<DOC>
[107 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:77276.wais]
. S. Hrg. 107-249
IMMIGRATION POLICY: AN OVERVIEW
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 4, 2001
__________
Serial No. J-107-12
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman
STROM THURMOND, South Carolina PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
JON KYL, Arizona HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
Sharon Prost, Chief Counsel
Makan Delrahim, Staff Director
Bruce Cohen, Minority Chief Counsel and Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Immigration
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JON KYL, Arizona CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
James Rowland, Majority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Brownback, Hon. Sam, a U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas..... 1
DeWine, Hon. Mike, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio......... 71
Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Illinois....................................................... 3
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont. 70
WITNESSES
Dickson, Elizabeth C., Manager, Immigration Services, Ingersoll-
Rand Company, and Chair, Subcommittee on Immigration, U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, Woodcliff Lake, NJ........................ 62
Kenney, Jennifer, Director, Global Deployment Shared Services,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Chicago, IL............................ 38
Leiden, Warren R., Berry, Appleman and Leiden, on behalf of the
American Immigration Lawyers Association, San Francisco, CA.... 6
Moore, Stephen, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, Washington, DC.... 16
Munoz, Cecilia, Vice President, Office of Research, Advocacy and
Legislation, National Council of La Raza, Washington, DC....... 44
Narasaki, Karen K., President and Executive Director, National
Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, Washington, DC........ 51
IMMIGRATION POLICY: AN OVERVIEW
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2001
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Immigration,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:04 p.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam
Brownback, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF KANSAS
Present: Senators Brownback and Durbin.
Chairman Brownback. I will call the hearing to order. Thank
you all for being here today. I want to welcome all of you to
this hearing on Immigration Policy: An Overview.
This will be, I hope, an informative hearing for members of
the Subcommittee and members of the Senate, in general, for
information, a number of whom I hope will be coming to the
hearing today.
I would like to make a few opening remarks. Then if any
members show up before we go into the panel discussion, I will
turn to them for opening remarks, and if not we will proceed on
to the panel. I understand one of our panel witnesses is still
in transit from the airport, but will be here shortly.
America is a nation of immigrants. That is what Ronald
Reagan reminded us of in his first address to the Nation.
President Reagan saw a vision and always envisioned America as
a shining city on a hill, and in his mind it was a city that
teemed with people of all kinds living in peace and in harmony.
Then he said, ``And if this city has walls, the walls have
doors, and the doors are open to those with the energy and the
will and the heart to get in. That is the way I saw it, that is
the way I see it.'' And that is the way I see it, too.
America's greatest strength remains in its openness to new
ideas and new people. That openness explains why the United
States is powerful, influential, and growing. Nicolas
Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute,
wrote recently that ``America's demographic prospects would
seem to support, or even enhance, U.S. global influence in the
years ahead.'' The reason? Immigration. He points out that
while other developed countries will, on balance, shrink by 15
percent between now and 2050, the United States will grow by 40
percent, remaining the third largest country in the world,
behind India and China.
But more than numbers, legal immigration brings energy,
vitality and innovation. An Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
study by Phil Peters showed that immigrants create or co-invent
one in five U.S. patents. Twelve percent of the Inc. 500,
America's fastest growing private companies, were started by
immigrant entrepreneurs.
To harness the energy and vitality of immigrants, we need
to improve our current immigration system. As the new Chairman
of this Subcommittee, I look forward to working with my
distinguished ranking member, Senator Kennedy, with Senator
Durbin and others, many of whom have had years of experience on
these important issues, as well as all of my colleagues on both
sides of the aisle on this important topic.
As chairman, I will work with the administration and my
colleagues on legislation to produce fundamental reform of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the INS. Such reform is
sorely needed. I want to thank, in particular, Senator
Feinstein for her leadership on addressing immigration
processing backlogs in last year's H-1B legislation.
I might just note parenthetically that in my own State
office work, constituent services work back home, the INS is
the second leading problem set of cases that I deal with, and
not in a pleasant way frequently. It is very difficult, time-
consuming, problematic issues that they raise and that we have
to deal with. So I am looking forward to that change in the way
INS does work.
I think all of us realize that there is more work ahead. To
address the inordinate delays at INS, I support President
Bush's proposal to require INS to process immigration and
naturalization applications within 180 days and temporary visas
within 30 days. I hope that once those deadlines are achieved
we can work to get the Department of Labor and INS process
applications in even less time.
There is work to do in other areas as well. Some estimate
that nearly half of the labor in American agriculture may not
be working legally in the United States. If that is indeed the
case, then something is broken. Growers, farm workers,
Republicans and Democrats have been working, and should keep
working toward legislation that meets the needs of farmers,
farm workers, and the American economy.
In an area of particular interest to me, we must also look
at the need to attract more people to rural areas of our
country, particularly in rural areas that are depopulating, and
to help residents of rural areas find the medical personnel
that they need to receive proper health care.
I plan to work closely with the administration in three
important foreign policy areas. First, I am heartened by the
recent meeting between President Bush and Mexican President
Vicente Fox. This morning, Senator Kennedy and I met with the
Foreign Minister of Mexico on the issue of establishing a more
orderly migration process between the United States and Mexico.
Second, under the prior administration, U.S. refugee
admissions fell by 40 percent from the last year of President
George Bush's administration. I will press the new
administration to reverse that unfortunate trend to ensure that
America is providing a safe haven for victims of persecution in
line with our tradition as a generous, compassionate nation.
Third, I look forward to working with the administration to
implement fully the sex trafficking bill that Congress passed
last year to deal with the victimization of women around the
world.
At the turn of the century, critics said that Italians and
East Europeans would never become Americans. Today, the same
arguments are made against Latinos, Asians, and other
immigrants. Behind the rhetoric, the critics' arguments boil
down to this: Immigrants aren't good enough to join us and
America is not strong enough to absorb them. History teaches us
that nothing could be more wrong.
When the Pilgrims set out for America, they sought a land
where they could work hard, pray in peace, and enjoy the fruits
of their labors. Nearly 400 years later, the same can be said
of today's immigrants. America will prosper with policies that
encourage legal and orderly migration, and provide timely
service to those who play by the rules and seek to join us as
fellow Americans. America is best when we appeal to the hope in
men's hearts rather than the fear in men's eyes.
These are the sorts of policy tones and issues that I hope
to raise in this Subcommittee during the 2 years chairing this
Subcommittee, and possibly more in the future. This is the
first of many hearings that we will hold on topics regarding
immigration as we hope to move major legislation, some of which
I have identified here.
I look forward to working with many of you who are here
today and interested in this topic, and certainly with the
panelists who are here and certainly with the members who are
on the dais or are soon to be here.
Let me, before we proceed to the panel, ask Senator Durbin
if he has any opening comments that he would like to make.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF ILLINOIS
Senator Durbin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am
glad to be with you at the first meeting of this important
Subcommittee. I think immigration has always been a timely
topic in America. It is certainly timely in the year 2001.
A few steps away from this hearing room is my office in the
Dirksen Building and I have on display there a number of things
that mean a lot to me personally, but I think one of the most
valued objects in that office is my mother's naturalization
certificate. She came to this country at the age of 2 from
Lithuania. Her mother brought her over with her brother and
sister.
It is interesting to note that my grandmother only spoke a
few words of English and never really learned the language. My
mother spoke Lithuanian and English, and I can't speak very
many words in Lithuanian. I think that is the story of American
immigration and what happens to successive generations.
It always has meant a lot to me that at one time in the
history of the United States that my family had an opportunity
to come here, and I like to think that our family, my brothers
and I and all of our kids and grandkids, have paid back that
favor from a Nation that opened its arms to people to come from
overseas.
In my office in Chicago, I would say that 75 percent of our
case work relates to immigration; it is overwhelming. There are
times when I am on the phone to the INS calling every possible
level to try to get them to blast through and either make a
decision or make the right decision, and some of these cases
are heart-breaking. The laws that we have written out here are
not in touch with reality in terms of many of the people who
are here in the United States who are making a great
contribution and can make a great contribution.
In the last session of Congress, I was the sponsor of
something known as the NACARA Parity Act--some of you who know
this subject are familiar with it--to create an equal
opportunity for Central American and Haitian nationals in the
United States to adjust their status. We give that opportunity
to some, to those who come from Cuba and Nicaragua. We don't
offer it to others. We ought to have a consistent ethic when it
comes to this question.
If we are going to have compassion for victims of
totalitarianism, does it make that much of a difference whether
their oppressor is Cuban or Nicaraguan or Haitian or
Guatemalan? Think of it in terms of the victims who are coming
here and asking for a chance to be part of America.
The defeat of our legislation last year does not discourage
me. I think there is a lot more that we can do. I think we need
to address questions or due process in immigration, and I know
the panel will address them. Two laws we enacted in 1996 have
had serious negative consequences for a lot of innocent people.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility
Act and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
certainly have high-sounding names, and I think that is why a
number of people voted for them, but unfortunately their
consequences are not that inspiring--mandatory detention of
people when detention makes absolutely no sense at all,
retroactive application of grounds of removal, an overly broad
definition of aggravated felony, the effective elimination of
administrative and judicial review for immigrants in removal
proceedings.
Last year, the House of Representatives passed bipartisan
legislation that started to undo some of the inequities in this
law, but it never moved in the Senate. I hope that with the
help of this Subcommittee, Chairman Brownback, Senator Kennedy,
and others, we can make a change.
I also have to tell you that the backlogs in adjudication
at INS are just heart-breaking when you look at the actual
consequences on a lot of families. We just can't allow these
cases to stack up and ignore the pain that we are causing to a
lot of people who are doing their best to follow the laws in
our country. I know Senator Feinstein is proposing to spend
some more money in this area, in INS services, and I certainly
support her on the appropriations committees.
Another area of difficulty is the inadequacy of immigration
preference systems to meet the needs of our constituents and
their loved ones. Too few numbers are available in the family
preference system to permit U.S. citizens and permanent
residents to reunite with their loved ones in a timely manner.
I think we should address that.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I have been deeply troubled by
reports I have received of children, some of them high school
valedictorians, who were brought to the United States by their
parents or others through no choice of their own as babies and
infants, have lived all of their lives in the United States,
but who are undocumented and cannot continue their lives or
education once they graduate from high school. Indeed, instead
of being able to continue their education, they face
deportation.
I know this one personally: a young lady who is a high
school senior in the city of Chicago who is considered a
musical prodigy who wanted an opportunity to apply to Juliard
and was offered a scholarship so long as she completed the
application, and came to realize for the first time in her life
she was not a legal citizen in the United States. Her recourse:
go to Korea, where she has never been, and live her life there.
I believe our Nation can do better than this.
I hope the Subcommittee will work with me to address these
questions, and I hope that we will have a positive attitude
toward immigration. I believe we should say with pride that
America is a Nation of immigrants. As I travel across my State,
and certainly in the city of Chicago I meet some of the most
inspiring stories you can imagine, particularly when I talk to
cab drivers.
I always ask cab drivers in Chicago, ``where are you
from?'' Well, most of them are from Nigeria, but those who are
not are from all over the world, people with medical degrees
and engineering degrees who are hacking cabs for a chance to be
part of America, who listen to Public Radio night and day just
like they did back home, who really know more about politics
than most people who can vote, and many of them can't, who just
want a part of this dream. That is what this Subcommittee is
all about.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brownback. Thank you for the eloquent statement.
Our first panel consists of Warren Leiden and Stephen
Moore. Warren is a partner in a San Francisco law firm that
does corporate immigration law. He has been involved in the
immigration field since 1980. Mr. Leiden is a member of the
Board of Governors of the American Immigration Lawyers
Association and is a recognized expert on employment-based and
other immigration matters.
Our next witness on this panel is Stephen Moore, an old
friend of mine, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He is an
economist with a special focus on immigration. He is the author
of two recent studies on the fiscal impact of immigration, the
most recent being ``A Fiscal Portrait of the Newest American.''
He has coauthored a book on the same subject, called Still an
Open Door: U.S. Immigration Policy and the American Economy.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here. This is the first
hearing that I have hosted and chaired as Subcommittee
chairman. It is a scene-setter hearing and I hope you will
oblige us with your testimony of being kind of a scene-setter
for what the immigration picture is in America and what you
hope it will be.
Mr. Leiden?
STATEMENT OF WARREN R. LEIDEN, BERRY, APPLEMAN AND LEIDEN, ON
BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSOCIATION, SAN
FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Leiden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
members of the Subcommittee. I want to thank you for the
opportunity to participate today in this overview of
immigration policy.
U.S. immigration policy is unique in that it is based on
written law and statutory criteria, different than any other
country in the world. It is highly regulated, it has strict
numerical limits, and it has bright-line rules, some of which
are very unforgiving.
There are three main types of immigration: family
sponsored, employment-based, and refugee and asylum protection.
While all three remain relevant as the main pillars of our
immigration policy, the structure of each of these is out of
date, and I would suggest overly restrictive.
We need modernization in our immigration policies, and I
think you can see this in the fact that in every one of the
three areas it is overly complicated, we have substantial
backlogs, and they are subject to a patchwork of restrictions
that were imposed over the last 20 years that sometimes are
contradictory. All three areas will need a review of numerical
limitations and they are ripe for streamlining and
simplification.
Family sponsored immigration provides for the immigration
of the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and lawful
permanent residents, as well as the adult children and siblings
of U.S. citizens only. Let me use an example of a situation
very common in family immigration.
The spouse and minor child of the lawful permanent resident
has a quota limit now. This is the spouse of a lawful permanent
resident. The quota limit requires a wait of at least 4 years
before they can file their adjustment application. So it poses
so many families with the terrible choice of do you obey the
immigration law or do you keep your family together?
Even after they finally reach the point where they can file
their green card application, the adjustment process, the final
stage to get the green card, is taking more than a year or more
than 2 years. You get an employment authorization card at that
point, but it is only granted for 1 year, so almost everyone
has to file a renewal and then file a renewal. It is a good
example of an area where we don't have a policy that is
matching the reality.
By definition, these children are under 21, but if they are
close to 21 there is a race for the approval because if they
final approval isn't granted before the child turns 21, they
drop out of that category and they go to a new category with a
much longer wait. The INS has done a lot to try to expedite
these cases, but they do slip through the cracks. I have seen
them in my own office. Good intentions, but if you don't have
the approval by the 21st birthday, you are just out of luck and
there is no way to get around it. In each and every one of the
family categories, there is a substantial backlog, ranging from
as little as a year to as much as 10 years and more.
On the employment-based side, employment-based immigration
covers persons of extraordinary ability who can actually
petition for themselves, as well as employer-sponsored cases
for managers, executive, professionals, skilled workers, and
other essential workers.
For professional-level people and above, they can come and
begin work on a non-immigrant visa, such as an H-1 or an L-1
visa. However, skilled workers and other essential workers
don't have any similar non-immigrant visa, other than very
short-term visas for seasonal work or agricultural work. It is
a big problem in employment-based law for skilled workers and
their employers, and for other essential workers.
Labor certification has been substantially streamlined by
the Labor Department. However, there are tens of thousands of
cases that have been backlogged and awaiting adjudication for
3, 4 and 5 years. The employment-based petition, which is the
second stage of an employment-based case, the petition to the
Immigration Service, is not adjudicated on a first-in/first-out
basis, so that you will have some cases that are approved in 90
days, some that have been sitting for 18 months unapproved.
Now, in most cases those two workers tend to be sitting
right next to each other, so that they are very aware of the
disparity between their cases. This causes, of course, anxiety.
It lowers morale. And they also have the age-out problem. If
they have minor children, again, who are approaching 21 years
old, they could lose their ability of their child to stay with
the family when they turn 21. There, the adjustment is the same
as for the family side; it is taking more than a year or two,
and the same problems with the employment authorization
document.
We only see backlogs at present on the employment-based
side in India and China; that is, persons born in India,
persons born in China. And laws passed last year are beginning
to alleviate that, at least temporarily, but this is somewhat
of an illusion. If the Immigration Service were adjudicating
cases at the rate that they are receiving them, our estimate is
that they would run out of visas in all the employment-based
categories and we would see backlogs for every single
nationality in employment-based. So there is something waiting
out there to happen.
In the asylum area, I just want to say a few words. We do
need to come to grips with the 1996 restrictions. The expedited
removal provisions that provide for exclusion without a hearing
and the mandatory detention requirements do allow for special
treatment for asylum seekers if they are properly identified.
Unfortunately, things being what they are, there have been
numerous cases where individuals had to stay in detention for
months, if not years, at a time before their case was approved
and they are recognized as a bona fide refugee. You have to
think that people were sent him to persecution, or worse,
because of the failures of the expedited removal procedures.
There is also a 1-year time limit on asylum applications,
meaning that no matter how good your claim, if you don't come
forward within a year of admission to make your asylum claim,
you won't get protection in the United States. This is
particularly troubling for people who have experienced torture,
who have seen grisly scenes or murder happen to their family
members. Frankly, a lot of refugees don't want to revisit those
issues for a long time, so it takes a lot to come forward.
Putting that arbitrary 1-year limit on it unfortunately again
denies protection to people who really deserve it.
Finally, we only have 10,000 slots for permanent residents
for asylum seekers who have been granted asylum. There is a
growing backlog now because the Immigration Service and the
immigration judges are approving more than 5,000 cases a year.
So every year, the backlog gets longer, the backlog gets
longer.
Again, these don't seem to be taken on a first-in/first-out
basis either, so that persons granted asylum 4 or 5 years ago
really don't know when they are going to get permanent
residence. They have work authorizations, they can remain in
the country lawfully, but they don't know when they can begin
their citizenship track and they are subject to the other
disabilities that persons who don't have lawful permanent
residence yet are subject to.
There are just a myriad of restrictions, catches, and
disqualifications that are contained in the law. I am not going
to detail them, although I have attached to my testimony a
series of administrative actions for improvements that the
agencies could actually go forward with without statutory
action, and I would think that your Subcommittee would do well
to encourage the agencies to do so.
In concluding, I want to say that it appears that we are
going to have forced on us a reexamination of the legal
immigration limit, the levels, as well as the categories,
because of the lengthy family quota backlogs, because
employment-based immigration will soon run out of visas and
start having backlogs, and finally because the H-1B cap which
was increased last year will run out in 2003, only less than 3
years from now.
All those things put us on a course to review legal
immigration. This will also be an opportunity to really look at
how we can streamline and simplify the overall policy to really
modernize it and make it worthy of America in the 21st century.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association and others are
eager to work with you and the Subcommittee to accomplish this
and it will be very good work for us all.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify and I am happy to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement and an attachment of Mr. Leiden
follow:]
Statement of Warren R. Leiden, Berry, Appleman & Leiden LLP, on behalf
of the American Immigration Lawyers Association
Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee:
My name is Warren R. Leiden, and I am a partner in the San
Francisco office of Berry, Appleman & Leiden LLP, a national law firm
concentrating in corporate immigration law. I appear today as an
observer and participant in the development of U.S. immigration policy
for over twenty years and on behalf of the American Immigration Lawyers
Association (AILA). AILA is the national bar association of over 6,000
attorneys and law professors who represent the entire spectrum of
applicants for immigration adjudications.
I appreciate this opportunity to present our views on current U.S.
immigration policy and I hope to provide some useful guidance on issues
and concerns worthy of the committee's attention.
Overview of U.S. Immigration Adjudications Programs
values embodied in u.s. immigration policy
U.S. immigration policy is based on a number of values that relate
to the core social and economic principles on which our nation was
founded. These values are complementary and interweave to create the
rich fabric that is beneficial to all Americans. Among the most
important values are----
<bullet> The unification of American families;
<bullet> Employment related immigration to keep America strong in a
global economy;
<bullet> Asylum protection for refugees fleeing persecution;
<bullet> Naturalization based on allegiance to the principles contained
in our Constitution and laws;
<bullet> Immigration policy that is implemented through a well-
regulated system based on law, with fair, uniform, and
predictable requirements.
Based on these values, U.S. immigration policy is built of three
main pillars--family-sponsored immigration, employment-based
immigration, and protection for refugees and asylum seekers. These
three areas continue to have primary relevance in the new century, but
all three have policy structures that are overly restricted and out of
date. Despite the significant efforts of many good people in government
service, each of these three areas has become overly complicated,
substantially backlogged, and unnecessarily hampered by a patchwork of
rigid limitations and sometimes-contradictory restrictions.
The current situation calls out for change in the direction of
modernizing our immigration policy, both in terms of numerical limits
and in the direction of streamlining and simplifying, to the benefit of
all Americans.
family unification through family-sponsored immigration
The goal of family unification and re-unification has long been a
primary value in U.S. immigration policy. Respect for ``the family'' is
deeply embedded in our national character, and families are recognized
as our most important and primary social unit.
Current law and policy gives special attention to the unification
of the immediate relatives (spouses and minor children) of U.S.
citizens. No fixed quota limits their numbers, and thus they are
eligible for immediate immigration, although processing delays has made
this much slower than ``immediate immigration'' might suggest.
Family-sponsored immigration also includes the spouses and children
of lawful permanent residents (``green card'' holders) and the adult
children and siblings of U.S. citizens. However, each of these
categories is subject to a preference quota that limits and delays
immigration. All of the family-sponsored preference categories are
back-logged at least two years, and some are back-logged ten years or
more--these are not processing delays, this is the waiting time before
processing can begin.
Most family-sponsored immigration is accomplished in two steps:
first the U.S. citizen or permanent resident files a petition to
qualify the spouse or child, and then (when the quota number is
reached) the spouse or child files an application with the INS or an
overseas U.S. consulate to obtain immigrant status.
U.S. citizen spouses and minor children are permitted to file the
petition and application concurrently, since there is no wait for the
quota, but the spouses and children of lawful permanent residents must
wait for a quota number, with the current minimum wait of over four
years. For the immediate families of lawful permanent residents this
raises the terrible choice of whether to obey the immigration laws and
separate their family for several years or keep their family intact in
violation of the law. Adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens are
also subject to quotas, which vary from two to well over ten years.
Preference quotas for family immigration haven't been increased
since 1990, although the demand for family unification has grown.
Congress would do well to reconsider whether there should be a quota at
all on the immediate family of lawful permanent residents and to
consider generally right-sizing the family immigration quotas to better
meet demand and promote unification.
These preference category quotas are complicated by additional
``per-country'' limits, which are based on the birthplace of the
immigrant. A legacy of the ``national origin'' quotas that were
abolished in 1965, the per-country limits extend some of the preference
category quotas to twice as long a wait. While waiting for the quota to
file their application for permanent residence, some minor child ``age-
out'' when they turn 21 years old, which shifts them to preference
categories with much longer waiting periods. For instance, if a child
of lawful permanent resident ages-out of the minor child category, the
quota wait increases by almost three years.
The age-out problem can also arise after the green card application
has been filed. Approval of such adjustment of status applications can
take two years or more due to processing delays, and if the minor child
turns 21 before the application is approved, he or she loses out and
has to get back in line in a different preference category. To its
credit, the INS has instituted special handling procedures that catch
many of these cases, but all it takes is one slip-up and the
application becomes void. Furthermore, these special handling
procedures take additional resources that can further delay the
processing of other cases. A simple change in the law could eliminate
this problem entirely, but the present situation is very unforgiving.
