Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
May 24, 2006 -- Page: S5073

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, there is something missing from the debate that we have had so far. I do think that this debate has been productive. I think it has been civil. I think our differing views have been aired. And I think there has been a fair consideration of the bill on the floor of the Senate. But no one is talking about the underlying cause of the problem of illegal immigration in our country. What can we do about the root cause of the problem?

Most of the people who are coming here--not counting the criminals--the people who come here to do criminal acts, such as drug dealers and human traffickers, people who come into our country surreptitiously to become a part of a movement that would harm our citizens, those people are in a different category. They are criminals. They intend to be criminals. And one of the reasons we are trying to secure our borders is to keep people like that out of our country. But the vast majority of people who are coming across our borders are not people who wish to do us harm. They are people who come here to work, to do better for their families. They want a better life. They are people who want jobs. Their countries do not provide the number of jobs to absorb them into the system. So they go to a neighboring country--our country--to seek those jobs.

Is this good for our country? I would say when people have to risk their lives to come here, it is not good for our country. Is it good for Mexico? It is certainly not good for another country to have a mass out-migration, especially because the people who want so much to work and to do better for themselves are the enterprising people of this society.

If they had training, education, and opportunity, they would be able to add even more to the economy of Mexico. As it is, their U.S. earnings are the second largest economic producer in Mexico, second only to tourism.

We need to start talking about how we can address the issue of jobs in our country, address the issue of illegal immigration as we protect our borders and as we protect the economy of our country, but also to try to do what is right for the people involved in this issue.

I rise today, joined by my colleague, Senator Bond, to offer an amendment that is called the Secure Authorized Foreign Employee Visa Guest Worker Program. I am going to call it the SAFE visa. It is for people who want to work in our country but do not wish to be citizens of the United States. It is modeled after the Canadian guest worker program with Mexico that has been in place for over 30 years.

Our amendment creates an additional guest worker program available to workers from NAFTA and CAFTA nations. It is a pilot program. It does not displace the guest worker program in the Hagel-Martinez bill. It is another option. It would be one that could be expedited to meet the demand of more workers in certain fields. It would also be something the employers would know is safe for them to hire based on this visa.

The amendment seeks to create a new visa category for those individuals who want to enter and work in our country legally but do not seek a path to residency or citizenship in the United States because they want to remain citizens of their country of origin. They would be able to take the money that is earned here and use it to improve their living conditions and the living conditions in their country of origin.

Any legislation addressing immigration must firmly address the safety and security needs of the United States. In a world where terrorists continue to seek to harm Americans, we must protect our citizens. We have every right to know who is in our country, who has crossed our borders, the nature, purpose, and length of the visit. We are negligent if we do not know those things.

Everyone in the Senate and everyone with whom I talk with wants to secure our borders. I have visited with many of the Hispanic leaders in my home State. I have visited with my Hispanic-American supporters and friends. They all want to secure our borders. They are Americans. They are loyal Americans. They want to secure our borders. I have supported amendments throughout this debate to help secure our borders and to pay for these measures.

When I came to the Senate 12 years ago, I started the process of doubling the Border Patrol because we had never sufficiently manned the border. We are still in the process of doing that. We are not nearly where we need to be. We must have a sovereign nation and control our borders.

My proposed amendment will not strike any of the provisions of the underlying bill. It will not eliminate the H-2C visa program that has been put into the bill. Instead, it would be adopted so that workers and employers have a choice. The SAFE visa would be tamper proof so that an employer could look at this card, test it, and know it is valid. It would have either a fingerprint or an eye matrix that could not be duplicated, that immediately would let the employer know he or she is able to hire this person because that person is legal.

The tamper-proof card enables us to have something employers could count on which is not the case today. Today, an employer is at peril because the employer will look at a Social Security card. It may look perfectly valid, but we all know there are many fraudulent cards out there in the market. The employer cannot be the policeman. There are employers who are doing the wrong thing who should be charged with doing the wrong thing, but there are many employers who try to do the right thing, but we do not have a tamper-proof visa that allows them to do that.

Here are the guidelines in my amendment. All SAFE visa applicants would be required to apply while in their home countries. This would be a program generated in the home country. A guest worker would be subject to appropriate background checks and required to present proof of secured employment before receiving the SAFE visa. The employer would be responsible for withholding all standard payroll deductions so that all employees are on an equal footing. You would not put the foreign employee under the American employee, thereby giving an advantage to the foreign employee.

Medicare withholdings for SAFE cardholders would go into a fund to pay for emergency health care provided to foreign workers. The SAFE visa holder would not be eligible for Medicare, and therefore the money that goes from the Medicare deduction would go into a fund to pay for uncompensated health care that would be provided to foreign workers in our country.

This has been an issue for hospitals all across our country that are serving the illegal aliens in our country. They are not compensated. It is a burden on these hospitals which we can relieve with this program.

The program would be structured for a maximum of 10 months per year of work. The person would then go home for 2 months and would be able to come back and renew his or her job on an annual basis. It would be like a driver's license but annually renewable.

A SAFE visa holder could remain in the program as long as they continue to meet the qualifications. The visa would be terminated if the worker is unemployed for 60 or more consecutive days. The SAFE visa worker would not be eligible for Social Security Programs such as welfare or unemployment compensation. They would be able to take what is deducted from their paychecks for Social Security home with them when they retire from the SAFE visa program.

