Senator Vitter: Talk is cheap, especially in Congress

Please read the speech below and call your Senator to ask that they support amendments No. 3264 and No. 3265 to Senate Bill S.2454, the Securing America’s Borders Act. These amendments were introduced by my Senator, David Vitter. I’m about to dislocate my shoulder, patting myself on the back for having voted for this man, especially after his little tussle with McAmnestyCain. I finally have a Senator I like. Here are his remarks to explain the amendments, and the “talk is cheap” line is below the jump.:
(emphasis is mine)

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Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the crucial issue we are addressing as a nation and as a U.S. Senate, this immigration question.

I continue to have grave concerns about many of the provisions that are now before us. I am going to talk about some of those general concerns, and then I am going to outline two specific amendments I will be offering on the floor of the Senate that help meet them.

It is often said that Americans have a very poor sense of history; we do not read history much; we do not remember past mistakes and past lessons; we don’t learn from history. I am afraid much of the debate and activity on this question on the floor of the Senate is another example of that because we went through very much the same sort of debate in 1986, the last time the Congress addressed illegal immigration in a major way and passed a more limited amnesty program.

It is instructive to look back and read those debates. It is enormously instructive to understand the arguments pro and con, during that debate in this very Chamber. And if one does that, one gets an eerie sense of history repeating itself. Unfortunately, it is a history of mistakes and missed opportunities which only made the problem worse. I encourage all of my Senate colleagues to go back to those debates, to read those words and statements and the arguments pro or con to get a sense of that history.

In terms of supporters’ arguments for the legislation in 1986, many of exactly the same arguments were made. If we deal with this problem one time, if we create this program and deal with then 3 million illegal workers and immigrants in this country, we can solve it once and for all, and then we will have a true enforcement mechanism that will never let the problem recur or grow again–an interesting set of arguments, the same arguments we are hearing now.

What has happened since 1986? On that, the history and the record should be crystal clear. We didn’t solve the problem back then. We passed major legislation which included an amnesty program, and the problem grew by 400 or 500 percent, a problem that was maybe 3 million illegal workers in our country back then. Even after so many of them were granted amnesty and given legal status, what do we face now? We face 12 million, perhaps more, illegal immigrants in this country.

What is the simple lesson of that bit of history? The simple lesson is that we never got real with border security. We never got real with enforcement. And perhaps the most important lesson–that anything akin to an amnesty program is going to encourage a lot more of that illegal activity which we are still not fully prepared to deal with on our borders.

The simple but basic conclusion I reached from that important history is that we need to address border security and enforcement first. We need to get real and prove ourselves on that side of the equation first because we have never effectively addressed that in the past, including 1986.

My plea to all of my colleagues is that we address this major issue in a simple two-step approach. First, let’s do what there is wide consensus on, let’s pass important border security provisions. Let’s pass important and vital enforcement provisions, including those which go directly at employers who break our law by hiring illegals. And let’s prove to ourselves and our constituents that this can and will be done.

Talk is cheap. And if it is cheap anywhere, perhaps it is cheapest, quite frankly, in the Congress. We talk a good game about this issue. We talk about enforcement in the context of this debate. But the simple fact is that we have never proven ourselves on the issues of enforcement and border security.

Talk is cheap. When we talk about authorization language, we all know authorization language is one thing, but appropriating the money to have true border security and true enforcement is quite a different and more challenging step. So let’s not just talk. Let’s act and let’s prove ourselves. Let’s do that before we run headlong into other provisions that are being debated, such as provisions that would be tantamount to amnesty.

I will offer two amendments–one a broad global amendment and one a much more focused amendment–that are both consistent with this general philosophy that talk is cheap and that we need to act and prove ourselves with regard to border security and enforcement before we run headlong into these other issues.

My first amendment is No. 3264. It does several essential things with regard to the Specter substitute No. 3192 currently before the Senate. It would strike what is often called the temporary worker program in the Specter substitute. It would also strike the title VI amnesty program in the Specter substitute. It would direct different elements of our Government to study important issues that have come up in the debate so we have a fuller sense of the implications of what some would rush headlong into.

Specifically, it would direct three studies to be done within 1 year of enactment of this bill. First, the Department of Labor would study the need for guest workers on a sector-by-sector basis and the impact of any proposed temporary worker program on wages and employment opportunities available to American workers. Clearly, in

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this country there are needs in our economy that are not adequately being met by American citizen workers. But just as clearly, opening ourselves full throttle with a very broad amnesty program or a very broad temporary worker program that would grow automatically over time has the risk of bringing down wages and opportunities for American workers. We need a much more careful and precise examination by some entity such as the Department of Labor on a sector-by-sector basis as to what the consequences of this would likely be.

Secondly, my amendment would propose a GAO study

establishing minimum criteria for effectively implementing a temporary worker program and determining whether the Department of Homeland Security has the capability to enforce such a program. If GAO determines that Homeland Security does not effectively have that capability right now, then they should determine what additional manpower and resources would be required to ensure effective implementation.

Again, some on this floor are proposing a mammoth change to our immigration policy–a new temporary worker program–without our having a precise idea of what manpower and other authorities Homeland Security needs to implement and enforce such a program. We need to know that on the front end. We need to have that in place on the front end before we rush headlong into any temporary worker program.

The third study my amendment would mandate is a Department of Homeland Security study to determine whether border security and interior enforcement measures enacted as part of this act are being properly implemented and whether they are effective in securing U.S. borders and curbing illegal immigration. We often talk a good game in terms of border security. We often talk a good game in terms of enforcing the laws presently on the books in the interior of the country. But we need a much more precise sense of what it will really take to bring enforcement to all of those provisions–proper, full implementation. We need to hear from DHS in a lot more detail about what they will need–manpower, authority–to actually implement and make this work before we rush headlong into temporary worker, amnesty, and other provisions.

I will offer a second amendment on the floor. That will be No. 3265. That is a much more focused micro-amendment. The first amendment I described is a broad amendment to meet the major objections I have with the Specter substitute. The second amendment is much more narrow. It specifically addresses the following issue: Right now, the Specter bill requires that illegal aliens prove they have been employed since January 7, 2004, in order to take the next steps toward citizenship.

How does one prove that? Well, they can show IRS records. That is one possibility. They can show Social Security records–that is another–or other records maintained by Federal, State, or local governments. Their employer can attest that they have been working. That is yet another possibility, although one has to wonder how often that is going to happen since we are talking for the most part about illegal workers. Their labor union, daycare center, and other organizations can attest that they have been dealing with these people inside the country since at least January 7, 2004. But that is not the only thing they can produce.

If all else fails, they can do the following: They can have a nonrelative sign an affidavit, an attestation, that they have been in this country since January 7, 2004. Anyone who is not blood-related to them may do so. Clearly, this is an open-ended invitation to fraud and abuse. Clearly, having such an affidavit as a possibility with no supporting documentation, with no testimony from any Federal Government agency or State government or local government agency is a wide-open invitation for abuse. So my second amendment will simply close this door to fraud and strike the sworn affidavit or attestation provision in the language currently on the floor.

I urge all of our colleagues to look carefully at these two amendments. More broadly speaking, I urge my colleagues to think long and hard about the lessons of history with regard to this particular issue. We have history to study. Let’s not ignore it. Let’s not ignore those lessons and plunge headlong into repeating the mistakes of history, particularly those of Congress’s action in 1986, because the only difference in so many of the provisions now before us from those in 1986 is that this would be on a far broader and grander scale, the problem having at least quadrupled since those mistakes of 1986.

I yield the floor.

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**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.