Yet another problem arises after the ``green card'' application is
filed. This is because the Employment Authorization Document (EAD) is
granted for only one year, despite the fact that the process will take
more than one or two years. Moreover, there is no credit for timely
filing of the renewal, if the immigrant doesn't have the new EAD in
hand, they can't lawfully work. As a result, pending green card
applicants must file to renew their employment authorization almost
every six to nine months. The solution here is simple--grant EADs to
adjustment applicants for the duration of their adjudication or at
least two years, and provide a 240 day grace period if the renewal is
filed on time. This would take all the time pressure off the INS and
the applicants, and would relieve some real hardship.
Still another area needing review is the inability of immediate
relatives to immigrate with their minor children. Although an adult
U.S. citizen may sponsor his or her parents, their minor children (the
siblings of the U.S. citizen) cannot immigrate with them, with the
consequence that families may be separated for years. Such a situation
suggests the need for a change in the law.
Other initiatives central to family reunification also call for
legislative action. A key to family unification is the permanent
restoration of Section 245(i). Section 245(i), which has been extended
to April 30, 2001, allows certain groups of eligible people to obtain
their immigrant visas in the United States, so long as eligibility
criteria are satisfied. A permanent restoration would allow immigrants
on the brink of becoming permanent residents to remain in the U.S.
while the INS processes their applications. The restoration of Section
245(i) would allow families to stay together and provide revenue to the
INS. Without 245(i), for example, people can face the possibility of up
to a 10-year separation from their families due to the bars to reentry.
These bars to reentry were enacted in 1996. People who have been
unlawfully present in the U.S. for six months or longer are barred from
reentering the U.S. for three years or ten years. Now with five years
of actual experience with the bars in effect, we can conclude the bars
have not fulfilled their intended purpose of serving as a deterrent to
people overstaying their visas. Rather they have become simply an
unforgiving punishment that does not fit the violation and whose main
result is to divide and separate families, and force people
underground. The law provides only very limited waivers and exceptions
to the three and ten year bars, and no waiver for the permanent bar
until after ten years. Repeal or substantial revision of these bars
should take place in addition to a permanent restoration of Section
245(i).
Under the 1996 laws, new grounds of inadmissibility were created
and waivers were severely restricted. Some of the permanent bars to
admission allow for no review and no waiver, regardless of any
mitigating facts. The general policy of creating broad grounds of
inadmissibility with no opportunity for relief needs to be
reconsidered. The agencies need the authority to exercise discretion to
take into account actual circumstances including innocent intent,
family ties in the United States, or other humanitarian considerations.
The affidavit of support is another provision of the 1996
immigration laws that needs to be reformed to promote family
reunification. All family members sponsoring relatives for immigration
must complete a legally binding affidavit of support. In many cases,
overly strict interpretations of the requirements have needlessly
limited the ability of families to be reunited. It is important to
restore broad discretion in affidavit of support requirements to INS
and consular officials. The INS and consulates need the discretion to
consider broader evidence in meeting the threshold public charge
minimum requirements, including job offers of applicants. In addition,
the INS needs to reconsider the age and residency requirement in the
affidavit of support. Furthermore, the present requirements place an
unfair burden on a widow-beneficiary of a restored spousal petition
after the death of the petitioner. In such a case, the adjustment or
immigrant visa application could be denied because the petitioner is no
longer able to sign the affidavit of support. The law should be changed
so that in a case involving the death or mental incapacity of the
petitioner, an alternative affiant may be considered.
employment-based immigration
Employment-based immigration has historically served several goals.
In the increasingly global economy, it helps keep America competitive
by attracting some of the best and the brightest, and international
personnel are essential to developing products that will appeal to
other countries and societies. Employment-based immigration also
permits the supplementation of the U.S. workforce at many levels, with
protections for the U.S. labor market, its opportunities, wages, and
working conditions.
Employment-based immigration is comprised of two types--limited
nonimmigrant stays and employment-based permanent residence.
employment-based nonimmigrants
For professionals, multinational managers and executives, and
certain other occupations, there are a number of nonimmigrant
categories that permit lawful stays and employment in the U.S. The H-1B
program for ``specialty occupations" is the most widely used and best
known. The subject of legislation in 1998 and 2000, the H-1B program
has the agencies struggling to keep it workable for employers in the
real world.
The H-1B process begins with the submission of a Labor Condition
Attestation (LCA) to the Labor Department, by which the employer
promises to meet certain wage, working conditions, employment, and
notice standards. The Labor Department is required by statute to
``approve'' the LCA within seven days. The employer then files a
petition with the INS, which cannot be approved without the approved
LCA. For employees new to the H-1B program, employment cannot begin
until the petition is approved by INS.
Unfortunately, in attempting to comply with the new laws, the Labor
Department doubled the length of the LCA form in January, and has had
great difficulty making its automated receipt and approval process
work. The regular time for routine LCA approval grew to three to four
weeks in February, but for some weeks, up to eighty percent of the LCAs
had to be re-filed due to government operations problems. Add to this
the INS processing time of two to three months, and the entire H-1B
processing time grows to three to four months. Needless to say,
employers have great difficulty in keeping up with their business needs
when new personnel cannot begin work for three or four months.
The H-1B program was also the subject of massive and controversial
``interim final'' regulations that were published in December 2000 and
effective on January 19, 2001. Employers were dismayed that some of the
most difficult new requirements for ``non-dependent'' employers were
never published as proposed regulations for public comment before
becoming effective, or appeared to far exceed the spirit and the letter
of the statutory law. Equally troubling was the imposition of
complicated new requirements that will require substantial changes in
the way that business is done and records are kept, by large national
corporations and small businesses alike, without any education period
or guidance from the Labor Department to help employers come into
compliance.
Similar problems with Labor Department H-1B regulations
necessitated corrective legislation in 1991 and a federal court
injunction in 1997. While many had hoped that these extreme remedies
would not be necessary after the 2000 legislation, it does not appear
that the lessons of the past have yet been learned. The public was
granted an extension of the comment period to April 19, 2001, and it is
hoped that the Department will now take measures that will obviate the
need for litigation or corrective legislation.
The 2000 Act that increased H-1B nonimmigrant numbers will expire
in 2003, in the middle of the next Congress. Unless extended, the
expiration of 2000 Act will allow the H-1B cap to revert to its 1990
level, which is less than half of current usage. Thus, it will not be
long before the committee will need to address a continuation of the H-
1B program that was refined in 2000.
A common complaint of nonimmigrants and their employers is that
nonimmigrant spouses are not granted work authorization as an incidence
of their dependent visa. This is particularly true for intra-company
transferees, many of whom have spouses who were employed prior to their
transfer to the U.S., but who now cannot accept any type of employment
unless they separately qualify for a principal nonimmigrant work visa.
In the modern era, in which both spouses of a family often expect to
work, this is a policy that needs to be rectified for each relevant
nonimmigrant category.
Employees who qualify can stay lawfully in the U.S. and work as
nonimmigrants while completing the employment-based permanent residence
(``green card'') process. At the professional and managerial level,
almost all beneficiaries (employees) are in fact lawfully employed as
nonimmigrants by the petitioning employer during the green card
process, because they can qualify for H, L, E, or other nonimmigrant
visas. It is necessary to employ the nonimmigrant visas because the
permanent residence process can take several years to accomplish.
Unfortunately, there is no lawful nonimmigrant work status for skilled
or other essential workers (other than for seasonal work such as at
resorts), and thus they do not have a legitimate way of being employed
in the U.S. during the lengthy green card process. This is a serious
problem that undermines the integrity of the employment-based immigrant
program and deserves close attention from the committee.
employment-based immigration for permanent residence
Current immigration laws provide for several categories of
employment-based immigrants, including persons of ``extraordinary
ability'' and those petitioned by a U.S. employer for employment as a
researcher, manager, executive, professional, skilled or other
essential worker.
In most cases, the employment-based immigrant process has three
steps: labor certification, immigrant petition, and adjustment of
status application (or immigrant visa application to a U.S. consulate
overseas).
Labor certification is the Department of Labor's approval of the
employer's labor market test as a condition to petitioning for an
immigrant employee. The employer applies by precisely reporting the
job, wages offered, job requirements, recruitment efforts, and the
results of recruitment. Since the introduction of streamlined
procedures in 1996, the labor certification program has seen tremendous
improvements; petitions can take as little as two or three months for
``historically certifiable'' occupations. On the other hand,
applications that are not eligible for the streamlined procedures
remain unapproved for two years or more.
Critics of employment-based immigration deride the labor
certification process, although they suggest no workable alternative.
Supporters of the program would prefer a system that reflected
employers' real world practices rather than the artificial, after-the-
fact labor market test that is now required. In overhauling the labor
certification program, it is possible that an attestation process could
be the path to a more workable and effective approach.
Upon the approval of the labor certification, the employer files
the employment-based immigrant petition with the INS. Although
virtually pro forma in many cases, the INS has an uneven record on
petition approvals. Among similar petitions, some are approved in two
or three months, some remain unadjudicated 18 months later or more. The
public has a very difficult time understanding these anomalies, and
employers have urged the INS to adopt a ``first in, first out''
approach to processing immigrant petitions.
Once the immigrant petition is approved, the employee may file the
adjustment application, assuming that the quota eligibility is reached.
Adjudication of adjustment applications, the end of the green card
process, has been a serious problem for the INS. After a virtual freeze
on adjustment adjudications in 1999 and 2000, applications are once
again being adjudicated. However, waits of two years for the decision
are not uncommon.
Due to the low adjudication levels at INS, the number of
employment-based immigrant visas issued has been far below the current
quota levels set in 1990. At the same time, the immigration of persons
born in China and India was delayed by up to two or three years due to
the per-country limits, despite the fact that tens of thousands of
employment-based visas were going unused. This particular problem was
addressed in the 2000 Act, and we are already beginning to see some
relief for China and India born applicants.
The availability of employment-based immigrant visas is not
expected to last. The 1990 immigrant visa levels simply don't match the
levels of employment-based nonimmigrants and their dependents. Put
simply, if INS were approving employment-based green cards at the rate
that applications are being filed, we would have backlogs for all
nationalities, not just India and China. Once the INS picks up the pace
of adjudications, we will run out of employment-based immigrant
numbers. This inevitability will need to be addressed in the near
future, perhaps in this Congress, if the INS is able to improve its
adjudication volume.
When the principal immigrant files the adjustment of status
application, it is normally accompanied by concurrent applications for
the EAD and travel permission (advance parole). The INS is required by
regulation to provide the EAD within 90 days, and it is usually made
available at just that point. Unfortunately, as with family-sponsored
cases, the EAD is only granted for one year, although the adjustment
process almost always takes longer. And since there is no grace period
while INS adjudicates the renewal, applicants are obligated to file the
renewal almost six months before the expiration. As a result,
applicants must file for renewal of their EAD only months after the
first EAD is approved. As noted above, this situation could be remedied
easily by changing the EAD duration or allowing for a grace period.
diversity visa lottery program
Our immigration law also provides for a visa lottery that allots
55,000 visas per year to nationals of countries with low ``sending''
levels (of immigrants to the U.S.) that are located in ``low sending''
regions. The program is promoted to encourage diversity in legal
immigration.
asylum from persecution
America has long stood as a beacon and haven to refugees seeking
protection from persecution in other countries. Americans have
respected this principle since the earliest days of our nation, and the
obligation to protect refugees has been codified in international law
through treaties and protocols. Our current asylum laws were enacted in
1980, and substantially restricted in 1996.
Generally, persons fleeing persecution apply for asylum at a port
of entry upon arrival or after they have been in the U.S. for a period
of time. One year after a grant of asylum by the INS or an Immigration
Judge, the individual is permitted to apply for adjustment to permanent
residence. Numerous studies have examined and confirmed the difficulty
that many refugees have coming forward to speak about their
persecution, particularly if they have been subject to torture or
witnessed grisly acts or killings.
When Congress enacted the provisions for ``expedited removal''
(exclusion without hearing) at the ports of entry and the requirement
of mandatory detention, there was an attempt to permit asylum seekers
to avoid expedited removal and detention. Regrettably, the well-
intentioned protection procedures have not been adequate to prevent the
incarceration of bona fide refugees who, sometimes after many months on
incarceration, are finally recognized as worthy of asylum protection.
For individuals who make it into the U.S. and are not incarcerated,
there remains the new provision that requires that the asylum
application must be filed within one year of entry, or it will not be
entertained, regardless of the merits of the asylum claim.
The 1996 law also lowered the number of asylum grantees who could
be granted permanent residence to 5000 persons per year. Since
approvals of asylum applications are much higher than this, the backlog
of asylees seeking permanent residence grows larger every year. Without
permanent residence, these refugees have not yet really been accepted
in American society, and they are not permitted to begin acquiring the
required years of residence to qualify for naturalization.
The draconian provisions enacted in 1996 were a reflection of
certain perceptions of the time, but experience has shown that these
restrictions have caused more hardship to refugees and done more harm
to our national principles than the perceived problems they were
supposed to address. Now five years later, the committee would do well
to review the effectiveness and the harm caused by these provisions and
make recommendations for their amendment or elimination.
naturalization
Another value long held by Americans is that newcomers who
subscribe to our principles and the U.S. Constitution should be able to
become citizens without great difficulty. This approach is in sharp
contrast to many other countries that look only to the parents to
determine citizenship (``blood'') or that have very lengthy, difficult
and subjective naturalization procedures.
A major focus of the INS in the past decade, naturalization is very
popular among permanent residents and the numbers of naturalized
citizens has increased significantly. These increased numbers are in
spite of the fact that naturalization is ``hard to get started''
(according to many would-be applicants) and takes a significant amount
of time to complete.
agencies adjudicating immigration petitions and applications
In its ideal form, the U.S. immigration process is a system of laws
and objective requirements, in contrast to so many countries where
immigration procedures are unwritten and qualifying criteria are
uncertain or largely subjective.
Unfortunately, the actual practice can lag far behind these
important ideals. Although great strides have been made in some areas,
the responsible government agencies have not yet achieved the
uniformity, predictability, or timeliness that the public expects and
deserves in the adjudication of applications and petitions. The
adjudication of immigration benefits is ultimately a ``service"
enterprise, but not all levels of agency management understand this.
All too often, the outcome of an the application hinges on the
particular region it is filed in and the particular examiner who
processes the case. This is particularly noticeable to national
employers who petition for similar cases around the country and are
forced daily to comply with ``special'' rules for each jurisdiction,
although nation-wide law is being applied. Similarly, employers and
their attorneys are too often dismayed by approvals and denials of
almost identical petitions without an explanation.
Last year's legislation set out a number of guidelines for
processing times that, if followed, would bring great improvements. In
addition, the legislation authorized appropriations to supplement the
funds already received from application fees of the examinations fee
account. As the committee knows, immigration enforcement activities are
supported by appropriations, while all INS adjudications are funded
solely by user fees. Some appropriations for the adjudications
function, if targeted and properly monitored, could provide the
resources to the INS to develop the infrastructure needed to make
substantial productivity gains in the future.
It is also likely that the committee will address the separation of
the enforcement and adjudication functions of the INS. While all sides
appear to agree that the functions need to be separated, it is
important to recognize that the separation functions will need
coordination and need to be accountable to a high level, single office
with the authority to make decisions that are binding on both
functions. While considering INS reorganization, Congress needs to
ensure that adequate congressional appropriations are made available to
adjudications to improve customer service and to offset the costs of
those adjudications for which no fee is charged or from which funds are
diverted.
There are several different proposals on this subject, and the
language of the bill introduced last Congress in the Senate by the
former chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee would make a
good starting point for consideration.
Attached at the end is a brief list of recommended INS
administration actions that would accomplish significant improvements
for family and business petitioners and their immigrant beneficiaries,
that could take place prior to any reorganization and that, in fact,
would help ensure that any reorganization of the INS is successful.
conclusion
U.S. immigration policy based admissions on three main pillars:
family unification, employment, and protection of refugees. Our
policies and laws in all three areas have become out of date as to
numbers and purposes, and overly restricted by patchwork of accumulated
amendments and rigid rules. The fact that all three areas are
needlessly complicated and substantially backlogged points clearly to
the need for streamlining and simplification to produce modern policies
and procedures that will work long into the 21st Century.
Interested members of the public and their organizations are eager
to work with the committee to develop up-to-date and smarter
immigration policy and practices. Through its oversight responsibility,
the committee needs to help guide the agencies to succeed in providing
timely, predictable, affordable, and accurate adjudications. Through
legislation, the committee will need to review our out-of-date quota
limits for immigrant and nonimmigrant categories and raise them to meet
America's interests in the 21st Century. In addition, the committee
will need to look to new solutions and new categories to provide for
lawful regulation of entry and work authorization for those our country
needs.
Thank you again for this opportunity to testify on this important
subject.
Warren R. Leiden
Attachment
Recommended INS Administrative Actions
The following actions can be taken by INS without statutory change,
and would provide significant improvements to both efficiency for the
agency and outcomes for the public.
<bullet> Re-institute concurrent filings of employment-based immigrant
petitions and adjustments of status. Prior to the advent of the
INS Service Centers, all adjustment of status applications and
immigrant visas petitions were filed at local district offices.
When INS instituted the Service Centers, the agency initially
transferred all processing of immigrant visa petitions to the
service centers, but continued to require that adjustment of
status applications be filed at the local offices. This
requirement meant that employment-based immigrants had to wait
until the Service Center had approved their immigrant visa
petition until they could file for adjustment of status at the
local office, adding many months to the process, and delaying
the time when they could file for employment authorization. For
individuals whose nonimmigrant status was expiring, or children
of applicants who were approaching 21, this delay often meant
losing eligibility for adjustment and work authorization. Now
that the INS has moved adjustment of status processing to the
Service Centers as well, there is no need to continue to
require separate filing of the petition and adjustment
applications. Concurrent filing would eliminate the hardship
caused to immigrants and their families from the delays and
backlogs in processing immigrant visa petitions, preserve their
work authorization and the eligibility of dependent children
who might otherwise ``age out.''
<bullet> Lengthen the validity period of Employment Authorization
Documents and combine them with Advance Parole. Current INS
regulations allow applicants for adjustment of status to apply
for work authorization. Regulations also prohibit adjustment
applicants from traveling abroad without first obtaining
permission from the INS (called Advance Parole). The vast
majority of adjustment applicants apply for both of these
documents concurrently with their adjustment applications. INS
policy is to issue work authorization and advance parole only
for one year. If the adjustment applications take longer than
one year to process (which is the normal case), the applicant
must reapply for both documents and pay additional fees. These
applications further aggravate the INS workload, and are a
nuisance for applicants. INS should provide work authorization
and advance parole through the anticipated duration of the
adjustment processing, and should combine these documents into
one to minimize processing and backlog.
<bullet> Allow individuals to travel outside the U.S. while extension
or changes of status requests are pending. Current INS policy
and regulations are extremely ambiguous with regard to the
status of applications for extension or change of status if the
individual must travel abroad while the case is pending. In
some circumstances the INS considers the petition ``abandoned''
and in others will process the case to conclusion, but require
the individual to wait outside of the U.S. until the approval
is issued, or file an additional application after entry to
have the decision ``apply'' in their case. To avoid
unnecessarily duplicative filings upon return to the U.S. of
these individuals, INS should determine that such cases may
continue while the beneficiary is temporarily abroad, and
should state categorically that any decision reached after the
return of the individual to change or extend their status is
binding, regardless of any intervening departure.
<bullet> Reduce the proliferation of resource-intensive Requests for
Evidence (RFEs). INS adjudicators are given wide latitude in
interpreting the eligibility standards for immigrant and
nonimmigrant visa categories, resulting in an increasing number
of requests for evidence. INS customers receive wildly
inconsistent adjudications and RFEs requesting documentation
unrelated to any known standards in statute or regulation. In
addition, each of these RFEs requires the examiner to take
extra time to articulate the request, a supervisor's review,
and resources to print and mail. It also requires additional
time and resources to process and review the responses from the
applicants/petitioners, a waste of valuable resources. By
developing and publicizing clearly articulated standards for
eligibility, the Service would improve consistency and reduce
its workload.
<bullet> Enforce a policy of not revisiting decisions already made in
the absence of fraud or changed law or facts. Currently, INS
adjudicators are issuing RFEs and denials on such matters as
extensions of status where there has been no change in the
previously approved circumstances, wasting INS and public
resources.
<bullet> Provide for the issuance of EADs to fiancees with approval of
the fiancee petition. INS regulations provide that K-1 fiancees
of U.S. citizens who enter the U.S. to get married are
authorized to work incident to their status. However, the
Service requires these individuals to file a separate
application for an Employment Authorization Document after they
arrive, and wait up to 90 days for issuance of the card (K-1
status requires the couple to be married within 90 days of
entry). To avoid needless duplication of adjudications, the INS
should automatically issue an employment authorization document
with the petition approval, so the individual may commence work
immediately upon entry.
<bullet> Enable foreign student advisors to authorize optional
practical training. Foreign students in F-1 status are eligible
for two primary types of ``practical training'' work
authorization: curricular practical training (which involves an
established training program that is part of the curriculum)
and optional practical training (which is not directly part of
the curriculum and which can be undertaken during studies or
for one year after graduation). Currently, the foreign student
advisor at the institution may authorize curricular practical
training by endorsing the student's documents. However, the
student must apply to INS for an Employment Authorization
Document to engage in optional practical training. Enabling
foreign student advisors to authorize optional practical
training would avoid the needless processing of routinely
approved applications.
<bullet> Develop standardized and accurate processing time reports and
make them available on the web. Currently, each of the four INS
Service Centers has its own format for reporting its processing
times for different petitions and applications, and this
information is not generally available to the public on the INS
web site. In addition, the processing times do not reflect the
actual time between the date the Center receives a case and the
date the applicant/petitioner receives a decision. The Centers
do not report their ``front log,'' the delay between the date a
case is physically received and the date it is entered into
their computer database, nor the delays between the date a
decision is made and the date that decision is actually mailed.
In addition, the Centers do not report the oldest date of any
cases pending, rather the average date that the ``majority'' of
cases pending were filed.
Chairman Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Leiden, and I apologize
for mispronouncing your name at the outset. I look forward to
some questions and discussion, and thank you for sharing your
expertise. You have been involved in this field for a long
time. As I dig into it, I notice the complexity of it is great,
so I appreciate your simplifying some of it for us.
Mr. Moore, it is delightful to have you here in the
Committee room ready to testify, and we look forward to hearing
your comments.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN MOORE, SENIOR FELLOW, CATO INSTITUTE,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Senator Brownback. It is a pleasure
and a privilege to testify on this important subject. I am an
economist and I thought I would talk a little bit about the
economic consequences of immigration.
I apologize for being late. My immigrant cab driver got
lost. I am only joking, actually, but I did have an immigrant
cab driver.
