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AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS ACT
(Senate - May 18, 1998)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S4976-S5001] AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS ACT The Senate continued with consideration of the bill. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, would the distinguished chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee yield me 5 minutes to speak on behalf of his bill and against the Kennedy amendments? Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield the Senator from Texas such time as he may need. I believe this would have to be yielded from time that is to be available for the amendments The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. There is 1 minute 20 seconds remaining on the bill. Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield 5 minutes from the time reserved for our side. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I thank our dear colleague for yielding. I congratulate him on this bill, the American Competitiveness Act. Over the years, we have wisely attracted the best and brightest to America. We have recognized that having talented people come to our country to work has not only not displaced American workers, but it has created an intellectual base that has help create millions of jobs. I want to congratulate Senator Abraham for this bill. I think it is vitally important, and I am proud to be a supporter of the bill. I think it is interesting to note that the companies most strongly supporting Senator Abraham's bill are America's fastest growing companies. These are the companies that are creating most of the new jobs in America. Especially those companies that are in high-tech areas and research areas that are primarily responsible for generating the new products, the new know-how and the new technology that will create jobs now and in the 21st century. I understand that Senator Kennedy will be offering two amendments. Although they have not technically been offered yet, I know enough about the amendments to know that I am opposed to them. Senator Kennedy is trying to preserve the jobs of the 1950s. Senator Abraham is trying to create jobs now and in the 21st century. Senator Kennedy believes that if we can keep new, talented people out of America, as a contributory factor to the intellectual base of our country, we can induce innovative businesses to hire more Americans. Senator Abraham understands that we need an intellectual base to help us create the products and the technology that will create thousands and ultimately millions of new jobs. In these two amendments that will be offered, we really have a debate between the past and the future. The past deals with the idea that we can somehow protect jobs by keeping talented people out of the country. The future is a recognition that America has literally drained the brain talent of the world by bringing talented people to America, and, in the process, talented people here have found more opportunity, more freedom, than any other people who have lived. They have created an economic system that is unrivaled throughout the world. The first amendment Senator Kennedy will offer states that if a company brings in an H-1B visa worker, and later has to lay someone off, the company is in violation of the law. The problem is that in dealing with innovative companies, people are hired based on creating new products and based on success of their research. To force a company to guarantee that it will not, in the next 6 months, have to lay anyone off is to ask them to guarantee the success of their research. As we know from the experience of Europe, which is still trying to follow the policies of the 1950s that are built into the Kennedy amendments, if a company does not have the right to lay people off when a project fails, it can not take the risk to [[Page S4977]] hire the very people who make it possible for it to succeed. The second amendment deals with giving the Labor Department the ability to make a final judgment and to second-guess an employer as to whether or not a person who is a resident of the United States could have been found to do the work. I simply want to remind my colleagues that the existing law states that a company can not bring in an H-1B worker from outside and pay them less than either the prevailing wage or the actual wage. So it is not a case of bringing in people who will work for less. Also, the bill offered by Senator Abraham strengthens current law by providing a $25,000 fine and a 2-year debarment from the program for those who willfully violate the law. So the question is: If there are talented people who can come to our universities, to our research labs, to our high-tech companies bringing with them human capital that can help us create technology and products that will put millions of our own people to work, why not ask them to come to America, instead of inducing American companies to invest abroad in order to employ them in their country? It seems to me that the most revealing thing about this whole debate is the companies that use this H-1B program are the companies that have the fastest growing employment base of American citizens. We are not talking about companies that are experiencing declining employment trying to bring in technical people from abroad. It is companies in Silicon Valley that want to bring in people with special expertise. This will allow these companies, through the application of their genius to practical business problems, to hire hundreds and ultimately thousands more people. If Senator Kennedy's amendments were valid, the companies that use this program would be companies where employment is declining. But the plain truth, as is evident to anyone who looks at the data, is that the companies using these programs are companies that are creating the largest number of jobs in America. So if Microsoft--assuming the Government doesn't put them out of business by trying to limit technology--can put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work by bringing someone to this country who has special expertise, why not let them do it. Especially when this bill strengthens the law by imposing a $25,000 fine on companies that violate procedures aimed at dealing with the legitimate problems raised by Senator Kennedy and others---that people will be brought here who will work for less and therefore undercut the wage base of American workers. So I hope these two amendments will be defeated. I think it is very revealing that our high-tech industries say they would rather not have the bill if the Kennedy amendments are adopted. That suggests to me that the purpose of the amendments are to kill the bill. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield myself 4 minutes on the amendments. As I am sure the Senator from Texas knows, about 85 percent of these jobs earn $75,000 a year, or less. I am just wondering what we have against Americans and American workers that we are so prepared to turn over these good jobs to foreigners. Now, if the Senator wants to say, well, what about these $75,000 jobs? The GAO pointed out that there is no increase in the salary of these workers. I thought supply and demand said that if we have that great a demand, we are going to see an increase in salaries; right? Wrong. The GAO report says there is no indication of that. So these are good jobs. I say, let's try an American first. Let's develop the kinds of skills employers need so that we won't need to have this continue after the expiration of this particular proposal. Let's try an American first. And if we are not going to do that, let's just ensure that an American who is in that job and working, as the record demonstrates today, isn't going to get laid off and replaced by a foreign worker who then is going to work longer hours and be threatened day after day that if they complain at all, they are going to have their green card taken and they will be shipped overseas. That is the case, in many instances. Madam President, I find it difficult to just accept the Senator's argument that this really is just the pure free market system working at its best. I think we owe something to American workers. It is so interesting that all of these companies want to have a free enterprise system--except when it comes to paying wages and salaries. Then they want to do it and get cheaper workers in from overseas and then exploit them. We want to protect against that. That is what those amendments would do. I withhold the balance of my time. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I ask the Senator from Michigan to yield me an additional 5 minutes. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I yield an additional 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, first of all, I always welcome Senator Kennedy giving me lectures about supply and demand. I wish I believed in my heart that he believed in supply and demand. Secondly, one of the purposes of the bill is to add teeth to the provision about hiring Americans first. This is done by imposing a $25,000 fine on people who displace American workers in order to hire H-1B workers, or people who violate the law that prohibits hiring these workers at less than the current wage rate. Obviously, we are talking about very talented people when we are talking about people coming in for salary of $75,000. I have to admit that I am somewhat struck by the paradox. Only last week, we were debating an effort I had undertaken to make people who come to America, come with their sleeves rolled up, rather than their hand held out to get food stamps; and last week the Senate voted to give them food stamps for 7 years. When the Senator from Michigan says, we should let very talented people come and not let them work for less than Americans, and if they can bring talent that will make American products more competitive and help create American jobs, we should let them come in and work in limited numbers, under strict requirements. I think one might be confused to hear that we are perfectly willing to let people come here and go on welfare; it is when they want to come and go to work that we have an objection. Well, I do not. I go back to the point that the companies who are hiring these people are not companies that are in decline. I know the Senator feels this concern in his heart, and I have no doubt about the sincerity of his position. If these were companies in decline and they were trying to drive down their wage base by simply hiring people with standard skills to displace Americans, I would be siding with Senator Kennedy. But what is happening here is companies that are using this program are our most innovative companies. They are the companies that have the most talented workers that they can hire in our country. They are our fastest growing companies. They are companies that are creating jobs now, and they are laying the technological foundations that will create hundreds, thousands, and ultimately millions of jobs in the future. They want to reach out in the world and pick the most talented, the best and the brightest, to come to America on a temporary basis and help us develop the technology that will create jobs--good jobs, high- paying jobs, $75,000-a-year jobs--for our own workers. So I strongly support the provision offered by the Senator from Michigan. I do believe that the amendments offered by the Senator from Massachusetts are well intended, but I think they are wrongheaded in the sense that, in the name of protecting jobs, we are keeping out a very small number of very select people who are working at labs at Harvard University, or working in Silicon Valley, or working in research institutes all over the country to create technology that puts millions of our people to work. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I have 150 letters and scores more back in my office of Americans who have training and skills in computer knowledge and technology and are unable to get the jobs. You can, under this proposal, hire 1,000 foreign workers and displace 1,000 American workers and it doesn't violate any law. It violates no law. I think we ought to protect American workers, and if there is a job out [[Page S4978]] there, an American worker ought to have a crack at it before it goes overseas. Madam President, I see my friend and colleague from Nevada who, under the agreement, is to be recognized to offer an amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized. Mr. REID. Madam President, let's put ourselves in the situation that a woman from Las Vegas found herself in. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from Nevada offering his amendment? Mr. REID. I will offer it at the appropriate time. I have the floor now. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Unless time is yielded to the Senator under the agreement on the bill, the Senator---- Mr. REID. My amendment has no time. Amendment No. 2414 (Purpose: To require that applications for passports for minors have parental signatures) Mr. REID. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment numbered 2414. Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following: SEC ____. PASSPORTS ISSUED FOR CHILDREN UNDER 16. (a) In General.--Section 1 of title IX of the Act of June 15, 1917 (22 U.S.C. 213) is amended-- (1) by striking ``Before'' and inserting ``(a) In General.--Before'', and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection: ``(b) Passports Issued for Children Under 16.-- ``(1) Signatures required.--In the case of a child under the age of 16, the written application required as a prerequisite to the issuance of a passport for such child shall be signed by-- ``(A) both parents of the child if the child lives with both parents; ``(B) the parent of the child having primary custody of the child if the child does not live with both parents; or ``(C) the surviving parent (or legal guardian) of the child, if 1 or both parents are deceased. ``(2) Waiver.--The Secretary of State may waive the requirements of paragraph (1)(A) if the Secretary determines that circumstances do not permit obtaining the signatures of both parents.''. (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall apply to applications for passports filed on or after the date of the enactment of this Act. Mr. REID. Madam President, let's assume that you are a mother, you have a 6-year-old child, you have recently been divorced, and you go to pick the child up from school and he is not there. You wonder what happened to your child. You call the police; the police have no knowledge of his whereabouts. No one seems to know what happened to your child. But as things are pieced together, you learn that your husband, who you recently divorced, has taken the child from school and to Croatia. This happens during the time of the Balkans war. What as a mother are you to do? Your child is in Croatia. You were married to a Croatian. This is a situation that 1,000 parents face every year in our country. Over 1,000 children are taken from this country, normally as a result of the mother and father not getting along, or recently divorced, and they are taken many times to a country where one of the parents was born. Sometimes the parent just takes off to a country they are familiar with. They want to get away from the wife or husband, recognizing that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get the baby back. The tragedy is of a thousand stories a year; there are many thousands of stories I could retell. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported about a woman by whose name is Lilly Waken. Her two daughters left home for a party. The children never came back. Frantically, she called the police. She called the hospitals. She learned that her husband had taken them away and had bought three one-way tickets to Damascus, Syria. That was 18 months ago. She hasn't seen her children since. My amendment is all about fairness and prevention. It is about preventing a problem that plagues this country, the international children's abduction problem. As I have indicated, 1,000 or more children are abducted every year in our country. These children, as I have indicated, are abducted during or shortly after a contentious divorce, sometimes even by an abusive parent, at a time when these children are most vulnerable and uncertain about their future. They are then snatched from custody of one parent and hauled over to a foreign country. In the case that I first spoke of, a young boy by the name of Mikey Kale from Las Vegas was taken to Croatia. His mother worked for months and months, and was finally able, after spending a tremendous amount of money trying to get the return of her son--remember, this is in a country that was Mikey Kale Passport and Notification Amendment at war--she was able to get her child back. I am proposing this legislation, the Mikey Kale Passport Notification Amendment, after this young boy taken to Croatia, Mikey Kale. This amendment is very simple. It will require that parents who are married must both sign for a passport for their child. If there has been a divorce, the one with primary custody must sign for the child to obtain a passport. We have a provision in this bill so that, under extreme circumstances, the Secretary of State can waive the requirements if the Secretary determines that the circumstances do not permit the obtaining of the signatures of both parents. Madam President, this legislation was passed before in this body. It went to the House where it was knocked out in conference. Why? For the same reason that the State Department indicated in a recent article in Parade Magazine, it is going to create too much paperwork. I say, Madam President, that is too much baloney. It may be too much paperwork for them. But for the parents and the children involved in this, it is better to spend a little extra time when someone comes to get a passport to make sure that the passport is obtained properly. It is not asking too much of the State Department to insure that people who are going to get a passport for a child to check out that the child is, in effect, not being kidnaped. The aim of the amendment is prevention. It prevents parental abductors from obtaining U.S. passports for their minor children. One of the best ways to prevent international parental abductions is to make it more difficult for the abductors to obtain a passport. Madam President, prior to coming to this body I practiced law and did divorce work, among other things. When Mikey Kale's mother came to me, it flooded memories back to my mind about a case that I had where there was a contested divorce. I represented a police officer from Henderson, NV. Suddenly, my client picked up the two children and went to Mexico. He called me from Mexico, and said, ``I'm not coming back until I get what I asked for from my wife.'' So I called the opposing counsel and told him what had happened. My client stayed down in Mexico for years until finally the mother of the two children, in effect, gave him what he wanted. It was a difficult situation. The children were never in school during that period of time. Madam President, this is a very serious problem. We who are parents and grandparents know that we are the ones who are looked upon as protectors of our children. But those who should be protecting children are doing the worst for the child by taking them to a strange country, recognizing that the standards and customs in that country are much different from ours, and that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to get that child back. It is reported that the State Department has had thousands and thousands of these reported kidnapings, and that they just write them off after a year or two, closing 80 percent of their files. This amendment is a simple legislative solution which will implement a system of checks prior to the issuance of a minor child's passport thereby protecting both parental rights and the rights of the child. [[Page S4979]] Two years ago the same amendment passed. The State Department and their lobbyists prevailed upon those in conference to remove this provision. In the meantime, 2,000 children in this country have been abducted to other countries--2,000 children. Think of the grief that has been caused to those children and to the parents of those children. This, Madam President, should stop. We should not listen to what the State Department says, that because they are understaffed and don't want to go into the details of who has custody, they cannot implement this preventive measure. I say let's save some pain and suffering of these little children, and also of one of the parents. This problem is more common than one would think. As I stated earlier, 1,000 children are abducted every year. Here in the United States missing and abducted children are counted meticulously, in some countries they keep no records whatsoever. Forty-five nations have signed a Hague treaty designed to resolve international child custody disputes. Most countries have not. Finding a missing child is very difficult. This problem is no better illustrated, as I have indicated, than that of Mikey Kale for whom this amendment is named. Let me repeat. On Valentine's Day in 1993, Mikey was abducted by the ex-husband of Barbara Spierer and taken to Croatia--kidnaped, for lack of a better description. As I have said, after tremendous emotional and financial efforts, Barbara was one of the lucky ones. She got her baby boy back. Regardless of the number of cases--whether it is 1,000 cases, which it is, or 10 cases a year, which it isn't--one case of abduction is one too many. My amendment seeks to prevent even that one tragedy from occurring. One of the most difficult and frustrating elements for parents of internationally abducted children is that the U.S. laws and court orders are usually ignored in a foreign country. If they are not ignored, the possible pain and expense of legal representation in that country are unbearable. Many of these cases involve parents who have relatively no assets. So the one who is, in effect, left behind, when the child has been kidnaped, can do nothing. One country alone has 45 cases of American children being abducted. Letters to that foreign head of state have had no effect, and none of the 45 have been voluntarily returned. An inconceivable, irrefutable fact is that once a child is abducted from the United States, it is almost impossible to get the child back. Madam President, once again, the aim of this amendment is prevention--prevention of anguish to families, prevention of parental rights being violated, prevention of a child being abducted. Until more can be done, I believe a simple, cost-effective legislative solution to protect our children's rights is essential, and I ask my colleagues to join me. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I would like to speak on the amendment, but what I will do is note the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I will speak very briefly in support of the Reid amendment. I think the concerns he has raised here are very important ones and need to be addressed. I would actually add to the examples he used other situations which have occurred to constituents of mine in which following a divorce decree in this country, a spouse who maintains dual citizenship in some fashion goes to a country of his or her other citizenship with the child after there has been an agreement with regard to visitation. The American citizen spouse who remains in the United States then seeks to visit on the basis of that visitation agreement and finds, when visiting the foreign country, the child is not available, cannot be found, has disappeared, usually just to another city or another relative's home or something else, but basically because of the limited amount of time the visiting spouses have in the country, they no longer have the opportunity to see their children. This is not the case of an abduction per se, but it is relatively similar in terms of the implications. So I think the outlawing this amendment takes helps to address the most egregious form of this problem. But I indicate to the Senator from Nevada I not only would be willing to accept this amendment and support it, but I look forward to working with him--and I know of several other Senators who have approved--to see if there are ways we could also address these other cases where we may not be dealing with abduction, but still dealing with the circumstance where parents are prevented from seeing their children. So I thank the Senator from Nevada for his amendment. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for bringing this matter to our attention once again. As we were saying a few moments ago, this was accepted in the last debate on immigration reform in 1996. When it went to conference, there were a number of us who were excluded. If we had been able to participate, we would have supported this measure. But we were in a different regime at the time. In so many areas of immigration policy there are the opportunities for abuse by a few. But as the Senator has pointed out, thousands can still be affected by the injustice. The Senator has identified one instance in which a family was harmed. We would be glad to work with him and with Senator Abraham to see what could be worked through in the conference. If somehow we are not persuasive in the conference, we will join with him later in offering his amendment on appropriations bills or other bills. But I think the Senator has made a strong case, just as he did the last time. I think he has identified a very important issue. Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that my request for the yeas and nays be withdrawn subject to the manager of the bill accepting the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment (No. 2414) was agreed to. Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, be recognized for 7 minutes in order to offer an amendment, and immediately following the conclusion that I be recognized for the same purpose of offering an amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object--I do not intend to--he will go for 7 minutes and then we will have a chance to respond to his amendment? Are we going to have time to dispose of his amendment before the Senator from Arkansas? Mr. REED. I think in that time we can dispose of the amendment. Mr. BUMPERS. The amendment, I think, can be disposed of in 7 minutes. Mr. KENNEDY. That is fine. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized. Mr. REED. I thank the Chair. Amendment No. 2415 (Purpose: To strike section 4, relating to education and training in science and technology) Mr. REED. I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:. The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed] proposes an amendment numbered 2415. Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 27, beginning with line 1, strike all through page 29, line 10. Mr. REED. Madam President, my amendment would strike section 4 of [[Page S4980]] the underlying legislation. This section proposes to amend the State Student Incentive Grant Program, the SSIG Program. I first want to recognize Senator Abraham's efforts on behalf of this legislation and to underscore that I understand the issue the Senator is attempting to address is the lack of suitable training in our country to provide the types of scientists and engineers which this legislation hopes to attract through immigration policies. But I would object to the importation of the SSIG Program into this legislation; to pull SSIG in is inappropriate. We all recognize we do have to educate and train more Americans to take up these high-tech jobs, but this immigration bill is not the right vehicle, and the SSIG Program is not the right approach to simply target high-tech training in the United States. I would like to briefly set the record straight with respect to SSIG, its status, and I hope its future. First, the State Student Incentive Grant Program is within the jurisdiction of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. We have been considering its reformation and improvement over the last several months, and we have made progress in that regard. We are on the verge, after deliberation in the committee, of bringing a bill to the floor which will make significant improvements to SSIG. I would like to also point out that the State Student Incentive Grant Program was initiated back in 1972 by Senator Jacob Javits of New York. It was created not as a way to bootstrap high-tech learning in the United States, but to meet a critical deficiency--the need to provide resources to low-income students to enable them to go to college in a vast array of programs, letting them make the decision of where their talent will carry them, but giving them the resources to go to college and stay in college. In its more than 20-year history, it has been a remarkably effective program. It takes Federal dollars and offers a one-for-one dollar match with the States to provide need-based grants to students. It has no federal overhead. It delivers money in the form of grants to low-income students that need these resources to go on to college. Now, if we are talking about providing more opportunities for Americans to be scientists, to be engineers, to do all the things that we want them to do and not have to rely upon foreign nationals coming into our country, SSIG is the wrong place to start. We should be starting in the elementary and secondary schools. We should be recognizing that in many of our schools, particularly low-income urban schools with high minority enrollments, 50 percent of those students are likely to have a science or math teacher who never concentrated on science or math in college. And that is one reason we are not developing, here in the United States, those skills necessary for this high-tech age. So, if we are really interested in having Americans qualify to take these jobs, bringing SSIG into this bill, hijacking it, Shanghaiing it into this bill is not going to do it. We have to start early and consistently to reach young people. I believe we have made progress in this regard. We have made progress, both in terms of identifying the need to improve elementary and secondary education, and, as I mentioned before, we have made progress working closely with my colleague, the Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, to improve SSIG. We have introduced, with 17 other Senators, a bipartisan proposal to reform SSIG. It is called the LEAP Act. This proposal will create a two-tiered proposal: Up to $35 million, there will continue to be a one-for-one match of Federal dollars to State dollars; but when we go beyond that amount, we will allow the States a great deal more flexibility, flexibility that they will have to recognize by matching $2 for every one Federal dollar. But within that more flexible regime of options, we have actually built in, at the request of Senator Abraham, the ability of States to develop scholarship programs that are targeted to mathematics and computer science and engineering. In effect, working very closely with the Senator, who is sincerely committed to improving the quality of education throughout this country, we have done in the LEAP Act in the Labor Committee what is purported to be done here in this legislation. Now, we are concerned--frankly, I am concerned--that if we act in this immigration bill, we might upset the progress we have made to date on the LEAP Act. We might, in fact, compromise its fundamental commitment not to one specific sector of study but to a broader social purpose--of giving low-income students the chance to go on to college. I hope we will not do that. I feel very strongly about SSIG. I felt very strongly last year--again, working with Senator Collins from Maine. We came to the floor, we literally saved this program from extinction with an overwhelming vote of 84 to 4 to maintain appropriations for SSIG. Having, in a sense, given renewed life to this legislation, I want the opportunity, with my colleagues, to ensure that we continue this program as a need-based program and not at this moment, for convenience, for an attempt to respond to a legitimate concern about training high-tech personnel, to distort the purpose, the goals, and the future of SSIG. I think, working together with my colleagues, we can maintain the integrity of SSIG and we can also, using the Higher Education Act, strengthen it, reform it, and make it adaptable and make it accessible to a new generation of American students. I have had the opportunity to work with Senator Abraham. We have, I think, mutual appreciation of the need for SSIG. I hope, working with him over the next several weeks as this measure goes forward, and given his commitment to work together on this whole topic of the State Student Incentive Grant Program--I am prepared at this moment to seek unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn. The amendment (No. 2115) was withdrawn. Mr. REED. I yield to the Senator from Michigan, if he had a comment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I briefly would like to do a couple of things. First, I compliment the Senator from Rhode Island as well as the Presiding Officer for their efforts on this issue. As I mentioned earlier in my opening statement about the legislation before us, our office has been very grateful to you as well as to Senator Jeffords and others on the Labor Committee for the efforts that have been engaged in to help us craft, in the higher education bill, language which was consistent with our objectives in terms of trying to provide ways by which we can incentivize more young people in our country to fill these jobs we know are going to be created in the future. And under no circumstances, I think the Senator from Rhode Island knows, and I know the Senator from Maine knows as well, are any of us involved in the development of this legislation seeking to, in any context, reduce or undermine the SSIG program. To the contrary, I think everybody who is a cosponsor is a strong supporter. So we look forward to working with you. I have appreciated the efforts of the Senator from Rhode Island to assist us in this and thank him for what he has already done and what we look forward to doing together, to find a way to address this issue in the context of other legislation that will be before us. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator, my friend from Rhode Island. We have had the good opportunity to work with the Senator from Rhode Island and also the Senator from Maine on this particular issue. I know that the Senator from Rhode Island is someone who has been on the education committees, not only in the Senate but also in the House of Representatives, and is someone with a number of years of experience with this important issue. The Senator from Rhode Island has spent a lot of time in developing an understanding of this particular program and how it works in the States. He has also found how it can best be targeted in ways that offer the best opportunity for needy students, giving focus in areas of important need--math and science and other skills. So, we will continue to work with him. We appreciate his leadership and the leadership of the Senator from Maine in this area. [[Page S4981]] We have been trying to work to assure that Americans are going to develop the skills to be able to compete in these areas. This is really a combination of both the education and training aspects that Senator DeWine, Senator Reed, and Senator Collins have been working on, as well as the Senator from Michigan. And that is a reflection of the good faith of the Senator from Michigan on it. So I appreciate his willingness of the Senator from Rhode Island, at this time, to continue to work with us. We give the Senator the assurance we will continue to work very closely with him, and with the Senator from Maine, as we move on into the conference. But I appreciate his cooperation and leadership on this issue. Amendment No. 2416 (Purpose: To repeal the Immigrant Investor Program) The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized, under the previous order. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers], proposes an amendment numbered 2416. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the end of the bill add the following: ``SEC. ----. REPEAL OF IMMIGRANT INVESTOR PROGRAM. ``Section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, (8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)) shall be repealed effective on the date of enactment of this Act.'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be advised that there are 90 minutes equally divided under the time agreement. The Senator from Arkansas. Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Chair for reminding me. Madam President, this amendment repeals a provision in the immigration laws that was a tragic mistake when it was enacted. My amendment to strike that provision deals with economics, it deals with patriotism, it deals with immigration, and it deals with fraud. In order for my colleagues to understand precisely what we are talking about, let me set the stage. I fought this battle in 1989 and, at the expense of sounding a little self-serving, lost, but predicted what has happened would happen. The immigration bill considered by the Senate in 1989 included a provision of the bill to increase investment because we were headed into a recession. We decided we would take a page out of the play books of Canada and Australia. We thought, if they can sell citizenship for $200,000, citizenship in the United States ought to be worth at least $1 million. It is a very logical assumption. So, we said, in that bill in 1989, we will reserve 4,800 visas for foreigners who wants to come into this Nation and bring $1 million and hire 10 people: We will give you a green card at the end of 2 years, and, at the end of an additional 3 years, we will make you a citizen of the United States. Then in the conference committee we decided we could do even better than that. We said: You don't have to bring $1 million dollars; bring $500,000. If you put a hamburger joint up that will hire 10 people in an area of high unemployment or in a rural area, we will do the same thing for you. We cut the price of citizenship from $1 million to $500,000 and the 4,800 slots that we reserved in the Senate bill increased to 10,000 in the conference report. Multiply $1 million by 10,000 visas and just think of all the magnificent investment we would have in this country and how many jobs we would create. Madam President, that ``ain't'' all. We said not only will you not really have to create 10 jobs with your $500,000 or your $1 million, you only have to maintain 10 jobs. What does that mean? If old Joe's hamburger joint is about to go out of business and he has 10 employees and you are willing to buy his place and keep those 10 employees working, you have maintained 10 jobs, so you qualify for American citizenship. Then in 1993 we decided we would liberalize it a little further. Not only do you not have to create 10 jobs, not only do you not have to maintain 10 jobs, all you have to do is indirectly provide 10 jobs if you invest in businesses located in certain areas known as Regional Centers . What does that mean? You are making widgets. You employ five people to make widgets. You have two people to distribute them and three people to sell them. Those are indirectly created jobs. Therefore, you get your green card at the end of 2 years, and you get your citizenship papers at the end of 5 years. I can remember at that time how we thought Hong Kong was going to flood this Nation with people with $1 million in their pocket because they were terrified of the Chinese taking over Hong Kong. I must say, the program, such as it is, has been mostly of people from the Pacific rim--Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan. Madam President, do you know the nice thing about this? If you have $500,000 to invest, bring the little wife and kids, too, you are all welcome. They are also going to ultimately be entitled to citizenship. What have been the results? Madam President, a cottage industry of consultants and limited partnerships has grown up in this Nation. No plan the U.S. Congress has ever devised has been scam-proof, and God knows this one is no exception. What do these consultants do? Why, they advertise in the newspapers in Hong Kong, in Oman, in Taiwan, and they say, ``You don't even need $500,000, you don't need $1 million, you only need $100,000.'' We have gone from $1 million to $500,000 to $100,000. We have gone from creating jobs to maintaining jobs to indirectly providing jobs. It is incredible what has happened to this program. How do they get by with this? These consultants form limited partnerships. They get several of these people who have $100,000 and they pool all those $100,000 contributions from various people. What about the $500,000 requirement? How are you going to put up $100,000 and meet that? Easy. You give a promissory note for $400,000. You give $100,000 in cash--incidentally, there is a little matter of a $35,000 to $50,000 fee that goes to the consultant. So if you come, you ought to have $150,000 in your pocket, $50,000 for the consultant and $100,000 to show your good faith, and then be willing to sign a note for $400,000. But not to worry. At the end of 2 years, your note is forgiven. Forget the $400,000 note. If you are in the $1 million class, forget the $900,000 note. And if, at the end of 2 years, the business has not done well, shut it down. When you shut it down, you can go down to the courthouse and apply for your citizenship 3 years later. You do not have to maintain the business for the ensuing 3 years to get your citizenship. Shut that sucker down after 2 years; it has probably been a loser anyway. Madam President, Russell Burgoise was quoted in an April 13, 1998 New York Times article. He is a spokesman for the Immigration Service. He said: ``These plans don't meet either the spirit or the letter of the law.'' Recently, when the INS sought to revoke up to 5,000 visas, the New York Times in the same article said ``influential Members of Congress protested the Government was changing rules in midstream,'' and the INS backed off. Late in 1997, the Times of Oman, not a widely read paper in Washington, contained an advertisement which said: ``U.S. green card for anyone who can show U.S. $500,000.'' They ought to be prosecuted for misleading advertising. It doesn't take $500,000, just $100,000 would do fine if you know the right consultant in this country. It is an interesting thing that it took these consultants and these limited partnerships to figure out how to get the program going. Until the latter part of 1996, the investor visa program had been an even worse disaster than its worst critics--namely me--had predicted. Nobody was showing much interest. In 1992, 280 people applied, 240 were approved. In 1993, 384; 1994, 407; 1995, 291; 1996, 616; in 1997, 1,110. The consultants are getting geared up now. It is still a far cry from the 10,000 slots available, but in 1997, 1,110 petitions were approved. But over the last 7 years, only 3,284 have been approved. So, despite the fact that the program has been weakened unbelievably to [[Page S4982]] make almost anybody eligible for it, nobody much has been applying. Out of 7 years, we only got 3,000-plus, and we are supposed to be doing 10,000 each year. AIS, one of the consulting organizations I mentioned a moment ago, specializes, as I said, in pooling investors to bankroll larger products. Now you should know that a lot of people invest their $100,000 not to become American citizens; they come here because they want to purchase citizenship for their children and educate them here. Or they come here for any host of other reasons. Maybe they are actually coming with their family. That would be a fairly laudable purpose. But they do not come because they want citizenship. And a lot of people will freely tell you the reason they did not want to be citizens of the United States is because they will have to pay taxes. They have to pay taxes on all of their income all over the world wherever it may come from. They are not about to do that. They only have to come here twice a year to keep their eligibility for the green card. AIS has advertised ``Alternate residency: Less restrictive and expensive than other plans in other countries.'' You are not becoming a citizen of the United States. You do not have to love the flag. You do not have to say the Pledge of Allegiance. You do not have to fight our wars. You do not have to be any particular age. You do not have to have any specialized education. You do not have to have any experience. You do not have to know the language. All you need is ``green.'' You do not have to know anything about the poor and huddled masses that Emma Lazarus wrote about. Madam President, this program is so rife with fraud. In some instances, you can get your entire $500,000 back. If you invest $500,000 or $1 million, there are some plans under which you can get it all back and still get your citizenship. Harold Ezell, a former INS regional immigration commissioner--now a lawyer in Newport Beach, CA--this is a former INS official's quote. What did he say about Congress, about this bill? ``They were smoking something when they wrote it.'' ``We've shot ourselves in the foot.'' Another attorney said, ``You know, since we're blatantly soliciting the wealthy, we might ought to charge $2 million.'' Madam President, the investor visa program makes no economic sense either. The underlying bill we are debating today would raise the cap on the number of workers who will come into this country who have skills, principally for the computer industry. The Senator from Michigan, who is handling this bill on the floor, wants to raise the annual limit on people coming into this country from 60,000 to 95,000. Now, you think about the incongruity of raising the level of people we invite into this country because they have a skill and because we have a labor shortage. We would not do it otherwise. We have a labor shortage of so-called skilled workers. At least, that is the proposition. I do not believe it, and I am not going to vote for the bill. I will announce that right now. This country, incidentally, as great as we are, to be depending on the rest of the world to send us their skilled workers so we can stay afloat in the computer industry, or whatever, is the height of something or other. If we have a $50 billion surplus looming this year, for Pete's sake, let us educate our youngsters so we do not have to depend on anybody else for these skills. That should not be too difficult. But here we are saying we want to invite an additional 35,000 laborers into this country because we have a labor shortage, and at the same time saying, ``If you will give us $100,000 or $500,000''-- whichever the case may be--``and hire 10 people, we'll give you citizenship.'' There is an outfit in West Virginia called InterBank, and they want to create a telemarketing business. While the deal has not been approved yet, the wages will be $6 an hour. I have not seen a McDonald's in I don't know how long that didn't have a sign in the window saying, ``Help wanted. Pay up to $6 an hour.'' We are desperate for workers at all levels in this country, and here we are asking people to put up money and come into this country and hire workers. How silly can we get? Even if it were not rife with fraud, even if it were not shameless to be selling American citizenship, it makes no economic sense. It is an oxymoron to vote at the same time to bring 95,000 workers in and ask somebody else to come in and hire more workers. Every time Alan Greenspan appears on a television station, every time he appears before the Banking Committee, every time he appears before the Joint Economic Committee, Wall Street and all of America holds its breath for fear he is going to announce an increase in interest rates. And why are they afraid he is going to raise interest rates? Because they have a labor shortage. In Economic 101 at the University of Arkansas, I was taught--and it is still a fundamental economic principle--that when you have a labor shortage, you have to pay more for labor. You think McDonald's is paying $6 an hour because they want to see how far they can exceed the minimum wage? They are paying $6 an hour because they cannot find workers for any less than that. That is still a pitiful wage, but be that as it may, I am not here to debate that. What I am saying is, everybody is scared to death that this labor shortage is going to kick wages up, that in turn is going to create inflation, and inflation is going to cause Alan Greenspan to raise interest rates, and raising interest rates is going to bring the longest sustained period of economic prosperity in the United States to a grinding halt. These are not things that you have to be a rocket scientist to understand. Everybody knows precisely what I am talking about. Finally, Madam President--and I am reluctant to say this because I am not one who has stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate and waved the flag and beat my chest and talked about what a great patriot I am. I put in 3 years in the Marine Corps in World War II, for a very simple reason--we were in a war where the absolute freedom of this Nation was at stake. Not even a second thought about it. And 25, 30 other million men and women did the same thing. I have voted against constitutional amendments on flag burning. Nobody is more deeply offended than I am to see an American flag burn. There are ways to deal with it. But you do not need to tinker with the Bill of Rights for the first time in more than 200 years. I still get goose bumps at a military parade when Old Glory goes by. And I am offended by a law which puts American citizenship up for bid by either the wealthy or those willing to participate in a fraud. How crassly we demean this precious blessing we call citizenship. Emma Lazarus who wrote those magnificent words in the Statue of Liberty about, ``Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses,'' Emma Lazarus must be whirling in her grave to even hear such a debate as this going on. The families of the people whose sons and daughters fought those wars for citizenship and freedom--and the families of those who died, and they did it because they valued citizenship so highly--must be weeping at the thought of citizenship being sold to the highest bidder. It is vulgar. How we champion citizenship that we once prized so highly. Madam President, these people are not the poor. They are not the huddled masses who were our ancestors and who came here for freedom to contribute their labor and their values to live, live free, and to raise their families and die here, even in battle, if need be. These people who we welcome for $1 million are coming twice a year because that is the only way they can keep their green card. They don't want citizenship because that would require them to pay taxes. What in the name of God has happened to this place? I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia. Who yields time? Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield the Senator from West Virginia such time as he may need to speak in opposition to the amendment by the Senator from Arkansas. Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I am grateful to my friend from the State of Michigan. I start out by disputing any thought by the senior Senator from Arkansas that the words ``patriotism'' and ``Bumpers'' don't go side by side--I know the Senator himself knows that [[Page S4983]] to be true--in his service in the Marine Corps, his service in this body, the things he has been through over the years. He is a patriot. He is a marvelous man. He happens, however, to be marvelously wrong on the amendment that he puts forward, which in spite of the larger framework of the immigration bill, is a very specific and very targeted amendment which would do enormous damage to what we are trying to do in areas of my State that need this program desperately, and which do enormous damage to some of the things that I and others I work with--Governor Underwood and others--are trying to do in the State of West Virginia. I refer to the attempt to eliminate the EB5, the immigrant Investor Program. I didn't say that with an abundance of fluency, and there is a reason for that. It is not one of the things that trips off your lips. I confess that it was not until relatively recently, in the last several years, that I, indeed, learned what it was at all because we had not had experience. Let me give a little context. I was Governor of the State of West Virginia for 8 years and I was always very frustrated, and I say to my fellow Governor from the State of Arkansas, of all of the money that was discretionary to the Governor during the 8 years that this Senator was Governor, I spent 75 percent of it on water and sewer, which of course is invisible and never seen. And I put more per capita in one of our poorest counties in southern West Virginia called McDowell County, which used to be referred to as the $1 billion coal field, and now is mostly worked out and people have left. Even when I came to West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer in 1964, I say to the Senator, there were tens of thousands of people in McDowell County, the Senator would remember. Now there are about a handful. I felt that I had not come through properly in spite of efforts for McDowell County, for Wyoming County, for Mercer County, for southern West Virginia, for people who had broken their backs and given their lives, many of them, and who walk around, some of them carrying oxygen tanks. For some it is a 10-minute walk from one side of a room to another side to adjust the television and back because of something called black lung or because of diseases they have accumulated by virtue of being coal miners. These are the areas I am talking about. There are other areas in West Virginia and the State of Arkansas and in the State of Massachusetts and in the State of Michigan and in the State of Maine, all of our States, where people just don't have the opportunity to have jobs because they live in rural areas. It might be a worked-out coal mining area which is called rural, or it might be an area which is mostly trees which would be called rural, but it is rural and jobs don't tend to go there. People don't tend to build the interstates over there. I am old fashioned about it, but the reason that I stayed in West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer, more than anything I wanted to see people go to work. I think my friend from Arkansas understands that. I think he understands it very well. What I found was there were just certain blocks, certain ways, certain impediments that nature put up which just didn't allow some of our good people to be able to go to work by accident of their birth or by the fact they were so close to their families that they didn't leave and go to other places like so many others had done from Appalachia. So they stayed and they can't work and they want to work, and they want so badly to work but there is no work. So that is how I came to know what the EB5 Immigrant Investor Program is. ``Give us your poor,'' the Senator from Arkansas said. Well, our income and our population is increasing, I am happy to say, in West Virginia at a very healthy rate. Things are being done right there. People have caught the flavor of it and there is a sense of optimism which I haven't seen there in 20 or 30 years. But I learned about this program that the Senator wants to eliminate in this amendment. It is just a little thing down here. It says, ``Repeal. . . Section 203(b)(5),'' et cetera--one sentence which nobody can understand, but I know exactly what it does. It would eliminate everything that I am talking about, just eliminate it. It would be gone. I learned about this program because of a company called InterBank. It is a merchant banking company. They run a program which is called Invest in America. Nothing wrong that I can see in that, especially because in this program InterBank has pooled millions of dollars in foreign investments, millions of dollars to establish new operations in teleservicing--telemarketing some call it; I call it teleservices--in exactly the kind of areas in West Virginia I was talking about. I was in Welch, WV, in McDowell County on a freezing-cold day when they announced they were going to create 400 new jobs. The next day they had 1,500 applicants from that county; the word traveled so fast. This was considered the best news that had ever happened to that county. And now they are looking at others. They are looking, in fact, at putting, 10, 12, 15,000 jobs across the State of West Virginia in precisely the kinds of places where nobody else will go to invest, and they want to do it in telemarketing, or teleservicing as I prefer to call it. West Virginia is important in that we are wired very well in terms of fiber optics, so it is a superb place for them to do that. It is like with the telephone system. If you are in Washington, DC, and you call information, you are talking to somebody in West Virginia. Where you live, where you reside doesn't make that much difference anymore. But it makes a tremendous difference in southern West Virginia and in other parts of West Virginia where people do not have work, where people remember having had work because of coal mining or remember when they had an opportunity for work, but they were rejected for work. Now they realize that they could get into these programs and get trained because InterBank is going to put a lot of money into training people, West Virginia people, and I assume people in other parts of the country, other industries like them in other parts of the country. We are talking about $7 or $8 an hour. I don't ridicule that. And I don't ridicule it because it is a company that has benefits particularly when it is a company that provides health benefits, which is something I care about as much as anybody on this planet, and they are included. My people will get them or my people will not get them, depending, and it is true for all the rest of the people in this country who interact with this program as to whether this amendment passes or fails, which is why I hope so much that it fails. Yes, it is true there has been some abuse, and the Senator, I believe, quoted the New York Times. I don't necessarily think because something is in the New York Times and it is printed, it defines what national policy is to be, but I read it every day and I respect it very much, and there was an article saying there had been some abuse. There have been 30 or 40 articles talking about the abuse in Medicare and I don't hear anybody talking of getting rid of Medicare, because HCFA is trying to crack down. There is, I am sure, abuse in the farmers assistance programs which help the Senator and the people he represents from Arkansas, which don't do our people any good at all in West Virginia. All I am saying is that there is always abuse in Federal programs, but it is usually a little bit. In the case of the INS, I have talked with Doris Meissner about the problem of abuse and about these programs. She has put our InterBank program on hold, in fact, even though they have done nothing wrong, because they have the FBI and the INS who looks into this, and the State Department looks into it. They have a total of five separate reviews that are involved in this. The INS is not only taking steps to correct whatever abuse that may exist, but they are so adamant about it that they are taking those programs where there are no problems and making them wait until they have a chance to look at the entire thing. I pleaded with Doris Meissner to approve this program, which had no deficiencies, and she said, ``I can't do it. We have to put it near the end of the line so we can review all of these programs to make sure there is no fraud and abuse, and where there is, we can get rid of it.'' Now, is the idea that somebody would be able to bring some money into the United States to put a West [[Page S4984]] Virginian, or a Washingtonian, or Oregonian, or somebody from Maine, Vermont, or Wisconsin, to work, that they would bring in some money and they would be given a period of a couple of years for review and, after the review, which is a three-agency review, they be allowed to stay be

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AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS ACT
(Senate - May 18, 1998)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S4976-S5001] AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS ACT The Senate continued with consideration of the bill. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, would the distinguished chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee yield me 5 minutes to speak on behalf of his bill and against the Kennedy amendments? Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield the Senator from Texas such time as he may need. I believe this would have to be yielded from time that is to be available for the amendments The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. There is 1 minute 20 seconds remaining on the bill. Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield 5 minutes from the time reserved for our side. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I thank our dear colleague for yielding. I congratulate him on this bill, the American Competitiveness Act. Over the years, we have wisely attracted the best and brightest to America. We have recognized that having talented people come to our country to work has not only not displaced American workers, but it has created an intellectual base that has help create millions of jobs. I want to congratulate Senator Abraham for this bill. I think it is vitally important, and I am proud to be a supporter of the bill. I think it is interesting to note that the companies most strongly supporting Senator Abraham's bill are America's fastest growing companies. These are the companies that are creating most of the new jobs in America. Especially those companies that are in high-tech areas and research areas that are primarily responsible for generating the new products, the new know-how and the new technology that will create jobs now and in the 21st century. I understand that Senator Kennedy will be offering two amendments. Although they have not technically been offered yet, I know enough about the amendments to know that I am opposed to them. Senator Kennedy is trying to preserve the jobs of the 1950s. Senator Abraham is trying to create jobs now and in the 21st century. Senator Kennedy believes that if we can keep new, talented people out of America, as a contributory factor to the intellectual base of our country, we can induce innovative businesses to hire more Americans. Senator Abraham understands that we need an intellectual base to help us create the products and the technology that will create thousands and ultimately millions of new jobs. In these two amendments that will be offered, we really have a debate between the past and the future. The past deals with the idea that we can somehow protect jobs by keeping talented people out of the country. The future is a recognition that America has literally drained the brain talent of the world by bringing talented people to America, and, in the process, talented people here have found more opportunity, more freedom, than any other people who have lived. They have created an economic system that is unrivaled throughout the world. The first amendment Senator Kennedy will offer states that if a company brings in an H-1B visa worker, and later has to lay someone off, the company is in violation of the law. The problem is that in dealing with innovative companies, people are hired based on creating new products and based on success of their research. To force a company to guarantee that it will not, in the next 6 months, have to lay anyone off is to ask them to guarantee the success of their research. As we know from the experience of Europe, which is still trying to follow the policies of the 1950s that are built into the Kennedy amendments, if a company does not have the right to lay people off when a project fails, it can not take the risk to [[Page S4977]] hire the very people who make it possible for it to succeed. The second amendment deals with giving the Labor Department the ability to make a final judgment and to second-guess an employer as to whether or not a person who is a resident of the United States could have been found to do the work. I simply want to remind my colleagues that the existing law states that a company can not bring in an H-1B worker from outside and pay them less than either the prevailing wage or the actual wage. So it is not a case of bringing in people who will work for less. Also, the bill offered by Senator Abraham strengthens current law by providing a $25,000 fine and a 2-year debarment from the program for those who willfully violate the law. So the question is: If there are talented people who can come to our universities, to our research labs, to our high-tech companies bringing with them human capital that can help us create technology and products that will put millions of our own people to work, why not ask them to come to America, instead of inducing American companies to invest abroad in order to employ them in their country? It seems to me that the most revealing thing about this whole debate is the companies that use this H-1B program are the companies that have the fastest growing employment base of American citizens. We are not talking about companies that are experiencing declining employment trying to bring in technical people from abroad. It is companies in Silicon Valley that want to bring in people with special expertise. This will allow these companies, through the application of their genius to practical business problems, to hire hundreds and ultimately thousands more people. If Senator Kennedy's amendments were valid, the companies that use this program would be companies where employment is declining. But the plain truth, as is evident to anyone who looks at the data, is that the companies using these programs are companies that are creating the largest number of jobs in America. So if Microsoft--assuming the Government doesn't put them out of business by trying to limit technology--can put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work by bringing someone to this country who has special expertise, why not let them do it. Especially when this bill strengthens the law by imposing a $25,000 fine on companies that violate procedures aimed at dealing with the legitimate problems raised by Senator Kennedy and others---that people will be brought here who will work for less and therefore undercut the wage base of American workers. So I hope these two amendments will be defeated. I think it is very revealing that our high-tech industries say they would rather not have the bill if the Kennedy amendments are adopted. That suggests to me that the purpose of the amendments are to kill the bill. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield myself 4 minutes on the amendments. As I am sure the Senator from Texas knows, about 85 percent of these jobs earn $75,000 a year, or less. I am just wondering what we have against Americans and American workers that we are so prepared to turn over these good jobs to foreigners. Now, if the Senator wants to say, well, what about these $75,000 jobs? The GAO pointed out that there is no increase in the salary of these workers. I thought supply and demand said that if we have that great a demand, we are going to see an increase in salaries; right? Wrong. The GAO report says there is no indication of that. So these are good jobs. I say, let's try an American first. Let's develop the kinds of skills employers need so that we won't need to have this continue after the expiration of this particular proposal. Let's try an American first. And if we are not going to do that, let's just ensure that an American who is in that job and working, as the record demonstrates today, isn't going to get laid off and replaced by a foreign worker who then is going to work longer hours and be threatened day after day that if they complain at all, they are going to have their green card taken and they will be shipped overseas. That is the case, in many instances. Madam President, I find it difficult to just accept the Senator's argument that this really is just the pure free market system working at its best. I think we owe something to American workers. It is so interesting that all of these companies want to have a free enterprise system--except when it comes to paying wages and salaries. Then they want to do it and get cheaper workers in from overseas and then exploit them. We want to protect against that. That is what those amendments would do. I withhold the balance of my time. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I ask the Senator from Michigan to yield me an additional 5 minutes. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I yield an additional 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, first of all, I always welcome Senator Kennedy giving me lectures about supply and demand. I wish I believed in my heart that he believed in supply and demand. Secondly, one of the purposes of the bill is to add teeth to the provision about hiring Americans first. This is done by imposing a $25,000 fine on people who displace American workers in order to hire H-1B workers, or people who violate the law that prohibits hiring these workers at less than the current wage rate. Obviously, we are talking about very talented people when we are talking about people coming in for salary of $75,000. I have to admit that I am somewhat struck by the paradox. Only last week, we were debating an effort I had undertaken to make people who come to America, come with their sleeves rolled up, rather than their hand held out to get food stamps; and last week the Senate voted to give them food stamps for 7 years. When the Senator from Michigan says, we should let very talented people come and not let them work for less than Americans, and if they can bring talent that will make American products more competitive and help create American jobs, we should let them come in and work in limited numbers, under strict requirements. I think one might be confused to hear that we are perfectly willing to let people come here and go on welfare; it is when they want to come and go to work that we have an objection. Well, I do not. I go back to the point that the companies who are hiring these people are not companies that are in decline. I know the Senator feels this concern in his heart, and I have no doubt about the sincerity of his position. If these were companies in decline and they were trying to drive down their wage base by simply hiring people with standard skills to displace Americans, I would be siding with Senator Kennedy. But what is happening here is companies that are using this program are our most innovative companies. They are the companies that have the most talented workers that they can hire in our country. They are our fastest growing companies. They are companies that are creating jobs now, and they are laying the technological foundations that will create hundreds, thousands, and ultimately millions of jobs in the future. They want to reach out in the world and pick the most talented, the best and the brightest, to come to America on a temporary basis and help us develop the technology that will create jobs--good jobs, high- paying jobs, $75,000-a-year jobs--for our own workers. So I strongly support the provision offered by the Senator from Michigan. I do believe that the amendments offered by the Senator from Massachusetts are well intended, but I think they are wrongheaded in the sense that, in the name of protecting jobs, we are keeping out a very small number of very select people who are working at labs at Harvard University, or working in Silicon Valley, or working in research institutes all over the country to create technology that puts millions of our people to work. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I have 150 letters and scores more back in my office of Americans who have training and skills in computer knowledge and technology and are unable to get the jobs. You can, under this proposal, hire 1,000 foreign workers and displace 1,000 American workers and it doesn't violate any law. It violates no law. I think we ought to protect American workers, and if there is a job out [[Page S4978]] there, an American worker ought to have a crack at it before it goes overseas. Madam President, I see my friend and colleague from Nevada who, under the agreement, is to be recognized to offer an amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized. Mr. REID. Madam President, let's put ourselves in the situation that a woman from Las Vegas found herself in. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from Nevada offering his amendment? Mr. REID. I will offer it at the appropriate time. I have the floor now. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Unless time is yielded to the Senator under the agreement on the bill, the Senator---- Mr. REID. My amendment has no time. Amendment No. 2414 (Purpose: To require that applications for passports for minors have parental signatures) Mr. REID. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment numbered 2414. Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following: SEC ____. PASSPORTS ISSUED FOR CHILDREN UNDER 16. (a) In General.