Unanimous Consent Request

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Utah for his response to my proposal. My staff reviewed his amendment yesterday. We quickly reviewed the language, and I would like to share my reactions.

Senator Lee does not include my language to protect children of immigrant workers from aging out during the delay in early filing because of objections on his side of the aisle. I am disappointed.

Senator Lee's amendment would modify my proposal to allow immediate implementation of the 50-50 rule, so the rule would go into effect after 180 days.

Senator Lee would also provide that current H-1B employees may continue to change employers. My purpose is to prevent outsourcing from continuing to exploit the H-1B visa program by hiring new H-1B employees. Senator Lee's language would not allow these companies to import new H-1B workers to exploit, so that is not objectionable to me. Senator Lee's amendment also accepts my proposal to delay by 1 year the bill section changing the distribution of green cards to allow processing time for pending applications.

To sum up, this amendment currently being considered, for which unanimous consent has been asked, includes several key provisions I have advocated for that were not in Senator Lee's original bill, including early filing to protect immigrant workers and their families who are stuck in the backlog; an annual green card set-aside for immigrant workers who are ineligible for early filing because they are overseas; a 1-year delay in section 2 of the bill to protect immigrant workers with pending green card applications; and the 50-50 rule to protect American jobs and workers and to prevent the exploitation of immigrant workers, which helped to create the green card backlog.

Therefore, I am prepared to accept this amendment in the spirit of bipartisan compromise. I will not object to Senator Lee's request.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am disappointed. After all of these months of negotiation and of the emotion, intensity, and feelings that we share for the people who are caught in this backlog, it is a real disappointment that, at the last moment, the Senator from Florida exercised his right as a Senator to object to our unanimous consent request--a request which I was prepared to accept.

May I suggest that this is an illustration of the bottom line that I raised in my statement. In being stuck with a 140,000-limit on green cards for employment visas and country caps for that 140,000 limit, we will continue to run into the problem illustrated by the Senator from Florida.

There will be those who will want to create an exception to the overall quota or the country caps, and there will be compelling, personal, and family reasons for them to ask for it. Time and again, they will find that, if they get a privilege, it will be at the expense of someone else, and there will be an objection.

The only rational answer is to raise the cap on the green card quotas. These 140,000 employment-based visas a year might have made sense 30 or 40 years ago. They make no sense today in the world that we live in. We are talking about people in the United States who are working, who are trying to make lives here of a more permanent nature. They love this country enough to want to bring their families here--to relocate and live. They are working here and contributing in the computer industry, in healthcare, and in so many different areas. They are valuable and important to the future of America.

I sincerely hope that we can resolve the issue that was brought up on the floor today. Equally important, if not more important, I hope that we will have the will on a bipartisan basis to tackle comprehensive immigration reform. We did it 7 years ago. We passed it 7 years ago. It can be done with Senators of good faith and good will who will work together. Yet it will mean you will have to accept the premise that there may be one additional, new immigrant coming to America. Some people cannot stomach that, and they object to any effort to change immigration laws that might result in an additional immigrant.

This son of an immigrant, who happens to be a U.S. Senator, believes that immigration defines this country, that our diversity defines this country, and that bringing people here who are willing to sacrifice and risk everything to be part of America's future is part of the reason we have prospered as a nation.

I hope that Senators on both sides of the aisle will have the good sense to come to that conclusion and that, at another time, with another Congress and, perhaps, with another President, we will have a meaningful and fair-minded conversation.

In the meantime, I will work with Senator Lee to resolve the differences that we have, which are now down to only a handful. As evidenced today, I believe we have made dramatic progress. We are disappointed by the result, but we are not giving up.

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