Many countries have temporary worker programs with other countries that have worked very well. Many other countries even come across the ocean for temporary work. In many places you have temporary workers who go back and forth across international boundaries every day to work. In some countries it is considered that those workers are an underclass. I disagree with that. Having the ability to go back and forth, a circularity, is healthy. We want commerce with Mexico and Central and South America. We want to have the ability for people to work 3 months and go home for 2 weeks and then come back and work 3 months, whatever the employer and employee can work out, as long as it is basically 10 months here and 2 months at home. You can have exactly what Senator Bond just said. You can have the money going into the country of origin which Mexico wants. They want the ability for their people to work in the United States. But I don't think Mexico wants their good people to leave and become citizens of our country. Some will want to. That is available to them. But not every one of them wants to. And why should we force that, or why should we encourage it? If they want to go into the citizenship route, that is available.

In fact, one of the arguments that was made by the Senator from Massachusetts is, are we going to create a permanent underclass of citizens? As long as you have the citizenship route, there is no underclass because the people who abide by the laws and decide to learn English and to do the things required for citizenship can get into the citizenship track. There are many people who might not want to do that, who would like to work but take their money home, maybe have their nest egg with them when they retire to start a business at home or to pass on to their children.

We should have more options. That is what this amendment does. We should have a guest worker program in this bill that creates another option that is not now in the underlying bill.

It is so important that we have the different options. It is important that we give the opportunity to people not to disrupt their families, to be able to go back and forth, if that is the option they would choose. Maybe they want to contribute in their home country, and they want to remain citizens. As long as you have the citizenship route for people who want the rigorous test of citizenship that goes with our country, then you should have two options on the table and people can choose. This is a country of entrepreneurs who want to have options, and we need programs that work.

It is so important that we recognize that we are in a system that does not work right now. We have 11 million people living under the radar screen. That is not good for them, and it is not good for our country. Since we had 9/11 and the wake-up call, we now know that we must secure our borders first. We must also not ignore the invaluable contributions made by immigrants. We are a country of immigrants, of course. Many of us in this body had parents or grandparents who were immigrants, who were the first to come to this country. They have known hardship. They have assimilated. That is a good thing.

Why not have another option for people who would not want to go the citizenship route but who could work. Some of these temporary worker permits in the underlying bill are limited to 3 years or 6 years. The SAFE visa is not limited at all. As long as the person still qualifies and there is a willing employer, the employer can train someone and know that they will come every year and be able to keep that training. It is a 10-month program, but any employer can figure out that they would hire one group of workers in January and another in March, so they would have a full year employment if they don't have a seasonal business and the jobs they need to fill are not filled by Americans, which is also part of the amendment. But you could have people in this program for 10 years. They could then take their nest egg back home with them. They would be trained workers for the employer. So it is a win for everyone.

If we are going to have a system that works, with secure borders, with a guest worker program that allows people to work and not seek citizenship, not be able to go into the social programs of our country, but people who will be well paid, well treated, and be able to build their nest egg with their Social Security deductions, we should offer that kind of opportunity side by side with the opportunity for citizenship which is a longer track. That is a system that can work for the long term.

We cannot make the mistake of 1986, when we passed an amnesty bill and said: This is the last one. In 1986 we didn't provide a guest worker program going forward that worked. As a result, we have millions of people under the radar screen not having the protections of the American system. That is not good. It is not good for them, and it is not good for us.

It furthermore sends a signal that if you come here illegally, you will be able to eventually become legal through amnesty. That is not an ordered system. An ordered system would be one in which we secure our borders, we have temporary worker programs that work, some with the citizenship track, some without, and then you deal with the people who are here illegally one time. You do it in a rational and responsible way, but you know you have a system in place that is going to work for the future.

I don't expect to carry this amendment. I do expect that the airing of this view should have an impact on the conference committee that will meet to create a bill that I hope all of us will be proud to support. It will not be the bill that is going to leave the Senate floor this week. This is not the bill that will provide a long term solution. It is not the bill that is going to assure that we have economic viability in our country as well as safety and security and protection for American workers. We can get a good bill, but that bill will have to come out of conference. I hope that the Senate speaks with a strong voice that this should be part of the solution, that we should have an option for people who could get into the system within a year, who would have a tamper-proof visa, that they would be safe and the employer hiring them would be safe to trust, and that they would be able to make a living wage and go home and keep the citizenship of their country of origin, if they choose to do that.

This is an option we should have. I hope we have a strong vote in the Senate so that this will become part of the solution to this issue that we must reach to get control of our borders and create a strong economy.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter of support for my amendment from the American Farm Bureau be printed in the RECORD.

AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
Washington, DC

May 22, 2006

Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison
U.S. Senate
Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC

Dear Senator Hutchison:

Thank you for requesting the views of the American Farm Bureau Federation on the Secure Authorized Foreign Employee (SAFE) visa amendment to the Hagel-Martinez immigration bill, S. 2611.

The SAFE visa would appear to provide agriculture with an alternative temporary worker program in addition to the existing H-2a program, to recruit workers from abroad when workers cannot be found locally. The amendment would not in any way affect other agriclultural provisions in the bill.

Under the SAFE program, growers would be required to pay not more than the prevailing wage. Employers would be responsible for transportation but could deduct those costs from pay under an employment agreement.

In addition to the H-2a program, we believe that the SAFE visa could help ensure that agriculture has access to a legal foreign workforce during labor shortages and therefore, we would support the amendment.

Sincerely,

Bob Stallman
President

Mr. President, this amendment is a pilot program which is based on the Canadian guest worker program with Mexico. It has worked successfully for over 30 years. It would provide a safe, tamper-proof visa for people coming into this country to take jobs that Americans are not filling. The guest worker would retain citizenship in his or her own country. It doesn't replace anything in the bill. It is in addition to what is in the bill.

The American Farm Bureau supports this.

I hope that we will get a good, solid vote. This is something that could be part of an overall balanced solution to the problem we are facing. It is another option for people who want to work but do not seek citizenship in our country.

I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. It could be part of the final solution to a good bill that we would all like to support.