Senator Durbin, I am a fellow Chicagoan, so I know what you
speak of when you talk about the immigrant neighborhoods in
Chicago. It is one of the real rich traditions of that great
city.
I think that what is going on in this issue is that what
has really emerged over the last 15 or 20 years is a consensus
among economists on immigration that you don't see on most
other issues that you all deal with everyday. On budget and tax
issues, there is so much contradictory evidence from economists
about what is good for our economy, and on labor issues, and so
on.
I don't think that is so on immigration. I think today we
really do have a pretty solid consensus now that immigrants
are, on balance, good for the economy. Now, that is not to say
there aren't some costs associated with immigration, but I
think that if you look at the studies by groups ranging from
the Cato Institute, to the Urban Institute, to Hoover, to the
National Research Council, all of these groups are coming out
with the same kinds of direction, which is that the impact is
positive, not negative. That is the big picture.
Now, you asked, Senator, since this is your first hearing,
for just a bit of a scene-setting, and I thought I would just
spend my few minutes doing that. And if I may, I would just ask
if my written testimony could be submitted for the record and
then I thought I would just talk about some of the highlights.
Chairman Brownback. It will be in the record.
Mr. Moore. What I thought would be most helpful, because I
really believe a picture is worth a thousand words, is if you
have a copy of my testimony, I thought I would just go through
some of the charts that we have at the back of the testimony.
There are 9 or 10 charts, and if you have that, I thought I
would just quickly go through some of the demographic and
economic impact data.
Chart 1 shows you basically something that is just the
total number of immigrants that come to this country throughout
history, starting in the early 1800's. As this chart shows, we
are now in what I call the third great wave of immigration to
this country. The first great wave was in the middle of the
19th century. The second great wave was the Ellis Island
immigrants who came around 1900, and as you can see, there is a
big spike in that period between about 1900 and 1920.
Since around the mid-1970's, we have been experiencing a
third great wave, and the number of immigrants who are coming
in today in absolute numbers is roughly the same numbers that
came in around 1900. So this is a fairly high number in terms
of absolute numbers.
If you try to look at both legal and illegal immigration
together, the estimates are that we let about 1 million
foreign-born into the country per year. That is the absolute
number, but if you look at Graph 2, what you will see is that
really the best way of measuring the impact of immigration on
our society and our economy is how many immigrants are we
letting in relative to how many people are already in the
country.
There, you can see that actually we are fairly low with
respect to immigration today. We let about 4 immigrants in per
year, per 1,000 native residents of the country. That is
substantially lower than many previous periods in history,
although it is true that since around 1950 that number has been
rising to some extent.
Finally, on Figure 3, this just shows you what percentage
of Americans here today are foreign-born, how much of a country
of immigrants are we today. This number has also been rising
since about 1970. We are now, I think, according to the 2000
Census data, at about 9 to 10 percent of Americans now being
foreign-born. That is substantially higher than, for example,
in 1970, but the historical average is about 10 to 11 percent.
So we are actually slightly lower a Nation of foreign-born
today than we have been throughout our history.
So the point here is just that I don't think the numbers
are out of control. They are higher than they have been in some
of the past decades, but in terms of an historical perspective,
we are not really very high with respect to our numbers.
Now, if you look at the last 20 years, as I said before,
the numbers have been rising. We have allowed somewhere in the
neighborhood of 15 million immigrants into the United States
over the last 20 years, and that is a fairly large number of
people.
The interesting thing is that that period of fairly high
levels of immigration have also corresponded with a period of
fairly high economic prosperity. These have been prosperous
times, except for the last 3 or 4 months, for Americans. In
fact, if you look at the statistics of what people thought
would be the impact of immigration, people were concerned, for
example, that if we let in a lot of immigrants, it would
increase poverty, it would increase unemployment of natives,
and so on.
The next series of chart just show that actually over this
period, for example, poverty rates especially for black
Americans have fallen, even though immigration has been
relatively high. If you look at Figures 5 and 6, it shows that
real median family income has continued to rise even as
immigration has been relatively high. Interestingly enough, a
lot of the immigrant opponents argue that immigration is bad
for black Americans. But the truth is that this period has
actually been a period of relative income growth for African-
Americans. The unemployment rate in this era has fallen
dramatically, even though we have had a number of immigrants
come in. In fact, for black Americans the unemployment rate has
fallen by half in the last 20 years.
If you look at Figure 8, this is one of the most important
points of our study, and that is that the impact of immigration
on taxes and public services is one of the most important
economic consequences of immigration.
What we find is that immigrants actually have a fairly
positive impact on the Federal deficit situation, and the
reason is that immigrants tend to come to the United States
when they are young, and that means that we get the benefit of
their working years. Oftentimes, average immigrants come to the
United States between the ages of 18 and 30, and that means
that for their working lives we get the benefit of their labor,
whereas in many cases they were educated by the sending
country. That is a huge net positive impact of immigration.
The other part of this is that very few immigrants come to
the United States when they are over the age of 65, and that
means when you look at the major Federal program in the
country, which of course is Social Security, you get a real
large one-generation net benefit from immigrants, because what
happens is the immigrants come in at, say, age 25 and they work
for 40 years, paying payroll taxes during those years.
Now, of course, when they retire they will get Social
Security, but their children will be paying in, paying for
their benefits. So you get this kind of one-generation net
benefit from immigrants, and it is an important fiscal benefit.
In fact, just skipping ahead, because I see my time is up
and I will close this out, but if you look at Table 11, what it
shows is that only about 3 percent of immigrants who come to
the United States are over the age of 65. That means very few
are collecting Social Security. By the way, even those who do
arrive over the age of 65 are not eligible for Social Security
because they didn't pay into the program.
But if you look at Table 12--and this is kind of the crux
of the matter--if you look at the Social Security actuary
numbers, what they show is that immigrants are an incredibly
important benefit to the financial solvency of both the Social
Security and Medicare systems. We just basically used the
Social Security Administration actuary numbers to calculate
what that net benefit is to Americans, and over the next 50
years the net benefit of allowing about 800,000 to 1 million
immigrants per year, which is sort of the current policy, will
lead to a net benefit of about $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion to
the Social Security system.
So I think I will just conclude this by saying I think the
evidence is fairly solid that immigrants don't cost native
Americans. They benefit our economy, and I would hope that we
stick with the policy that we have right now because we have
kind of inadvertently stumbled upon an immigration policy that
works pretty well for the immigrants and native-born Americans
as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:]
Stephen Moore, Senior Fellow in Economics, Cato Institute
Thank you Senator Brownback for the privilege of being asked to
testify before your Committee on the impact of immigrants on the U.S.
economy.
I am very pleased that despite the partisan battles over economic
issues that the Senate finds itself embroiled in on an almost daily
basis, a consensus seems to have emerged in the Congress that
immigrants are--as they have been throughout most of our history--
beneficial to our economy and assets to our society in other ways as
well. This favorable attitude regarding immigration on Capitol Hill is
evidenced by the pro-immigrant legislation that has passed the House
and Senate in recent years and the wise rejection of many anti-
immigration measures.
This pro-immigration environment that has emerged on Capitol Hill
reflects the growing consensus within the economics profession that
immigrants are on balance economic assets, not liabilities. To be sure,
economists still argue about the size of the benefit of immigration to
the U.S. economy, but almost all of the best research indicates that
the direction of the impact is on balance positive. There is also
lively debate about whether some groups of Americans--the lowest
skilled Americans, blacks, earlier arriving immigrants, for example--
are adversely impacted by immigration. But even here, I am pleased to
report that more and more of the research findings seems to suggest
that the extent to which low income Americans are hurt by the presence
of immigrants has been exaggerated.
Let us start with the big picture. The past 20 years has been a
period of fairly high levels of immigration, particularly in absolute
numbers. See Figure 1. Over the past 20 years, the United States has
legally admitted roughly 15 million immigrants and refugees. We now
admit almost 4 new immigrants per year for every 1000 Americans, which
is higher than in the past 50 years, but about half the historical
average. See Figure 2. Still, the percentage of Americans that are
foreign born has risen from about 6% in the 1970s to almost 10% today.
See Figure 3.
At earlier times in our nation's history, as many as 15% of
Americans were foreign born. So although our current levels of
immigration are by no means unprecedented, it is true, nonetheless,
that for the past 25 years, the U.S. has been quite generous in
immigrant admissions and that we are now in the midst of a new great
wave of immigration to these shores not experienced since the great
wave of Europeans who arrived through Ellis Island at the turn of the
last century.
If immigrants were economically harmful, we would certainly expect
to see visible signs of the damage to the economy by now. In fact, 20
years ago, many advocates of lower level of immigration, or even in
some extreme cases, a moratorium on immigration, argued that continued
high levels of immigration would lead to such economic problems as: (1)
increased unemployment for native born workers; (2) higher poverty
rates of native born Americans; (3) lower incomes for American workers;
(4) increased economic problems for minority workers; (5) a huge surge
in welfare dependency; and (6) lower overall rates of economic growth.
But it didn't happen. None of these claims have been evidenced in
the U.S economy.
Now it is undeniable that when immigrants come to the United
States, the labor force competition may very well cause some American
born workers to lose their jobs (in the short term) through
displacement; they may cause some wage rates to fall or not rise as
fast as they might have otherwise, and some immigrants do take
advantage of the welfare system. The relevant policy question is
whether we have observed these impacts on an economy-wide level. And
here there is little debate. High levels of immigration have
corresponded with improvement in each of these areas, not with the
problems getting worse. For example:
<bullet> UNEMPLOYMENT--In the period 1978-82 the U.S. unemployment rate
was between 6 and 8%. Today, the U.S. unemployment rate is
between 4 and 5%. The U.S. economy has shown a remarkable
ability to absorb new workers into the economy--both natives
and immigrants--without causing job losses. Between 1980 and
2000 the U.S. became a job creation machine, with some 35
million more Americans employed today than 20 years ago. The
U.S. has created more new jobs in the past 20 years than all of
Japan and Europe combined since 1980. In fact, despite the fact
that the U.S. takes in nearly as many immigrants in a year as
does all of Japan and Europe combined, it is the U.S.--the
nation of immigrants--that now has the lowest unemployment rate
in the industrialized world.
<bullet> POVERTY--The poverty rate for Americans has fallen over the
past 20 years for all races. The latest poverty rate statistics
indicate that poverty is lower than at anytime since the mid
1970s. See Figure 4. A recent study by the Center of
Immigration Studies reports that since 1980 the rate of poverty
among immigrants has risen. Of course, if the overall level of
poverty has fallen during this period, it means that the
reduction in poverty for native born Americans has been all the
more impressive. In sum, there is no evidence that immigrants
increase poverty among natives, in fact the evidence suggests
the opposite effect.
<bullet> WELFARE USE--There is no evidence that immigration has led to
higher rates of welfare dependency. Since 1993, welfare
caseloads have fallen by an astonishing 50% across the nation.
In fact, welfare usage of the foreign born has fallen faster
than for native-born Americans.
<bullet> INCOMES--Median family income in the U.S. has risen over the
period 1981-1998 from $39,000 to $45,800 or by roughly 16
percent, according to recent Census Bureau data. With inflation
properly measured, median family income has risen since 1981 by
closer to 25 percent. Again, wage suppression does not appear
to have occurred in this period of high immigration. See Figure
5.
<bullet> IMPACT ON MINORITIES--There is still in America far too wide
an income gap between the races. But over the past 20 years of
high levels of immigration, the income gap has actually shrunk,
not widened. See Figure 6. The income gap between blacks and
white and between men and women has narrowed to its lowest
level in recorded history. From 1981 to from 60 percent of 69
percent--the highest ever recorded. For women, the gap narrowed
from 89 percent to 94 percent. The black unemployment rate has
fallen much faster then the white unemployment rate, as has the
black poverty rate. See Figure 7. In sum, we have had record
immigration and we have had record economic improvements for
blacks.
What can we conclude about the impact of immigration on the U.S.
economy since 1980? Over the past 20 years the U.S.
What can we conclude about the impact of immigration on the U.S.
economy since 1980? Over the past 20 years the U.S. economy has
experienced a $10 to $15 trillion increase in net wealth, according the
Federal Reserve Board data, the GDP has grown by nearly 80 percent
(after inflation), and the inflation rate has fallen to nearly zero.
The National Bureau of Economic Research recently described the past 18
years as the longest and strongest period of sustained prosperity in
the U.S. in this century. If immigrants are somehow a ``cost'' to the
U.S. economy, that cost has been virtually invisible. The experience of
the past two decades puts a huge burden on the shoulders of those who
contend that immigrants are economically burdensome.
But I believe a stronger case can be made. Immigrants have
contributed directly to America's unprecedented economic expansion of
the past two decades. Moreover, I believe the demographic evidence
suggests that it will be in America's self-interest to continue
admitting immigrants over at least the next 20 years.
In 1998 I completed a study jointly published by the Cato Institute
on the economic and fiscal impact of immigrants to the United States.
The study was entitled ``A Fiscal Portrait of the Newest Americans.'' I
would like to insert the study in the record. But allow me to now
relate to you the major conclusions based on our own research findings
and corroborated by several dozen prestigious economic studies
published in major economic journals.
(1) Immigrants and their children increase economic growth. In the most
comprehensive study ever conducted on immigration, the National
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences found that
immigrants inflate the incomes of U.S.-born workers by at least
$10 billion each year. This estimate is highly conservative
because it does not include the impact of immigrant-owned
businesses or the impact of high-skilled immigrants on overall
productivity. Still, the NRC estimates that the typical
immigrant and his or her children pay an estimated $80,000 more
in taxes that they will receive in local, state and federal
benefits over their lifetimes.
(2) Immigrants pay their own way when it comes to services used and
taxes paid. Immigrants use many government services--
particularly at the state and local levels--but they are also
pay a lot in taxes. Conservatively estimated, in 1998 immigrant
households paid an estimated $133 billion in direct taxes to
federal, state and local governments. Adding the tax receipts
paid by immigrant businesses brings the total annual tax
contributions of immigrants to about $162 billion for 1998. In
any given year, immigrants may use more in services than they
pay in taxes, but over their lifetimes, immigrants are a fiscal
bargain to native taxpayers. As their earnings rise over time,
immigrant taxes exceed the benefits received. See Figure 8.
(3) Not all immigrants make the same tax payments or impose the
same costs. The best predictors of immigrant success and thus their tax
payments are their skill levels, education attainment, and ability to
speak English. In general, low-skilled, low-educated immigrants and
non-English speaking immigrants use more government services and pay
less in taxes than those with high skills.
(4) Immigrants have a rapid rate of economic assimilation after
they arrive in the U.S. As noted above, one of the most important
economic characteristics of immigrants is that their earnings rise over
time in the U.S. Hence, during their first years after arrival in the
U.S. earnings are low and immigrants typically are net drains on the
public coffers. But over time--usually after 10-15 years in the U.S--
they turn into net contributors. This economic assimilation pattern
varies by ethnicity and country of origin, but is still evident today
as it was 30 years ago when researchers first began to study the rate
of economic success by immigrants over time. We also this economic
assimilation when it comes to poverty rates, unemployment, and home
ownership. Figure 9 and 10.
(5) The age profile of immigrants is a huge demographic bonus to
native-born Americans. Most immigrants arrive in the United States in
the prime of their working years. For example, more than 75 percent of
immigrants who come to the U.S. are above the age of 18 upon arrival.
This means that there are roughly 17.5 million immigrants in the U.S.
today whose educational and rearing costs were borne by the citizens of
the sending country, not American taxpayers. The total discounted
present value windfall to the United States of obtaining this human
capital at no expense to American taxpayers is roughly $1.43 trillion.
Immigration can be thought of as an enormous $1.4 trillion transfer of
wealth from the rest of the world to the United States Immigration is a
form of reverse foreign aid.
(6) Immigrants are huge net contributors to the Social Security and
Medicare programs. Only 3 percent of immigrants enter the U.S. over the
age of 65, whereas 12 percent of Americans are over 65--and that
percentage will grow to 15% within 20 years. Based on the calculations
of the actuaries at the Social Security Administration, this study
estimates the total value to the Social Security system from current
levels of immigration. I find that the total net benefit (taxes paid
over benefits received) to the Social Security system in 1998 dollars
from continuing current levels of immigration is nearly $500 billion
from 1998-2022 and nearly $2.0 trillion through 2072. Continuing
immigration is an essential component to solving the long term
financing problem of the Social Security system.
(7) Immigrant entrepreneurs are a major source of new jobs and
vitality in the American economy. Most immigrant businesses--like most
businesses started by American-born entrepreneurs--are not highly
successful or large employers. But many of America's largest and most
profitable businesses in today were started by immigrants Immigrants
who entered the U.S. as refugees, economic immigrants, or family-
sponsored immigrants are now at the helm of some of the nation's
leading and rapidly growing technology businesses: Hungarian-born
Andrew S. Grove, recently retired as Chairman and CEO of Intel;
Algerian-born Eric Benhamou, heads 3Com Corp; Iranian-born brothers
Farzad and Farid Dibachi founded and heads Diba, Inc.; and Uganda-born
Ajay Shah, is the chief executive of Smart Modules Technologies. The
Table shows the income and employment generated by 10 highly successful
immigrant firms. These 10 firms alone generated $28 billion in revenues
and employed 75,000 American workers in 1997. The tax revenues paid in
1997 by the companies directly and their employees was at least $3
billion.
Immigration and the Demographic Crisis in Developed Nations
One of the greatest unheralded economic challenges facing the
industrialized nations is the demographic bubble due to unprecedented
low birth rates. Economists are just starting to confront the huge
economic challenge that the population implosion represents to the
developed nations of the world. The birth rates in nations like Japan,
Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are well below replacement level
fertility. The U.S. is just slightly below replacement level fertility.
Some industrialized nations, including Japan, Germany, France, Spain,
and Italy, are significantly below replacement level fertility and
could experience a severe graying of their workforces. See Figure 14.
The U.S., by contrast has a demographic safety value: immigration.
This aging of workforces around the world could have profoundly
negative impacts on the economies of many of America's major
competitors. Consider, for example, the level of unfounded liabilities
in pension programs around the world. As bad as our Social Security
liability problem is, it is dwarfed by the huge levels of red ink in
the European nations. Immigration will allow the U.S. to smooth out the
bumps in our demographic wave in productive ways that most of our
competitor nations will not or cannot allow. Our immigrant heritage
allows us to bring in productive immigrant workers, who will, help pay
the cost of the retirement benefits of everyone sitting in this hearing
room.
Policy Conclusions
The U.S. legal immigration system works remarkably well, given that
it has been crafted in a piecemeal way over many years. Most immigrants
who come to the U.S. today are economic contributors on net. The system
of family and employer sponsored immigration is effective in getting
high quality immigrants to come to the U.S. and absorbing them rapidly
into the labor force and the culture. Immigrant workers have brought a
flexibility and a work ethic to the U.S. labor market that is sorely
absent in many of our major competitor nations.
It is noteworthy that it was not so many years ago that anti-
immigration groups would point glowingly to Japan as an example of a
nation that prospers without immigration. Japan is now entering its
second decade of depression. Part of the problem in Japan has been
economic policy mistakes. But some of its economic maladies are a
result of low birth rates and Also, the aging of the workforce in Japan
is a horrendous demographic crisis in that nation. The absence of
immigrants in Japan has already come to haunt this once formidable
economic powerhouse.
It would be economically advantageous to the U.S. to admit more--
perhaps twice as many--highly skilled immigrants each year. This is not
to say that low skilled immigrants are undesirable. But the economic
benefits to natives of immigrants with high skill and education levels
is higher than of immigrants with low skill and education levels. It is
also true that younger working age immigrants are more beneficial than
older immigrants.
It is worth emphasizing that many of the immigrants who have made
the largest contributions in our society in recent times came to the
U.S. without the characteristics that often presage success. The
initial starting place of an immigrant is not always predictive of
future success on these shores. Andrew Grove, co-founder of Intel, came
to the America as a refugee and a family that had no money, no skills,
and no special prospects for greatness. No economist would have likely
predicted the greatness he achieved. Social scientists have begun to
try to build profiles of immigrant success--by examining skill levels,
education, ethnicity, and so on. Such studies are not always very
predictive of economic success in the U.S.
It is in America's economic self-interest--and in the interests of
immigrants themselves--that we keep the golden gates open to newcomers
from every region of the world. The net gains to U.S. workers and
retirees are in the trillions of dollars. Given the coming retirement
of some 75 million baby boomers, we need the young and energetic
immigrants now more than ever before and therefore we need Congress to
keep the Golden Gates open.
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Chairman Brownback. Thank you. I am just flipping ahead to
your charts, and I didn't mean for you to have to cutoff too
quick.
We will run the clock at 7 minutes here, Dick, if that is
OK, and we can bounce back and forth.
Your Chart 15--does that show what happens in countries
that don't have the level of immigration that the United States
has?
Mr. Moore. What this shows is the long-term pension
deficits of many of our industrialized competitors. What it
shows is that although we obviously have a problem with our
long-term Social Security solvency, other countries have a much
more severe problems, and that is a result of two factors,
Senator.
One is that these other countries have very low birth
rates. In fact, if you look at Table 14, which is the one
preceding it, it just shows you that there are now 50 countries
in the world today that actually have fertility rates that are
below replacement level, and these are most of the
industrialized countries. Japan France, Italy, Germany, and
Spain have fertility rates that are, I would argue, of almost
crisis levels in terms of how low their fertility rates are.
The United States doesn't face that same problem, and the
reason is our birth rate has not fallen as much as other
countries has. But the other is that we have this incredible
advantage. We have what I call a demographic safety valve, and
that safety valve is that we can sort of smooth out this
demographic problem from the huge baby-boom generation by
letting in young immigrants. Japan and Italy and Spain don't
have that ability because they are not countries that accept
many immigrants.
Chairman Brownback. By economist's standards, are we at an
optimal immigration level, then, when you look at all of these
factors? Is that discussed by economists much?
Mr. Moore. It is really difficult to say.
Chairman Brownback. I kind of hate to look at it from a
numbers perspective because they are people that we are talking
about.
Mr. Moore. It is very difficult to say, and I would not
hazard to guess what the optimal number is. What I will say is
the policy that we have right now seems to be--we are able to
absorb this number that has come in. It is not causing social
problems. The economy has proven well able to absorb these
numbers of immigrants.
For example, if you look at unemployment rates, although we
have been the country among industrialized countries that has
let in more immigrants than all of the other industrialized
countries combined, guess what? We have half the unemployment
rate of most of these other countries. So our economy has shown
an incredible resilience in terms of absorbing these
immigrants.
If you asked me what my optimal policy would be, I would
think we could let more immigrants in, but I am pretty happy
with the policy we have right now, too.
Chairman Brownback. Is it safe to say that most economists
agree that there is not a connection between immigration levels
and unemployment rates?
