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[Congressional Record: November 10, 2003 (Senate)]
[Page S14287-S14334]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr10no03-29]
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will
proceed to the consideration of H.R. 2799, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 2799) making appropriations for the
Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary,
and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2004, and for other purposes.
The Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, this is a most important bill. I understand
how important it is. I also understand it is normal procedure to have
the chairman of the subcommittee speak first and the ranking member
speak second. But I feel it is appropriate, in talking about this bill,
to respond very briefly to my friend from Kentucky.
[ ... ]
I don't condone illegal immigration. I certainly don't condone
farmers growing illegal crops. But I understand desperate people doing
desperate things in desperate conditions in Mexico affecting the United
States. That is why I sponsored an amendment recently to the State
Department authorization bill that extends a helping hand to our
neighbor Mexico. It provides $10 million for microcredit lending to
small businesses and for entrepreneurial development aid to small
farmers and persons who have been affected by the collapse of coffee
prices. It calls for programs to support Mexico's private coffee
ownership system which is in dire need of repair.
My friend, Senator Ensign, supports this. He says this is what the
free enterprise system is all about. I am grateful to all of my
colleagues who voted for this amendment. It won't solve these problems
overnight, but we have to start somewhere. Our neighbor needs help. We
can't turn a blind eye to our friends in Mexico. This is not a handout;
it is a commitment to a free-market-based program that will support
long-term development and growth in rural areas of Mexico.
By extending a hand to our neighbor, we are also keeping our own
Nation strong and keeping it secure. That is what our State Department
should be looking at. That is what we need to do.
[ ... ]
We have in this bill dealing with Commerce-State-Justice
appropriations a provision that funds the Board of Immigration Appeals.
I would like to take a few minutes to discuss the board, immigration
policy, and the importance of the Dream Act. In the past year, the Bush
administration has attempted to dismantle the only judicial review
process we have for our Nation's immigrants. The board is responsible
for applying the immigration nationality laws uniformly throughout the
United States. Accordingly, the board has given nationwide jurisdiction
to review the orders of immigration judges and other immigration-
related decisions. Decisions of the board are subject to judicial
review in the Federal courts.
In September 2002, the Bush administration consolidated the Bureau of
Indian Affairs appellate procedures by turning its three-judge panel
process to a single judge. Review by three judges is only required
where the BIA must correct clear errors of fact, interpret the law, or
provide guidance regarding the exercise of discretion. The 2002 rule
permits a single-judge decision-only brief. No written opinion is
necessary. The purpose of this legislation was to enable the board to
resolve simple cases quickly. The effect, however, has been anything
but efficient.
In a 12-month period, the number of immigration administrative agency
appeals filed in Federal court has tripled. The American Immigration
Lawyers Association, or AILA, which represents over 8,000 of our
Nation's immigration lawyers and law professors who practice and teach
immigration law, has been a long-time human rights advocacy
organization and has stated that in a 1-year period, the rate of
rejected appeals has skyrocketed from 59 percent to 86 percent. The
independence and impartiality of our immigration court system must be
safeguarded. The Supreme Court, in Plyer v. Doe, stated that:
Whatever his status under immigration laws, an alien is
surely a person. Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this
country is unlawful, have long been recognized as persons
guaranteed due process of law by the 5th and 14th amendments
to our Constitution.
In October of 2003, the American Bar Association called upon the
Board of Immigration Appeals to discard its new procedures and set
forth suggested reforms to the backlog of cases. And we have the
American Bar Association report, which we will get to at a later time.
Streamlining the Board of Immigration Appeals process is just one
example of an ongoing effort by this administration to shortchange our
Nation's hard-working immigrants. While our Nation's immigration laws
must be enforced to the fullest extent, I can't help but wonder why our
Government is attacking the very people who help us build up our
Nation. I think this is just an example of an ongoing effort by the
administration to shortchange our Nation's hard-working immigrants.
Our Nation's immigration laws
[[Page S14315]]
must be enforced to the fullest extent. I cannot help but wonder why
our Government is attacking the very people who help us build up our
Nation rather than targeting those who tear it down.
For example, in October 2003, Federal agents detained about 300
suspected illegal immigrants in a nationwide investigation of cleaning
crews at Wal-Mart stores. The authorities took the immigrants into
custody as they finished the night shift in 61 stores in 21 States.
Certainly, they would not want to interfere with Wal-Mart and arrest
them before their shift was completed. The store might be dirty. We
need the immigration policy along the lines of the DREAM Act that was
introduced by Senators Hatch and Durbin, and I also cosponsored that.
The DREAM Act gives States the discretion to grant State residency to
certain youth and authorizes the Federal Government to grant
undocumented students who are hoping to enter an institution of higher
education conditional legal permanent resident status.
