends up on the application and then is disclosed that could be
09:53:21.3 used against the employer in a variety of contexts. now, it is possible that the amendment by the senator from texas could be passed and that aspect could be cured in
09:53:36.5 conference. but it is my thought after reflecting on it considerably is that the issues ought to be waited out and resolved in conference as opposed to having
09:53:52.5 the passage of the cornyn amendment. the value of confidentiality to encourage the immigrant to make full disclose your and the value that the employer has outweighs
09:54:16.3 the things the senator from texas articulates. when the immigrant is faced with a situation where the confidentiality ends at some point, it is hard enough for senators and experienced lawyers
09:54:31.7 to figure it all out. to expect an immigrant to be able to figure it out. and i think the consequence for the immigrant will be hesitant and unwilling or chilled, if you will, to provide all the
09:54:46.7 information. and my sense is that our service will work -- system will work better if there's no ambiguity or no uncertainty as to the confidentiality being maintained throughout the entire process
09:55:03.4 beyond what the application and appeals have all run out. but this is an important issue and i thank the senator from texas from focusing our attention on it. i do believe it is better addressed in conference. mr. president, how much time
09:55:17.7 remains on this amendment? the presiding officer: the amendment support retains 12 and a half minutes, the opponents retain 14 minutes. mr. specter: mr. president, his announced earlier that in the mackment of the bill that we
09:55:36.3 would stack five votes which wehave remaining on the immigration bill. think that is the most efficient way to handle the matter because we know that when we have a 15-minute vote with five minutes
09:55:50.7 more they frequently extend far beyond that time. not wanting to cut off senators. we had two senators out last night. we went to close to 30 minutes and i did not want to call for regular order.
09:56:07.1 evenings are a little more difficult but it's very difficult to cut off senators with the senators on the way. the senator could be on the way for a very long period of time. but i cannot control the
09:56:23.6 stacking of votes because it requires unanimous consent to set aside the cornyn amendment before going to the next amendment. anybody can object. so we're going to have a vote after the cornyn amendment and
09:56:39.1 we will then try to see if we can't get consent to stack the balance of the votes. the earlier announcement that the votes will be stacked will not take place because objections have been raised to that procedure.
09:56:55.9 i yield the floor. mr. kennedy: mr. president, i just take a few minutes -- mr. specter: mr. president, before the senator from massachusetts continues, i ask that the proponent of the next amendment come to the doctor -- well,
09:57:14.1 he will be in the vote. we'll just have one vote. mr. kennedy: mr. president, just along those lines, i think our colleagues ought to be alerted that we can anticipate a vote fairly shortly. mr. president, just in response
09:57:32.6 to my friend from texas, he is familiar with the fact that we passed the border security act in 2002. we haven't achieved -- the idea was to understand everybody who
09:57:48.5 was coming to this country to know where they were and when they were leaving. we've made dramatic process. as of now, every green card, every work permit, every visa is machine readable and biometric. every single one that we have
09:58:05.3 working today. this is a dramatic shift in change in terms of dealing with the issue of fraud which has been talked about here. now, mr. president, in order for the immigration reform, we've talked with security officials
09:58:23.7 who all told us that it is in our interest -- in our national security interest to bring people out of the shadows. they've all indicated. we've got so many individuals here whose names we don't know. we don't know their locations.
09:58:39.6 they are living in a shadowy world that can more often than not or at least sometimes can be connected with crime. and many of these people, obviously, wanted a different life and the a different future
09:58:56.3 to. be able to make that progress and ice light those individuals that -- isolate those individuals that pose a threat to us, our security officials that came before our committee said that a real confidentiality clause is necessary, absolutely
09:59:13.0 necessary, for the earned legalization to succeed. in order for immigration reform, current undocumented immigrants will have to be experience sueded that it's safe to come forward to an agency that
09:59:26.5 mistrust. they'll be uncomfortable that the application they provide about the histories, their employers, their families will not be used against them, their families or their loved ones. churches, community agencies and attorneys will also need
09:59:40.8 confidence that they are not exposing their clients to immigration enforcement by encouraging them to apply for legalization. the change in the cornyn amendment would make the confidentiality clause, i believe, worthless. hundreds of thousands of
09:59:55.8 immigrant what's qualify for earned legalization will likely be dissuaded from participating. hundreds of thousands of immigrants would be encouraged to remain in the shadows rather than risk coming forward under these conditions.