Mr. Moore. Yes. I think there is a fairly strong consensus
among economists that there is a very weak relationship between
immigration and unemployment. In fact, all these studies find
almost no relationship. There is some controversy about whether
immigrants cause lower wages in some certain occupations. I
mean, we were talking about cab drivers. There is some argument
that is made that when you let in a number of immigrants in,
say, Chicago, they may be holding down the wage rate for what
cab drivers might make. But those wage limitations are only
found in some few specific industries and you don't find it
economy-wide or even city-wide.
Chairman Brownback. Mr. Leiden, I was disappointed to see
the figure that the number of refugees that we have allowed
into America over the past several years has declined by 40
percent. Now, I don't know if you have looked at these figures
or numbers, or if you have any thoughts as to why is that
number down. I have had different people explain and give
different reasons to me, but that was a striking number to me
as a new member of this Committee to see.
What is your take of why that number has decreased so
substantially in recent years?
Mr. Leiden. Well, I am not sure I can explain the past
history, although it is disturbing, as well, to me knowing how
many displaced persons, how many refugees there are around the
world. My understanding is that the refugee admissions number
is set close to the beginning of the fiscal year, and I think
it is something that the Committee really should be looking
closely at.
Chairman Brownback. As a person who has been on the Foreign
Relations Committee who has traveled to a number of very
difficult spots in the world, it is not that there is a
shortage of refugees. I have been in dire situations and
circumstances where the United States is doing quite a bit to
try to help as far as feeding assistance and health care
assistance. We have got some wonderful NGO's out there that are
really shouldering much of that difficulty, but we could also
do a lot more, I think, in trying to resolve some of these
conflicts, a lot of the plight, but also taking more refugees
ourselves. I was startled by that number, so it is something I
want to look at more.
Senator Durbin?
Senator Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I find myself
agreeing with the Cato Institute--
Chairman Brownback. The hearing is adjourned.
[Laughter.]
Senator Durbin. I am reminded of Sister Mary Casimir, who
used to exhort me to examine my conscience from time to time.
Mr. Moore, let me say that I do accept your premise and I
think you are right, and I like the information you have given
us here about our Nation's ability to absorb new numbers, but
let me take it the next step in pure economic terms.
If I read the paper correctly, in the last 10 years we have
seen a 60-percent increase in the Hispanic population in the
United States. In our home State of Illinois, the number is 69
percent--a dramatic influx of Hispanics into the United States,
into Illinois and many other States.
At the same time, the New York Times reported about 2 weeks
ago that when it came to school drop-outs, the drop-out rate
among white students was about 8 percent, among African-
Americans about 12 percent, among Hispanics 30 percent, 31
percent for Latinos. Now, in purely economic terms, not whether
it tugs at your heart at not, but in purely economic terms how
can we let this continue, to allow this mass of humanity to
come to the United States and not be educated? A substantial
portion of them are really condemned to be an under-class in
our society.
Your Table 9 notes that when it comes to income and poverty
and home ownership, these new immigrants are not doing quite as
well as those before them. So in the purest economic sense,
should we not be investing in this important part of our
economy, as you have identified it?
Mr. Moore. Senator, let me start by referring to that Table
9 that you referred to because I think you may be misreading
the point that I was trying to make there.
The point that this chart is meant to make, Senator, is
that immigrants have what we as economists call an economic
assimilation rate; that is to say, when immigrants first come
into the United States, generally they have earnings that are
lower than Americans do. What happens is that immigrants have
this very rapid rate--these are on balance, not all immigrants,
but on balance immigrants tend to climb the economic ladder of
success at a fairly steep rate of ascent.
So what this is meant to show is that if you look at the
new immigrants that are coming in today--for example, if you
look at, let's just say, people who are making over $50,000,
you can see that only 3 percent of new immigrants are making
more than $50,000. But what is showing is that the longer
period that immigrants are in the United States, the more they
become like Americans, and in some cases surpass Americans.
We don't have any evidence of this, but it is my belief
that if I am here 20 years from now and you are here 20 years
from now, these 1990 to 1996 immigrants will be just like those
who came in the 1970's; they will also have climbed the
economic ladder. So that was the point I was trying to make
with that.
Senator Durbin. I see your point, but if you will go back
to my earlier statistic about school drop-outs.
Mr. Moore. Well, first of all, I agree it is incredibly
troubling, and it is true that the more education immigrants
have and the more skills they have, the better they are for the
U.S. economy. So I think I agree with your premise that it is
troubling, and I think that the solution needs to be we have to
put a big emphasis as a society on educating those immigrant
children because if you are talking about as we move into this
new information age society 30 percent of Latino kids without,
let's say, a high school education, they are not going to make
the kind of earnings that are going to make them major
contributors to the United States and they are not going to be
able to advance themselves. So I think what we have to do then
is concentrate on how do we get those immigrant kids educated.
Senator Durbin. Mr. Leiden, let me ask you about your
testimony and the chairman's question. As I read your
testimony, one of the reasons for the downturn in the number of
refugees is we capped it in 1996 and said 5,000 is all we are
going to take.
Mr. Leiden. Well, that is for asylum seekers; that is,
persons who apply for refuge once they are in the United
States. We capped the number who can get permanent residence.
So there are tens of thousands of persons who have been granted
and recognized as bona fide refugees who have asylum status,
but they can't get the permanent residence.
That is distinguished from the overseas refugee programs
which I believe the Chairman was referring to, where there has
been a drop-off. And it is a decision for us. There are plenty
of people waiting at the gate. It is a decision for our country
to say how many people will we let in. As I said before, I
can't explain exactly why the decision was made last year as it
was.
Senator Durbin. At the risk of touching a hot button here,
we have at various times in our history decided that if you
have been in the United States ``x'' years, documented or
undocumented, you will have a chance to become legal. I believe
if you watch the caseload in my office you understand that.
Families have been created, homes have been built, jobs are
being served everyday, taxes are being paid, kids have
graduated from school. They are legal in everything but the
paper documentation in terms of what they are doing. They are
good, positive members of our society, but every time we get
close to this issue, people say amnesty for illegals, and that
is usually the end of the conversation.
I would like to ask each of you if you could comment on
that element historically in our immigration policy, where we
are today and what you think we should do.
Mr. Leiden. Well, as you know, there was the legalization
program in 1986 that legalized the status of simply the
principal, not their dependents, if they had been in the United
States since before January 1 of 1982. Some of the immigration
that we have seen and the backlogs that we see in the family
categories now are because only one parent was legalized and
got permanent residence and then their spouse--some of their
children are U.S. citizens and some are waiting for their
family based petitions to come forward.
There has been for a long time in the law a provision
called the registry provision. There was initially a date--I
believe it was in the 1930's--that persons who could establish
that they were in the United States since before that date
would qualify for permanent residence. It remained at that
early date, frankly, until the 1980's, but that helped people
who didn't have birth records, didn't have arrival records. A
lot of displaced persons came here after the Second World War.
That registry date was advanced in--I think in the 1990 Act
it was advanced to 1972. Now, that is a long time from now back
to 1972, but it is a way for a very long-term resident to
qualify for permanent residence, whether they have been
undocumented or in unlawful status, in a non-immigrant status
or something. That is something that we have had in the law
since before 1952 and it is something to look at.
I am aware of cases, as you mentioned, of the high school
graduate whose parents call my office and say, my daughter
wants to go to college, and frankly the options are very bleak.
Mr. Moore. Are you asking me about the amnesty?
Senator Durbin. Yes.
Mr. Moore. I am not trying to duck your question, but it is
a really tough policy issue because on the one hand you
mentioned this Korean woman in your opening statement. She is
not going to go back to Korea, she is going to be in the United
States. We ought to legalize her because there is no way that
someone like that is going back to Korea, nor should she go
back to Korea.
So these people who have been in the United States for 10
or 15 years and have been working and contributing, a strong
case can be made that we should make them legal citizens. On
the other hand, it is true that if we keep legalizing
immigrants who came in illegally, that is going to perhaps
encourage illegal immigration. So it is a tough issue.
I am not sure what the right answer is, but I do think that
there is a strong case, on balance, for letting people who have
been here for 15 years who aren't leaving to have legal status.
Senator Durbin. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brownback. Thank you.
I want to thank the panel for your presentation, and I look
forward to accessing your knowledge greatly as we move forward
in this Subcommittee. Thank you very much.
We will call up our second panel. It consists of Jennifer
Kenney, who is the Director of Global Deployment Shared
Services for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Her primary role is
oversight of the firm's U.S. immigration function. In addition
to immigration, Jennifer is International Mobility Project
Manager for the global firm in her work.
Next will be Cecilia Munoz, Vice President for the Office
of Research, Advocacy and Legislation for the National Council
of La Raza. She supervises all legislative and advocacy
activities conducted by NCLR covering a variety of issues of
importance to Latinos.
Karen Narasaki is one of the Nation's leading experts on
Asian immigration. She is President and Executive Director of
the National Asian Pacific American Consortium, a nationally
recognized voice on civil rights and immigration issues of
particular concern to Asian Pacific Americans.
Finally, our last panelist will be Elizabeth Dickson. She
is Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee for the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, and is Manager of Immigration Services for
Ingersoll-Rand, a leading diversified industrial equipment and
components manufacturer. She has been working in this field for
some period of time.
Ladies, we are delighted to have you all here with us
today, and I think we will go in the order that I introduced
you. I look forward to a short statement. If you would like, we
can put your entire statement in the record and then we would
like to have a good discussion if we can. We will run the clock
at 7 minutes. It is not governing, but if you could keep it
within that timeframe, it would be appreciated.
Ms. Kenney?
STATEMENT OF JENNIFER KENNEY, DIRECTOR, GLOBAL
DEPLOYMENT SHARED SERVICES, PRICEWATERHOUSE-
COOPERS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Ms. Kenney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. As you said, I am Jennifer Kenney and I work at
PricewaterhouseCoopers. I am the Director of Immigration
Services, and I also manage our global international mobility
programs and initiatives. I too work out of the Chicago office.
My primary role involves immigration, as I have said.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the largest professional
services firms in the world. At PwC, our people are our
business. Drawing on the talents of more than 160,000 people in
150 countries, PwC provides audit, tax, finance, and a full
range of other business advisory services to our clients, who
are leading global, national and local organizations.
Many of our clients are Fortune 100 companies. In what we
call our Global 200, 105 of these clients are U.S. corporations
with overseas operations. Of the remaining 95 in the Global
200, 85 are international firms with operations in the United
States.
To service our clients and remain competitive, our firm
employs and often cross-trains highly skilled accounting, tax,
technology, and finance professionals with experience in
multiple markets and territories. PwC is one of the largest
international deployers of resources, with currently over 5,000
staff and partners working outside their home countries.
PwC utilizes U.S. employment-based non-immigrant visas to
temporarily transfer skilled professionals from overseas, hire
U.S.-educated foreign students, and fill positions where
sufficient numbers of quality U.S. workers are just simply not
available. Today, our firm employs in the U.S. over 2,000
foreign nationals. This represents approximately 4 percent of
our workforce.
Of those numbers, 56 percent are what are called H-1B
foreign nationals or specialty occupation foreign nationals.
Forty-one percent are L-1 intra-company transferees from
another PwC office. This is our largest growing number of
immigrants. Three percent are Trade NAFTA from Canada or
Mexico.
The benefits of the non-immigrant visa program to our firm
and our people are great. Our multinational clients benefit
from our enhanced global capabilities and our firm is able to
maintain our global competitiveness. International assignees
increase their technical and managerial skills, and are able to
transfer their knowledge back to their home countries. U.S.
staff also benefit from the experience of working side by side
with foreign nationals, thus increasing their own skill base.
Unfortunately, as other panelists have mentioned already,
the fundamental process of moving people across borders is very
slow and very closely. Antiquated immigration rules and
procedures make international mobility very difficult for my
firm and others. In the U.S. and other countries, it often can
take months to cut through all the red tape before a temporary
international assignment can begin, making it very difficult
for employers to staff their jobs and plan ahead.
For example, the American Competitiveness in the 21st
Century Act which recently increased the cap for our H-1 non-
immigrant visas also called for the elimination of the current
backlog in INS cases and a decrease in the INS processing
times. As commendable as this piece of legislation is, the INS
and the Department of Labor are still unable to keep up with
the volume and catch up on the backlog.
Currently, service center processing times for H-1B
approval notices can take between 3 and 4 months. This is up 60
days, well above the 30 days proposed. Contributing to the
delay is the Department of Labor's increased turnaround time of
up to 6 weeks to just approve a labor condition application. As
a result, our audit and tax practices recently had to turn away
many previously scheduled foreign nationals who were not
available to work during our very busy tax season, and as a
result our company suffered.
In a related matter, the portability provision allows H-1B
employees to start work with a new employer in the U.S. and, if
necessary, travel outside the U.S. upon filing a petition with
the INS rather than wait the 3 to 4 months for petition
approval. This is encouraging to employers like PwC, who often
require employees to travel outside the U.S. on business.
While the spirit of the legislation is again helpful, the
implementation is inherently flawed. In the absence of guidance
in the field, the INS freely admits that many ports of entry
still may be operating under old regulations. So despite the
new law, an approval notice may still be required to reenter
the United States through certain ports of entry. This lack of
consistency within the INS to enforce new legislation is
frustrating and costly to many employers.
Until the INS gets up to speed, PwC is now forced to advise
our pending H-1B new hires to remain in the U.S. until INS
approval is actually received, which again could take 3 to 4
months. Such delays are extremely incompatible with the
realities of the global market in which we compete, where rapid
deployment of staff is a business necessity.
To facilitate processing of non-immigrant visas, PwC
supports the implementation of established user program, one
similar to the current L-1 blanket program that works very
successfully for our firm which requires only 14 days to
process an L-1 intra-company transferee. Such a program would
streamline processing and decrease turnaround times for high-
volume non-immigrant visa employers with a proven track record
like our firm. Such a plan would reduce paperwork and free up
INS and Department of Labor resources to work on more
complicated cases.
To reduce deployment times, PwC also supports the proposed
June 2001 implementation of the new $1,000 INS fee to expedite
processing. The fees generated from this program might be used
to enhance INS information systems to better manage the heavy
caseload. In the long term, the INS must invest in building its
electronic filing capabilities and bring its operations finally
into the 21st century. As a start, electronic signatures on
employment-based immigration filings should be implemented as
soon as possible to save time and eliminate costly barriers.
Another important issue to our firm is the employment of
spouses for our L-1 intra-company transferees. This is
currently prohibited in the United States. Inability to obtain
spousal work authorization is one of the main reasons our L-1
transferees either end an assignment early or refuse an
assignment with our firm and leave for other firms or other
countries within our network. Because of this, PwC endorsed
last year the Spousal Equity Act, introduced in the last
Congress, which would grant work authorization for spouses of
L-1 immigrant visa-holders.
The hurdles that businesses face in deploying staff also
act as significant non-tariff barriers to global
competitiveness. Impaired mobility inhibits trade and
investment across our borders. It is also detrimental to the
health of local economies, economies that would otherwise
benefit from the financial and technological resources that
typically accompany these types of transfers.
In conclusion, at my firm we like to think of ourselves as
the premier and unique professional services organization, but
when it comes to some of the issues that I have mentioned here
today regarding immigration, we are in no way unique. Many of
my counterparts have the same issues that we do. Congress needs
to make resolving these challenges a priority. Otherwise, we
will all fall short of the promise of what a global marketplace
can do to boost our economy.
Thank you very much for allowing me to testify, and I look
forward to any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kenney follows:]
Statement of Jennifer Kenney, Director, Global Deployment Shared
Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today. I am Jennifer Kenney, Director of Global
Deployment Shared Services at PricewaterhouseCoopers. My primary role
is oversight of the firm's U.S. Immigration function. In addition, I am
an international human resources project manager who works on such
initiatives as orientation programs for international assignees,
employee satisfaction surveys, external and internal web site
development and other Global Deployment information systems.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is the world's largest professional services
organization. At PwC, our people are our product. Drawing on the
talents of more than 160,000 people in 150 countries,
PricewaterhouseCoopers provides financial audits and a full range of
business advisory services to leading global, national and local
companies and to public institutions. These advisory services include
accounting and tax advice; management, information technology and human
resource consulting; financial advisory services including mergers &
acquisitions, business recovery, project finance and litigation
support; business process outsourcing services; and legal services
through a global network of affiliated law firms.
Before I address our foreign national employment program, I would
like to briefly summarize initiatives we currently sponsor in our U.S.
firm to upgrade the skills of our current and potential American
workforce and to recruit under-represented minority groups. The
education of the U.S. workforce in our ever-expanding, knowledge-based
economy is of critical importance to our firm and our economy. Last
year, our firm invested over three million dollars in high school and
college internships, scholarships and mentor programs. Through our
INROADS National Internship program, PwC employs over 150 summer
interns who are minority finance, accounting and management students
from selected colleges and universities across the country. Our
Minority Scholars Program awards 40, $5,000 scholarships each year to
accounting and finance students. In addition, PwC awards between 15 and
20, $1,500 scholarships to distinguished business students who are
members of the National Association of Hispanic CPAs. PwC also sponsors
high school mentorship programs in over 4,000 high schools. These
mentorship programs are designed to generate student interest in
careers in finance, accounting and technology. Finally, PwC staff and
partners are actively involved in community youth development programs
such as Junior Achievement and Big Brother/Big Sister chapters in
under-developed neighborhoods.
Each year PwC invests millions of dollars to train our U.S.
workforce. Our extensive learning and education program includes on-
the-job training, self-paced computer-based learning, and technical,
managerial and diversity training programs. Each of our lines of
service develop curriculum to meet the needs of their particular
business. For example, our management consulting practice provides
entry-level technology solutions training to new hires through its
intensive 12-week ASCENT program. Through ASCENT, consultants develop
IT skills in various programming languages, databases and operating
systems. ASCENT students also develop necessary problem-solving and
consulting skills and learn to operate effectively in cross-cultural
and cross-functional work teams. Other internal, trainer-lead programs
for staff include: Strategic Change Management, New World Networking,
e-Business, Ethics, Leadership, Working Across Cultures, SAP, Audit
Training, and Microsoft Suite and Lotus Notes software training.
Many of PricewaterhouseCoopers' clients are Fortune 100 companies.
In what we call our ``Global 200'' portfolio, 105 clients are U.S.
corporations with overseas operations. Of the remaining 95 clients in
the Global 200, 85 are international firms with operations in the
United States. The majority of our clients trade on U.S. Capital
Markets and Exchanges (i.e., NASDAQ, NYSE, etc.). Due to these
activities our clients fall under SEC regulations and U.S. financial
reporting standards which require our global workforce to be
knowledgeable in U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
To ensure quality in our financial reporting services our firm employs
(and often cross-trains) highly skilled accountants and tax
professionals with experience in multiple markets and territories.
Given our global client base, PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the
largest international deployers of resources with over 5,000 staff and
partners currently working outside their home country in a PwC
affiliated office. In the U.S., PwC utilizes nonimmigrant visas to
temporarily transfer highly skilled international personnel, hire U.S.-
educated foreign students, and to fill positions where sufficient
numbers of qualified U.S. workers are simply not available. Today our
U.S. firm employs over 2,000 foreign nationals, representing a little
over four percent of our total U.S. workforce of 46,000 individuals.
Approximately 56% of these foreign nationals hold H-1B ``Specialty
Occupation'' nonimmigrant visas, 41% hold L-1 ``Intracompany
Transferee'' visas and 3% hold TN (Trade NAFTA) visas. On average 21%
of our nonimmigrant visa holders seek permanent residence in the U.S.
through employment with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The benefits of the nonimmigrant visa program to our firm and our
people are great. Our multinational clients benefit from our enhanced
global capabilities and our firm is able to maintain our global
competitiveness. Foreign nationals increase their technical and
managerial skills and are able to transfer their knowledge to their
home country. U.S. staff also benefit from the experience of working
side-by-side with foreign nationals on multinational engagements, thus
increasing their own skill base.
Our firm does not have identical skill sets in each of our markets,
therefore we must tap the skills wherever they happen to reside to
assemble the best team to service our clients. Rapid mobility of staff
into and out of the U.S. is required when setting up a new office, for
specialized knowledge in operations here and abroad, for professional
training of the workforce, and to expose staff to a client's global
operations.
The fundamental process of moving people across borders to get them
where they are needed is often painful, slow, arduous and costly. This
is because antiquated immigration rules and procedures--which vary
widely by country--make it extraordinarily difficult for multinational
firms to move people across borders on short notice.
In the U.S. and other countries it often can take months to clear
all the bureaucratic hurdles before a temporary international
assignment can begin. Deployment costs have risen significantly. Given
the complicated patchwork of international procedures that we must
overcome every day, no amount of money will ensure that we'll be able
to place, and therefore effectively utilize, our people in the U.S. or
overseas on a timely basis.
In the United States, current INS and Department of Labor (DOL)
processing delays make it extremely difficult for employers and
potential employees to plan ahead. Employers have deadlines, contracts
and workload to contend with, while potential employees must often
leave other positions, sell their homes and relocate their families,
and factor in tax implications of their move. Even those foreign
nationals already in the U.S. may be entangled in these delays as they
are unable to travel outside the U.S. while petitions are pending with
the INS.
For example, the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First
Century Act recently increased the cap on H-1B nonimmigrant visas and
calls for the elimination of the current backlog in cases and a
decrease in processing times. As commendable as this piece of
legislation is, the INS and DOL are still unable to keep up with the
volume of petitions. Currently, Service Center processing times for H-
1B approval notices can take three to four months. Contributing to the
delay is the DOL's increased turnaround time of between three and six
weeks for approval of H-1B Labor Condition Applications (LCAs). As a
result our audit and tax practices recently had to turn away many
previously scheduled foreign nationals because they would have arrived
in the States to work after our tax busy season due to the exorbitant
H-1B delays. Not only did these PwC foreign nationals miss a tremendous
professional opportunity, but it put great stress on our ability to
timely and effectively complete our financial audits. Some of these
staff members chose to work in other countries with less restrictive
immigration processes.
In a related matter, the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-
First Century Act's portability provision allows H-1B employees
transferring to another U.S. firm to start work with a new employer
immediately upon filing of a petition. Under this new legislation, the
employee does not have to wait for the H-1B petition to be approved
before traveling for business or personal reasons outside the U.S. This
legislation is encouraging to employers like PwC who often require
employees to travel outside the U.S. on business. While the spirit of
the legislation is helpful, the implementation is flawed. In the
absence of guidance in the field, the INS has stated that for the time
being, each port of entry will determine the admissibility of an
applicant for H-1B status which means that an approved petition may, in
fact, be necessary to return to the U.S. from a visit abroad. As a
precaution, PwC is currently advising new H-1B employees to remain in
the U.S. until their petition is approved, which again, could take
three to four months. This is incompatible with the realities of the
global market in which we compete.
Unfortunately, inordinate delays like this have become the norm and
the timing couldn't be worse. In today's global economy, the need for
specialized knowledge and expertise that can be deployed anywhere,
anytime has never been greater. Accordingly, PricewaterhouseCoopers
supports the implementation of Established User Programs, similar to L-
1 Blanket programs, that would streamline processing and decrease
turnaround times for high volume nonimmigrant visa employers with a
proven track record. Implementation of such programs would reduce
paperwork and free up INS and DOL resources to work on other cases. The
United Kingdom has implemented such a program for its corporate clients
with great success.
