Post by unlawflcombatnt on May 28, 2007 2:38:03 GMT -6
Below is a copy of Senator Byron Dorgan's speech on the Senate floor on May 22, 2007, regarding the latest Senate Comprehensive Immigration Bill. The page numbers shown here are linked to the page of Senate testimony.
Page: S6433
"Two years and five months ago, I made my first speech as a United States Senator on the floor. It was a speech about the issue of immigration, both legal and illegal. A year ago today I made another speech about immigration on the day I offered an amendment.
Page: S6434] GPO's PDFthat has become known as the trigger amendment on immigration.
I rise for the third time in 2 years and 5 months to talk about the most significant issue facing the United States of America as far as domestic policy is concerned.
Our borders to the south have been leaking far too long and in too great of numbers. We have had an immigration policy that for the better part of 21 years has been to look the other way as people flowed across our southern border to calibrate on a low basis legal immigration to say we are doing something about it, while millions come into this country. It has to come to an end. It is the reason the controversy is so great over this issue today.
I, first of all, want to thank the Members who have worked with me over the last 6 weeks on the concept of putting a trigger in the underlying bill, to be the trigger upon which immigration reform either takes place or doesn't. There is so much misinformation out there right now about this issue, so I want to spend the remainder of my time talking about what trigger must be pulled in order for immigration to be reformed.
The underlying bill we are debating today says the following: No program granting status to anyone who enters
the United States of America illegally may be granted until the Secretary of Homeland Security has certified that all the border security measures in section 1 are completed, funded, and in operation. There is no wiggle room. There is no Presidential waiver. There is no possibility of the Secretary saying: Well, maybe we are OK. This is absolute.
Let me tell my colleagues what those five are. No. 1 is 370 new miles of walls. Many of us got this in the mail last year. When Congress attempted to debate a flawed immigration bill that called for no border security, they mailed bricks because they wanted barriers. This bill calls for 370 miles. It calls for 200 miles of obstacles on those areas where vehicles might come across the border. That 200, plus the 370 miles of walls, is 570 miles.
It calls for four unmanned aerial vehicles, eyes in the sky, 24/7, each with a 150-mile radius. That 600 miles, added to the 570 miles, is 1,170 miles. Then it calls for 70 ground-positioning radar systems with a radius of 12 miles, or 1,680 miles of seamless security. That 1,680 on top of the 1,170 is almost 2,800 miles of seamless security. There are not 2,800 miles on the border. We have redundancy all along the border.
The next trigger is 27,500 detention beds on the border so when somebody is intercepted, they are held until their court date comes up. No more catch and release. Then, importantly as well, 18,000 Border Patrol agents have to be trained and in place and functioning. We have 14,500 right now. That is another 3,500. Those agents, by the way, are trained ostensibly in Georgia at FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. They are trained on border security, on intervention, and on capture. Then, it requires the seamless border security. It requires the ID that is biometric and is secure. It ends the largest growth industry on the southern border, and that is the forged document industry.
When those five triggers are in place and when the Secretary of Homeland Security has certified them, then and only then is the immigration reform in place because we have stopped the bleeding.
There are a lot of people talking about this issue of immigration from a lot of different standpoints, but I know one thing: When you go to the doctor, you don't want him to treat the symptom. You want him to treat the cause. If you are cut, you want him to sew up the cut, not just put a Band-Aid on it. If you hurt and you hurt badly, you want him to x-ray and find out whatever that source is.
We know what the source is in America. The source is we have a 2,000-mile land contiguous border with a country that is less developed than ours and has less opportunity, and the United States of America is a magnet without obstacle for them to get in. We have to stop the source of the problem or we will never be able to reform it for the future.
I come to this debate as a second-generation American. My grandfather came here in 1903 from Sweden. In 1926, he became a naturalized citizen. It took him 23 years to follow what is the only right pathway to citizenship, and that is legal immigration.
I stand before my colleagues today to say the American people want border security. I want border security. If it is the trigger for immigration reform, it ensures that we will never have to repeat the mistakes of 1986 and that America once again will restore confidence in its borders, confidence in its immigration policy, and legitimacy with its people.
I am where I began. There is no wiggle room in this trigger. There is no waiver. There is no looking the other way. If we in Congress don't fund the money, it doesn't work. If the President doesn't do what he is supposed to do, it doesn't work. If the Secretary of Homeland Security doesn't do what he is supposed to do, it does not work.
