S.J. Res. 54

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I asked unanimous consent before the rollcall to be recognized to make a unanimous consent request. I would like to take that opportunity now, unless there is some other item of business before the Senate.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let's start with math, basic math, Andrew Yang math. Here is what it boils down to. Each year, we have 140,000 employment-based visas issued in the United States--140,000. A decision was made several years ago that politicians were playing favorites, picking countries that would get more of one and more of another, and so they put in country quotas, country caps--7 percent. I will do the math, being a liberal arts lawyer. It is about 10,000 per year, per country--no more than 10,000 per country, per year, if 7 percent of the total is our cap.

The problem is obvious. There are some 520,000 people of Indian descent in the United States who came here legally on H-1B visas, for example, who have worked here for a period of time, and who now want to stay in the United States. From this Senator's point of view, you are welcome. We need you. You brought extraordinary skills that we need to our country. I want you to stay. But many have found that they get into a queue that is so long, and because of the limitations of the cap, they can't even imagine living long enough to ever get the green card they are waiting for, the green card that can ultimately lead to citizenship.

Senator Lee comes to the floor with a bill, and his bill says as follows: We are going to take care of those waiting in line, which is primarily over half a million of Indian descent, and we will close down immigration from other countries during this period of time, EB-2 visas. So it would be to the benefit of those of Indian descent, who are the vast majority of those waiting in line, but at the cost of every other country in the world that has anyone who can come in and qualify for an EB-2 visa. Even his approach that I just described--if you follow it through, at the end of 10 years, there would still be 165,000 people of Indian descent still waiting in line in 10 years. That is not fair. It is not right.

Last Sunday, I had a meeting in Schaumburg, IL. As I came to the meeting--it was a Democratic Party breakfast--there were about 200 people standing with signs with my name on them. That will wake you up on a Sunday morning. They were there to say: Durbin, don't stop Lee's bill.

I met with many of them afterward. I would have met with all of them. I am prepared to. One of them told me a story. He is a physician from my hometown of Springfield, IL. He brought his 12-year-old daughter along with him, a beautiful young girl.

He said: Senator, I am waiting in line. I don't know if I will ever get a green card. What is going to happen with my daughter when she reaches age 21? She can no longer be my dependent and stay in the United States. What is going to happen to her? Is she supposed to go back to India? In the meantime, how is she going to go to college? What is her status in this country?

These are perfectly legitimate questions. I have an answer for all of these questions, and I will tell you what it is.

First, we lift the 140,000 cap. That is what is holding us back here. Why is 140,000 of these EB visas a year a magic number? It is not. We are a nation of 350 million people. We have at least a million legal immigrants coming in each year. To expand the cap for those who are seeking the EB visas beyond 140,000 to people with skills who are already living in the United States and who want to stay here and continue to work is perfectly reasonable to me.

That is what my bill proposes, and it does two other things. This bill also says that we are not going to count your dependents when it comes to the annual quotas. So if it is 140,000, we are talking about the actual breadwinners--140,000. If you are married, have a spouse and two children, you are not seeking four of these visas--only one--and your spouse and dependents automatically come along with you, in my bill. They are not counted against the 140,000.

The third point: When you make application, it freezes in place, for legal reasons, the status of your dependents. So if it takes 2 or 3 years, and that daughter of yours becomes 21 years of age, it is no different--she is still going to come in with you based on your application.

To me, that is a reasonable way of approaching it. I have said to my friends in the Indian-American community, in the Indian community in Illinois: I am not against your being here. I want you to be here. I have an approach that will allow you to be a part of our future. You have been an important part of America to this point. I want you to continue to be, and my approach will allow it.

Senator Lee of Utah comes to the floor and says: Durbin, if you lift that 140,000 cap, you will doom this bill.

I have just spoken to him, and I have several times. I will not doom this bill if he will support it. If he, as a Republican, will gather support for this bill, we can lift the number of people who will be eligible under these skilled immigrant visas to be part of America's future. We can do that together.

I am finding, even as I talk to Republican colleagues here, that they feel we should be opening up the skilled visa opportunities for legal immigration. The sentiment is growing, and it should. I want people who have real skills that they either learned in the United States or earned in the United States to be part of the growth of our economy and the future and part of America. When it comes to diversity, count me in.