PwC also supports the proposed June 2001 implementation of an INS
$1,000 fee to expedite processing. Due to high volume and data
management issues, however, this ``fast track'' service will not be
available for H-1B visas in the near future. Fees generated from this
new program might be used to enhance INS information systems to better
manage the heavy caseload and data. In the long-term the INS must
invest in building its electronic filing capabilities to bring its
operations into the 21st century. As a start, electronic signatures on
employment-based immigration filings should be implemented as soon as
possible to save time and eliminate courier and other related expenses.
The vast majority of U.S. and international executives have spouses
who are working professionals. Some countries, including the U.S.,
maintain laws that prohibit spouses from working in the host country.
The inability of a spouse to secure employment in the host country
results in both a loss of dual income and career enhancement
opportunities. While PwC provides visits home, cultural awareness
briefings, language training, and nominal financial support--this does
not make up for an involuntary career break which may mean setting
aside career goals as well as relinquishing contacts, networks, and
benefits.
Inability to obtain spousal work authorization is one of the main
reasons our L-1 international transferees refuse, or prematurely
terminate an assignment--and this is exceedingly costly for both the
company and clients. PricewaterhouseCoopers wholeheartedly endorsed the
``Spousal Equity Act'' introduced in the last Congress which would
permit the negotiation of agreements to grant work authorization for
spouses of L-1 nonimmigrant visa holders. We will work towards
reintroduction and passage of similar legislation with this Congress.
The hurdles that businesses face in deploying staff also act as
significant non-tariff barriers to competitiveness. Despite the World
Trade Organization's inability to formally launch a broad round of
negotiations in Seattle, discussions on the services negotiations have
begun, and the world will continue to search for new ways to expand
international trade and fuel global economic expansion. Services are at
the heart of the new economy. Any effort to improve the efficiency and
the dynamism of the service sector will contribute to global economic
growth. Not only do certain sectors, such as telecommunications,
transportation, financial, distribution, professional and information
services, play a key role in a country's infrastructure, but the new
manufacturing economy also benefits from innovative and efficient
services crucial to production, such as product design and engineering,
marketing and distribution, outsourcing, and globalization strategies.
Whatever progress that can be made in reducing trade barriers will
be mitigated, however, if business isn't able to move people in a
timely and efficient manner to support the sale of products and
services around the globe. Until deployment procedures are expedited
around the world, business will not be able to adequately support the
movement of goods and services. And everyone will continue to suffer.
Impaired mobility inhibits trade and investment across borders. It's
also detrimental to the health of local economies--economies that would
otherwise benefit from the financial and technological resources that
typically accompany employee transfers.
The demands of global trade are such that response time is critical
to servicing of goods and the delivery of services. If we don't fix the
problem now, it becomes that much more difficult in the future.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has been working both in the U.S. and in Europe
to ensure that liberalization for temporary entry of service
professionals is on the agenda of trade negotiators. It is imperative
that the U.S. and our trading partners make more meaningful commitments
to establish a rapid deployment capability that provides for
transparency, predictability, harmonization and speed in moving our
business personnel around the world to service a global economy.
In conclusion, at PricewaterhouseCoopers we like to differentiate
ourselves as the premier and unique professional services firm.
However, when it comes to immigration, the challenges we face are in no
way unique, nor are they easily remedied. My counterparts at both like-
size firms and smaller organizations deal with many of the same issues
I mention here today. Congress needs to make resolving these challenges
a priority, otherwise we all will fall short of the promise of what a
global marketplace can do to boost our economy.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present my firm's views at
today's hearing. I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Brownback. Thank you, and I appreciate your
thoughts, particularly your specific items that hopefully we
will have a chance to address.
Ms. Munoz, thank you for joining us.
STATEMENT OF CECILIA MUNOZ, VICE PRESIDENT, OFFICE OF RESEARCH,
ADVOCACY AND LEGISLATION, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Munoz. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to be here, and
I want to thank you especially for the tone that you set both
with the nature of this hearing and the nature of your opening
comments. I couldn't help as you were speaking but contrast
that with the last time I testified, which was less than a year
ago before the other body, where the witness who spoke before
me had a number of complaints about immigrants and Latinos, the
most colorful of which was his impression that we all keep
goats in our backyards.
This is a much different tone, a much different attitude,
and we appreciate that more than I can say.
Chairman Brownback. Thank you for noticing it.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Munoz. The numbers that are coming out of the 2000
Census are a good illustration of why the immigration issue is
so important to the Nation's Latinos.
Chairman Brownback. Aren't they astounding?
Ms. Munoz. They are astounding.
Chairman Brownback. I open up the paper almost everyday
just to look at a different set of them, and I just think this
is amazing. It is beautiful what is taking place, but it really
is striking. I don't mean to interrupt you, but it is so
impressive to see.
Ms. Munoz. And for us it is part of the American story. It
is a continuation of our history, and what this is is a
phenomenon that has been true of this country as long as we
have been a country. And to be part of that and to have that
trend continuing and to have our community be a big piece of
that is an extraordinary thing. And we are mindful of that as
an historic moment, but as one of many historic moments that
have been about demographic change.
That has been what makes us great as a Nation, and
immigration is obviously a very important part of that. We
think that is what makes us strong. As we know, immigrants are
transformed by the experience of becoming Americans. We also
know that America itself is transformed and reinvigorated and
enriched in so many ways by the presence of immigrants.
We clearly do well by doing the right thing; that is, by
having a policy strategy that is about reuniting families and
protecting refugees and providing for specific labor needs.
This benefits not just the immigrants that we are talking
about, but it benefits all of us as a whole.
Indeed, while the basic framework of our legal immigration
policy is the right one, it is also true that the way in which
we implement our immigration laws is far out of step with the
reality that immigrants come and work and are an asset to this
country in a number of ways. And they deserve to be treated
with respect and a commitment to equity, and under our current
laws that is not happening and that needs to change.
Across the country, legal residents and U.S. citizens face
the separation of their families, inappropriate detention and
deportation, major damage to due process of law, and distinctly
unequal treatment under the law. I would hope that this
Subcommittee would turn its attention to the major ways in
which immigration policy reflects an attitude that commits a
grave injustice to our Nation's immigrants and to their many
contributions to this Nation.
I want to outline just four areas that I know are either
coming up in the policy debate or really should come up in the
policy debate. I should say that this could have been a lot
longer and I have tried to take it easy on you in this first
statement.
We know that reform of the INS is going to be an issue. You
highlighted it. It is important to highlight it. We also note
that President Bush made it a campaign issue, and we are glad
for that. For us, the bottom line is accountability. You
described the need for accountability and for swift and
efficient processing of naturalization petitions and family
petitions and the other kinds of applications before the INS.
We would also apply the same standard to the way INS
conducts its enforcement. There are far too many of us who,
because we are walking down the street or driving down the road
and happen to look like we might be Mexican, are pulled over,
stopped, harassed, detained by local law enforcement as well as
by the INS, and often in collaboration. The way INS enforcement
is conducted has for decades been an extraordinary disservice
to our commitment to justice and equity in this country. It
feels like it is aimed against Hispanic Americans.
Any debate and discussion on reform of the INS needs also
to focus on the question of accountability, standards for
enforcement, and making sure that the INS is doing its job well
and efficiently and thoroughly. We support law enforcement, we
support border enforcement, but the way that we do is
important, and it needs to be consistent with our laws and
values.
We also note that today there are bilateral discussions
between the Mexican and U.S. Governments particularly around
the question of guest workers and migration. We welcome the
discussion. We think it is very constructive to have a
bilateral discussion, and we take the position that any
legislation related to temporary labor particularly in
agriculture, or the service sector for that matter, needs to
recognize the circumstances in which particularly farm workers
live and work in the United States. These are conditions which
more resemble the 19th century than they resemble what they
should.
We believe that this discussion needs to start to put farm
workers on equal footing with other American workers with
respect to wages and labor rights. In particular, we have
argued that any legislation affecting farm labor in the U.S.,
including this guest worker discussion, be consistent with a
couple of fundamental principles before being considered by
this Subcommittee.
First, any policy aimed at this sector must improve
substantially the labor protections available to farm workers
and the enforcement of these protections. It is unreasonable
that farm workers live and work in conditions in the United
States under a set of standards which are far lower than that
expected by every other part of the U.S. workforce.
We also think legislative reforms need to recognize that a
substantial part of the existing agricultural workforce lives
and works in the United States without the benefit of
immigration status. It is in the long-term best interests of
the country, the industry, and the workers themselves to
provide individuals with an opportunity to adjust their status
and reunite with their families.
Thirdly, I just want to highlight that there are a number
of ways in which we need to revisit the laws which were enacted
in 1996. There is a long list of excesses still present in the
law which do nothing to forward the cause of immigration
control and do extraordinary harm to immigrant families and to
the Nation's commitment to equal justice.
This includes unnecessary barriers to the reunification of
families caused by a number of different policies, including
the failure to fully extend section 245(i) and the creation of
arbitrary financial requirements for the reunification of
families. It also includes the injustice of court-stripping
which has deprived innumerable immigrant families of their
rights and the automatic deportation of illegal residents who
committed minor offenses of10 years ago and have already repaid
their debt to society.
There are a variety of provisions in the law which
undermine the confidentiality of immigrants and their families,
and cause people to fear law enforcement and other public
officials. There is a very long list here and we believe that
as part of our commitment to justice and fair treatment for
these folks who are contributing so much, we really need to
take a look at the most punitive, most excessive aspects of the
1996 law, reopen them, and address them.
I also want to again underscore the question of immigration
enforcement. I talked about racial profiling already and the
way that immigration enforcement is conducted. This has as
profound impact on Hispanic Americans at the border, but also
in the interior.
Many of the calls that we get about racial profiling or
harassment at the hands of INS come from Nebraska, Kansas,
Iowa, Arkansas, Tennessee, come from parts of the country that
we didn't use to hear from before. We are also concerned about
the INS' increased use of verification systems, sometimes in
collaboration with the Social Security Administration in a way
that is affecting industries and also affecting workers and
their families.
We have noted--in fact, we have worked with you in the past
on this issue--that there are high error rates in these data
bases, and people's ability to work and stay with their
families are being jeopardized by faulty data and by the use of
verification systems which are really putting people in harm's
way. We believe these policies need to be reconsidered.
I just want to conclude, Mr. Chairman, by saying that the
Subcommittee has an extraordinary opportunity right now to
honor the many contributions that immigrants make energizing
our economy and revitalizing our communities. We appreciate
that you are viewing these folks as people and parts of
families rather than numbers, and we urge you to lead the
charge in restoring fairness to our laws.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Munoz follows:]
Statement of Cecilia Munoz, Vice President, Office of Research,
Advocacy and Legislation, National Council of La Raza, Washington, DC
20036
I. Introduction
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to provide this
testimony on behalf of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the
largest national constituency-based Latino civil rights organization.
NCLR is an umbrella organization for more than 250 affiliates--
community-based institutions that provide a wide range of services to
more than 3.5 million Latinos each year. NCLR has long been involved in
the public policy debate on immigration; for us this is a civil rights
issue of fundamental importance. Immigration policy is a priority for
us not because so many Latinos are immigrants--indeed many of our
fellow Americans are surprised to learn that the majority of Latinos
are native-born U.S. citizens--but rather because immigration policies
tend to affect us all, whether or not we were born here.
The initial reports emerging from the 2000 Census illustrate why
the immigration issue is so important to Hispanic Americans. While many
of us come from communities that became American by conquest, the
fastest growing segments of the Latino community are either immigrants
themselves or the products of immigration. The extraordinary growth of
our community, which is emerging as a force throughout the U.S.,
demonstrates the power of the immigration phenomenon and the ways in
which the classic American story is being repeated all over the
country. One of the many reasons for our strength as a nation is this
repeating process, through which immigrants are transformed by the
experience of becoming Americans, and America itself is also
transformed, enriched, and reinvigorated by the presence of immigrants.
Few Americans doubt that our tradition as a nation of immigrants is
one of America's defining characteristics; the diversity this fosters
is a big part of what makes our country unique. There is ample evidence
supporting the notion that this continues to be true; immigrants who
choose to make their lives here enrich the United States economically,
socially, and culturally. Immigrants contribute about $10 billion to
the U.S. economy each year. If you account for the impact of immigrant-
owned businesses, this figure is likely to be far higher. A vast array
of observers, including key business leaders, the AFL-CIO, and the
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, have pointed to immigration as a key
element in the nation's recent economic growth--the hard work of
immigrants has been essential to creating the unprecedented prosperity
that America enjoys.
But it is also part of the American story that the very processes
of immigration and demographic change are sometimes greeted negatively.
Even as immigrants have enriched the nation, they have also been
attacked for not seeming educated enough, skilled enough, or
``American'' enough to belong here. There are anti-immigrant
organizations and movements working today to raise concerns about
current waves of immigration. At their best, these organized movements
provoke discussion and debate; at their worst, they promote hatred and
bigotry. These movements have often shaped the nation's policies toward
immigrants, from the exclusionary laws that dominated American policy
until the middle of the 20<SUP>th</SUP> century to the most recent
major immigration reform enacted in 1996, which reflects significant
anti-immigrant sentiment.
The U.S. clearly does well by doing the right thing--our policy
strategy of reuniting families, protecting refugees, and providing for
specific labor needs appears to benefit not simply the immigrants
themselves, but America as a whole. Indeed, while the basic framework
of our legal immigration policy is the right one, the way in which we
implement our immigration laws is far out of step with the reality that
immigrants are an asset to the U.S. and who should be treated with
respect and a commitment to equity. Our most recent set of immigration
reforms was drafted at the height of a wave of anti-immigrant
sentiment; the impact of these reforms on many hard-working immigrants
and their families has been devastating. Across the country, legal
residents and U.S. citizens face the separation of their families,
inappropriate detention and deportation, major damage to due process of
law, and distinctly unequal treatment under the law. Indeed, immigrants
are subjected to a set of policies that are unthinkable for other
Americans--our nation's commitment to equal justice has been severely
undercut by recent changes in immigration law. In addition, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has long been notorious in
immigrant communities for its poor treatment of the individuals and
families it is meant to serve. I would hope that this Subcommittee
would turn its attention to these major ways in which immigration
policy reflects an attitude that commits a grave injustice to our
nation's immigrants and their many contributions to the nation.
II. Reform of the INS
During the recent presidential campaign, then-candidate George W.
Bush made a public commitment to implement substantial reforms of the
INS in order to improve its effectiveness and responsiveness to the
communities it serves. NCLR, like the vast majority of Latinos,
welcomes this commitment and is looking forward to working with
President Bush's Administration and the Subcommittee to realize this
particular vision. The Latino community has an enormous interest and
stake in the reform of the INS. However, the issue is not simply
reforming the agency, but doing it in a way which promotes equity and
accountability. If last year's legislation on reform of INS serves as a
guide to this year's debate, NCLR would be comfortable with the
approach in last year's Senate bill. However, if the House bill
provides the framework, we would be forced to oppose.
NCLR agrees with President Bush that one of the principal
priorities for INS reorganization is to improve its accountability for
fair and speedy adjudication of the numerous petitions that come before
it: for family visas, political asylum, citizenship, and other
important processes. We have long complained that a mentality of
enforcement has been too visible in the administration of these
processes; while most INS personnel do their jobs well, there are too
many who still believe that their responsibility is to look for ways to
``get'' people as they go through routine processes like naturalization
and visa processing. As a result, our community fears any contact with
the INS; even those who have no reason to fear a naturalization
interview believe that the adjudicator might find some excuse to deny
their petition, or worse. Enough people have found themselves detained
or ensnared in complicated bureaucratic processes to make these fears
warranted.
In addition, backlogs processing continues to plague the system.
Recent efforts to speed up naturalization processing have had a
positive impact, but only at the expense of slowing down the
adjudication of other important petitions. It is unreasonable for an
agency of the size and scope of INS to send teams of adjudicators from
backlog to backlog, reducing one set of problems while another one
builds. This clearly indicates the need for adequate resources,
appropriate training, and a long-term strategy to ensure that the
agency can fulfill its mission. There are still far too many problems
that result in extraordinary delays for thousands of people; lost
applications are commonplace, as is poor treatment of those who come to
inquire about the status of their applications.
NCLR believes that accountability for the way INS conducts its
enforcement activities is an equally important goal for the
reorganization of INS. We have opposed legislation to reform the agency
in the past because we believed that it would reduce accountability on
the enforcement side and increase the kinds of abuse that affect far
too many Latinos. Immigration enforcement often runs afoul of the civil
rights of Hispanic Americans, including U.S. citizens and legal
residents who are mistaken for immigrants because of their ethnic
appearance. In border communities, generations of Latinos have
complained about being asked to prove that they belong in their own
neighborhoods; these practices are increasingly evident in the interior
of the U.S. INS increasingly enlists other agencies in its enforcement
strategies, including the Social Security Administration and local
police forces, in a way that is both highly invasive and abusive. Part
of the discussion on reform of the INS must include the establishment
of law enforcement standards that protect the rights of those who come
into contact with INS and accountability for the way the entire
enforcement operation is conducted.
III. Farmworkers and Guestworkers
The debate on agricultural labor and guestworkers has already
emerged as a major issue this year. NCLR has a long history in this
debate; we are extremely concerned about the treatment of farmworkers
in the U.S., which we have repeatedly expressed to this Subcommittee.
NCLR strongly believes that any policy debate on agricultural labor
must start from the perspective that the status quo is unacceptable; it
is unreasonable for the nation's farm laborers to continue to live and
work in conditions that resemble the 19th century more than they do the
modern workplace. For this reason, we have strongly opposed legislation
that has been introduced in the last several Congresses to expand the
existing H-2A temporary worker program and reduce its labor
protections.
The context in which this debate takes place is important; there is
ample evidence to suggest that the major claim of the agricultural
industry--that they have a labor shortage and must therefore import
temporary workers--is unsubstantiated. A variety of recent reports,
including by the U.S. General Accounting Office, have documented a
surplus of agricultural labor. The GAO analyzed unemployment data in
the 20 major agricultural-production counties in the United States and
found that most have double-digit unemployment rates. Nor is there an
impending shortage.
Additionally, employers have not sought to stabilize the labor
market. Farmworkers' wages have declined in real terms during the last
decade, and poverty rates have increased during the last few years,
according to the Department of Labor. If there were a labor shortage,
we would have seen employers increasing wage rates and offering other
inducements. Rampant violations of minimum and other labor protections
persist, according to recent studies.
There are strong indications that labor-intensive agribusiness can
afford to pay a living wage. Agricultural productivity has increased
substantially. The value of production of fruits, vegetables, and
horticulture--labor-intensive crops--grew by 52% to $15.1 billion
between 1986 and 1995. Exports of these products nearly quadrupled
between FY 1986 and FY 1997, reaching $10.6 billion. Farmworkers did
not share in that increase.
NCLR takes the position that any legislation related to temporary
labor in agriculture or the service sector must recognize these
circumstances and begin to address them in a way which puts farm
laborers finally on equal footing with other American workers with
respect to wages and labor rights. In particular, we have argued that
any consideration of legislation affecting farm labor in the U.S.,
including the guestworker discussion, be consistent with several
fundamental principles before being considered by this Subcommittee.
First, any policy aimed at this sector must improve substantially the
labor protections available to farmworkers and the enforcement of such
protections. It is unreasonable that this sector functions under a set
of labor standards far below the rest of the U.S. workforce. Any change
in the law must result in substantial improvements in wages and working
conditions for farmworkers. Similarly, legislative reforms must
recognize that a substantial part of the existing agricultural
workforce lives and works in the U.S. without the benefit of legal
immigration status. It is in the long-term best interests of the
country, the industry, and the workers themselves, to provide
individuals with an opportunity to adjust their status and reunite with
their families. NCLR believes that any reforms that simply expand the
guestworker structure without significant improvements in labor
standards and access to adjustment are incomplete, and likely to
perpetuate the unacceptable conditions in which farmworkers live and
work.
IV. Revisit the 1996 Law
There is no greater evidence of the disconnect between the
important and well-recognized role that immigrants play in the economy
and society of the U.S. and their treatment under the law than the laws
passed in 1996, which have had a devastating impact on immigrant
families and their basic rights. In particular, the Illegal Immigration
Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) and the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reform Act (PRWORA) enacted that
year have become potent symbols of an ugly anti-immigrant era whose
legacy is the atrocious treatment of immigrants and their families.
While there have been modest reforms to remedy some of the ugliest
provisions in these laws, there are still substantial reforms necessary
to prevent the needless hardships endured by immigrant families which
continue to shock their neighbors and communities.
There is a long list of excesses still present in the law which do
nothing to forward the cause of immigration control, and do great harm
to immigrant families and the nation's commitment to equal justice. In
particular, NCLR hopes that this Congress will address:
<bullet> The unnecessary barriers to the reunification of families
caused by several different provisions, including the failure to
permanently extend section 245i, and the creation of arbitrary
financial restrictions
<bullet> The injustice of ``court stripping,'' which has prevented
judges from offering leniency, and which has denied thousands of
immigrants access to legal status for which they are eligible
<bullet> The automatic deportation of legal residents who committed
minor offenses years ago and have since paid their debt to society
<bullet> A variety of provisions that undermine the confidentiality
of immigrants and their families, and undermine their confidence in law
enforcement and other public officials
<bullet> The lack of parity in the treatment of all of the refugees
from the Cold War, particularly those from Central America who have
made their homes in our communities for more than a decade
<bullet> The continuing impact of welfare reform, particularly on
the health and nutritional status of legal immigrant children
NCLR strongly believes that it is in the best interest of the
nation to rededicate itself to fair and equal treatment under the law.
These policies, which tear families apart and undermine our nation's
commitment to equal justice under the law, are more than a disservice
to hard-working immigrants and their families; they undermine the
commitment to fairness and equity that all Americans value.
V. Enforcement Issues and Practices
NCLR has grave concerns about the way in that immigration
enforcement is conducted. While we, like most Hispanic Americans, agree
that the nation has a right to enforce its laws and control its
borders, the manner in which we engage in these efforts must be
consistent with our laws and values. Unfortunately, immigration
enforcement has for many decades been conducted in a way that
undermines the rights that Americans hold most dear. Hispanic
Americans, immigrant and native, continue to suffer abuse in the name
of immigration enforcement.
The border between the United States and Mexico is an obvious focus
of concern; the number of border enforcement personnel has increased
dramatically in recent years. NCLR has long been concerned about the
lack of adequate standards and training in the conduct of enforcement
personnel. As large numbers of new officers are added, these concerns
about their preparation are growing. In addition, along with many
observers in the international and human rights communities, NCLR is
alarmed at the number of deaths at the border. For many years, we have
argued that an effective and humanely implemented deterrent at the
U.S.-Mexico border is a key element of an immigration control strategy.