--Section 1 of title IX of the Act of June 15, 1917 (22 U.S.C. 213) is amended-- (1) by striking ``Before'' and inserting ``(a) In General.--Before'', and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection: ``(b) Passports Issued for Children Under 16.-- ``(1) Signatures required.--In the case of a child under the age of 16, the written application required as a prerequisite to the issuance of a passport for such child shall be signed by-- ``(A) both parents of the child if the child lives with both parents; ``(B) the parent of the child having primary custody of the child if the child does not live with both parents; or ``(C) the surviving parent (or legal guardian) of the child, if 1 or both parents are deceased. ``(2) Waiver.--The Secretary of State may waive the requirements of paragraph (1)(A) if the Secretary determines that circumstances do not permit obtaining the signatures of both parents.''. (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall apply to applications for passports filed on or after the date of the enactment of this Act. Mr. REID. Madam President, let's assume that you are a mother, you have a 6-year-old child, you have recently been divorced, and you go to pick the child up from school and he is not there. You wonder what happened to your child. You call the police; the police have no knowledge of his whereabouts. No one seems to know what happened to your child. But as things are pieced together, you learn that your husband, who you recently divorced, has taken the child from school and to Croatia. This happens during the time of the Balkans war. What as a mother are you to do? Your child is in Croatia. You were married to a Croatian. This is a situation that 1,000 parents face every year in our country. Over 1,000 children are taken from this country, normally as a result of the mother and father not getting along, or recently divorced, and they are taken many times to a country where one of the parents was born. Sometimes the parent just takes off to a country they are familiar with. They want to get away from the wife or husband, recognizing that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get the baby back. The tragedy is of a thousand stories a year; there are many thousands of stories I could retell. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported about a woman by whose name is Lilly Waken. Her two daughters left home for a party. The children never came back. Frantically, she called the police. She called the hospitals. She learned that her husband had taken them away and had bought three one-way tickets to Damascus, Syria. That was 18 months ago. She hasn't seen her children since. My amendment is all about fairness and prevention. It is about preventing a problem that plagues this country, the international children's abduction problem. As I have indicated, 1,000 or more children are abducted every year in our country. These children, as I have indicated, are abducted during or shortly after a contentious divorce, sometimes even by an abusive parent, at a time when these children are most vulnerable and uncertain about their future. They are then snatched from custody of one parent and hauled over to a foreign country. In the case that I first spoke of, a young boy by the name of Mikey Kale from Las Vegas was taken to Croatia. His mother worked for months and months, and was finally able, after spending a tremendous amount of money trying to get the return of her son--remember, this is in a country that was Mikey Kale Passport and Notification Amendment at war--she was able to get her child back. I am proposing this legislation, the Mikey Kale Passport Notification Amendment, after this young boy taken to Croatia, Mikey Kale. This amendment is very simple. It will require that parents who are married must both sign for a passport for their child. If there has been a divorce, the one with primary custody must sign for the child to obtain a passport. We have a provision in this bill so that, under extreme circumstances, the Secretary of State can waive the requirements if the Secretary determines that the circumstances do not permit the obtaining of the signatures of both parents. Madam President, this legislation was passed before in this body. It went to the House where it was knocked out in conference. Why? For the same reason that the State Department indicated in a recent article in Parade Magazine, it is going to create too much paperwork. I say, Madam President, that is too much baloney. It may be too much paperwork for them. But for the parents and the children involved in this, it is better to spend a little extra time when someone comes to get a passport to make sure that the passport is obtained properly. It is not asking too much of the State Department to insure that people who are going to get a passport for a child to check out that the child is, in effect, not being kidnaped. The aim of the amendment is prevention. It prevents parental abductors from obtaining U.S. passports for their minor children. One of the best ways to prevent international parental abductions is to make it more difficult for the abductors to obtain a passport. Madam President, prior to coming to this body I practiced law and did divorce work, among other things. When Mikey Kale's mother came to me, it flooded memories back to my mind about a case that I had where there was a contested divorce. I represented a police officer from Henderson, NV. Suddenly, my client picked up the two children and went to Mexico. He called me from Mexico, and said, ``I'm not coming back until I get what I asked for from my wife.'' So I called the opposing counsel and told him what had happened. My client stayed down in Mexico for years until finally the mother of the two children, in effect, gave him what he wanted. It was a difficult situation. The children were never in school during that period of time. Madam President, this is a very serious problem. We who are parents and grandparents know that we are the ones who are looked upon as protectors of our children. But those who should be protecting children are doing the worst for the child by taking them to a strange country, recognizing that the standards and customs in that country are much different from ours, and that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to get that child back. It is reported that the State Department has had thousands and thousands of these reported kidnapings, and that they just write them off after a year or two, closing 80 percent of their files. This amendment is a simple legislative solution which will implement a system of checks prior to the issuance of a minor child's passport thereby protecting both parental rights and the rights of the child. [[Page S4979]] Two years ago the same amendment passed. The State Department and their lobbyists prevailed upon those in conference to remove this provision. In the meantime, 2,000 children in this country have been abducted to other countries--2,000 children. Think of the grief that has been caused to those children and to the parents of those children. This, Madam President, should stop. We should not listen to what the State Department says, that because they are understaffed and don't want to go into the details of who has custody, they cannot implement this preventive measure. I say let's save some pain and suffering of these little children, and also of one of the parents. This problem is more common than one would think. As I stated earlier, 1,000 children are abducted every year. Here in the United States missing and abducted children are counted meticulously, in some countries they keep no records whatsoever. Forty-five nations have signed a Hague treaty designed to resolve international child custody disputes. Most countries have not. Finding a missing child is very difficult. This problem is no better illustrated, as I have indicated, than that of Mikey Kale for whom this amendment is named. Let me repeat. On Valentine's Day in 1993, Mikey was abducted by the ex-husband of Barbara Spierer and taken to Croatia--kidnaped, for lack of a better description. As I have said, after tremendous emotional and financial efforts, Barbara was one of the lucky ones. She got her baby boy back. Regardless of the number of cases--whether it is 1,000 cases, which it is, or 10 cases a year, which it isn't--one case of abduction is one too many. My amendment seeks to prevent even that one tragedy from occurring. One of the most difficult and frustrating elements for parents of internationally abducted children is that the U.S. laws and court orders are usually ignored in a foreign country. If they are not ignored, the possible pain and expense of legal representation in that country are unbearable. Many of these cases involve parents who have relatively no assets. So the one who is, in effect, left behind, when the child has been kidnaped, can do nothing. One country alone has 45 cases of American children being abducted. Letters to that foreign head of state have had no effect, and none of the 45 have been voluntarily returned. An inconceivable, irrefutable fact is that once a child is abducted from the United States, it is almost impossible to get the child back. Madam President, once again, the aim of this amendment is prevention--prevention of anguish to families, prevention of parental rights being violated, prevention of a child being abducted. Until more can be done, I believe a simple, cost-effective legislative solution to protect our children's rights is essential, and I ask my colleagues to join me. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I would like to speak on the amendment, but what I will do is note the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I will speak very briefly in support of the Reid amendment. I think the concerns he has raised here are very important ones and need to be addressed. I would actually add to the examples he used other situations which have occurred to constituents of mine in which following a divorce decree in this country, a spouse who maintains dual citizenship in some fashion goes to a country of his or her other citizenship with the child after there has been an agreement with regard to visitation. The American citizen spouse who remains in the United States then seeks to visit on the basis of that visitation agreement and finds, when visiting the foreign country, the child is not available, cannot be found, has disappeared, usually just to another city or another relative's home or something else, but basically because of the limited amount of time the visiting spouses have in the country, they no longer have the opportunity to see their children. This is not the case of an abduction per se, but it is relatively similar in terms of the implications. So I think the outlawing this amendment takes helps to address the most egregious form of this problem. But I indicate to the Senator from Nevada I not only would be willing to accept this amendment and support it, but I look forward to working with him--and I know of several other Senators who have approved--to see if there are ways we could also address these other cases where we may not be dealing with abduction, but still dealing with the circumstance where parents are prevented from seeing their children. So I thank the Senator from Nevada for his amendment. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for bringing this matter to our attention once again. As we were saying a few moments ago, this was accepted in the last debate on immigration reform in 1996. When it went to conference, there were a number of us who were excluded. If we had been able to participate, we would have supported this measure. But we were in a different regime at the time. In so many areas of immigration policy there are the opportunities for abuse by a few. But as the Senator has pointed out, thousands can still be affected by the injustice. The Senator has identified one instance in which a family was harmed. We would be glad to work with him and with Senator Abraham to see what could be worked through in the conference. If somehow we are not persuasive in the conference, we will join with him later in offering his amendment on appropriations bills or other bills. But I think the Senator has made a strong case, just as he did the last time. I think he has identified a very important issue. Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that my request for the yeas and nays be withdrawn subject to the manager of the bill accepting the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment (No. 2414) was agreed to. Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, be recognized for 7 minutes in order to offer an amendment, and immediately following the conclusion that I be recognized for the same purpose of offering an amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object--I do not intend to--he will go for 7 minutes and then we will have a chance to respond to his amendment? Are we going to have time to dispose of his amendment before the Senator from Arkansas? Mr. REED. I think in that time we can dispose of the amendment. Mr. BUMPERS. The amendment, I think, can be disposed of in 7 minutes. Mr. KENNEDY. That is fine. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized. Mr. REED. I thank the Chair. Amendment No. 2415 (Purpose: To strike section 4, relating to education and training in science and technology) Mr. REED. I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:. The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed] proposes an amendment numbered 2415. Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 27, beginning with line 1, strike all through page 29, line 10. Mr. REED. Madam President, my amendment would strike section 4 of [[Page S4980]] the underlying legislation. This section proposes to amend the State Student Incentive Grant Program, the SSIG Program. I first want to recognize Senator Abraham's efforts on behalf of this legislation and to underscore that I understand the issue the Senator is attempting to address is the lack of suitable training in our country to provide the types of scientists and engineers which this legislation hopes to attract through immigration policies. But I would object to the importation of the SSIG Program into this legislation; to pull SSIG in is inappropriate. We all recognize we do have to educate and train more Americans to take up these high-tech jobs, but this immigration bill is not the right vehicle, and the SSIG Program is not the right approach to simply target high-tech training in the United States. I would like to briefly set the record straight with respect to SSIG, its status, and I hope its future. First, the State Student Incentive Grant Program is within the jurisdiction of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. We have been considering its reformation and improvement over the last several months, and we have made progress in that regard. We are on the verge, after deliberation in the committee, of bringing a bill to the floor which will make significant improvements to SSIG. I would like to also point out that the State Student Incentive Grant Program was initiated back in 1972 by Senator Jacob Javits of New York. It was created not as a way to bootstrap high-tech learning in the United States, but to meet a critical deficiency--the need to provide resources to low-income students to enable them to go to college in a vast array of programs, letting them make the decision of where their talent will carry them, but giving them the resources to go to college and stay in college. In its more than 20-year history, it has been a remarkably effective program. It takes Federal dollars and offers a one-for-one dollar match with the States to provide need-based grants to students. It has no federal overhead. It delivers money in the form of grants to low-income students that need these resources to go on to college. Now, if we are talking about providing more opportunities for Americans to be scientists, to be engineers, to do all the things that we want them to do and not have to rely upon foreign nationals coming into our country, SSIG is the wrong place to start. We should be starting in the elementary and secondary schools. We should be recognizing that in many of our schools, particularly low-income urban schools with high minority enrollments, 50 percent of those students are likely to have a science or math teacher who never concentrated on science or math in college. And that is one reason we are not developing, here in the United States, those skills necessary for this high-tech age. So, if we are really interested in having Americans qualify to take these jobs, bringing SSIG into this bill, hijacking it, Shanghaiing it into this bill is not going to do it. We have to start early and consistently to reach young people. I believe we have made progress in this regard. We have made progress, both in terms of identifying the need to improve elementary and secondary education, and, as I mentioned before, we have made progress working closely with my colleague, the Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, to improve SSIG. We have introduced, with 17 other Senators, a bipartisan proposal to reform SSIG. It is called the LEAP Act. This proposal will create a two-tiered proposal: Up to $35 million, there will continue to be a one-for-one match of Federal dollars to State dollars; but when we go beyond that amount, we will allow the States a great deal more flexibility, flexibility that they will have to recognize by matching $2 for every one Federal dollar. But within that more flexible regime of options, we have actually built in, at the request of Senator Abraham, the ability of States to develop scholarship programs that are targeted to mathematics and computer science and engineering. In effect, working very closely with the Senator, who is sincerely committed to improving the quality of education throughout this country, we have done in the LEAP Act in the Labor Committee what is purported to be done here in this legislation. Now, we are concerned--frankly, I am concerned--that if we act in this immigration bill, we might upset the progress we have made to date on the LEAP Act. We might, in fact, compromise its fundamental commitment not to one specific sector of study but to a broader social purpose--of giving low-income students the chance to go on to college. I hope we will not do that. I feel very strongly about SSIG. I felt very strongly last year--again, working with Senator Collins from Maine. We came to the floor, we literally saved this program from extinction with an overwhelming vote of 84 to 4 to maintain appropriations for SSIG. Having, in a sense, given renewed life to this legislation, I want the opportunity, with my colleagues, to ensure that we continue this program as a need-based program and not at this moment, for convenience, for an attempt to respond to a legitimate concern about training high-tech personnel, to distort the purpose, the goals, and the future of SSIG. I think, working together with my colleagues, we can maintain the integrity of SSIG and we can also, using the Higher Education Act, strengthen it, reform it, and make it adaptable and make it accessible to a new generation of American students. I have had the opportunity to work with Senator Abraham. We have, I think, mutual appreciation of the need for SSIG. I hope, working with him over the next several weeks as this measure goes forward, and given his commitment to work together on this whole topic of the State Student Incentive Grant Program--I am prepared at this moment to seek unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn. The amendment (No. 2115) was withdrawn. Mr. REED. I yield to the Senator from Michigan, if he had a comment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I briefly would like to do a couple of things. First, I compliment the Senator from Rhode Island as well as the Presiding Officer for their efforts on this issue. As I mentioned earlier in my opening statement about the legislation before us, our office has been very grateful to you as well as to Senator Jeffords and others on the Labor Committee for the efforts that have been engaged in to help us craft, in the higher education bill, language which was consistent with our objectives in terms of trying to provide ways by which we can incentivize more young people in our country to fill these jobs we know are going to be created in the future. And under no circumstances, I think the Senator from Rhode Island knows, and I know the Senator from Maine knows as well, are any of us involved in the development of this legislation seeking to, in any context, reduce or undermine the SSIG program. To the contrary, I think everybody who is a cosponsor is a strong supporter. So we look forward to working with you. I have appreciated the efforts of the Senator from Rhode Island to assist us in this and thank him for what he has already done and what we look forward to doing together, to find a way to address this issue in the context of other legislation that will be before us. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator, my friend from Rhode Island. We have had the good opportunity to work with the Senator from Rhode Island and also the Senator from Maine on this particular issue. I know that the Senator from Rhode Island is someone who has been on the education committees, not only in the Senate but also in the House of Representatives, and is someone with a number of years of experience with this important issue. The Senator from Rhode Island has spent a lot of time in developing an understanding of this particular program and how it works in the States. He has also found how it can best be targeted in ways that offer the best opportunity for needy students, giving focus in areas of important need--math and science and other skills. So, we will continue to work with him. We appreciate his leadership and the leadership of the Senator from Maine in this area. [[Page S4981]] We have been trying to work to assure that Americans are going to develop the skills to be able to compete in these areas. This is really a combination of both the education and training aspects that Senator DeWine, Senator Reed, and Senator Collins have been working on, as well as the Senator from Michigan. And that is a reflection of the good faith of the Senator from Michigan on it. So I appreciate his willingness of the Senator from Rhode Island, at this time, to continue to work with us. We give the Senator the assurance we will continue to work very closely with him, and with the Senator from Maine, as we move on into the conference. But I appreciate his cooperation and leadership on this issue. Amendment No. 2416 (Purpose: To repeal the Immigrant Investor Program) The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized, under the previous order. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers], proposes an amendment numbered 2416. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the end of the bill add the following: ``SEC. ----. REPEAL OF IMMIGRANT INVESTOR PROGRAM. ``Section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, (8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)) shall be repealed effective on the date of enactment of this Act.'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be advised that there are 90 minutes equally divided under the time agreement. The Senator from Arkansas. Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Chair for reminding me. Madam President, this amendment repeals a provision in the immigration laws that was a tragic mistake when it was enacted. My amendment to strike that provision deals with economics, it deals with patriotism, it deals with immigration, and it deals with fraud. In order for my colleagues to understand precisely what we are talking about, let me set the stage. I fought this battle in 1989 and, at the expense of sounding a little self-serving, lost, but predicted what has happened would happen. The immigration bill considered by the Senate in 1989 included a provision of the bill to increase investment because we were headed into a recession. We decided we would take a page out of the play books of Canada and Australia. We thought, if they can sell citizenship for $200,000, citizenship in the United States ought to be worth at least $1 million. It is a very logical assumption. So, we said, in that bill in 1989, we will reserve 4,800 visas for foreigners who wants to come into this Nation and bring $1 million and hire 10 people: We will give you a green card at the end of 2 years, and, at the end of an additional 3 years, we will make you a citizen of the United States. Then in the conference committee we decided we could do even better than that. We said: You don't have to bring $1 million dollars; bring $500,000. If you put a hamburger joint up that will hire 10 people in an area of high unemployment or in a rural area, we will do the same thing for you. We cut the price of citizenship from $1 million to $500,000 and the 4,800 slots that we reserved in the Senate bill increased to 10,000 in the conference report. Multiply $1 million by 10,000 visas and just think of all the magnificent investment we would have in this country and how many jobs we would create. Madam President, that ``ain't'' all. We said not only will you not really have to create 10 jobs with your $500,000 or your $1 million, you only have to maintain 10 jobs. What does that mean? If old Joe's hamburger joint is about to go out of business and he has 10 employees and you are willing to buy his place and keep those 10 employees working, you have maintained 10 jobs, so you qualify for American citizenship. Then in 1993 we decided we would liberalize it a little further. Not only do you not have to create 10 jobs, not only do you not have to maintain 10 jobs, all you have to do is indirectly provide 10 jobs if you invest in businesses located in certain areas known as Regional Centers . What does that mean? You are making widgets. You employ five people to make widgets. You have two people to distribute them and three people to sell them. Those are indirectly created jobs. Therefore, you get your green card at the end of 2 years, and you get your citizenship papers at the end of 5 years. I can remember at that time how we thought Hong Kong was going to flood this Nation with people with $1 million in their pocket because they were terrified of the Chinese taking over Hong Kong. I must say, the program, such as it is, has been mostly of people from the Pacific rim--Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan. Madam President, do you know the nice thing about this? If you have $500,000 to invest, bring the little wife and kids, too, you are all welcome. They are also going to ultimately be entitled to citizenship. What have been the results? Madam President, a cottage industry of consultants and limited partnerships has grown up in this Nation. No plan the U.S. Congress has ever devised has been scam-proof, and God knows this one is no exception. What do these consultants do? Why, they advertise in the newspapers in Hong Kong, in Oman, in Taiwan, and they say, ``You don't even need $500,000, you don't need $1 million, you only need $100,000.'' We have gone from $1 million to $500,000 to $100,000. We have gone from creating jobs to maintaining jobs to indirectly providing jobs. It is incredible what has happened to this program. How do they get by with this? These consultants form limited partnerships. They get several of these people who have $100,000 and they pool all those $100,000 contributions from various people. What about the $500,000 requirement? How are you going to put up $100,000 and meet that? Easy. You give a promissory note for $400,000. You give $100,000 in cash--incidentally, there is a little matter of a $35,000 to $50,000 fee that goes to the consultant. So if you come, you ought to have $150,000 in your pocket, $50,000 for the consultant and $100,000 to show your good faith, and then be willing to sign a note for $400,000. But not to worry. At the end of 2 years, your note is forgiven. Forget the $400,000 note. If you are in the $1 million class, forget the $900,000 note. And if, at the end of 2 years, the business has not done well, shut it down. When you shut it down, you can go down to the courthouse and apply for your citizenship 3 years later. You do not have to maintain the business for the ensuing 3 years to get your citizenship. Shut that sucker down after 2 years; it has probably been a loser anyway. Madam President, Russell Burgoise was quoted in an April 13, 1998 New York Times article. He is a spokesman for the Immigration Service. He said: ``These plans don't meet either the spirit or the letter of the law.'' Recently, when the INS sought to revoke up to 5,000 visas, the New York Times in the same article said ``influential Members of Congress protested the Government was changing rules in midstream,'' and the INS backed off. Late in 1997, the Times of Oman, not a widely read paper in Washington, contained an advertisement which said: ``U.S. green card for anyone who can show U.S. $500,000.'' They ought to be prosecuted for misleading advertising. It doesn't take $500,000, just $100,000 would do fine if you know the right consultant in this country. It is an interesting thing that it took these consultants and these limited partnerships to figure out how to get the program going. Until the latter part of 1996, the investor visa program had been an even worse disaster than its worst critics--namely me--had predicted. Nobody was showing much interest. In 1992, 280 people applied, 240 were approved. In 1993, 384; 1994, 407; 1995, 291; 1996, 616; in 1997, 1,110. The consultants are getting geared up now. It is still a far cry from the 10,000 slots available, but in 1997, 1,110 petitions were approved. But over the last 7 years, only 3,284 have been approved. So, despite the fact that the program has been weakened unbelievably to [[Page S4982]] make almost anybody eligible for it, nobody much has been applying. Out of 7 years, we only got 3,000-plus, and we are supposed to be doing 10,000 each year. AIS, one of the consulting organizations I mentioned a moment ago, specializes, as I said, in pooling investors to bankroll larger products. Now you should know that a lot of people invest their $100,000 not to become American citizens; they come here because they want to purchase citizenship for their children and educate them here. Or they come here for any host of other reasons. Maybe they are actually coming with their family. That would be a fairly laudable purpose. But they do not come because they want citizenship. And a lot of people will freely tell you the reason they did not want to be citizens of the United States is because they will have to pay taxes. They have to pay taxes on all of their income all over the world wherever it may come from. They are not about to do that. They only have to come here twice a year to keep their eligibility for the green card. AIS has advertised ``Alternate residency: Less restrictive and expensive than other plans in other countries.'' You are not becoming a citizen of the United States. You do not have to love the flag. You do not have to say the Pledge of Allegiance. You do not have to fight our wars. You do not have to be any particular age. You do not have to have any specialized education. You do not have to have any experience. You do not have to know the language. All you need is ``green.'' You do not have to know anything about the poor and huddled masses that Emma Lazarus wrote about. Madam President, this program is so rife with fraud. In some instances, you can get your entire $500,000 back. If you invest $500,000 or $1 million, there are some plans under which you can get it all back and still get your citizenship. Harold Ezell, a former INS regional immigration commissioner--now a lawyer in Newport Beach, CA--this is a former INS official's quote. What did he say about Congress, about this bill? ``They were smoking something when they wrote it.'' ``We've shot ourselves in the foot.'' Another attorney said, ``You know, since we're blatantly soliciting the wealthy, we might ought to charge $2 million.'' Madam President, the investor visa program makes no economic sense either. The underlying bill we are debating today would raise the cap on the number of workers who will come into this country who have skills, principally for the computer industry. The Senator from Michigan, who is handling this bill on the floor, wants to raise the annual limit on people coming into this country from 60,000 to 95,000. Now, you think about the incongruity of raising the level of people we invite into this country because they have a skill and because we have a labor shortage. We would not do it otherwise. We have a labor shortage of so-called skilled workers. At least, that is the proposition. I do not believe it, and I am not going to vote for the bill. I will announce that right now. This country, incidentally, as great as we are, to be depending on the rest of the world to send us their skilled workers so we can stay afloat in the computer industry, or whatever, is the height of something or other. If we have a $50 billion surplus looming this year, for Pete's sake, let us educate our youngsters so we do not have to depend on anybody else for these skills. That should not be too difficult. But here we are saying we want to invite an additional 35,000 laborers into this country because we have a labor shortage, and at the same time saying, ``If you will give us $100,000 or $500,000''-- whichever the case may be--``and hire 10 people, we'll give you citizenship.'' There is an outfit in West Virginia called InterBank, and they want to create a telemarketing business. While the deal has not been approved yet, the wages will be $6 an hour. I have not seen a McDonald's in I don't know how long that didn't have a sign in the window saying, ``Help wanted. Pay up to $6 an hour.'' We are desperate for workers at all levels in this country, and here we are asking people to put up money and come into this country and hire workers. How silly can we get? Even if it were not rife with fraud, even if it were not shameless to be selling American citizenship, it makes no economic sense. It is an oxymoron to vote at the same time to bring 95,000 workers in and ask somebody else to come in and hire more workers. Every time Alan Greenspan appears on a television station, every time he appears before the Banking Committee, every time he appears before the Joint Economic Committee, Wall Street and all of America holds its breath for fear he is going to announce an increase in interest rates. And why are they afraid he is going to raise interest rates? Because they have a labor shortage. In Economic 101 at the University of Arkansas, I was taught--and it is still a fundamental economic principle--that when you have a labor shortage, you have to pay more for labor. You think McDonald's is paying $6 an hour because they want to see how far they can exceed the minimum wage? They are paying $6 an hour because they cannot find workers for any less than that. That is still a pitiful wage, but be that as it may, I am not here to debate that. What I am saying is, everybody is scared to death that this labor shortage is going to kick wages up, that in turn is going to create inflation, and inflation is going to cause Alan Greenspan to raise interest rates, and raising interest rates is going to bring the longest sustained period of economic prosperity in the United States to a grinding halt. These are not things that you have to be a rocket scientist to understand. Everybody knows precisely what I am talking about. Finally, Madam President--and I am reluctant to say this because I am not one who has stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate and waved the flag and beat my chest and talked about what a great patriot I am. I put in 3 years in the Marine Corps in World War II, for a very simple reason--we were in a war where the absolute freedom of this Nation was at stake. Not even a second thought about it. And 25, 30 other million men and women did the same thing. I have voted against constitutional amendments on flag burning. Nobody is more deeply offended than I am to see an American flag burn. There are ways to deal with it. But you do not need to tinker with the Bill of Rights for the first time in more than 200 years. I still get goose bumps at a military parade when Old Glory goes by. And I am offended by a law which puts American citizenship up for bid by either the wealthy or those willing to participate in a fraud. How crassly we demean this precious blessing we call citizenship. Emma Lazarus who wrote those magnificent words in the Statue of Liberty about, ``Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses,'' Emma Lazarus must be whirling in her grave to even hear such a debate as this going on. The families of the people whose sons and daughters fought those wars for citizenship and freedom--and the families of those who died, and they did it because they valued citizenship so highly--must be weeping at the thought of citizenship being sold to the highest bidder. It is vulgar. How we champion citizenship that we once prized so highly. Madam President, these people are not the poor. They are not the huddled masses who were our ancestors and who came here for freedom to contribute their labor and their values to live, live free, and to raise their families and die here, even in battle, if need be. These people who we welcome for $1 million are coming twice a year because that is the only way they can keep their green card. They don't want citizenship because that would require them to pay taxes. What in the name of God has happened to this place? I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia. Who yields time? Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield the Senator from West Virginia such time as he may need to speak in opposition to the amendment by the Senator from Arkansas. Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I am grateful to my friend from the State of Michigan. I start out by disputing any thought by the senior Senator from Arkansas that the words ``patriotism'' and ``Bumpers'' don't go side by side--I know the Senator himself knows that [[Page S4983]] to be true--in his service in the Marine Corps, his service in this body, the things he has been through over the years. He is a patriot. He is a marvelous man. He happens, however, to be marvelously wrong on the amendment that he puts forward, which in spite of the larger framework of the immigration bill, is a very specific and very targeted amendment which would do enormous damage to what we are trying to do in areas of my State that need this program desperately, and which do enormous damage to some of the things that I and others I work with--Governor Underwood and others--are trying to do in the State of West Virginia. I refer to the attempt to eliminate the EB5, the immigrant Investor Program. I didn't say that with an abundance of fluency, and there is a reason for that. It is not one of the things that trips off your lips. I confess that it was not until relatively recently, in the last several years, that I, indeed, learned what it was at all because we had not had experience. Let me give a little context. I was Governor of the State of West Virginia for 8 years and I was always very frustrated, and I say to my fellow Governor from the State of Arkansas, of all of the money that was discretionary to the Governor during the 8 years that this Senator was Governor, I spent 75 percent of it on water and sewer, which of course is invisible and never seen. And I put more per capita in one of our poorest counties in southern West Virginia called McDowell County, which used to be referred to as the $1 billion coal field, and now is mostly worked out and people have left. Even when I came to West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer in 1964, I say to the Senator, there were tens of thousands of people in McDowell County, the Senator would remember. Now there are about a handful. I felt that I had not come through properly in spite of efforts for McDowell County, for Wyoming County, for Mercer County, for southern West Virginia, for people who had broken their backs and given their lives, many of them, and who walk around, some of them carrying oxygen tanks. For some it is a 10-minute walk from one side of a room to another side to adjust the television and back because of something called black lung or because of diseases they have accumulated by virtue of being coal miners. These are the areas I am talking about. There are other areas in West Virginia and the State of Arkansas and in the State of Massachusetts and in the State of Michigan and in the State of Maine, all of our States, where people just don't have the opportunity to have jobs because they live in rural areas. It might be a worked-out coal mining area which is called rural, or it might be an area which is mostly trees which would be called rural, but it is rural and jobs don't tend to go there. People don't tend to build the interstates over there. I am old fashioned about it, but the reason that I stayed in West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer, more than anything I wanted to see people go to work. I think my friend from Arkansas understands that. I think he understands it very well. What I found was there were just certain blocks, certain ways, certain impediments that nature put up which just didn't allow some of our good people to be able to go to work by accident of their birth or by the fact they were so close to their families that they didn't leave and go to other places like so many others had done from Appalachia. So they stayed and they can't work and they want to work, and they want so badly to work but there is no work. So that is how I came to know what the EB5 Immigrant Investor Program is. ``Give us your poor,'' the Senator from Arkansas said. Well, our income and our population is increasing, I am happy to say, in West Virginia at a very healthy rate. Things are being done right there. People have caught the flavor of it and there is a sense of optimism which I haven't seen there in 20 or 30 years. But I learned about this program that the Senator wants to eliminate in this amendment. It is just a little thing down here. It says, ``Repeal. . . Section 203(b)(5),'' et cetera--one sentence which nobody can understand, but I know exactly what it does. It would eliminate everything that I am talking about, just eliminate it. It would be gone. I learned about this program because of a company called InterBank. It is a merchant banking company. They run a program which is called Invest in America. Nothing wrong that I can see in that, especially because in this program InterBank has pooled millions of dollars in foreign investments, millions of dollars to establish new operations in teleservicing--telemarketing some call it; I call it teleservices--in exactly the kind of areas in West Virginia I was talking about. I was in Welch, WV, in McDowell County on a freezing-cold day when they announced they were going to create 400 new jobs. The next day they had 1,500 applicants from that county; the word traveled so fast. This was considered the best news that had ever happened to that county. And now they are looking at others. They are looking, in fact, at putting, 10, 12, 15,000 jobs across the State of West Virginia in precisely the kinds of places where nobody else will go to invest, and they want to do it in telemarketing, or teleservicing as I prefer to call it. West Virginia is important in that we are wired very well in terms of fiber optics, so it is a superb place for them to do that. It is like with the telephone system. If you are in Washington, DC, and you call information, you are talking to somebody in West Virginia. Where you live, where you reside doesn't make that much difference anymore. But it makes a tremendous difference in southern West Virginia and in other parts of West Virginia where people do not have work, where people remember having had work because of coal mining or remember when they had an opportunity for work, but they were rejected for work. Now they realize that they could get into these programs and get trained because InterBank is going to put a lot of money into training people, West Virginia people, and I assume people in other parts of the country, other industries like them in other parts of the country. We are talking about $7 or $8 an hour. I don't ridicule that. And I don't ridicule it because it is a company that has benefits particularly when it is a company that provides health benefits, which is something I care about as much as anybody on this planet, and they are included. My people will get them or my people will not get them, depending, and it is true for all the rest of the people in this country who interact with this program as to whether this amendment passes or fails, which is why I hope so much that it fails. Yes, it is true there has been some abuse, and the Senator, I believe, quoted the New York Times. I don't necessarily think because something is in the New York Times and it is printed, it defines what national policy is to be, but I read it every day and I respect it very much, and there was an article saying there had been some abuse. There have been 30 or 40 articles talking about the abuse in Medicare and I don't hear anybody talking of getting rid of Medicare, because HCFA is trying to crack down. There is, I am sure, abuse in the farmers assistance programs which help the Senator and the people he represents from Arkansas, which don't do our people any good at all in West Virginia. All I am saying is that there is always abuse in Federal programs, but it is usually a little bit. In the case of the INS, I have talked with Doris Meissner about the problem of abuse and about these programs. She has put our InterBank program on hold, in fact, even though they have done nothing wrong, because they have the FBI and the INS who looks into this, and the State Department looks into it. They have a total of five separate reviews that are involved in this. The INS is not only taking steps to correct whatever abuse that may exist, but they are so adamant about it that they are taking those programs where there are no problems and making them wait until they have a chance to look at the entire thing. I pleaded with Doris Meissner to approve this program, which had no deficiencies, and she said, ``I can't do it. We have to put it near the end of the line so we can review all of these programs to make sure there is no fraud and abuse, and where there is, we can get rid of it.'' Now, is the idea that somebody would be able to bring some money into the United States to put a West [[Page S4984]] Virginian, or a Washingtonian, or Oregonian, or somebody from Maine, Vermont, or Wisconsin, to work, that they would bring in some money and they would be given a period of a couple of years for review and, after the review, which is a three-agency review, they be allowed t

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AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS ACT