My mother was an immigrant to this country, brought here at the age of 2. Her son stands right here with a full-time government job. That is the American dream, right? I basically believe in immigration, and I believe in the diversity of America. But what will not work and what will not succeed is the notion that we can somehow favor just one group from one country at the expense of every other country.

We found that what has happened since Senator Lee started moving forward with this is we have people from a variety of different countries around the world saying: You mean you are going to cut us off entirely? We can't have any EB-2 visas for 10 years? You are saying that is going to apply to Canada, Mexico, the European nations, and all of Asia as well? That is unfair. Why would you cut us off to give opportunity to those from India? That isn't fair.

We have to have a more balanced approach. I think my approach resolves that and will solve that. I ask Senator Lee to consider it.

I would also say to him--in the course of bringing this measure to the floor, Senator Lee has been negotiating with Members of his own political party. That is all right. I understand that. I have been in this business for a while. But he should be talking to people on both sides of the aisle. What he has given are so-called carve-outs to the 140,000. I probably wouldn't argue with any single carve-out in substance if he wants to give them to nurses or medical professions, but each time he makes a carve-out to the 140,000, he lengthens the long waiting period for those of Indian descent.

As far as I am concerned, the real answer is to increase legal immigration to the United States. My bill would do that. It will take the country caps off, take the 140,000 cap off. It would open the door for those who have been waiting in line--and many have for years, if not decades. Stop discriminating against their children. Through no fault of their own, they have been stuck in the line with them. Their legal status shouldn't change. And don't count the dependents--the spouses and children--against the quota, whatever the number might be in the future.

I think that is a reasonable way to do this, but to do that, you have to accept one premise: that immigration is good for America. I believe it is. I believe it always has been. I think the diversity of this country is its strength. People come from every corner of the Earth, ready to make great personal and family sacrifices so that they and certainly their children will have a chance they never would have had where they were born. That is the key to what is different about this country and why we should honor it.

Let's not apologize for increasing legal immigration, particularly of people with proven skills. Let's celebrate that they want to be part of America's future.

2603 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to make two points regarding the comments from my friend from Utah. I know he has to leave for another appointment.

The first point I want to make is that what I support today is what I introduced and voted for when 68 Senators, Democrats and Republicans, passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill, which he opposed.

I hope that shows my good faith and intent when it comes to this issue. I am not just thinking of something today that has never been considered on the Senate floor. It has passed on the Senate floor in a previous Senate, and I think it can pass again with your active support.

The second point I want to make is this. For us to have dueling unanimous consent requests and both to object in this debate is really unfair to the people who have gathered in this Gallery today, as well as those who are following this debate on television with literally the fate of their family and future again in our hands.

I would like to ask you a favor to consider the following. When Senator Kennedy objected on your behalf yesterday, or the day before, in a similar manner, he suggested that we push this issue forward for a hearing in the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration of the Committee on the Judiciary where we both serve. That committee is not overworked. It considered one bill this year and no amendments. So let us try to prevail on the chairman of that subcommittee to have a hearing on this subject and to bring out all the facts before the subcommittee and the full committee in the hopes that we can find some sort of reasonable, bipartisan compromise. If you will join me in that request, I hope we can prevail on Senator Graham and Senator Cornyn.

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Mr. DURBIN. The Senator from Utah is my friend, and we have worked closely together on important legislation. I trust him and respect him, though we disagree on some of the merits on this issue.

What I think I heard was an offer, which I am going to accept, of a good-faith, bipartisan request of the Committee on the Judiciary to have a hearing on this measure. It will be the first hearing on it, and I think it is long overdue.

In terms of the comprehensive immigration reform, I don't want to dwell on history, but we went through hundreds of amendments in Judiciary and scores of amendments on the floor. Everyone had their day in court and their opportunity to come up with a good idea, and, yes, it did come down to one bill at the end. You had to vote yes or no. I voted yes, and he voted the other way.

This bill is not even close to it in terms of deliberation and in terms of amendments and that process. So let's start the right way. Let's have a hearing. You have the majority party on the committee, so I am not going to pull anything over on you, but let's do it.

For the people who are following this and saying: Well, how did that end? Let us say to them it ended by both of us agreeing to pursue a committee hearing on this important subject as soon as possible and appealing to the chair of the Committee on the Judiciary to ask for that hearing.

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