It has since become clear that the cost for our current deterrence
strategy is excessively high; over 600 people have died attempting to
cross our border since it was implemented in the mid-1990s. This is an
unacceptable and tragic outcome, which more than justifies a re-
evaluation of the nation's strategy at the border.
NCLR is also highly concerned about the strategies being deployed
by INS in the nation's interior. We have formally protested the
strategy of creating ``Quick Response Teams'' (QRTs) in communities
with emerging Latino populations. Our analysis of the response to this
initiative suggests that a major result of this policy is the
harassment of Latinos and others whose ethnic appearance suggests to
law enforcement officers that they might be immigrants. The presence of
INS in these communities often leads to improper collaborative efforts
between INS and local police, who regularly stop Latino drivers and
pedestrians and demand proof of immigration status. NCLR receives
reports from all over the country of abuse at the hands of local police
who have either come to believe on their own or have been persuaded by
INS that their jobs should include immigration enforcement. Not only is
this improper under the law, it seriously jeopardizes the public safety
by destroying Latinos' confidence in their local law enforcement
agencies. When entire communities begin to believe that the police are
a source of harassment rather than protection, it becomes difficult to
enforce the law and protect the public. NCLR strongly believes that
these arrangements do little to advance immigration enforcement, and
they do great harm to the larger community, not to mention to the
fundamental rights of those of us whose only ``infraction'' is the fact
that to others we look ``foreign.''
In addition, INS continues to use invasive verification procedures
as a key enforcement strategy in a way that is undercutting immigrant
communities and entire industries. For example, in 1999 through
Operation Vanguard, INS compelled the entire meatpacking industry in
Nebraska to turn over its employment records for verification. INS then
attempted to verify these workers through its own databases, which are
known to have substantial error rates, and those of the SSA, which are
also inadequate to demonstrate the workers' eligibility to work legally
in the U.S. The result of this operation was massive displacement of
workers, including those who were legal residents, but who mistakenly
turned up as potential problems in the data match. These immigrants,
who are legally here but who also fear any contact with the INS, left
their jobs rather than attempt to clarify their records. NCLR has long
argued that INS verification schemes are unlikely to have an impact on
illegal migration, but will clearly undermine the rights of workers
caught up in problems as a result of faulty data. We believe that the
use of verification systems as a tool in immigration enforcement must
be re-evaluated.
VI. Conclusion
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, NCLR believes that this Subcommittee
has a tremendous responsibility and a great opportunity in the
107<SUP>th</SUP> Congress. Immigrants throughout the United States,
whose populations are more diverse than ever, and whose presence is
felt throughout the nation, know well that they are not afforded the
respect they deserve under our immigration laws. Neither they nor NCLR
argue for a massive liberalization of immigration law, nor for great
expansions in the number of immigrants who come to the U.S. But we do
argue for family reunification, due process of law, protection for
those fleeing persecution, equal treatment, and respect. Immigrants
know well that their hard work and commitment to their chosen country
is part of a long and extraordinary tradition that has made America
great. We diminish that greatness when we allow excessively harsh,
unjust, and inhumane laws to remain on the books. This Subcommittee has
an opportunity to honor the many contributions that immigrants make in
energizing our economy and revitalizing our communities. We urge you to
lead the charge in restoring fairness to our laws.
Chairman Brownback. Thank you, and thank you for the
admonition at the end. I intend to do that.
Ms. Narasaki, it is delightful to see you again and I look
forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF KAREN K. NARASAKI, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LEGAL CONSORTIUM,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Narasaki. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I couldn't ask
for a better birthday gift.
Chairman Brownback. Happy birthday. I won't sing.
Ms. Narasaki. We appreciate your inviting us to testify on
the subject of Asian immigration and to offer our views on work
that we hope we can accomplish together with this Congress this
year.
We do have extensive written testimony which we are asking
to be submitted into the record.
Chairman Brownback. Without objection.
Ms. Narasaki. Before I formally begin, I would also like to
take the opportunity to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
leadership in the 1996 battles to retain the family based visa
categories. Your work was of profound importance to our
community and to the Nation.
We share your belief, as you so recently and eloquently
stated, that America's greatest strength remains its openness
to new ideas and to new people. That is why we are committed to
fair, generous, and non-discriminatory immigration policies.
Immigration policy is particularly important to the Asian
community because one-third of the immigration to the U.S. over
the last three decades has really been from Asia. Although we
are only 4 percent of the Nation's population, we are one-
quarter of the Nation's foreign-born.
Many Asian immigrants are fleeing persecution and seeking
freedom for themselves and their families. Others are seeking a
place where they can fully apply their talents, whether it is
in arts, athletics, science, or business. Still others seek to
reunite with their parents, their children, or their brothers
and sisters, and to contribute to each other's and their
family's well-being.
That is why we believe it is critical that our immigration
system maintain a balance between the employment, family, and
refugee asylum-based immigration categories. We want to
particularly focus on family based immigration because it has
been the cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy.
Well over 90 percent of the Asian community has arrived
through the family based categories. Immigrants who entered the
U.S. as adult kids or as brothers and sisters include countless
individuals who have contributed to our Nation's life and
economy, and who have served honorably in our armed forces.
From small businesses to high-tech companies, Asian
immigrant entrepreneurs have been a critical element in the
revitalization of many urban communities across the country.
Many of them were sponsored into this country by their siblings
or parents who emigrated earlier and became citizens.
Also, family visa policies have a direct impact on the
power of America to continue to attract the world's most
talented personnel to compete in the global market. The ability
of immigrants, refugees and asylees to become emotionally and
economically stable and socially integrated into society
increases when their family members are able to join them.
For example, take the case of Ming Liu, a design engineer
for a U.S. telephone and electronic equipment company from
China. He was more than meeting his employer's expectations,
but he became a much better worker after his wife and child
were able to join him in Fremont after a long 2-year wait. His
productivity skyrocketed and his boss noted that Liu not only
was a better worker, but became more open socially at work. And
it allowed him to subsequently create an innovative concept
that helped the company to change direction and increase sales.
Liu said that the arrival of his family allowed him to breath
again.
In Asian immigrant families, adult children often work
together to take care of aging parents. Grandparents take care
of grandchildren while the parents work. Brothers and sisters
pool their resources to send nieces and nephews to college, to
open family businesses, and to buy homes. Their children often
work in these businesses.
Unfortunately, historical exclusion and a failure to
address growing family backlogs has resulted in an inordinately
long wait for most of these families, waiting as spouses,
siblings, and children. Close to half of the family backlogs
are of individuals from Asian countries, and many have been
waiting 10 to 20 years to rejoin their families here in the
U.S.
Because of the per-country caps and limited family quotas,
American citizens petitioning for adult unmarried children from
the Philippines face a wait longer than that of those for legal
permanent residents, which means that the Filipinos in our
community have a disincentive from becoming citizens. The
waiting times are so long that children may become 21 years of
age while their parents wait to reunite with their parent or
sibling. The families often are faced with an incredibly
decision of moving and leaving an adult child behind to wait in
an even longer line. If petitioners become citizens and the
adult children marry in the meantime, they are put in yet
another long line, some of them waiting as long as 7 years.
Last year, Congress took the first step in addressing the
growing issue. The new V visa category allows spouses and minor
children of permanent residents who have been waiting at least
3 years to enter and obtain work authorization. However, this
is only a partial relief to a much larger problem.
The current waiting times for family visas, we believe,
undermines the entire immigration system, and we are urging the
Subcommittee to hold hearings on the issue and develop a
solution that will help us to reunite these families in a more
efficient and fair way.
We have also supported employment-based immigration when it
meets a strongly articulated need for our economy, an
employer's need to create a longer-term solution, and it
provides a means of adjustment. This option, we believe, is
critical for making sure that employees who invest their
talents here are able to put down roots if they choose.
Consequently, we supported the legislation to raise the
caps on the H-1B visas, over half of which have been issued to
immigrants from Asia. A recent Department of Labor interim
rule, however, is frustrating Congressional intent to allow
these workers to move quickly from one company to another. We
urge this Subcommittee to look into this issue and work with
INS and the Department of Labor to make sure that they are
working in concert with the legislation.
There are a number of other issues that I would like to get
to. On asylum seekers and refugees, there is a lot of
unfinished business with refugees from Southeast Asia,
particularly those who were allowed in as public interest
parolees under Attorney General Edwin Meese's orders in the
late 1980's. They still have been unable to regularize and
become permanent residents.
Legislation was passed last year, but the INS has as yet
failed to take any action to put forward guidelines for how
these people are allowed to adjust under the new legislation,
and, in fact, have instructed their filed offices to reject any
applications that are being filed.
Finally, on adjustment of status, we share Senator Durbin's
concern about the continuing plight of undocumented immigrants,
particularly those who have strong roots in our community. We
hope the Subcommittee will examine this difficult issue and the
various approaches by which we can solve this current problem.
There are a number of issues that we would like to address,
and I look forward to working with this Subcommittee to address
them.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Narasaki follows:]
Statement of Karen K. Narasaki, President and Executive Director,
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for inviting me be able to offer the following testimony
on behalf of The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. The
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (``NAPALC '') is a
nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance and protect the
legal and civil rights of Asian Pacific Americans across the country.
Immigration policy is particularly important to NAPALC because of the
large percentage of immigrants in the Asian-American community and the
long history of racially discriminatory treatment of Asian and Pacific
Islanders by our country's immigration laws.
NAPALC and its Affiliates, the Asian-American Legal Defense and
Education Fund in New York, the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, and
the Asian Pacific American legal Center of Southern California,
collectively have over 75 years of experience in providing direct legal
services, community education, and advocacy on immigration law and
immigrant rights issues.
NAPALC pursues fair, generous and nondiscriminatory immigration
policies. We believe that history has proven that the United States has
thrived economically and socially because it is a nation of immigrants.
We collect data and educate policy makers as to the impact of various
proposals. We also monitor implementation of immigration laws by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service and provide technical assistance
and education materials about changes in the immigration laws of most
relevance to the Asian Pacific American community.
I. The History of Asian Immigration in the United States
a. historical exclusion
The history of this country's immigration laws has been fraught
with racial bias. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which prohibited
the immigration of Chinese laborers, epitomizes the early record on
immigration from Asia\1\ 1907, anti-Asian sentiment culminated in the
Gentleman's Agreement limiting Japanese immigration,\2\ Asian
immigration was further restricted by the Immigration Act of 1917 which
banned immigration from almost all countries in the Asia-Pacific region
\3\; the Quota Law of 1921 which limited the annual immigration of a
given nationality to three percent of the number of such persons
residing in the United States as of 1910 \4\; and the National Origins
Act of 1924, which banned immigration of persons who were ineligible
for citizenship,\5\ decade later, the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934
placed a quota of 50 Filipino immigrants per year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian Americans in the 1990s, U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, p. 7 (1992).
\2\ U.S. Dept. of State, Paper Relating to the Foreign Relations of
the United States 1924 (1939), Vol.2, p. 339. See Higham, American
Immigration Policy in Historical Perspective, 21 Law and Contemp.
Probls. 213, 227 (1956).
\3\ Act of Feb. 5, 1917, 39 Stat. 874.
\4\ This quota limited non-European immigration. For example, Great
Britain with two percent of the world's population had 43% of the
quota. National Lawyers Guild, Immigration Law and Defense, p.2-4.
\5\ At the time, only immigrants from Asia were ineligible for
citizenship solely on the basis of race. See Ozawa v. U.S., 260 U.S.
178 (1922).
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It has been just over a generation since the Chinese Exclusion Act
and its draft: April 41'' Testimony before the Senate Immigration
Subcommittee progeny were repealed in 1943.\6\ Yet after the repeal,
discriminatory quotas were nevertheless set using formulas giving
special preference to immigration from Europe. Until 1965, for example,
the German annual quota was almost 26,000 and the Irish almost 18,000
while the annual quota from China was 105, for Japan was 185, the
Philippines was 100 and the Pacific Islands was 100.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Ch. 344, 57 Stat. 600 (1943).
\7\ Id.
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The intensity of the discrimination against immigrants from Asia is
reflected in the fact that they were ineligible to become naturalized
citizens for over 160 years. A 1790 law allowed only ``free white
persons'' to become citizens. Even after the law was changed to include
African Americans, similar legislation to include Asian Americans was
rejected.\8\ The Supreme Court upheld the laws making Asian immigrants
ineligible for citizenship.\9\ The last of these laws were not repealed
until 1952.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ P. Chew, William and Mary Law Review, Asian Americans: The
'Reticent ``Minority and Their Paradoxes, p.13 (1995).
\9\ See Ozawa v. U.S., 260 U.S. 178 (1922); U.S. v. Bhagat Singh
Thind, 261 U.S. 197 (1923); and In re Ah Yup, 1 F. Cas. 223 (Cir. Ct.
D. Cal. 1878).
\10\ H. Kim, Ed., Asian American History, Asian Americans and
American Immigration Law by T. Knoll, pp.52-3 (1986).
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b. immigration reforms
Congress sought to eliminate most of the racial barriers imbedded
in the immigration system with the passage of the Immigration and
Naturalization Act of 1965. Unfortunately the Act did not address the
effect of earlier biases. In fact, the 20,000 per country limit,
imposed without any connection to size of originating country or
demand, resulted in extremely long waiting lists for Asian
immigrant.\11\
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\11\ H. Kim, Ed., Asian Americans and the Supreme Court, Asian
Americans and Present U.S. Immigration Policies, A Legacy of Exclusion,
by W. Tamayo, p. 1112-1113 (1992).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Immigration Act of 1990 also failed to address the tremendous
backlogs that already existed for countries like Mexico, India, the
Philippines, South Korea, China and Hong Kong. Instead, the problem was
exacerbated with the reduction in number of visas available for adult
sons and daughters of United States citizens. At the time the backlog
consisted primarily of children of Filipino veterans who are allowed to
naturalize under the Act because of their service to this country in
fighting as a part of United States Armed Forces in World War II.
Despite this fact, the quota was cut in half and other family
categories were reduced, causing the backlog to increase by close to 70
percent.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Id. At pp. 1120-1121; Sec. 405 of the Immigration Act of 1990,
Nov. 19, 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978.
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As a result, although Asians have constituted over 30 percent of
the country's immigration for the past two decades, the community still
makes up less than 4 percent of the United States population. Most
recent numbers indicate that well over 1.6 million Asian immigrants
were still waiting in backlogs for entry visas to reunite with their
families. Over 45.7 percent of immigrants waiting to join their loved
ones in the United States are from Asian countries. Thus any additional
restrictions or reduction in the overall numbers, particularly in the
family preference categories, will have an inordinate impact on Asian
Pacific American families.
II. Family Reunification as the Foundation of Our Immigration System
Family-based immigration has rightly been the cornerstone of United
States Immigration policy for decades. Well over 90 percent of Asian
immigration comes through the kinship categories.\13\ Families are the
backbone of our country and their unity promotes the stability, health,
and productivity of family members contributing to the economic and
social welfare of the United States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Hing, Bill Ong. Easing the Backlogs for Family Immigration:
Doing the Right Thing.
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Immigrants who have entered the United States through the family
reunification process as adult children, or brothers and sisters of
United States citizens include countless individuals who have
contributed to the productivity of our workforce, filled economic needs
and served honorably in our Armed Forces. In addition, family
reunification policies have direct impact on the ability of American
businesses to attract skilled international personnel to compete in the
global market. In large part the success of recruitment efforts depends
on the ability of employees to consolidate their family members in the
United States. The ability of refugees and asylees to become
emotionally and economically stable and socially integrated into
society also increases when their family members are able to join them,
decreasing emotional distress and expanding the pool of resources that
can be shared.
For example, take the case of Ming Liu, a design engineer for a
United States telephone and electronic equipment company from China.
Liu was more than meeting his employer's expectations and his boss was
pleased with his hard work. But he became a much better worker after
his wife and child rejoined him in Fremont, California after a two-year
immigration process. Liu's productivity skyrocketed and his boss noted
that Liu not only was a better worker, but that he opened up at work
socially as well. Liu ultimately came up with a new and innovative
concept that helped the company change direction and increase sales.
Liu's own words were that the arrival of his family allowed him to
``breathe again.'' \14\
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\14\ Id.
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Even beyond the obvious psychological benefit of reuniting
immigrants with their families, and the inherent value of close knit
family in our own traditions, studies have shown that the policy has a
marked impact on the country's entrepreneurship. A recent study found
``indeed, the impressive figures on Asian Pacific entrepreneurs. .
.have resulted from the current mostly family-based, immigration
system.'' \15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Ghosh, Shubha. ``Understanding Immigrant Entrepreneurs:
Theoretical and Empirical Issues,'' Reframing the Immigration Debate.
Edited by Bill Ong Hing and Ronald Lee: LEAP Asian Pacific American
Public Policy Institute and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center
1996.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Asian Pacific American families, adult children often work
together to take care of aging parents and brother and sisters pool
resources to send nieces and nephews to college, open family
businesses, buy homes or take care of each other in times of distress.
Arguments by some anti-immigrant proponents have suggested that
cuts in family immigration are justified by lower immigrant quality.
But these propositions overlook the facts. According to a study by the
Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, the education levels of immigrants
have been improving not declining. Mean numbers of years of schooling
have continuously increased; the proportion of new immigrants with less
than an eighth-grade education has be steadily declining and the
population with a college degree or more has actually risen.\16\ terms
of labor markets, analysts note that where immigrants have moved in,
the unemployment rate has actually dropped.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, The Truth About
Immigrant ``Quality, ``at p.12 (April 1995).
\17\ Park, Edward Jang-Woo. ``Asians Matter: Asian American
Entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley High Technology Industry.''
Reframing the Immigration Debate. Edited by Bill Ong Hing and Ronald
Lee: LEAP Asian Pacific American Public Policy Institute and the UCLA
Asian American Studies Center: 1996.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. Contributions of Asian Immigrants
As mentioned earlier, over 90 percent of Asians immigrate to this
country through the family categories. The people who come in as
spouses, adult children, and siblings are generally in prime of their
working lives. The median age of a legal immigrant is 29 years old.\18\
And over 59 percent of new immigrants fall within the ages of 15 and 44
years of age.\19\ This youth translates into a strong incentive and
ability to create and produce, and it manifests itself in our nation's
economy and community.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ U.S. Dept. of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service,
``Legal Immigration, Fiscal Year 1998,'' July 1999.
\19\ Id.
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a. small business ownership
Asian immigrants have dramatically increased their presence in
small business. Some academics suggest this is a means to overcoming
language and other barriers to the mainstream economy, whereas others
have focused on explaining why Asian-Americans might fare better in the
changing economic environment of the United States. Regardless of the
reasons, Asian Pacific Americans have increased their presence in this
sector tremendously. Between 1982 and 1987 there was an 89.3 percent
increase in Asian-owned businesses.\20\ The number of Asian-owned
businesses in the United States grew 180 percent between 1987 and 1997,
and during the same period there was a 463 percent increase in Asian-
American business sales and receipt.\21\ The importance of these
numbers is in the understanding that the value of these undertakings is
transferred to the communities, not simply to the immigrant
entrepreneurs themselves:
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\20\ Ghosh at 131.
\21\ Securities Industry Association. Asian American Markets.
Available at http://www.sia.con/diversity/html/asian-american.html.
Asian immigrant entrepreneurship, especially in ethnic enclave
economies, has injected long-neglected inner-cities and sleepy
suburban communities with much needed capital investment,
neighborhood revitalization, and increased commercial activity.
. .These sociologists point out that a substantial percentage
of benefits, such as job creation, business services, linkages
to international capital and markets, and generation of sales
and property tax revenues, go beyond ethnic boundaries and
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enrich the broader public.\22\
\22\ Park at 157.
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b. the revitalization of the los angeles toy industry
Asian immigrants, like immigrants in general, have moved in to
revive business in long-neglected urban areas. For instance when they
moved in to transform the previously dilapidated area in Los Angeles
and helped pick up a now thriving industry, Los Angeles became the main
thoroughfare for the toy industry. More than 60 percent of the toys now
sold in United States retail store distributed from the California
city, making it the nation's top toy distribution center.\23\ The
district was developed by a handful of Asian immigrants who transformed
a derelict downtown neighborhood into a successful business district
that employs more than 6,000 people and generates estimated total
revenues of $500 million annually.\24\
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\23\ Linda Griego, ``Rebuilding L.A.'s Urban Communities,'' Final
Report of RLA, Milken Institute, 1997.
\24\ Id.
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c. silicon valley and the high-tech industry
The high tech industry in Silicon Valley is another good example of
what Asian immigrants can bring the country. The Valley is home to the
world's leading technology firms, and is a well-suited example since
observers note that: ``much of the industry's transformation into its
contemporary form coincided with massive Asian Pacific immigration into
the United States and California.'' Asian Pacific Americans provide
nearly half the area's manufacturing labor force, and 25 percent of the
total workforce. According to to Public Policy Institute of California,
one out of every four Silicon Valley CEOs is Asian.\25\ In individual
firms they may range from 20 percent to 80 percent of the company's
engineers. One computer industry analyst put it this way: ``The United
States would not be remotely dominant in high-technology industries
without immigrants. We are now utterly dominant in all key information
domains. And at every high-tech company in America, the crucial
players, half of them or more, are immigrants.'' \26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ 25. Yang, Jeff & Yang, Nelson. aNote. A. Magazine, January 31,
2001.
\26\ Erasmus, Melanie. ``Immigrant Entrepreneurs in the High Tech
Industry,'' Reframing the Immigration Debate Edited by Bill Ong Hing
and Ronald Lee: LEAP Asian Pacific American Public Policy Institute and
the UCLA Asian American Studies Center: 1996.
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IV. Policy Recommendations for the 107th Congress.
1. family-based immigration: clearing the backlogs.
The unreasonably long family backlogs continue to obstruct the
reunification of families. As of January 1997, the last period for
which the Immigration and Naturalization Service (``INS '') released a
report, over 3.5 million spouses, children, brothers and sisters were
waiting to reunite with their relatives in the United States. Of this
number, over 1 million are spouses and minor children waiting to
reunite with legal permanent residents in the United States, more than
500,000 are adult children of legal permanent residents waiting to
reunite with their legal permanent resident parents, and over 400,000
are adult children are waiting to be with their citizen parents. 1.5
million are the brothers and sisters waiting to reunite with their
citizen siblings. The situation disproportionately impacts Asian
Americans, since 1.6 million of the 3.5 million people waiting, 45.7
percent, are from Asian countries.
The system not only has implications for those families, but is
beginning to break down the current system of family-based immigration.
For Filipino Americans, the waiting time for citizens petitioning for
adult unmarried children is longer than for that of legal permanent
residents, which means that there is a disincentive for immigrants from
the Philippines to naturalize and become citizens. The waiting time for
citizens from the Philippines is now 12 years versus 2 years for other
countries.
The waiting time is now so long that many children will become 21
years of age while their parents wait to unite with their parents or
siblings. The families must then make the hard decision of leaving
behind their adult children to be put at the end of an even longer line
for adult children. That waiting time is now 4 years for spouses and
minor children from most countries versus 7 years for adult children of
legal permanent residents.