The American people, for the first time, have an ironclad guarantee that our biggest problem, and that is an insecure border in the south, will be fixed and fixed forever.
I again thank the distinguished Senator from North Dakota for giving me the chance to make this presentation.
Madam President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
AMENDMENT NO. 1153 TO AMENDMENT NO. 1150
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I am going to offer an amendment. I believe by a previous unanimous consent agreement, I will be recognized for offering an amendment. I don't know whether my amendment is at the desk.
I believe my amendment is at the desk, and I will offer that amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Boxer, who is a cosponsor of that amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan], for himself, and Senator Boxer, proposes an amendment numbered 1153 to amendment No. 1150.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
AMENDMENT NO. 1153
(Purpose: To strike the Y nonimmigrant guestworker program)
Strike subtitle A of title IV.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, we will hear ample discussion today--and we heard it yesterday and we will hear it the rest of this week and perhaps another week going into the month of June--about this issue of immigration. It is not an insignificant issue; it is a very significant issue with great policy implications for our country. We will hear that it is a moral imperative that we deal with the issue of immigration.
We have a lot of moral imperatives in this country, and particularly in this Chamber of the Senate. I don't disagree that the issue of immigration is one of them. There are people living among us in this country who have been here 10, 20, 25 years who came across the border decades ago. They found work here, raised a family here. They were model citizens. I understand that we are not going to round up people who have been here for 2 1/2 decades and deport them to say: You have come illegally and therefore you are not entitled to stay. That is a different sensitivity, however, than what is in the underlying bill that says: By the way, if you came here by December 31 of last year, we will deem you to be here legally.
I think there are serious problems with that approach. What about someone overseas who has been waiting to come to this country and they know that we have a legal method of coming to this country. There are quotas for each country, and we allow people to sign up and make application and then over a period of time their name comes to the top of the list and they are able to come to this country under their immigration quota. Some, perhaps, have waited 5 years, some 10 years and are now near the top of the list.
What they discover today is they would not have had to wait 5 or 10 years for a legal mechanism by which to come into this country. They could have come across the border at the end of last December, and by this legislation would have been deemed to be legal, would have been deemed to have been here legally...."
(Continued)
Page: S6433
"Two years and five months ago, I made my first speech as a United States Senator on the floor. It was a speech about the issue of immigration, both legal and illegal. A year ago today I made another speech about immigration on the day I offered an amendment.
Page: S6434] GPO's PDFthat has become known as the trigger amendment on immigration.
I rise for the third time in 2 years and 5 months to talk about the most significant issue facing the United States of America as far as domestic policy is concerned.
Our borders to the south have been leaking far too long and in too great of numbers. We have had an immigration policy that for the better part of 21 years has been to look the other way as people flowed across our southern border to calibrate on a low basis legal immigration to say we are doing something about it, while millions come into this country. It has to come to an end. It is the reason the controversy is so great over this issue today.
I, first of all, want to thank the Members who have worked with me over the last 6 weeks on the concept of putting a trigger in the underlying bill, to be the trigger upon which immigration reform either takes place or doesn't. There is so much misinformation out there right now about this issue, so I want to spend the remainder of my time talking about what trigger must be pulled in order for immigration to be reformed.
The underlying bill we are debating today says the following: No program granting status to anyone who enters
the United States of America illegally may be granted until the Secretary of Homeland Security has certified that all the border security measures in section 1 are completed, funded, and in operation. There is no wiggle room. There is no Presidential waiver. There is no possibility of the Secretary saying: Well, maybe we are OK. This is absolute.
Let me tell my colleagues what those five are. No. 1 is 370 new miles of walls. Many of us got this in the mail last year. When Congress attempted to debate a flawed immigration bill that called for no border security, they mailed bricks because they wanted barriers. This bill calls for 370 miles. It calls for 200 miles of obstacles on those areas where vehicles might come across the border. That 200, plus the 370 miles of walls, is 570 miles.
It calls for four unmanned aerial vehicles, eyes in the sky, 24/7, each with a 150-mile radius. That 600 miles, added to the 570 miles, is 1,170 miles. Then it calls for 70 ground-positioning radar systems with a radius of 12 miles, or 1,680 miles of seamless security. That 1,680 on top of the 1,170 is almost 2,800 miles of seamless security. There are not 2,800 miles on the border. We have redundancy all along the border.