Currently, unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for Federal
financial aid, are not legally allowed to work, and are vulnerable to
removal from the country, regardless of the number of years they have
lived there. The DREAM Act would allow college-bound, undocumented
students to apply for Federal financial aid if they meet certain
criteria, including continuous residency for the previous 5 years, a
high school diploma or its equivalent, and good moral character.
This is the kind of immigration policy we should be enacting. I
welcome the CGS committee report language for 2004, which states funds
saved in this streamlined process are being spent three times over by
the civil division, which must defend BIA's decisions in Federal court.
Accordingly, the committee directed BIA to submit a report to the
Committees on Appropriations no later than March 21, 2004, listing the
single-judge decisions that have been appealed to the Federal courts
and the civil division's cost to defend these decisions over the past 3
years.
I hope this body will enact the necessary immigration laws in this
Congress.
Mr. President, I want to read a story that appeared in the newspaper
on October 25:
Every night for months, Victor Zavala, Jr., who was
arrested on Thursday in a 21-State immigration raid, said he
showed up at the Wal-Mart store in New Jersey to clean
floors. As the store's regular employees left at 11 p.m., he
said, they often asked him whether he ever got a night off.
Zavala, identified by Federal agents as a cleaning immigrant
from Mexico, told the Wal-Mart workers that he and 4 others
employed by a cleaning contractor worked at the Wal-Mart in
Old Bridge every night of the year, except Christmas and New
Years.
Now Mr. Zavala feels cheated, saying he worked as hard as
he could pursuing the American dream, only to face an
immigration hearing that could lead to deportation for
himself, his wife, Eunice, and their 3 children, 10, 7, and 5
years old. He is one of 250 janitors employed by Wal-
Mart contractors who were arrested at 60 Wal-Mart stores
before dawn on Thursday.
Again, I think it is interesting that they waited until the stores
were clean before they picked them up. They would not even consider
offending Wal-Mart by having a dirty store for their workers. Maybe,
you know, if these illegal immigrants were not hired and Wal-Mart gave
these people workable wages, maybe they would hire other people--maybe
people who were legal immigrants. But Wal-Mart can sell stuff pretty
cheap because they don't pay them anything; they have no health care
benefits, no retirement benefits. So they get by pretty cheaply.
I think it was nice of Immigration and Naturalization to wait until
they cleaned the stores before they picked them up. That would give the
contractor time to go find some other cheap labor. Maybe for a while
they will have to pay a little more than what they were paying. Wal-
Mart is great for low prices but the low prices are also given to their
employees.
Most Wal-Mart employees--we have seen things written about this
recently--have no health benefits, no retirement benefits, and no
vacation benefits. They work for very low wages and most of the time
not for 40 hours. They make sure they don't because they might be
allowed some kind of benefits.
``My family is not happy about this,'' Mr. Zavala said. He
said he paid $2,000 to smuggle him into the U.S. 3 years ago.
``My children don't want to leave and go back to Mexico.''
I am sure that is true.
A Federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition
of anonymity, said yesterday that several current and
contract cleaning contractors for Wal-Mart, the Nation's
biggest retailer, were cooperating with the Government in its
investigation. On Thursday, Federal officials acknowledged
that they had wiretaps and recordings of conversations in
meetings among Wal-Mart executives and contractors. Federal
officials said as part of the Thursday raid, they searched
the office of midlevel management at Wal-Mart headquarters in
Bentonville, AR. Officials said the Government believed that
Wal-Mart executives knew the cleaning contractors were using
illegal immigrants.
Of course they did.
Federal officials noted that 102 illegal immigrants working
for Wal-Mart cleaning contractors had been arrested in 1998,
2001, and 13 Wal-Mart cleaning contractors had pleaded guilty
after those arrests. Those pleas remain under court seal.
Wal-Mart said yesterday it had begun an internal
investigation and would dismiss anybody who did not have
proper immigration papers. Wal-Mart also told its officials
to preserve any documents that might be relevant to the
Federal inquiry.
Isn't that nice?
Wal-Mart officials said the raid surprised them.
I'll bet.
They acknowledged yesterday that 10 immigrants arrested on
Thursday in Arizona and Kentucky were employed directly by
Wal-Mart. The company officials said they brought these
workers in-house after certain stores phased out the use of
contractors for whom the immigrants had worked. Wal-Mart
officials also said the company required contractors to hire
legal workers only.
Well, I say that Wal-Mart is involved in this, and I think it is an
indication of why they can sell stuff so cheaply. They do it under the
auspices of low prices.
[ ... ]
[ End]
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