The adult children of many United States citizens face a cruel
choice. If they want to marry before being able to immigrate to reunite
with their parents, they will move to the back of an even longer line
for adult married children. The waiting time is now 13 years for adult
married children of citizens originally from the Philippines versus 5
years for unmarried adult children from most other countries. The
waiting time for brothers and sisters ranges from 12 years for most
countries to 21 years for siblings from the Philippines because of the
per country immigration caps.
Last year Congress began to acknowledge the predicament of
permanent legal residents in bringing their spouses and children to be
with them. The ``V'' visa created by the ``Legal Immigrant and Family
Equity Act of 2000'' is a new nonimmigrant visa category for spouses
and children of permanent residents who have been waiting at least 3
years for their green card. The ``V'' visa allows them to enter the
United States and obtain work authorization while waiting for their
application determination.
While a good first step, the relief provided by this visa is
limited, as it issues only temporary relief to a problem that is
actually much more pervasive. The ``V'' visa program is valid for only
3 years. Further, the spouse is only eligible after they have waited
three long years to be with their legal permanent resident husband or
wife. Working out a thoughtful solution to the backlog problem is
crucial to solving the challenges of the current immigration system.
The family backlog seriously undermines the values and successes of
immigrant families. NAPALC urges the Subcommittee to hold hearings on
the issue and develop a solution that will help reunite families in a
more timely and humane schedule.
2. employment-based immigration
NAPALC supports employment-based immigration if it meets a strongly
articulated need by our economy, employers invest in increasing the
ability of Americans to fulfill their needs in the long term, and the
system provides a means of adjustment for the worker, so that if the
visa holder so desires he or she may eventually adjust to permanent
residency. Currently over half of all H1-B visas for high-tech workers
are being issued to Asian immigrant.\27\ The 106th Congress passed the
American Competitiveness in the 21<SUP>st</SUP> Century Act (P.L. 106-
313) in October 2000. NAPALC supported that legislation, and worked
with members of Congress and the Clinton Administration to ensure that
the system would function effectively for both companies and their
recruits. The bill was signed into law and increased the cap on H-1B
visas to 195,000 for the next three fiscal years. It also increased the
ability of H-1B professionals to change employers once they are in the
United States, increased the fee employers must pay to educate and
train United States workers in technology occupations to $1000, and
made changes to prevent INS delays from hurting H-1B professionals who
are applying for green cards. This option is critical to ensuring that
those who invest their talents in this country are able to put down
roots in their adopted country, if they so choose.
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\27\ Yang, Jeff & Yang, Nelson. ``aNote.'' A. Magazine, January 31,
2001.
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A recent United States Department of Labor (``DOL '') Interim Rule,
however, has had the effect of frustrating Congressional intent of
providing these workers with the ability to move quickly to a new
employer when new employer files a Labor Condition Application to the
INS and the INS then sends a notice of receipt. The DOL Rule prevents
the H1-B visa holder from changing employers until the Department of
Labor certifies the Labor Condition Application and returns it to the
new employer. The intent was to allow H1-B employees to begin work for
the new employer once the INS received copies of the filed application.
The Department of Labor Rule now puts the visa holders in the same
vulnerable position that the ``portability'' provision had been trying
to avoid, and essentially usurps the intent of this provision. We ask
that the Subcommittee investigate the effects of this recent rule, and
support efforts to revise the regulation.
3. asylee and refugee issues
The United States has a long tradition of taking in those persons
who flee their country in the face of persecution based on race,
religion, nationality, social group, political opinion, or armed
conflict. NAPALC believes that our nation is particularly obligated
though, to the Southeast-Asian refugees who face persecution in their
home countries for supporting the United States Armed Forces during the
Vietnam War.
The Fiscal Year 2001 Foreign Operations, Export, Financing, and
Related Programs Appropriations Act, signed by the President in
November, included an amendment that will allow certain persons from
Southeast Asia, who have been in the United States in a temporary
status since the early 1990's, to become permanent residents. While
many Southeast-Asians have been resettled here as refugees, some (most
with family members already in the United States) were admitted as
``Public Interest Parolees.'' Because parolees, unlike refugees, cannot
adjust to permanent residence after a year in the United States these
individuals are in limbo until an immigrant visa becomes available
through a family sponsor. This is a process that can take many years
depending on the category of family visa for which the person is
eligible. The new law allows them to adjust their status without
waiting for their family immigrant visa to become available.
There are, however, approximately 15,000 to 20,000 potential
beneficiaries of this law. The provision passed last session mandates a
ceiling of 5,000 persons who will be able to adjust to permanent
residence under this provision of law. Congress appears to have
contemplated revisiting this issue as the ceiling was applied in the
last hours of passing the bill.
Regulations specifying the application procedure have not yet been
published, and the INS issued instructions to their field office in
January to return any paperwork thus far received. NAPALC is concerned
both with the amount of time that it is taking the INS to issue
regulations and with the restrictive cap that was placed at the last
minute on this provision. We urge the Subcommittee to review this issue
and support legislation increasing the number of visas available under
this adjustment provision to match the number of individuals who would
remain vulnerable and unable to adjust to permanent citizenship within
a reasonable amount of time without this law. We also urge the
Subcommittee to press the INS to develop regulations that fit the
intent of Congress to favorably resolve this long outstanding issue as
quickly as possible.
4. ins services
The INS continues to be one of the most dysfunctional federal
agencies. Problems at the agency, complex legislation and inadequate
appropriations for INS services consistently result in poor service and
unreasonable waiting periods for even consumer-paid services. NAPALC is
very concerned about backlogs in INS processing of citizenship and
other applications. The agency often is unable to produce regulation
and set up produce regulations and procedures on a timely basis even
where new legislation provides extremely short deadlines. Existing
services fall behind as INS is forced to shift priorities to address
outrageous backlogs in various programs or process new programs.
a. Citizenship
Given the changes in the immigration laws in 1996, the need for
addressing the large numbers of legal immigrants waiting in line to be
naturalized becomes all the more critical to address. The 1996 Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA)
and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) left
these immigrants particularly vulnerable as their access to basic
judicial review and certain government services was severely curtailed.
It is thus all the more imperative that the INS's services be improved.
Application fees have increased dramatically in recent years without a
commensurate increase in the INS's ability to process and adjudicate
these cases in an efficient manner.
Based on surveys NAPALC has collected from community-based
organizations across the country that serve Asian Pacific American
clients, our conclusion is that INS has clearly failed in its function
and mission to deliver adequate services to its customers. For
instance, a Denver, Colorado community group reported to us that
processing green card and citizenship applications was taking INS about
2 years. A St. Paul, Minnesota community organization reported to us
that it was taking an average of 1 and \1/2\ for INS to process a
naturalization application, which makes it difficult for many of their
elderly clients to retain what they have learned for the civics test.
Finally, we applaud the efforts of the Congress in the 1061''
Session in addressing the barriers faced by the Among Community, who
allied themselves with the United States Armed Forces during the
Vietnam War. By passing Among Citizenship Act of 2000 in May of 2000,
Congress allowed certain individuals to waive the English fluency
requirement and take a modified Civics examination for their
naturalization process. The Among population numbers in the 200,000
range, and the Among Citizenship Act waives the requirements for up to
45,000 individuals who meet the conditions of the law.
To be eligible, Among veterans must have served with a special
guerrilla unit or irregular forces operating from Laos in support of
the United States Armed Forces any time between February 28, 1961, and
September 18, 1978. Applicants have a period of 18 months to file for
citizenship. However, reports as late as September 200 in indicated
that the INS was still turning eligible people away, claiming no
knowledge of the law.\28\ Thus we anticipate the period of time in
which Among Veterans can apply for the waiver will probably need to be
extended. We urge the Subcommittee to solicit a report from the INS as
to their progress and the number of people that have been processed
through the provisions of this law, and to hold a hearing where the
subcommittee invites input from members of the Among community who can
report directly on their experiences in applying for the waiver with
the INS.
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\28\ Doyle, Michael. ``Among Citizenship Problems Arise: New Law's
Limitations Stir Controversy and Confusion.'' Sacramento Bee, September
13, 2000.
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b. INS Reorganization
Customers experience INS as a large, confusing, inaccessible
bureaucracy. It is difficult, if not impossible for them to gain access
to workers and information. Communications between INS and clients are
often one-way. Unless INS sends a letter or makes a phone call to the
client, it is virtually impossible for the client to initiate
communications with INS if they need assistance or questions answered.
There is an overall lack of responsiveness to applicants, particularly
those who do not have community organizations or elected officials
working on their behalf. Consistent reports have been received from all
parts of the country that INS workers often treat customers with lack
of respect and hostility, particularly those who do not speak English
well, are elderly, have disabilities, or are low-income. Notices are
generally not provided in Asian Languages and customers are expected to
bring their own translations, when necessary. Feedback received from
the community clearly indicates an overall lack of understanding and
concern for the unique cultural and linguistic needs of clients by many
INS workers.
National policies established at headquarters are often not
adequately communicated to staff at the local level, which has resulted
in inconsistent and erroneous implementation of laws and policies by
local INS employees. Local workers also sometimes take the initiative
in instituting extreme actions which have not come from any national
directive and which clearly violate the law, particularly around
enforcement. Also, there are problems with inconsistent and inaccurate
information being given to clients.
In response to increased inefficiencies, problems and failings
within INS, particularly around the processing of naturalization
applications, several proposals have been introduced. How INS is
ultimately reorganized will have a tremendous impact on the ability of
immigrants to naturalize, as well as on their ability to seek out a
range of services related to their applications for green cards, work
authorization, and family sponsorship.
We support the general premise around which all of the proposals
are based, that INS is indeed an agency plagued by inefficiencies,
failings and problems, and is in desperate need of change to
drastically improve its ability to fulfill its functions in both areas
of services and enforcement. We feel however, that the ultimate
proposal must recognize that adequate funding must be ensured to
improve the overall delivery of services, particularly in the area of
naturalization and green card processing, and that these services are
not sacrificed in any reorganization proposals.
A complete separation of services and enforcement into two separate
and distinct agencies could leave services without adequate funding,
accountability and comprehensive and consistent policy development.
However, the two functions might be clearly separated into divisions if
they remain under the roof of one agency. Clear separation of functions
between services and enforcement will lead to greater improvements in
both areas by strengthening chains of command, improving communications
and accountability, enhancing training and skill development, and
streamlining procedures. Any plan to reorganize INS must be the result
of a well thought-out process. Legislation should not be supported if
it does not include adequate appropriations. We are thus opposed to a
proposal, H.R. 2528 (``Immigration Reorganization and Improvement Act
''), introduced last session in the United States House of
Representatives by Representatives Rogers, Reyes and Smith. This
proposal separated the enforcement and service aspects, but failed to
provide the reorganized agency with an agency head that would have
significant authority. The bill neglected to provide a coordinating
mechanism and similarly included no means to resolving conflicting
policy between the two service and enforcement branches. The bill also
failed to cover the costs of reorganization and did not provide any
means to assuring that the current state of inadequate service levels,
would at all improve. In contrast, the Senate Bill on the same subject,
5.1563, (``INS Reform and Border Security Act '') addressed many of
these questions. We urge the Subcommittee to hold hearings, make a
comprehensive study that includes a realistic assessment of the costs,
and seeks input from a wide range of stakeholders.
5. restoration of basic due process rights of legal permanent residents
NAPALC also remains deeply concerned with the basic due process
rights that were eroded in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (17RAIRA) and the Anti-Terrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). The effects of the 1996 laws
are devastating and far-reaching. AEDPA and IIRAIRA were enacted to
curtail illegal immigration and to keep criminal aliens from entering
and remaining in the United States. Their enactment however, has had
tremendous impact on the lives and families of those detained. Often
times, the detained immigrants are the primary income-earners for their
households, causing families to suffer both emotional trauma and
financial hardship. 75 percent of children in the United States are
from families with at least one non-citizen parent, and thus could be
gravely impacted by the 1996 laws if their non-citizen parent were ever
found deportable.
With its large non-citizen immigrant population, the Asian-American
community is particularly susceptible to the harsh provisions of the
1996 laws. Over 40 percent of Korean, Asian-Indian, and Vietnamese
communities are not yet citizens. And well over half of Cambodian,
Laotian, Among, and Thai communities are not yet-naturalized
immigrants.
Some of the laws' more extreme provisions mandate the detention and
deportation of legal immigrants who may have committed crimes in their
past, however minor and however long ago. The far-reaching effects of
these laws have been to tear longtime legal permanent residents away
from their jobs, businesses, families, and United States citizen
children for minor offenses they committed decades prior to the
enactment of the 1996 laws. Legal immigrants have been stripped of
their ability to demonstrate to a judge the changed circumstances of
their lives, and the hardship that deportation would create for
themselves and their families. Ironically, some of the very individuals
and their children who were admitted to the United States as refugees
from Southeast Asia are now being threatened with return to the very
regimes that persecuted them. For immigrants that cannot be repatriated
to home countries such as Laos and Vietnam for political reasons, the
laws have effectively resulted in life sentences behind bars, unable to
provide for their families or contribute to their community.
The 1996 laws changed the standards for what makes a legal
permanent resident deportable. It expanded the definition of an
aggravated felony, a deportable offense, to over 30 crimes including
some which are considered only misdemeanors under state law. The new
definition also includes crimes where the conviction was expunged or
the sentence was completely suspended. The INS applied this new
definition retroactively to crimes committed even before the 1996 law,
regardless of how far back the crime was committed.
In addition, the 1996 laws took away the right of legal immigrants
to prove to the immigration judge that they have been rehabilitated,
that they have lived in the United States for a long time, and that
their departure would create hardship for themselves or their family
members. Individuals no longer have the ability to demonstrate to a
judge the circumstances of their home country that might place them in
jeopardy if they were to go back. This is particularly problematic for
those individuals who fled repressive regimes and entered the United
States as refugees. Immigration judges no longer have the discretion to
grant immigrants relief from deportation.
The 1996 laws require the INS to detain certain immigrants while
they await their deportation hearing, stripping immigrants of their
right to a bond hearing. In the past, an individual who could show that
she or he was not a flight risk or threat to public safety was released
on bond.
As the 5<SUP>th</SUP> anniversary of these laws approaches, the
1996 laws toll on the immigrant communities continues. NAPALC urges the
committee to restore the constitutional guarantee of judicial review,
restore basic fairness by repealing the retroactive application of the
1996 laws and establish a fair definition of crimes that lead to
detention deportation. A limited bill, supported by Representative
Lamar Smith that would have just begun to ameliorate the harsh
injustices upon permanent legal residents passed unanimously in the
United States House of Representatives last year (H.R. 5062). Senator
Kennedy and Senator Graham introduced a more comprehensive proposal (S.
3120). We urge the Subcommittee to hold hearings on this issue and to
act on legislation that would ameliorate the provisions that are overly
harsh and violate our country's sense of fairness and commitment to due
process.
6. ins enforcement
NAPALC supports both the business and labor coalitions which have
called for the repeal of employer sanctions. We believe the sanctions
should be repealed as a failed policy, which has resulted in the
discriminatory practices by employers against minority employees.
Reports indicate that in certain districts the INS has been
targeting minority business owners for enforcement actions.\29\ Last
year the INS targeted Asian-Indian computer software engineers working
at an Air Force base in San Antonio Texas. Forty computer software
engineers were arrested and detained along with their family members
for alleged violations of their visas, but were later all released
without further action. In Dallas, Texas, a report emerged that INS
officers had targeted Asian business-owners by photocopying yellow
pages listings of Indian and Pakistani restaurants. NAPALC and its
affiliates find such practices raise concerns of grave violations of
the civil rights of these businessmen. We urge the Subcommittee to
review the issue of enforcement by the INS and consider legislation
that would repeal employer sanctions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Bensman, Todd. ``INS Targeted Indians and Pakistanis in Dallas
Sweep,'' Dallas Morning News. October 29, 2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. finding a means of adjustment for the growing undocumented
immigrants
NAPALC remains concerned with the need to find a broad-based means
of adjustment, particularly in light of the initial numbers emerging
from Census 2000 which indicate a higher than anticipated level of
undocumented immigrants. The INS has tried many means and approaches to
block the flow of immigrants who enter the country without legal
documents, or overstay their permission to reside here. But it is
apparent that the people who have wanted desperately to enter this
country, have been able to continue to enter and remain. It is in the
nation's own interest to provide them with a means to adjust, so that
they can step out of the shadows and become contributing members of our
communities and participating in the welfare of the nation as a whole.
We believe that an increase in the number of adjustment of status
opportunities and a reform of the employment-based categories, combined
with a reduction in the family backlog, will produce a wide
distribution of available workers and will present an immediate
infusion of labor which economists such as Federal Reserve Board
Chairman Alan Greenspan has indicated we need. One potential means of
addressing the issue would be to adopt a rolling registry date, which
would act as a statute of limitations. Such a provision would
acknowledge the contributions these individuals have made to our
economy as well as the roots that they have grounded with their years
in the United States. We urge the Subcommittee to explore solutions to
this problem by holding hearings and closely examining proposals that
are currently being introduced in Congress.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving
NAPALC the opportunity to make these recommendations. We look forward
to working with you.
Chairman Brownback. Thank you very much.
Finally, Ms. Dickson, thank you very much for joining the
Subcommittee. We look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH C. DICKSON, MANAGER, IMMIGRATION
SERVICES, INGERSOLL-RAND COMPANY, AND CHAIR, SUBCOMMITTEE ON
IMMIGRATION, U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, WOODCLIFF LAKE, NEW
JERSEY
Ms. Dickson. Thank you for having me. I am Elizabeth
Dickson and I manage the immigration function for Ingersoll-
Rand Company, and for the past year I have also been the Chair
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Subcommittee on Immigration. I
really appreciate the opportunity to share some of my
experiences with a large manufacturing company dealing with
finding workers that we need.
I am actually the point of contact for human resource
managers throughout the United States when they have tried to
fill a position with a U.S. worker and cannot find a worker for
it and then come to me saying we need to bring somebody in.
Frequently, I have to turn around and say to them, I am sorry,
we can't bring them in, because there are very limited
categories and ability to bring in people unless they are
highly skilled professionals.
This tight labor market that we have now has really got
companies like Ingersoll-Rand scrambling for much-needed
workers. Ingersoll-Rand is a Fortune 200 company. We employ
over 50,000 people worldwide and we have 30,000 employees in
the United States. Last year, our annual sales were $8.6
billion.
We have always prided ourselves on being an American
manufacturing company, and we have manufacturing facilities
located in 21 States in the United States. Forty percent of our
revenues come from export business, and we have really tried to
keep the work in the United States as much as possible.
However, we have had a lot of difficulty identifying and
retaining U.S. workers across a large spectrum of skill levels.
My testimony goes into greater detail, but I would like to just
highlight for you some of the worker shortages that we have
experienced.
Chairman Brownback. Please.
Ms. Dickson. Welders are one of the semi-skilled employees
that are not considered professionals. It is a skill set that
involves a certain amount of training to be able to perform the
job competently. We have a large need for these types of
workers in the rotary drill manufacturing and the road
machinery division, and we have recruited through many means in
the United States, using employment agencies, going to
shipyards, military installations where we thought we could
find these types of workers, to no avail. When we did identify
skilled welders in Mexico, we were unable to bring them into
the country because there really was not an appropriate and
easy visa category we could use for them.
Right now, my Air Solutions Group is having a real shortage
of service technicians, and again we have employees who are
service technicians at our I-R Canada facility who could come
into the United States and be able to perform this work at
customer sites.
Because the equipment is manufactured in the United States,
these workers would require work permits to come in. Even under
Trade NAFTA, a service technician is not able to work
independently at a customer site unless they are under the
supervision of an engineer. So, again, we cannot fulfill the
needs of our customers right now when we can see a solution
that would not be too difficult.
Some of the other difficulties that manufacturing companies
such as ours have are tool and dye workers and precision
machinists. Both of those occupations have been shortage
occupations for many, many years. We are having difficulty
finding electricians. Electricians are very similar to welders.
They are not professionals, but it is a skilled occupation that
requires a certain amount of training and apprenticeship.
Again, we have sometimes been able to identify electricians in
other countries and been unable to bring them in.
Obviously, a big manufacturing company such as Ingersoll-
Rand is very dependent on engineers. Engineering is one of the
fields that we find that the INS and the Department of Labor
don't even understand how complex engineering skills are now,
and that there are a variety of different engineers that are
very, very specialized.
Metrologists are very specialized quality control
engineers. Only five universities in the United States even
train metrologists and have these programs. When my recruiters
go out and try to hire these people, they find that almost
everyone in the class is a foreign national.
We had a 20-month search for a robotics engineer at our
Baxter Springs, Kansas, facility. Metallurgical engineers have
been shortage occupations for many years. Our Thermo King
climate control area had a 13-month search for a plastics
engineer. We finally found someone from Canada.
I think during the H-1B debate the IT shortages were
clearly defined to everybody, but this is an area that is not
going to go away. And it is not only professional programmers
and software engineers who are covered under the H-1B program,
but also the technicians and people that are in the help desk
function and the technical support function that we would like
to see.
With the information technology area, too, we do seem to
see a skills gap. When we are really looking for programmers
and software engineers who have Web-based application, Oracle
experience, and stuff like that, our schools in America are
just starting to teach that. A lot of these applications have
been developed in India and other countries and those are the
people we are trying to get. If we can only bring them in for
very short periods of time as a non-immigrant, then you are
going to have a turnover in that high-tech area which is very
costly to business.
I think we have seen that we continue to need workers of
all skill levels. Through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and in
coalition with a lot of other businesses and trade
associations, we are looking to solve these worker shortages at
all levels. That is why we have supported some of the programs
that have been presented through the Essential Workers
Immigration Coalition to try to find a workable solution for
the shortage of workers who have less than a bachelor's degree,
and in my testimony I included some information from that.
Like my colleague from PricewaterhouseCoopers, spousal work
authorization is something that the Chamber of Commerce
supports. We too see real difficulty transferring people when
there are dual-career couples, and there are certainly other
countries that Americans can go to, the UK, and the spouses can
work. It is hard to explain to somebody from Britain that their
spouse cannot work in the United States. The lack of sufficient
immigrant visas is certainly another area of concern for us.
As far as the agencies go, we are really concerned with the
increasing processing times at both the Department of Labor and
the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I think Warren
spoke about that, and also the processing times are very, very
difficult to contend with.
Another area that I have found to be very troublesome is
the lack of regulations. Congress passes certain laws and they
become effective, and we may wait 3 or 4 years down the road to
actually get regulations to implement it. This is very
confusing for companies who are really trying to abide by the
letter of the law and we don't have regulations.
In truth, the agencies sometimes disagree on how these laws
are going to be interpreted. The Department of Labor will say
one thing about certified LCAs and the INS will say another. So
I think going down the road, it would be wonderful if the
Subcommittee could look at these agencies working more closely
together, and also having some accountability for getting
regulations out in a timely fashion, as well as processing
times.