The next trigger is 27,500 detention beds on the border so when somebody is intercepted, they are held until their court date comes up. No more catch and release. Then, importantly as well, 18,000 Border Patrol agents have to be trained and in place and functioning. We have 14,500 right now. That is another 3,500. Those agents, by the way, are trained ostensibly in Georgia at FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. They are trained on border security, on intervention, and on capture. Then, it requires the seamless border security. It requires the ID that is biometric and is secure. It ends the largest growth industry on the southern border, and that is the forged document industry.
When those five triggers are in place and when the Secretary of Homeland Security has certified them, then and only then is the immigration reform in place because we have stopped the bleeding.
There are a lot of people talking about this issue of immigration from a lot of different standpoints, but I know one thing: When you go to the doctor, you don't want him to treat the symptom. You want him to treat the cause. If you are cut, you want him to sew up the cut, not just put a Band-Aid on it. If you hurt and you hurt badly, you want him to x-ray and find out whatever that source is.
We know what the source is in America. The source is we have a 2,000-mile land contiguous border with a country that is less developed than ours and has less opportunity, and the United States of America is a magnet without obstacle for them to get in. We have to stop the source of the problem or we will never be able to reform it for the future.
I come to this debate as a second-generation American. My grandfather came here in 1903 from Sweden. In 1926, he became a naturalized citizen. It took him 23 years to follow what is the only right pathway to citizenship, and that is legal immigration.
I stand before my colleagues today to say the American people want border security. I want border security. If it is the trigger for immigration reform, it ensures that we will never have to repeat the mistakes of 1986 and that America once again will restore confidence in its borders, confidence in its immigration policy, and legitimacy with its people.
I am where I began. There is no wiggle room in this trigger. There is no waiver. There is no looking the other way. If we in Congress don't fund the money, it doesn't work. If the President doesn't do what he is supposed to do, it doesn't work. If the Secretary of Homeland Security doesn't do what he is supposed to do, it does not work.
The American people, for the first time, have an ironclad guarantee that our biggest problem, and that is an insecure border in the south, will be fixed and fixed forever.
I again thank the distinguished Senator from North Dakota for giving me the chance to make this presentation.
Madam President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
AMENDMENT NO. 1153 TO AMENDMENT NO. 1150
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I am going to offer an amendment. I believe by a previous unanimous consent agreement, I will be recognized for offering an amendment. I don't know whether my amendment is at the desk.
I believe my amendment is at the desk, and I will offer that amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Boxer, who is a cosponsor of that amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan], for himself, and Senator Boxer, proposes an amendment numbered 1153 to amendment No. 1150.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
AMENDMENT NO. 1153
(Purpose: To strike the Y nonimmigrant guestworker program)
Strike subtitle A of title IV.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, we will hear ample discussion today--and we heard it yesterday and we will hear it the rest of this week and perhaps another week going into the month of June--about this issue of immigration. It is not an insignificant issue; it is a very significant issue with great policy implications for our country. We will hear that it is a moral imperative that we deal with the issue of immigration.
We have a lot of moral imperatives in this country, and particularly in this Chamber of the Senate. I don't disagree that the issue of immigration is one of them. There are people living among us in this country who have been here 10, 20, 25 years who came across the border decades ago. They found work here, raised a family here. They were model citizens. I understand that we are not going to round up people who have been here for 2 1/2 decades and deport them to say: You have come illegally and therefore you are not entitled to stay. That is a different sensitivity, however, than what is in the underlying bill that says: By the way, if you came here by December 31 of last year, we will deem you to be here legally.
I think there are serious problems with that approach. What about someone overseas who has been waiting to come to this country and they know that we have a legal method of coming to this country. There are quotas for each country, and we allow people to sign up and make application and then over a period of time their name comes to the top of the list and they are able to come to this country under their immigration quota. Some, perhaps, have waited 5 years, some 10 years and are now near the top of the list.
What they discover today is they would not have had to wait 5 or 10 years for a legal mechanism by which to come into this country. They could have come across the border at the end of last December, and by this legislation would have been deemed to be legal, would have been deemed to have been here legally...."
(Continued)