Date: 2005-12-15
Speaker: LORETTA SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 4437. The chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. the committee on which I serve. is right in saying that we worked on this bill in a very bipartisan way. at least the initial KingSanchez bill that came to the Homeland Committee. We did it over a period of 2 months. We worked back and forth many of us on our side of the committee with Mr. KING and others. and then we brought a bill to the Homeland Security Committee. a bill that dealt with border security. Border security. By the way. it was not just the immediate southern border we were talking about. we were talking about issues that are affecting us all. many of the borders and airports and coastal sections. and it included. this border security bill. even land away from the border. in the sense that it comes up to the area I represent. If you are in Disneyland in my district. you are less than 100 miles away from the California border with Mexico. This bill that we had in Homeland Security would have affected my area. Now. not everything was great about the Homeland Security bill. In fact. I was very angry at some pieces that managed to get in. But we had a real debate. and we took our time. and we understood what we were talking about. And then this bill was taken over by the Judiciary Committee. usurped. with many. many more pieces put on. pieces that do not make any sense and really are not about border security. They are not about getting rid of the catch and release process that we have right now. they are not about tightening. They are about being mean. mean to immigrants in this community. And not just those who have no documents to be in the United States. This bill dangerously is unfair and penalizes everyday Americans regardless of what their immigration status is. Under this legislation. the Sensenbrenner bill. it would be a criminal offense. criminal offense. to be in the United States in violation of immigration laws. It would affect millions of legal immigrants. including lawful permanent residents and nonimmigrants who accrue technical violations of immigration regulations. like failing to report a change of address. Now. I know this because we have been working. we have been thinking. and we have been looking*. But many of my colleagues may not understand the impact that the Sensenbrenner bill has on the people of America. legal residents in some cases. People would be criminalized under H.R. 4437. In addition. this -bill criminalizes anyone who assists. undocumented immigrants in the United States. and this would include. listen to this. please. it would include churches. other faithbased groups. volunteers that provide food aid. shelter. or other lifesaving assistance to members of its community who may not have documents. Do we really want to clog up the Federal system with decent people who are just trying to be Good Samaritans? Is that what this is about? For you taxpayers. is that what you want to spend your monies on. providing public defenders for everyone we are about to put in jail? And the 11 million. supposed. because we do not even know really how many people there are here without documents. that we are going. to criminalize. women and children. where are we going to hold them? Because the mere presence of them being in the United States the day after a bill like this passes would make them felons in this country. according to Sensenbrenner. So.. it is not a good bill. This has not been thought through. the implications and how we handle it. And the money that this would cost is something that America really is not really ready for. The Sensenbrenner bill also cripples American businesses. All of these people all of a sudden are felons. They are not in. They are not working. And all employers would be forced to use an employment eligibility verification system that. quite frankly. is not capable of handling the increase in volume that this Sensenbrenner bill would require. The database for the employment eligibility verification system contains widespread flaws and false information. false information. which would show many legal workers as undocumented. depriving legal employees of jobs and employers of the muchneeded workers. the reason these people are here. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and business groups across America oppose H.R. 4437 because the employers will pay the price for these impractical provisions and because enforcementonly legislation like H.R. 4437 will not create a rational immigration system needed to serve all Americans. businesses. and potential immigrants. It does not address real comprehensive immigration reform. which is necessary for everybody out there in America who thinks that undocumented workers are a problem. This Sensenbrenner bill will not fix what we have on our hands. You have only to look at demographics to understand we in America need more workers than we can provide. And we need to get them from somewhere. So we need to get back to comprehensive immigration reform. not just closing off borders or hurting people or taking children away from mothers or deporting mothers. This will not solve the problem we have at hand. And so when we were in the Homeland Security Committee. we. were working on border security in the hopes that this would be a goodfaith. effort to work together in a bipartisan manner and to get the ball rolling to work on more comprehensive reform that would bring about what we need here: Family reunification. good economic conditions for our economy and homeland security. I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 4437. We deserve a comprehensive solution to our immigration problems. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.