Chairman Brownback. Ms. Dickson, if I could cut in here, I
have been buzzed for a vote. I need to leave shortly and I
would like to ask a couple of questions here, if we have caught
most of your comments.
Ms. Dickson. Yes, definitely.
Chairman Brownback. I appreciate that greatly, and we will
take all of your full statements into the record.
[The prepared statement and an attachment of Ms. Dickson
follow:]
Statment of Elizabeth C. Dickson, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, good morning. Thank you
for the opportunity to testify today before the Immigration
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee on the subject of Immigration
Law in 21<SUP>}st</SUP> Century. I am Elizabeth. Dickson, a Human
Resource Specialist and a member of the Global Mobility Services Team
for Ingersoll-Rand Company. I am also Chair of the US Chamber of
Commerce Subcommittee on Immigration. My testimony today reflects my
direct experience with Ingersoll-Rand's ability to find vitally needed
workers. I hope that I will be able to share with you some of the
numerous policies and procedural issues that a company like Ingersoll-
Rand needs to contend with when hiring foreign nationals and complying
with employer sanctions law.
Ingersoll-Rand is a Fortune 200 company with about 50,000 direct
employees worldwide, including 30,000 domestic employees. The company
is a major diversified industrial equipment and components manufacturer
serving the global growth markets of Climate Control, Industrial
Productivity, Infrastructure Development and Security and Safety. Its
international headquarters are based in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey and
in 2000 the company had annual sales in excess of $8.7 billion.
Ingersoll-Rand Company operates manufacturing plants in over 21
countries around the world and markets its products and services, along
with its subsidiaries, through a broad network of distributors, dealers
and independent sales and service/repair organizations. In 2000, the
company had annual sales in excess of $8.7billion.
As you have heard from the distinguished panelists today,
immigration is a complex and politically charged issue. The tight labor
market over the past several years has produced unemployment rates at a
30 year low. The economy has been creating an abundant number of jobs
at all levels to keep business like ours scrambling for employees.
Immigration needs to be addressed as an alternate source of workers in
the U.S. If immigration policies and procedures and not revitalized,
the consequences may result in a further down turn in the economy and
to companies seeking more often to move outside the boundaries of the
U.S. borders. Companies like Ingersoll-Rand live this reality on a
daily basis and when Human Resource Managers cannot fill key positions,
they are forced to look outside the US to hire or outsource the work.
Ingersoll-Rand prides itself on being an American company that
strives to keep the majority of its manufacturing operation within the
U.S. borders. We have manufacturing plants in 24 states and 120
facilities located throughout the United States. Over 40% of our
profits are tied to export sales. Unfortunately, market forces and the
unavailability of U.S. workers have created a problem of identifying
and retaining U.S. workers across the spectrum of skill levels. Let me
give you some examples:
1. Welders in Texas - The company manufactures a broad line of
industrial machinery and equipment. The Rotary Drill Division based in
Garland, Texas, is engaged in the design manufacture, and sale of
rotary drill products with industrial, mining, and water well drilling
applications. The division has annual sales in excess of $150 million.
This Division has been looking for welders for major projects for some
time. Welders are semi-skilled employees that are not considered
professionals. It is a skill set that involves specific training
however in order to perform the job competently and safely. The company
has recruited for welding positions across the U.S. They have recruited
at military installations, shipyards and through employment services.
Ingersoll-Rand even has its own training schools for welders at the
Road Machinery & Rotary Drill Divisions and has been unable to identify
sufficient persons to attend this type of training to fill our needs.
When the company did identify competent welders in Mexico, the process
of obtaining even temporary work visas was too time-consuming and
onerous to be considered a viable option.
2. Technicians for the Air Solutions Group's service and repair
business are also in short supply. We have identified skilled
technicians at our I-R Canada operations who have the product knowledge
and technical experience to service I-R compressors in the US, however
as the products they would be servicing are manufactured in the US, not
Canada, they would require work permits and there is no appropriate
visa category to allow such skilled technicians to travel
intermittently to the US to perform service on US-manufactured
machinery.
3. Experienced tool and die workers, with knowledge in stamping
technology and machining are scarce. Our manufacturing plants in the
Detroit area continue to experience difficulty-finding electricians for
their manufacturing operations, with the automotive industry being
primary competitors for such skilled workers. Electricians again
require a number of years of training and apprenticeship to be a
competent worker but are not considered professionals. The Human
Resources Manager had identified some available electricians from
Canada but there is no way to obtain appropriate work visas for such as
skill without time-consuming and expensive process that smaller
division cannot afford.
4. As the company continues to expand it quality initiatives,
Metrologists have become a professional occupation in very short
supply. There are only about five universities in the US with Masters
programs specializing in metrology and almost all the students enrolled
in such programs are foreign nationals. Human Resource Managers advise
me that they simply cannot find Americans to fill such positions. Our
Waterject Cutting Systems business in Baxter Springs, Kansas and
Farmington Hills, Michigan spent 20 months searching extensively using
advertisements and professional recruiters to find an engineer
experienced in industrial robotics and pressurized product development
before finally hiring a qualified individual from Canada. Metallurgical
Engineers have been an identified shortage occupation for years in the
United States and are key contributors to machinery development
projects for our mining and drilling products. Thermo King conducted a
13 month search for a qualified Plastics Engineer for their product
development team.
5. Information Technology shortages runs the gamut from the highly-
experienced professional programmers and software engineers down to the
technicians that support ``help desk'' functions. There appears to be a
``skills gap'' in the United States as well, with the most advanced
programmers and engineers coming from India, China and some of the
Soviet-Block countries. When we recruit for particular skills such as
Oracle database, UNIX and C++ programming or experienced programmers
with web-based applications, few Americans qualify. Foreign nationals
can only work as nonimmigrants in the US for a short period of time
resulting in continuous turnover of certain key technology positions.
Situations like this drive projects overseas, resulting in a loss of
U.S. jobs and a decrease in U.S. spin-off revenue. This situation
exemplifies not only the need for workers across the spectrum of skill
levels.
Through the media and other sources the business community hears
the mantra, ``train U.S. workers; invest in the domestic workforce.''
We at Ingersoll-Rand and my members at the US Chamber do just this and
more. We have training centers at almost all our manufacturing
facilities--designed to improve technical manufacturing skills and meet
our employees' personal needs; we collaborate with community colleges
and vocational technical schools--providing certificate and college
degree programs and sponsor distance learning on-site; we have a
tuition reimbursement program for employees pursuing bachelor's and
advanced degrees; we provide many corporate on-site training programs;
and we encourage cultural exchanges from our facilities abroad in order
to enhance diversity and awareness.
Ingersoll-Rand remains a major contributor to US colleges and
universities as well as national organizations such as the
International Road Education Foundation, the National Hispanic
Scholarship Fund, the National Urban League, the National Alliance for
Business, and the US Chamber of Commerce Spirit of Enterprise Campaign,
to name a few.
Employers currently need and will continue to need workers of all
skill levels. Through the US Chamber of Commerce and in coalition with
businesses and trade associations across the spectrum, we seek a
solution to the worker shortages at all levels. Specifically through
the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition we are working toward a
workable solution to the shortage of workers with less than a bachelors
degree. Current law does not provide a viable vehicle to bring needed
foreign workers into the US. From manufacturing facilities to nursing
homes to restaurants and hotels, we are in dire need for employees, but
are precluded from bringing them in through the existing H-2B temporary
visa program. I have included some materials from the Essential Worker
Immigration Coalition for your reference.
The Chamber is also concerned with the policy issues surrounding
spousal work authorization, and is working in coalition for several
countries to reform US work authorization for spouses of certain intra-
company transfers. Another policy issue of concern to our committee is
the lack of sufficient immigrant visa numbers for those lawful
immigrants that wish to convert to permanent residence. We will be
addressing this issue through the EWIC coalition and other
organizations.
With respect to the immigration process and procedures for
processing applications, we are very concerned with the increasing
processing times at both the Department of Labor and the Immigration
and Naturalization Service. Nonimmigrant visa petitions routinely take
more than 4 months to process. The agencies need to have tightened
oversight and need to be made accountable for missed adjudication time
lines. The agencies administering immigration policies need to work
with each other and need to coordinate strategies to execute new law.
For example, on January 19, 2001, the Interim Final regulations were
issued to implement to the changes in immigration laws that were
enacted in 1998. The regulations, contained in over 500 pages, are
onerous and not timely. In fact the new Secretary of Labor has
extending the period for comment until the end of this month. The US
Chamber requested this extension and we are preparing comments on the
proposed regulations. Over three years ago the documents acceptable for
I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification were changed by law but
employers are still waiting for revised regulations and a new I-9 Form
to be issued by the Department of Labor. Two laws that were enacted in
October of 2000, have very little guidance from either agency. This
causes chaos at the service centers and the borders.
Reform of the agencies is key. We are encouraged that the
subcommittee is exploring all of the procedural and policy issues
surrounding immigration law, and hope that some constructive solutions
can be can be identified.
Thank you for allowing me to testify. I look forward to any
questions you may have.
<F-dash>
Statement of Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, Washington, D.C.
Mission Statement
The Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) is a coalition of
business, trad associations, and other organizations from across the
industry spectrum concerned with the shortage of both skilled and
lesser skilled (``essential worker'') labor. While all sectors of the
economy have benefited from the extended period of economic growth, one
significant impediment to continued growth is the shortage of essential
workers With unemployment rates in some areas approahing zero and with
continuing vigorous welfare -to-work, school-to-work, and other
recruitment efforts, businesses are now finding themselves with no
applicants of any kind for numerous job upenings. Reliance on market
forces has proven to be unsuccessful. There simply are not enough
people to meet the demand of our stong economy.
The shortage of workers is of such magnitude that some of our
industries refer to it as one of the most important business issues.
Many firms are curtailing expansion plans because of a lack of
available, qualified workers. Indeed, the Federal Reserve Board has
noted many times the widespread shortage of essential workers
throughout the united states and its impact on our economy. We believe
that part of the solution involves allowing companies to hire foreign
workers to fill the essential worker shortages. When companies can not
fill jobs with U.S. workers, hiring foreign nationals should be a
viable alternative.EWIC supports policies that facilitate the
employment of essential workers by U.S. companies and organizations
current immigration law and recent tightening of federal immigration
policy have greatly curtained this potential source of workers.
Comgress must take action to address the problems associated with the
unprecedented job growth, low unemployment and corresponding inability
to find domestic workers to meet the needs of American employers.
Failure to do so risks American prosperity an dleadership in the global
economy.
Reform Agenda
The Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) is a coalition of
businesses, trade associations, and other organizations from across the
industry spectrum concerned with the shortage of both semi-skilled and
unskilled (``essential worker'') labor. This document lays out EWIC's
principles for essential worker immigration reform.
new legal immigration programs based on u.s. worker shortage
<bullet> Short-term: an effective H-2B-like program
<bullet> Long-term: an employment-based permanent residence for
essential workers through an application process that is
straightforward and quickly completed
regularization of certain undocumented workers currently in the u.s.
<bullet> Establish a one-time mechanism to allow undocumented workers
in the U.S. to convert to a legal status--a conditional
employment-based status leading to permanent status
<bullet> Regularization initiatives should be matched to employability,
although not necessarily a particular employer:
<bullet> the worker should document actual or prospective employment
to qualify
<bullet> the employer documenting actual employment should be forgiven
for any employer sanctions violation
workable immigration enforcement system
<bullet> Employer sanctions repeal (Immigration Reform and Control Act
of 1986)
<bullet> Employer sanctions repeal should be paired with an updated
legal immigration system to reduce undocumented immigration
maintenance of existing worker protections
<bullet> A new immigration system should not result in any diminution
or expansion of current worker protections
Members (as of January 8, 2001)
American Health Care Association
American Hotel & Motel Assocation
American Immigration Lawyers Association
American Meat Institute
American Road & Transportation Builders Association
American Nursery & Landscape Association
Associated Builders and Contractors
Associated General Contractors
Building Service Contractors Association International
The Brickman Group, Ltd.
Carlson Hotels Worldwide and Radisson
Calson Restaurants Worldwide and TGI Friday's
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
Harborside Helathcare Corporation
Ingersoll-Rand
International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions
International Mass Retail Association
Manufactured Housing Institute
Nath Companies
National Assoication for Home Care
National Association of Chain Drug Stores
National Association of Home Builders
national Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds
National Council of Chain Restaurants
National Retail Federation
National Restaurant Association
National Roofing Contractors Association
National Tooling & Machining Association
National School Transportation Association Outdoor Amusement Business
Association
Outdoor Amusement Business Association
Resort Recreation & Tourism Management
Truckload Carriers Association
US Chamber of Commerce
Walt Disney World Co.
Chairman Brownback. First, Ms. Munoz, on the problems that
you are hearing from my State, I would appreciate if you can--
and keep the confidentiality, but I would like to know what
sorts of things you are seeing. You noted some of the profiling
that you are hearing about. That is a cause of concern for me
and so I would like to personally know about that.
Ms. Munoz. Absolutely.
Chairman Brownback. Ms. Dickson, I appreciated your
comments about the nature of particular skill levels like
welding. I took 4 years of welding in high school and still
wasn't very good at it. I think this is an important item
particularly for the manufacturing sector, and it is tough to
be able to do it.
Ms. Dickson. We actually have our own welding schools and
we still can't fill the need.
Chairman Brownback. Ms. Narasaki, you were not able to
address the refugee issue, even though you noted its impact in
Asia. Do you have thoughts as to why we have lowered that
number that we are taking in so much that you could highlight
in 30 seconds?
Ms. Narasaki. Well, as you know, the limit is set each year
by the administration, and I have to say we were very
disappointed in President Clinton's decision to cut the levels
over the last 2 years. As people have noted, there certainly is
enough supply, and the United States relative to other
countries really isn't doing its full share in terms of taking
those refugees in.
The refugee program from Southeast Asia has been winding
down. There are concerns at least for some of the countries
that it has been a little bit premature and that there are some
people who really do have credible fears of persecution, but
who have been forcibly returned to their countries. So we hope
that is something that this Subcommittee will look into
further.
Chairman Brownback. Well, we will, and I look forward to
your more in-depth comments on this because I think we clearly
can do better and we need to do better, even if it is shifting
from different parts of the world, but we need to do more.
Let me just say, in conclusion, thank you very much and I
am sorry I am having to rush, but we have got the tail-end of
this vote. For a scene-setter hearing, you laid out a lot of
work that I think could take a long period of time, but I
appreciate your specificity with it, and I know as well your
hearts to help us to move it on through.
None of these are particularly easy issues, even though
they are very important issues and they directly impact people
across the country. So I am looking forward to working with you
to move these through the overall process. I think we have got
a good time to be able to do a number of these issues. I think
if we can be careful and thoughtful and energetic about it, we
can move these on forward.
I will solicit yours and others' advice on how we do that.
I have been around long enough to have hit my head up against
enough brick walls to figure out there frequently is another
way than just hitting the wall straight on, and I will need
your expertise and thoughts on how to do that.
Finally, I hope we all continue to put forward the positive
message of what this is all about. This is good, this is who we
are, this is who we will be in the future, and if we can
continue to put it forward in that framework and not ``we/
they'' or ``the last one in, close the door'' philosophy, we
are better people if we do it that way.
We have a statement from Senator Leahy which we will insert
into the record at this point.
[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy follows:]
Statement of Hon. Patrick J. Leahy, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Vermont
I would like to congratulate Senator Brownback for becoming the new
Chairman of this subcommittee, and thank him for holding such a
positive hearing to open his tenure. I am confident that we will be
able to work together on many issues that have gone unresolved for too
long, and I am hopeful that immigration policy can be an area of
bipartisan cooperation in the 107<SUP>th</SUP> Congress. I also commend
and congratulate Senator Kennedy for his decision to continue his long
service to this Committee and to the Nation as the Ranking Member of
the subcommittee.
The varied witnesses on today's panels demonstrate that those who
have pitted business and family immigration against each other have
presented a false choice. With the commitment of our new Chairman and
our dedicated Ranking Member, we can address both issues in a
comprehensive way. Before hearing from these distinguished witnesses, I
would like briefly to discuss a few of the immigration issues that I
believe should be priorities in this Congress.
Five years have now passed since Congress passed the Antiterrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act. Taken together, these bills contained a
series of provisions that have seriously harmed our historic commitment
to both refugees and to due process. Along with many of our colleagues,
particularly Senator Kennedy, I have worked during the ensuing
Congresses to correct the mistakes that a deeply partisan Congress made
in 1996. With an evenly divided Senate and a Chairman who shares a
strong commitment to refugees, I hope this Congress will be different.
First, I look forward to working with Senator Brownback again in
this Congress on the Refugee Protection Act. That bill, which I
introduced with his cosponsorship and strong support in the
106<SUP>th</SUP> Congress, would restrict the use of expedited removal,
the process under which aliens arriving in the United States can be
returned immediately to their native lands at the say-so of a low-level
INS officer. Expedited removal was the subject of a major debate in
this chamber in 1996, and the Senate voted to use it only during
immigration emergencies. This Senate-passed restriction was removed in
what was probably the most partisan conference committee I have ever
witnessed. The Refugee Protection Act was modeled closely on that 1996
amendment, and I am working with Senator Brownback on a Refugee
Protection Act for the 107<SUP>th</SUP> Congress, which we hope to
introduce next month.
The use of expedited removal calls the United States' commitment to
refugees into serious question. We now have a system where we are
removing people who arrive here either without proper documentation or
with proper documentation that an INS officer simply suspects is
invalid. This policy ignores the fact that people fleeing despotic
regimes are quite often unable to obtain travel documents before they
go: They must move quickly and cannot depend upon the government that
is persecuting them to provide them with the proper paperwork for
departure. In the limited time that expedited removal has been in
operation, we already have received reliable reports that valid asylum
seekers have been kicked out of our country without the opportunity to
convince an immigration judge that they faced persecution in their
native lands. To provide just one example, a Kosovar Albanian was
summarily removed from the United States after the civil war in Kosovo
had already made the front pages of America's newspapers. I believe we
must address this issue this year, and I know that Senator Brownback
feels the same way.
Second, I hope that this subcommittee will examine the serious due
process concerns that remain unresolved from the passage of the 1996
legislation. Congress expanded the pool of people who could be
deported, denied those people the chance for due process before
deportation, and made these changes retroactive, so that legal
permanent residents who had committed offenses so minor that they did
not even serve jail time suddenly faced removal from the United States.
This new legal regime has created numerous horror stories, including
the removal of noncitizen veterans of the American armed forces for
minor crimes committed well before 1996. In the last Congress, I
introduced a bill that would have guaranteed due process rights for
veterans, a bill that was supported by the American Legion and other
veterans' groups, and I plan to introduce similar legislation this
year. In addition, I was a proud cosponsor of Senator Kennedy's
Immigrant Fairness Restoration Act, which would have restored a broad
range of due process rights to immigrants. I look forward to supporting
similar legislation this year, and I hope that the Chairman will be
willing to hold hearings on this important issue.
Third, this subcommittee should consider the proposals that were
included in the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act in the
106<SUP>th</SUP> Congress. Despite the best efforts of many Senators,
the majority would not allow a vote on that bill, either freestanding
or as an amendment to other legislation. These proposals--to treat
people who fled right-wing dictatorships the same way we treat people
who fled left-wing dictatorships, to update the date of registry to
allow people who have been living and working in the United States for
15 years or more to apply for permanent residency, and to protect
families by restoring the law that allowed people eligible for green
cards to apply from within the United States--deserve serious
examination, and I hope this subcommittee can take on that task.
Finally, we need to pay close attention to the immigration needs of
American employers. I supported increasing the number of H-1B visas
last year because I was convinced that the information technology
industry and other businesses needed flexibility to continue their
growth. I am very interested in hearing what immigration measures
today's witnesses believe would be helpful to ensure that our economy
remains healthy.
Chairman Brownback. Thank you all very much. I apologize
for rushing out, but I am sure we will see you at future
hearings.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[A submission for the record follows:]
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
Statement of Hon. Mike DeWine, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio
Thank you, Chairman Brownback and Ranking Democrat Kennedy, for
holding this important hearing today to examine the state of our
immigration policy. This hearing is timely and necessary. In fact, just
today, Secretary of State Powell and Attorney General Ashcroft are
meeting with a high level Mexican delegation to talk openly about
immigration policy. I am hopeful that this meeting will be one of many
future discussions on U.S.--Mexican immigration.
As you all know, the immigration process impacts not only American
economic competitiveness and diplomatic relations, but more
importantly, it directly affects families and children. Tragically,
families are often split up because of deficiencies and delays in the
immigration and naturalization process.
In the 106<SUP>th</SUP> Congress, to help address one such problem,
I cosponsored Senator Nickles' bill, the ``Adopted Orphans Citizenship
Act,'' which amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to enable
children adopted from foreign countries to attain U.S. citizenship more
easily. This bill became law in October 2000. I hope we can do much
more to improve our immigration system this year.
Today, we will hear testimony on the merits of family-based and
employment-based criteria in determining immigration and citizenship
status. Family reunification the cornerstone of America's immigration
policy and must remain so. However, in an increasingly global economy,
America's future competitiveness requires us to take a look at how
immigration can make our economy stronger.
While a discussion of immigration policy goals is important, I'd
like to take a moment, Mr. Chairman, to call the Subcommittee's
attention to the process that implements these policies. I am speaking
of the operations of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
It appears that although the INS consistently has received more money
from Congress year after year, services have not improved. Management
and personnel problems in the INS, coupled with a growing numbers of
immigrant applications, are leading to backlogs all around the country.
Let me give a few examples from my home state of Ohio. This time
last year, my casework office had 67 pending immigration cases. This
year, due to the backlog at the INS, we have 147. In Cleveland, the INS
office takes about 18 months to process a naturalization case, much
longer than the INS's goal of 8-12 months.
For some applicants, this delay can cost them their jobs, which
also presents a problem for their American employers. Worse still,
extensive delays threaten applicants' ability to even remain in this
country.
Our friend and former Senate colleague--and now Secretary of
Energy--Spence Abraham--noted when he was Chairman of this
Subcommittee, that we have come to a point where we need to consider
fundamental reform of the INS. This Subcommittee has started that
process. We've begun to carefully examine ways to improve efficiency in
the INS, including ways to restructure the INS with respect to services
and law enforcement. As a result, the INS has made minor changes.
However, no agreement on a complete and viable solution has been
reached. I am hopeful that we will continue to work on proposals that
will improve the functioning of the INS, which ultimately, will be to
the benefit of those immigrants who come to our country legally.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, we are a nation of immigrants--immigrants
who came to these shores in pursuit of freedom, hope, and opportunity.
As the Subcommittee on Immigration, we have a mandate to ensure that
the proper development and execution of a fair immigration policy--one
that looks out for the welfare of both American citizens and
immigration applicants. As a new member of this Subcommittee, I look
forward to working with our new Chairman, as well as a former Chairman,
Senator Kennedy, to move our immigration policies in a positive
direction.
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