(Senate - May 18, 1998)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S4976-S5001] AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS ACT The Senate continued with consideration of the bill. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, would the distinguished chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee yield me 5 minutes to speak on behalf of his bill and against the Kennedy amendments? Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield the Senator from Texas such time as he may need. I believe this would have to be yielded from time that is to be available for the amendments The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. There is 1 minute 20 seconds remaining on the bill. Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield 5 minutes from the time reserved for our side. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I thank our dear colleague for yielding. I congratulate him on this bill, the American Competitiveness Act. Over the years, we have wisely attracted the best and brightest to America. We have recognized that having talented people come to our country to work has not only not displaced American workers, but it has created an intellectual base that has help create millions of jobs. I want to congratulate Senator Abraham for this bill. I think it is vitally important, and I am proud to be a supporter of the bill. I think it is interesting to note that the companies most strongly supporting Senator Abraham's bill are America's fastest growing companies. These are the companies that are creating most of the new jobs in America. Especially those companies that are in high-tech areas and research areas that are primarily responsible for generating the new products, the new know-how and the new technology that will create jobs now and in the 21st century. I understand that Senator Kennedy will be offering two amendments. Although they have not technically been offered yet, I know enough about the amendments to know that I am opposed to them. Senator Kennedy is trying to preserve the jobs of the 1950s. Senator Abraham is trying to create jobs now and in the 21st century. Senator Kennedy believes that if we can keep new, talented people out of America, as a contributory factor to the intellectual base of our country, we can induce innovative businesses to hire more Americans. Senator Abraham understands that we need an intellectual base to help us create the products and the technology that will create thousands and ultimately millions of new jobs. In these two amendments that will be offered, we really have a debate between the past and the future. The past deals with the idea that we can somehow protect jobs by keeping talented people out of the country. The future is a recognition that America has literally drained the brain talent of the world by bringing talented people to America, and, in the process, talented people here have found more opportunity, more freedom, than any other people who have lived. They have created an economic system that is unrivaled throughout the world. The first amendment Senator Kennedy will offer states that if a company brings in an H-1B visa worker, and later has to lay someone off, the company is in violation of the law. The problem is that in dealing with innovative companies, people are hired based on creating new products and based on success of their research. To force a company to guarantee that it will not, in the next 6 months, have to lay anyone off is to ask them to guarantee the success of their research. As we know from the experience of Europe, which is still trying to follow the policies of the 1950s that are built into the Kennedy amendments, if a company does not have the right to lay people off when a project fails, it can not take the risk to [[Page S4977]] hire the very people who make it possible for it to succeed. The second amendment deals with giving the Labor Department the ability to make a final judgment and to second-guess an employer as to whether or not a person who is a resident of the United States could have been found to do the work. I simply want to remind my colleagues that the existing law states that a company can not bring in an H-1B worker from outside and pay them less than either the prevailing wage or the actual wage. So it is not a case of bringing in people who will work for less. Also, the bill offered by Senator Abraham strengthens current law by providing a $25,000 fine and a 2-year debarment from the program for those who willfully violate the law. So the question is: If there are talented people who can come to our universities, to our research labs, to our high-tech companies bringing with them human capital that can help us create technology and products that will put millions of our own people to work, why not ask them to come to America, instead of inducing American companies to invest abroad in order to employ them in their country? It seems to me that the most revealing thing about this whole debate is the companies that use this H-1B program are the companies that have the fastest growing employment base of American citizens. We are not talking about companies that are experiencing declining employment trying to bring in technical people from abroad. It is companies in Silicon Valley that want to bring in people with special expertise. This will allow these companies, through the application of their genius to practical business problems, to hire hundreds and ultimately thousands more people. If Senator Kennedy's amendments were valid, the companies that use this program would be companies where employment is declining. But the plain truth, as is evident to anyone who looks at the data, is that the companies using these programs are companies that are creating the largest number of jobs in America. So if Microsoft--assuming the Government doesn't put them out of business by trying to limit technology--can put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work by bringing someone to this country who has special expertise, why not let them do it. Especially when this bill strengthens the law by imposing a $25,000 fine on companies that violate procedures aimed at dealing with the legitimate problems raised by Senator Kennedy and others---that people will be brought here who will work for less and therefore undercut the wage base of American workers. So I hope these two amendments will be defeated. I think it is very revealing that our high-tech industries say they would rather not have the bill if the Kennedy amendments are adopted. That suggests to me that the purpose of the amendments are to kill the bill. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield myself 4 minutes on the amendments. As I am sure the Senator from Texas knows, about 85 percent of these jobs earn $75,000 a year, or less. I am just wondering what we have against Americans and American workers that we are so prepared to turn over these good jobs to foreigners. Now, if the Senator wants to say, well, what about these $75,000 jobs? The GAO pointed out that there is no increase in the salary of these workers. I thought supply and demand said that if we have that great a demand, we are going to see an increase in salaries; right? Wrong. The GAO report says there is no indication of that. So these are good jobs. I say, let's try an American first. Let's develop the kinds of skills employers need so that we won't need to have this continue after the expiration of this particular proposal. Let's try an American first. And if we are not going to do that, let's just ensure that an American who is in that job and working, as the record demonstrates today, isn't going to get laid off and replaced by a foreign worker who then is going to work longer hours and be threatened day after day that if they complain at all, they are going to have their green card taken and they will be shipped overseas. That is the case, in many instances. Madam President, I find it difficult to just accept the Senator's argument that this really is just the pure free market system working at its best. I think we owe something to American workers. It is so interesting that all of these companies want to have a free enterprise system--except when it comes to paying wages and salaries. Then they want to do it and get cheaper workers in from overseas and then exploit them. We want to protect against that. That is what those amendments would do. I withhold the balance of my time. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I ask the Senator from Michigan to yield me an additional 5 minutes. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I yield an additional 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, first of all, I always welcome Senator Kennedy giving me lectures about supply and demand. I wish I believed in my heart that he believed in supply and demand. Secondly, one of the purposes of the bill is to add teeth to the provision about hiring Americans first. This is done by imposing a $25,000 fine on people who displace American workers in order to hire H-1B workers, or people who violate the law that prohibits hiring these workers at less than the current wage rate. Obviously, we are talking about very talented people when we are talking about people coming in for salary of $75,000. I have to admit that I am somewhat struck by the paradox. Only last week, we were debating an effort I had undertaken to make people who come to America, come with their sleeves rolled up, rather than their hand held out to get food stamps; and last week the Senate voted to give them food stamps for 7 years. When the Senator from Michigan says, we should let very talented people come and not let them work for less than Americans, and if they can bring talent that will make American products more competitive and help create American jobs, we should let them come in and work in limited numbers, under strict requirements. I think one might be confused to hear that we are perfectly willing to let people come here and go on welfare; it is when they want to come and go to work that we have an objection. Well, I do not. I go back to the point that the companies who are hiring these people are not companies that are in decline. I know the Senator feels this concern in his heart, and I have no doubt about the sincerity of his position. If these were companies in decline and they were trying to drive down their wage base by simply hiring people with standard skills to displace Americans, I would be siding with Senator Kennedy. But what is happening here is companies that are using this program are our most innovative companies. They are the companies that have the most talented workers that they can hire in our country. They are our fastest growing companies. They are companies that are creating jobs now, and they are laying the technological foundations that will create hundreds, thousands, and ultimately millions of jobs in the future. They want to reach out in the world and pick the most talented, the best and the brightest, to come to America on a temporary basis and help us develop the technology that will create jobs--good jobs, high- paying jobs, $75,000-a-year jobs--for our own workers. So I strongly support the provision offered by the Senator from Michigan. I do believe that the amendments offered by the Senator from Massachusetts are well intended, but I think they are wrongheaded in the sense that, in the name of protecting jobs, we are keeping out a very small number of very select people who are working at labs at Harvard University, or working in Silicon Valley, or working in research institutes all over the country to create technology that puts millions of our people to work. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I have 150 letters and scores more back in my office of Americans who have training and skills in computer knowledge and technology and are unable to get the jobs. You can, under this proposal, hire 1,000 foreign workers and displace 1,000 American workers and it doesn't violate any law. It violates no law. I think we ought to protect American workers, and if there is a job out [[Page S4978]] there, an American worker ought to have a crack at it before it goes overseas. Madam President, I see my friend and colleague from Nevada who, under the agreement, is to be recognized to offer an amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized. Mr. REID. Madam President, let's put ourselves in the situation that a woman from Las Vegas found herself in. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from Nevada offering his amendment? Mr. REID. I will offer it at the appropriate time. I have the floor now. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Unless time is yielded to the Senator under the agreement on the bill, the Senator---- Mr. REID. My amendment has no time. Amendment No. 2414 (Purpose: To require that applications for passports for minors have parental signatures) Mr. REID. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment numbered 2414. Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following: SEC ____. PASSPORTS ISSUED FOR CHILDREN UNDER 16. (a) In General.--Section 1 of title IX of the Act of June 15, 1917 (22 U.S.C. 213) is amended-- (1) by striking ``Before'' and inserting ``(a) In General.--Before'', and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection: ``(b) Passports Issued for Children Under 16.-- ``(1) Signatures required.--In the case of a child under the age of 16, the written application required as a prerequisite to the issuance of a passport for such child shall be signed by-- ``(A) both parents of the child if the child lives with both parents; ``(B) the parent of the child having primary custody of the child if the child does not live with both parents; or ``(C) the surviving parent (or legal guardian) of the child, if 1 or both parents are deceased. ``(2) Waiver.--The Secretary of State may waive the requirements of paragraph (1)(A) if the Secretary determines that circumstances do not permit obtaining the signatures of both parents.''. (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall apply to applications for passports filed on or after the date of the enactment of this Act. Mr. REID. Madam President, let's assume that you are a mother, you have a 6-year-old child, you have recently been divorced, and you go to pick the child up from school and he is not there. You wonder what happened to your child. You call the police; the police have no knowledge of his whereabouts. No one seems to know what happened to your child. But as things are pieced together, you learn that your husband, who you recently divorced, has taken the child from school and to Croatia. This happens during the time of the Balkans war. What as a mother are you to do? Your child is in Croatia. You were married to a Croatian. This is a situation that 1,000 parents face every year in our country. Over 1,000 children are taken from this country, normally as a result of the mother and father not getting along, or recently divorced, and they are taken many times to a country where one of the parents was born. Sometimes the parent just takes off to a country they are familiar with. They want to get away from the wife or husband, recognizing that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get the baby back. The tragedy is of a thousand stories a year; there are many thousands of stories I could retell. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported about a woman by whose name is Lilly Waken. Her two daughters left home for a party. The children never came back. Frantically, she called the police. She called the hospitals. She learned that her husband had taken them away and had bought three one-way tickets to Damascus, Syria. That was 18 months ago. She hasn't seen her children since. My amendment is all about fairness and prevention. It is about preventing a problem that plagues this country, the international children's abduction problem. As I have indicated, 1,000 or more children are abducted every year in our country. These children, as I have indicated, are abducted during or shortly after a contentious divorce, sometimes even by an abusive parent, at a time when these children are most vulnerable and uncertain about their future. They are then snatched from custody of one parent and hauled over to a foreign country. In the case that I first spoke of, a young boy by the name of Mikey Kale from Las Vegas was taken to Croatia. His mother worked for months and months, and was finally able, after spending a tremendous amount of money trying to get the return of her son--remember, this is in a country that was Mikey Kale Passport and Notification Amendment at war--she was able to get her child back. I am proposing this legislation, the Mikey Kale Passport Notification Amendment, after this young boy taken to Croatia, Mikey Kale. This amendment is very simple. It will require that parents who are married must both sign for a passport for their child. If there has been a divorce, the one with primary custody must sign for the child to obtain a passport. We have a provision in this bill so that, under extreme circumstances, the Secretary of State can waive the requirements if the Secretary determines that the circumstances do not permit the obtaining of the signatures of both parents. Madam President, this legislation was passed before in this body. It went to the House where it was knocked out in conference. Why? For the same reason that the State Department indicated in a recent article in Parade Magazine, it is going to create too much paperwork. I say, Madam President, that is too much baloney. It may be too much paperwork for them. But for the parents and the children involved in this, it is better to spend a little extra time when someone comes to get a passport to make sure that the passport is obtained properly. It is not asking too much of the State Department to insure that people who are going to get a passport for a child to check out that the child is, in effect, not being kidnaped. The aim of the amendment is prevention. It prevents parental abductors from obtaining U.S. passports for their minor children. One of the best ways to prevent international parental abductions is to make it more difficult for the abductors to obtain a passport. Madam President, prior to coming to this body I practiced law and did divorce work, among other things. When Mikey Kale's mother came to me, it flooded memories back to my mind about a case that I had where there was a contested divorce. I represented a police officer from Henderson, NV. Suddenly, my client picked up the two children and went to Mexico. He called me from Mexico, and said, ``I'm not coming back until I get what I asked for from my wife.'' So I called the opposing counsel and told him what had happened. My client stayed down in Mexico for years until finally the mother of the two children, in effect, gave him what he wanted. It was a difficult situation. The children were never in school during that period of time. Madam President, this is a very serious problem. We who are parents and grandparents know that we are the ones who are looked upon as protectors of our children. But those who should be protecting children are doing the worst for the child by taking them to a strange country, recognizing that the standards and customs in that country are much different from ours, and that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to get that child back. It is reported that the State Department has had thousands and thousands of these reported kidnapings, and that they just write them off after a year or two, closing 80 percent of their files. This amendment is a simple legislative solution which will implement a system of checks prior to the issuance of a minor child's passport thereby protecting both parental rights and the rights of the child. [[Page S4979]] Two years ago the same amendment passed. The State Department and their lobbyists prevailed upon those in conference to remove this provision. In the meantime, 2,000 children in this country have been abducted to other countries--2,000 children. Think of the grief that has been caused to those children and to the parents of those children. This, Madam President, should stop. We should not listen to what the State Department says, that because they are understaffed and don't want to go into the details of who has custody, they cannot implement this preventive measure. I say let's save some pain and suffering of these little children, and also of one of the parents. This problem is more common than one would think. As I stated earlier, 1,000 children are abducted every year. Here in the United States missing and abducted children are counted meticulously, in some countries they keep no records whatsoever. Forty-five nations have signed a Hague treaty designed to resolve international child custody disputes. Most countries have not. Finding a missing child is very difficult. This problem is no better illustrated, as I have indicated, than that of Mikey Kale for whom this amendment is named. Let me repeat. On Valentine's Day in 1993, Mikey was abducted by the ex-husband of Barbara Spierer and taken to Croatia--kidnaped, for lack of a better description. As I have said, after tremendous emotional and financial efforts, Barbara was one of the lucky ones. She got her baby boy back. Regardless of the number of cases--whether it is 1,000 cases, which it is, or 10 cases a year, which it isn't--one case of abduction is one too many. My amendment seeks to prevent even that one tragedy from occurring. One of the most difficult and frustrating elements for parents of internationally abducted children is that the U.S. laws and court orders are usually ignored in a foreign country. If they are not ignored, the possible pain and expense of legal representation in that country are unbearable. Many of these cases involve parents who have relatively no assets. So the one who is, in effect, left behind, when the child has been kidnaped, can do nothing. One country alone has 45 cases of American children being abducted. Letters to that foreign head of state have had no effect, and none of the 45 have been voluntarily returned. An inconceivable, irrefutable fact is that once a child is abducted from the United States, it is almost impossible to get the child back. Madam President, once again, the aim of this amendment is prevention--prevention of anguish to families, prevention of parental rights being violated, prevention of a child being abducted. Until more can be done, I believe a simple, cost-effective legislative solution to protect our children's rights is essential, and I ask my colleagues to join me. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I would like to speak on the amendment, but what I will do is note the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I will speak very briefly in support of the Reid amendment. I think the concerns he has raised here are very important ones and need to be addressed. I would actually add to the examples he used other situations which have occurred to constituents of mine in which following a divorce decree in this country, a spouse who maintains dual citizenship in some fashion goes to a country of his or her other citizenship with the child after there has been an agreement with regard to visitation. The American citizen spouse who remains in the United States then seeks to visit on the basis of that visitation agreement and finds, when visiting the foreign country, the child is not available, cannot be found, has disappeared, usually just to another city or another relative's home or something else, but basically because of the limited amount of time the visiting spouses have in the country, they no longer have the opportunity to see their children. This is not the case of an abduction per se, but it is relatively similar in terms of the implications. So I think the outlawing this amendment takes helps to address the most egregious form of this problem. But I indicate to the Senator from Nevada I not only would be willing to accept this amendment and support it, but I look forward to working with him--and I know of several other Senators who have approved--to see if there are ways we could also address these other cases where we may not be dealing with abduction, but still dealing with the circumstance where parents are prevented from seeing their children. So I thank the Senator from Nevada for his amendment. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for bringing this matter to our attention once again. As we were saying a few moments ago, this was accepted in the last debate on immigration reform in 1996. When it went to conference, there were a number of us who were excluded. If we had been able to participate, we would have supported this measure. But we were in a different regime at the time. In so many areas of immigration policy there are the opportunities for abuse by a few. But as the Senator has pointed out, thousands can still be affected by the injustice. The Senator has identified one instance in which a family was harmed. We would be glad to work with him and with Senator Abraham to see what could be worked through in the conference. If somehow we are not persuasive in the conference, we will join with him later in offering his amendment on appropriations bills or other bills. But I think the Senator has made a strong case, just as he did the last time. I think he has identified a very important issue. Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that my request for the yeas and nays be withdrawn subject to the manager of the bill accepting the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment (No. 2414) was agreed to. Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, be recognized for 7 minutes in order to offer an amendment, and immediately following the conclusion that I be recognized for the same purpose of offering an amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object--I do not intend to--he will go for 7 minutes and then we will have a chance to respond to his amendment? Are we going to have time to dispose of his amendment before the Senator from Arkansas? Mr. REED. I think in that time we can dispose of the amendment. Mr. BUMPERS. The amendment, I think, can be disposed of in 7 minutes. Mr. KENNEDY. That is fine. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized. Mr. REED. I thank the Chair. Amendment No. 2415 (Purpose: To strike section 4, relating to education and training in science and technology) Mr. REED. I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:. The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed] proposes an amendment numbered 2415. Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 27, beginning with line 1, strike all through page 29, line 10. Mr. REED. Madam President, my amendment would strike section 4 of [[Page S4980]] the underlying legislation. This section proposes to amend the State Student Incentive Grant Program, the SSIG Program. I first want to recognize Senator Abraham's efforts on behalf of this legislation and to underscore that I understand the issue the Senator is attempting to address is the lack of suitable training in our country to provide the types of scientists and engineers which this legislation hopes to attract through immigration policies. But I would object to the importation of the SSIG Program into this legislation; to pull SSIG in is inappropriate. We all recognize we do have to educate and train more Americans to take up these high-tech jobs, but this immigration bill is not the right vehicle, and the SSIG Program is not the right approach to simply target high-tech training in the United States. I would like to briefly set the record straight with respect to SSIG, its status, and I hope its future. First, the State Student Incentive Grant Program is within the jurisdiction of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. We have been considering its reformation and improvement over the last several months, and we have made progress in that regard. We are on the verge, after deliberation in the committee, of bringing a bill to the floor which will make significant improvements to SSIG. I would like to also point out that the State Student Incentive Grant Program was initiated back in 1972 by Senator Jacob Javits of New York. It was created not as a way to bootstrap high-tech learning in the United States, but to meet a critical deficiency--the need to provide resources to low-income students to enable them to go to college in a vast array of programs, letting them make the decision of where their talent will carry them, but giving them the resources to go to college and stay in college. In its more than 20-year history, it has been a remarkably effective program. It takes Federal dollars and offers a one-for-one dollar match with the States to provide need-based grants to students. It has no federal overhead. It delivers money in the form of grants to low-income students that need these resources to go on to college. Now, if we are talking about providing more opportunities for Americans to be scientists, to be engineers, to do all the things that we want them to do and not have to rely upon foreign nationals coming into our country, SSIG is the wrong place to start. We should be starting in the elementary and secondary schools. We should be recognizing that in many of our schools, particularly low-income urban schools with high minority enrollments, 50 percent of those students are likely to have a science or math teacher who never concentrated on science or math in college. And that is one reason we are not developing, here in the United States, those skills necessary for this high-tech age. So, if we are really interested in having Americans qualify to take these jobs, bringing SSIG into this bill, hijacking it, Shanghaiing it into this bill is not going to do it. We have to start early and consistently to reach young people. I believe we have made progress in this regard. We have made progress, both in terms of identifying the need to improve elementary and secondary education, and, as I mentioned before, we have made progress working closely with my colleague, the Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, to improve SSIG. We have introduced, with 17 other Senators, a bipartisan proposal to reform SSIG. It is called the LEAP Act. This proposal will create a two-tiered proposal: Up to $35 million, there will continue to be a one-for-one match of Federal dollars to State dollars; but when we go beyond that amount, we will allow the States a great deal more flexibility, flexibility that they will have to recognize by matching $2 for every one Federal dollar. But within that more flexible regime of options, we have actually built in, at the request of Senator Abraham, the ability of States to develop scholarship programs that are targeted to mathematics and computer science and engineering. In effect, working very closely with the Senator, who is sincerely committed to improving the quality of education throughout this country, we have done in the LEAP Act in the Labor Committee what is purported to be done here in this legislation. Now, we are concerned--frankly, I am concerned--that if we act in this immigration bill, we might upset the progress we have made to date on the LEAP Act. We might, in fact, compromise its fundamental commitment not to one specific sector of study but to a broader social purpose--of giving low-income students the chance to go on to college. I hope we will not do that. I feel very strongly about SSIG. I felt very strongly last year--again, working with Senator Collins from Maine. We came to the floor, we literally saved this program from extinction with an overwhelming vote of 84 to 4 to maintain appropriations for SSIG. Having, in a sense, given renewed life to this legislation, I want the opportunity, with my colleagues, to ensure that we continue this program as a need-based program and not at this moment, for convenience, for an attempt to respond to a legitimate concern about training high-tech personnel, to distort the purpose, the goals, and the future of SSIG. I think, working together with my colleagues, we can maintain the integrity of SSIG and we can also, using the Higher Education Act, strengthen it, reform it, and make it adaptable and make it accessible to a new generation of American students. I have had the opportunity to work with Senator Abraham. We have, I think, mutual appreciation of the need for SSIG. I hope, working with him over the next several weeks as this measure goes forward, and given his commitment to work together on this whole topic of the State Student Incentive Grant Program--I am prepared at this moment to seek unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn. The amendment (No. 2115) was withdrawn. Mr. REED. I yield to the Senator from Michigan, if he had a comment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I briefly would like to do a couple of things. First, I compliment the Senator from Rhode Island as well as the Presiding Officer for their efforts on this issue. As I mentioned earlier in my opening statement about the legislation before us, our office has been very grateful to you as well as to Senator Jeffords and others on the Labor Committee for the efforts that have been engaged in to help us craft, in the higher education bill, language which was consistent with our objectives in terms of trying to provide ways by which we can incentivize more young people in our country to fill these jobs we know are going to be created in the future. And under no circumstances, I think the Senator from Rhode Island knows, and I know the Senator from Maine knows as well, are any of us involved in the development of this legislation seeking to, in any context, reduce or undermine the SSIG program. To the contrary, I think everybody who is a cosponsor is a strong supporter. So we look forward to working with you. I have appreciated the efforts of the Senator from Rhode Island to assist us in this and thank him for what he has already done and what we look forward to doing together, to find a way to address this issue in the context of other legislation that will be before us. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator, my friend from Rhode Island. We have had the good opportunity to work with the Senator from Rhode Island and also the Senator from Maine on this particular issue. I know that the Senator from Rhode Island is someone who has been on the education committees, not only in the Senate but also in the House of Representatives, and is someone with a number of years of experience with this important issue. The Senator from Rhode Island has spent a lot of time in developing an understanding of this particular program and how it works in the States. He has also found how it can best be targeted in ways that offer the best opportunity for needy students, giving focus in areas of important need--math and science and other skills. So, we will continue to work with him. We appreciate his leadership and the leadership of the Senator from Maine in this area. [[Page S4981]] We have been trying to work to assure that Americans are going to develop the skills to be able to compete in these areas. This is really a combination of both the education and training aspects that Senator DeWine, Senator Reed, and Senator Collins have been working on, as well as the Senator from Michigan. And that is a reflection of the good faith of the Senator from Michigan on it. So I appreciate his willingness of the Senator from Rhode Island, at this time, to continue to work with us. We give the Senator the assurance we will continue to work very closely with him, and with the Senator from Maine, as we move on into the conference. But I appreciate his cooperation and leadership on this issue. Amendment No. 2416 (Purpose: To repeal the Immigrant Investor Program) The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized, under the previous order. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers], proposes an amendment numbered 2416. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the end of the bill add the following: ``SEC. ----. REPEAL OF IMMIGRANT INVESTOR PROGRAM. ``Section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, (8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)) shall be repealed effective on the date of enactment of this Act.'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be advised that there are 90 minutes equally divided under the time agreement. The Senator from Arkansas. Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Chair for reminding me. Madam President, this amendment repeals a provision in the immigration laws that was a tragic mistake when it was enacted. My amendment to strike that provision deals with economics, it deals with patriotism, it deals with immigration, and it deals with fraud. In order for my colleagues to understand precisely what we are talking about, let me set the stage. I fought this battle in 1989 and, at the expense of sounding a little self-serving, lost, but predicted what has happened would happen. The immigration bill considered by the Senate in 1989 included a provision of the bill to increase investment because we were headed into a recession. We decided we would take a page out of the play books of Canada and Australia. We thought, if they can sell citizenship for $200,000, citizenship in the United States ought to be worth at least $1 million. It is a very logical assumption. So, we said, in that bill in 1989, we will reserve 4,800 visas for foreigners who wants to come into this Nation and bring $1 million and hire 10 people: We will give you a green card at the end of 2 years, and, at the end of an additional 3 years, we will make you a citizen of the United States. Then in the conference committee we decided we could do even better than that. We said: You don't have to bring $1 million dollars; bring $500,000. If you put a hamburger joint up that will hire 10 people in an area of high unemployment or in a rural area, we will do the same thing for you. We cut the price of citizenship from $1 million to $500,000 and the 4,800 slots that we reserved in the Senate bill increased to 10,000 in the conference report. Multiply $1 million by 10,000 visas and just think of all the magnificent investment we would have in this country and how many jobs we would create. Madam President, that ``ain't'' all. We said not only will you not really have to create 10 jobs with your $500,000 or your $1 million, you only have to maintain 10 jobs. What does that mean? If old Joe's hamburger joint is about to go out of business and he has 10 employees and you are willing to buy his place and keep those 10 employees working, you have maintained 10 jobs, so you qualify for American citizenship. Then in 1993 we decided we would liberalize it a little further. Not only do you not have to create 10 jobs, not only do you not have to maintain 10 jobs, all you have to do is indirectly provide 10 jobs if you invest in businesses located in certain areas known as Regional Centers . What does that mean? You are making widgets. You employ five people to make widgets. You have two people to distribute them and three people to sell them. Those are indirectly created jobs. Therefore, you get your green card at the end of 2 years, and you get your citizenship papers at the end of 5 years. I can remember at that time how we thought Hong Kong was going to flood this Nation with people with $1 million in their pocket because they were terrified of the Chinese taking over Hong Kong. I must say, the program, such as it is, has been mostly of people from the Pacific rim--Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan. Madam President, do you know the nice thing about this? If you have $500,000 to invest, bring the little wife and kids, too, you are all welcome. They are also going to ultimately be entitled to citizenship. What have been the results? Madam President, a cottage industry of consultants and limited partnerships has grown up in this Nation. No plan the U.S. Congress has ever devised has been scam-proof, and God knows this one is no exception. What do these consultants do? Why, they advertise in the newspapers in Hong Kong, in Oman, in Taiwan, and they say, ``You don't even need $500,000, you don't need $1 million, you only need $100,000.'' We have gone from $1 million to $500,000 to $100,000. We have gone from creating jobs to maintaining jobs to indirectly providing jobs. It is incredible what has happened to this program. How do they get by with this? These consultants form limited partnerships. They get several of these people who have $100,000 and they pool all those $100,000 contributions from various people. What about the $500,000 requirement? How are you going to put up $100,000 and meet that? Easy. You give a promissory note for $400,000. You give $100,000 in cash--incidentally, there is a little matter of a $35,000 to $50,000 fee that goes to the consultant. So if you come, you ought to have $150,000 in your pocket, $50,000 for the consultant and $100,000 to show your good faith, and then be willing to sign a note for $400,000. But not to worry. At the end of 2 years, your note is forgiven. Forget the $400,000 note. If you are in the $1 million class, forget the $900,000 note. And if, at the end of 2 years, the business has not done well, shut it down. When you shut it down, you can go down to the courthouse and apply for your citizenship 3 years later. You do not have to maintain the business for the ensuing 3 years to get your citizenship. Shut that sucker down after 2 years; it has probably been a loser anyway. Madam President, Russell Burgoise was quoted in an April 13, 1998 New York Times article. He is a spokesman for the Immigration Service. He said: ``These plans don't meet either the spirit or the letter of the law.'' Recently, when the INS sought to revoke up to 5,000 visas, the New York Times in the same article said ``influential Members of Congress protested the Government was changing rules in midstream,'' and the INS backed off. Late in 1997, the Times of Oman, not a widely read paper in Washington, contained an advertisement which said: ``U.S. green card for anyone who can show U.S. $500,000.'' They ought to be prosecuted for misleading advertising. It doesn't take $500,000, just $100,000 would do fine if you know the right consultant in this country. It is an interesting thing that it took these consultants and these limited partnerships to figure out how to get the program going. Until the latter part of 1996, the investor visa program had been an even worse disaster than its worst critics--namely me--had predicted. Nobody was showing much interest. In 1992, 280 people applied, 240 were approved. In 1993, 384; 1994, 407; 1995, 291; 1996, 616; in 1997, 1,110. The consultants are getting geared up now. It is still a far cry from the 10,000 slots available, but in 1997, 1,110 petitions were approved. But over the last 7 years, only 3,284 have been approved. So, despite the fact that the program has been weakened unbelievably to [[Page S4982]] make almost anybody eligible for it, nobody much has been applying. Out of 7 years, we only got 3,000-plus, and we are supposed to be doing 10,000 each year. AIS, one of the consulting organizations I mentioned a moment ago, specializes, as I said, in pooling investors to bankroll larger products. Now you should know that a lot of people invest their $100,000 not to become American citizens; they come here because they want to purchase citizenship for their children and educate them here. Or they come here for any host of other reasons. Maybe they are actually coming with their family. That would be a fairly laudable purpose. But they do not come because they want citizenship. And a lot of people will freely tell you the reason they did not want to be citizens of the United States is because they will have to pay taxes. They have to pay taxes on all of their income all over the world wherever it may come from. They are not about to do that. They only have to come here twice a year to keep their eligibility for the green card. AIS has advertised ``Alternate residency: Less restrictive and expensive than other plans in other countries.'' You are not becoming a citizen of the United States. You do not have to love the flag. You do not have to say the Pledge of Allegiance. You do not have to fight our wars. You do not have to be any particular age. You do not have to have any specialized education. You do not have to have any experience. You do not have to know the language. All you need is ``green.'' You do not have to know anything about the poor and huddled masses that Emma Lazarus wrote about. Madam President, this program is so rife with fraud. In some instances, you can get your entire $500,000 back. If you invest $500,000 or $1 million, there are some plans under which you can get it all back and still get your citizenship. Harold Ezell, a former INS regional immigration commissioner--now a lawyer in Newport Beach, CA--this is a former INS official's quote. What did he say about Congress, about this bill? ``They were smoking something when they wrote it.'' ``We've shot ourselves in the foot.'' Another attorney said, ``You know, since we're blatantly soliciting the wealthy, we might ought to charge $2 million.'' Madam President, the investor visa program makes no economic sense either. The underlying bill we are debating today would raise the cap on the number of workers who will come into this country who have skills, principally for the computer industry. The Senator from Michigan, who is handling this bill on the floor, wants to raise the annual limit on people coming into this country from 60,000 to 95,000. Now, you think about the incongruity of raising the level of people we invite into this country because they have a skill and because we have a labor shortage. We would not do it otherwise. We have a labor shortage of so-called skilled workers. At least, that is the proposition. I do not believe it, and I am not going to vote for the bill. I will announce that right now. This country, incidentally, as great as we are, to be depending on the rest of the world to send us their skilled workers so we can stay afloat in the computer industry, or whatever, is the height of something or other. If we have a $50 billion surplus looming this year, for Pete's sake, let us educate our youngsters so we do not have to depend on anybody else for these skills. That should not be too difficult. But here we are saying we want to invite an additional 35,000 laborers into this country because we have a labor shortage, and at the same time saying, ``If you will give us $100,000 or $500,000''-- whichever the case may be--``and hire 10 people, we'll give you citizenship.'' There is an outfit in West Virginia called InterBank, and they want to create a telemarketing business. While the deal has not been approved yet, the wages will be $6 an hour. I have not seen a McDonald's in I don't know how long that didn't have a sign in the window saying, ``Help wanted. Pay up to $6 an hour.'' We are desperate for workers at all levels in this country, and here we are asking people to put up money and come into this country and hire workers. How silly can we get? Even if it were not rife with fraud, even if it were not shameless to be selling American citizenship, it makes no economic sense. It is an oxymoron to vote at the same time to bring 95,000 workers in and ask somebody else to come in and hire more workers. Every time Alan Greenspan appears on a television station, every time he appears before the Banking Committee, every time he appears before the Joint Economic Committee, Wall Street and all of America holds its breath for fear he is going to announce an increase in interest rates. And why are they afraid he is going to raise interest rates? Because they have a labor shortage. In Economic 101 at the University of Arkansas, I was taught--and it is still a fundamental economic principle--that when you have a labor shortage, you have to pay more for labor. You think McDonald's is paying $6 an hour because they want to see how far they can exceed the minimum wage? They are paying $6 an hour because they cannot find workers for any less than that. That is still a pitiful wage, but be that as it may, I am not here to debate that. What I am saying is, everybody is scared to death that this labor shortage is going to kick wages up, that in turn is going to create inflation, and inflation is going to cause Alan Greenspan to raise interest rates, and raising interest rates is going to bring the longest sustained period of economic prosperity in the United States to a grinding halt. These are not things that you have to be a rocket scientist to understand. Everybody knows precisely what I am talking about. Finally, Madam President--and I am reluctant to say this because I am not one who has stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate and waved the flag and beat my chest and talked about what a great patriot I am. I put in 3 years in the Marine Corps in World War II, for a very simple reason--we were in a war where the absolute freedom of this Nation was at stake. Not even a second thought about it. And 25, 30 other million men and women did the same thing. I have voted against constitutional amendments on flag burning. Nobody is more deeply offended than I am to see an American flag burn. There are ways to deal with it. But you do not need to tinker with the Bill of Rights for the first time in more than 200 years. I still get goose bumps at a military parade when Old Glory goes by. And I am offended by a law which puts American citizenship up for bid by either the wealthy or those willing to participate in a fraud. How crassly we demean this precious blessing we call citizenship. Emma Lazarus who wrote those magnificent words in the Statue of Liberty about, ``Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses,'' Emma Lazarus must be whirling in her grave to even hear such a debate as this going on. The families of the people whose sons and daughters fought those wars for citizenship and freedom--and the families of those who died, and they did it because they valued citizenship so highly--must be weeping at the thought of citizenship being sold to the highest bidder. It is vulgar. How we champion citizenship that we once prized so highly. Madam President, these people are not the poor. They are not the huddled masses who were our ancestors and who came here for freedom to contribute their labor and their values to live, live free, and to raise their families and die here, even in battle, if need be. These people who we welcome for $1 million are coming twice a year because that is the only way they can keep their green card. They don't want citizenship because that would require them to pay taxes. What in the name of God has happened to this place? I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia. Who yields time? Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield the Senator from West Virginia such time as he may need to speak in opposition to the amendment by the Senator from Arkansas. Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I am grateful to my friend from the State of Michigan. I start out by disputing any thought by the senior Senator from Arkansas that the words ``patriotism'' and ``Bumpers'' don't go side by side--I know the Senator himself knows that [[Page S4983]] to be true--in his service in the Marine Corps, his service in this body, the things he has been through over the years. He is a patriot. He is a marvelous man. He happens, however, to be marvelously wrong on the amendment that he puts forward, which in spite of the larger framework of the immigration bill, is a very specific and very targeted amendment which would do enormous damage to what we are trying to do in areas of my State that need this program desperately, and which do enormous damage to some of the things that I and others I work with--Governor Underwood and others--are trying to do in the State of West Virginia. I refer to the attempt to eliminate the EB5, the immigrant Investor Program. I didn't say that with an abundance of fluency, and there is a reason for that. It is not one of the things that trips off your lips. I confess that it was not until relatively recently, in the last several years, that I, indeed, learned what it was at all because we had not had experience. Let me give a little context. I was Governor of the State of West Virginia for 8 years and I was always very frustrated, and I say to my fellow Governor from the State of Arkansas, of all of the money that was discretionary to the Governor during the 8 years that this Senator was Governor, I spent 75 percent of it on water and sewer, which of course is invisible and never seen. And I put more per capita in one of our poorest counties in southern West Virginia called McDowell County, which used to be referred to as the $1 billion coal field, and now is mostly worked out and people have left. Even when I came to West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer in 1964, I say to the Senator, there were tens of thousands of people in McDowell County, the Senator would remember. Now there are about a handful. I felt that I had not come through properly in spite of efforts for McDowell County, for Wyoming County, for Mercer County, for southern West Virginia, for people who had broken their backs and given their lives, many of them, and who walk around, some of them carrying oxygen tanks. For some it is a 10-minute walk from one side of a room to another side to adjust the television and back because of something called black lung or because of diseases they have accumulated by virtue of being coal miners. These are the areas I am talking about. There are other areas in West Virginia and the State of Arkansas and in the State of Massachusetts and in the State of Michigan and in the State of Maine, all of our States, where people just don't have the opportunity to have jobs because they live in rural areas. It might be a worked-out coal mining area which is called rural, or it might be an area which is mostly trees which would be called rural, but it is rural and jobs don't tend to go there. People don't tend to build the interstates over there. I am old fashioned about it, but the reason that I stayed in West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer, more than anything I wanted to see people go to work. I think my friend from Arkansas understands that. I think he understands it very well. What I found was there were just certain blocks, certain ways, certain impediments that nature put up which just didn't allow some of our good people to be able to go to work by accident of their birth or by the fact they were so close to their families that they didn't leave and go to other places like so many others had done from Appalachia. So they stayed and they can't work and they want to work, and they want so badly to work but there is no work. So that is how I came to know what the EB5 Immigrant Investor Program is. ``Give us your poor,'' the Senator from Arkansas said. Well, our income and our population is increasing, I am happy to say, in West Virginia at a very healthy rate. Things are being done right there. People have caught the flavor of it and there is a sense of optimism which I haven't seen there in 20 or 30 years. But I learned about this program that the Senator wants to eliminate in this amendment. It is just a little thing down here. It says, ``Repeal. . . Section 203(b)(5),'' et cetera--one sentence which nobody can understand, but I know exactly what it does. It would eliminate everything that I am talking about, just eliminate it. It would be gone. I learned about this program because of a company called InterBank. It is a merchant banking company. They run a program which is called Invest in America. Nothing wrong that I can see in that, especially because in this program InterBank has pooled millions of dollars in foreign investments, millions of dollars to establish new operations in teleservicing--telemarketing some call it; I call it teleservices--in exactly the kind of areas in West Virginia I was talking about. I was in Welch, WV, in McDowell County on a freezing-cold day when they announced they were going to create 400 new jobs. The next day they had 1,500 applicants from that county; the word traveled so fast. This was considered the best news that had ever happened to that county. And now they are looking at others. They are looking, in fact, at putting, 10, 12, 15,000 jobs across the State of West Virginia in precisely the kinds of places where nobody else will go to invest, and they want to do it in telemarketing, or teleservicing as I prefer to call it. West Virginia is important in that we are wired very well in terms of fiber optics, so it is a superb place for them to do that. It is like with the telephone system. If you are in Washington, DC, and you call information, you are talking to somebody in West Virginia. Where you live, where you reside doesn't make that much difference anymore. But it makes a tremendous difference in southern West Virginia and in other parts of West Virginia where people do not have work, where people remember having had work because of coal mining or remember when they had an opportunity for work, but they were rejected for work. Now they realize that they could get into these programs and get trained because InterBank is going to put a lot of money into training people, West Virginia people, and I assume people in other parts of the country, other industries like them in other parts of the country. We are talking about $7 or $8 an hour. I don't ridicule that. And I don't ridicule it because it is a company that has benefits particularly when it is a company that provides health benefits, which is something I care about as much as anybody on this planet, and they are included. My people will get them or my people will not get them, depending, and it is true for all the rest of the people in this country who interact with this program as to whether this amendment passes or fails, which is why I hope so much that it fails. Yes, it is true there has been some abuse, and the Senator, I believe, quoted the New York Times. I don't necessarily think because something is in the New York Times and it is printed, it defines what national policy is to be, but I read it every day and I respect it very much, and there was an article saying there had been some abuse. There have been 30 or 40 articles talking about the abuse in Medicare and I don't hear anybody talking of getting rid of Medicare, because HCFA is trying to crack down. There is, I am sure, abuse in the farmers assistance programs which help the Senator and the people he represents from Arkansas, which don't do our people any good at all in West Virginia. All I am saying is that there is always abuse in Federal programs, but it is usually a little bit. In the case of the INS, I have talked with Doris Meissner about the problem of abuse and about these programs. She has put our InterBank program on hold, in fact, even though they have done nothing wrong, because they have the FBI and the INS who looks into this, and the State Department looks into it. They have a total of five separate reviews that are involved in this. The INS is not only taking steps to correct whatever abuse that may exist, but they are so adamant about it that they are taking those programs where there are no problems and making them wait until they have a chance to look at the entire thing. I pleaded with Doris Meissner to approve this program, which had no deficiencies, and she said, ``I can't do it. We have to put it near the end of the line so we can review all of these programs to make sure there is no fraud and abuse, and where there is, we can get rid of it.'' Now, is the idea that somebody would be able to bring some money into the United States to put a West [[Page S4984]] Virginian, or a Washingtonian, or Oregonian, or somebody from Maine, Vermont, or Wisconsin, to work, that they would bring in some money and they would be given a period of a couple of years for review and, after the review, which is a three-agency review, they be allowed to stay be

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AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS ACT
(Senate - May 18, 1998)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S4976-S5001] AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS ACT The Senate continued with consideration of the bill. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, would the distinguished chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee yield me 5 minutes to speak on behalf of his bill and against the Kennedy amendments? Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield the Senator from Texas such time as he may need. I believe this would have to be yielded from time that is to be available for the amendments The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. There is 1 minute 20 seconds remaining on the bill. Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield 5 minutes from the time reserved for our side. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I thank our dear colleague for yielding. I congratulate him on this bill, the American Competitiveness Act. Over the years, we have wisely attracted the best and brightest to America. We have recognized that having talented people come to our country to work has not only not displaced American workers, but it has created an intellectual base that has help create millions of jobs. I want to congratulate Senator Abraham for this bill. I think it is vitally important, and I am proud to be a supporter of the bill. I think it is interesting to note that the companies most strongly supporting Senator Abraham's bill are America's fastest growing companies. These are the companies that are creating most of the new jobs in America. Especially those companies that are in high-tech areas and research areas that are primarily responsible for generating the new products, the new know-how and the new technology that will create jobs now and in the 21st century. I understand that Senator Kennedy will be offering two amendments. Although they have not technically been offered yet, I know enough about the amendments to know that I am opposed to them. Senator Kennedy is trying to preserve the jobs of the 1950s. Senator Abraham is trying to create jobs now and in the 21st century. Senator Kennedy believes that if we can keep new, talented people out of America, as a contributory factor to the intellectual base of our country, we can induce innovative businesses to hire more Americans. Senator Abraham understands that we need an intellectual base to help us create the products and the technology that will create thousands and ultimately millions of new jobs. In these two amendments that will be offered, we really have a debate between the past and the future. The past deals with the idea that we can somehow protect jobs by keeping talented people out of the country. The future is a recognition that America has literally drained the brain talent of the world by bringing talented people to America, and, in the process, talented people here have found more opportunity, more freedom, than any other people who have lived. They have created an economic system that is unrivaled throughout the world. The first amendment Senator Kennedy will offer states that if a company brings in an H-1B visa worker, and later has to lay someone off, the company is in violation of the law. The problem is that in dealing with innovative companies, people are hired based on creating new products and based on success of their research. To force a company to guarantee that it will not, in the next 6 months, have to lay anyone off is to ask them to guarantee the success of their research. As we know from the experience of Europe, which is still trying to follow the policies of the 1950s that are built into the Kennedy amendments, if a company does not have the right to lay people off when a project fails, it can not take the risk to [[Page S4977]] hire the very people who make it possible for it to succeed. The second amendment deals with giving the Labor Department the ability to make a final judgment and to second-guess an employer as to whether or not a person who is a resident of the United States could have been found to do the work. I simply want to remind my colleagues that the existing law states that a company can not bring in an H-1B worker from outside and pay them less than either the prevailing wage or the actual wage. So it is not a case of bringing in people who will work for less. Also, the bill offered by Senator Abraham strengthens current law by providing a $25,000 fine and a 2-year debarment from the program for those who willfully violate the law. So the question is: If there are talented people who can come to our universities, to our research labs, to our high-tech companies bringing with them human capital that can help us create technology and products that will put millions of our own people to work, why not ask them to come to America, instead of inducing American companies to invest abroad in order to employ them in their country? It seems to me that the most revealing thing about this whole debate is the companies that use this H-1B program are the companies that have the fastest growing employment base of American citizens. We are not talking about companies that are experiencing declining employment trying to bring in technical people from abroad. It is companies in Silicon Valley that want to bring in people with special expertise. This will allow these companies, through the application of their genius to practical business problems, to hire hundreds and ultimately thousands more people. If Senator Kennedy's amendments were valid, the companies that use this program would be companies where employment is declining. But the plain truth, as is evident to anyone who looks at the data, is that the companies using these programs are companies that are creating the largest number of jobs in America. So if Microsoft--assuming the Government doesn't put them out of business by trying to limit technology--can put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work by bringing someone to this country who has special expertise, why not let them do it. Especially when this bill strengthens the law by imposing a $25,000 fine on companies that violate procedures aimed at dealing with the legitimate problems raised by Senator Kennedy and others---that people will be brought here who will work for less and therefore undercut the wage base of American workers. So I hope these two amendments will be defeated. I think it is very revealing that our high-tech industries say they would rather not have the bill if the Kennedy amendments are adopted. That suggests to me that the purpose of the amendments are to kill the bill. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield myself 4 minutes on the amendments. As I am sure the Senator from Texas knows, about 85 percent of these jobs earn $75,000 a year, or less. I am just wondering what we have against Americans and American workers that we are so prepared to turn over these good jobs to foreigners. Now, if the Senator wants to say, well, what about these $75,000 jobs? The GAO pointed out that there is no increase in the salary of these workers. I thought supply and demand said that if we have that great a demand, we are going to see an increase in salaries; right? Wrong. The GAO report says there is no indication of that. So these are good jobs. I say, let's try an American first. Let's develop the kinds of skills employers need so that we won't need to have this continue after the expiration of this particular proposal. Let's try an American first. And if we are not going to do that, let's just ensure that an American who is in that job and working, as the record demonstrates today, isn't going to get laid off and replaced by a foreign worker who then is going to work longer hours and be threatened day after day that if they complain at all, they are going to have their green card taken and they will be shipped overseas. That is the case, in many instances. Madam President, I find it difficult to just accept the Senator's argument that this really is just the pure free market system working at its best. I think we owe something to American workers. It is so interesting that all of these companies want to have a free enterprise system--except when it comes to paying wages and salaries. Then they want to do it and get cheaper workers in from overseas and then exploit them. We want to protect against that. That is what those amendments would do. I withhold the balance of my time. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I ask the Senator from Michigan to yield me an additional 5 minutes. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I yield an additional 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas. Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, first of all, I always welcome Senator Kennedy giving me lectures about supply and demand. I wish I believed in my heart that he believed in supply and demand. Secondly, one of the purposes of the bill is to add teeth to the provision about hiring Americans first. This is done by imposing a $25,000 fine on people who displace American workers in order to hire H-1B workers, or people who violate the law that prohibits hiring these workers at less than the current wage rate. Obviously, we are talking about very talented people when we are talking about people coming in for salary of $75,000. I have to admit that I am somewhat struck by the paradox. Only last week, we were debating an effort I had undertaken to make people who come to America, come with their sleeves rolled up, rather than their hand held out to get food stamps; and last week the Senate voted to give them food stamps for 7 years. When the Senator from Michigan says, we should let very talented people come and not let them work for less than Americans, and if they can bring talent that will make American products more competitive and help create American jobs, we should let them come in and work in limited numbers, under strict requirements. I think one might be confused to hear that we are perfectly willing to let people come here and go on welfare; it is when they want to come and go to work that we have an objection. Well, I do not. I go back to the point that the companies who are hiring these people are not companies that are in decline. I know the Senator feels this concern in his heart, and I have no doubt about the sincerity of his position. If these were companies in decline and they were trying to drive down their wage base by simply hiring people with standard skills to displace Americans, I would be siding with Senator Kennedy. But what is happening here is companies that are using this program are our most innovative companies. They are the companies that have the most talented workers that they can hire in our country. They are our fastest growing companies. They are companies that are creating jobs now, and they are laying the technological foundations that will create hundreds, thousands, and ultimately millions of jobs in the future. They want to reach out in the world and pick the most talented, the best and the brightest, to come to America on a temporary basis and help us develop the technology that will create jobs--good jobs, high- paying jobs, $75,000-a-year jobs--for our own workers. So I strongly support the provision offered by the Senator from Michigan. I do believe that the amendments offered by the Senator from Massachusetts are well intended, but I think they are wrongheaded in the sense that, in the name of protecting jobs, we are keeping out a very small number of very select people who are working at labs at Harvard University, or working in Silicon Valley, or working in research institutes all over the country to create technology that puts millions of our people to work. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I have 150 letters and scores more back in my office of Americans who have training and skills in computer knowledge and technology and are unable to get the jobs. You can, under this proposal, hire 1,000 foreign workers and displace 1,000 American workers and it doesn't violate any law. It violates no law. I think we ought to protect American workers, and if there is a job out [[Page S4978]] there, an American worker ought to have a crack at it before it goes overseas. Madam President, I see my friend and colleague from Nevada who, under the agreement, is to be recognized to offer an amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized. Mr. REID. Madam President, let's put ourselves in the situation that a woman from Las Vegas found herself in. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from Nevada offering his amendment? Mr. REID. I will offer it at the appropriate time. I have the floor now. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Unless time is yielded to the Senator under the agreement on the bill, the Senator---- Mr. REID. My amendment has no time. Amendment No. 2414 (Purpose: To require that applications for passports for minors have parental signatures) Mr. REID. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment numbered 2414. Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following: SEC ____. PASSPORTS ISSUED FOR CHILDREN UNDER 16. (a) In General.--Section 1 of title IX of the Act of June 15, 1917 (22 U.S.C. 213) is amended-- (1) by striking ``Before'' and inserting ``(a) In General.--Before'', and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection: ``(b) Passports Issued for Children Under 16.-- ``(1) Signatures required.--In the case of a child under the age of 16, the written application required as a prerequisite to the issuance of a passport for such child shall be signed by-- ``(A) both parents of the child if the child lives with both parents; ``(B) the parent of the child having primary custody of the child if the child does not live with both parents; or ``(C) the surviving parent (or legal guardian) of the child, if 1 or both parents are deceased. ``(2) Waiver.--The Secretary of State may waive the requirements of paragraph (1)(A) if the Secretary determines that circumstances do not permit obtaining the signatures of both parents.''. (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall apply to applications for passports filed on or after the date of the enactment of this Act. Mr. REID. Madam President, let's assume that you are a mother, you have a 6-year-old child, you have recently been divorced, and you go to pick the child up from school and he is not there. You wonder what happened to your child. You call the police; the police have no knowledge of his whereabouts. No one seems to know what happened to your child. But as things are pieced together, you learn that your husband, who you recently divorced, has taken the child from school and to Croatia. This happens during the time of the Balkans war. What as a mother are you to do? Your child is in Croatia. You were married to a Croatian. This is a situation that 1,000 parents face every year in our country. Over 1,000 children are taken from this country, normally as a result of the mother and father not getting along, or recently divorced, and they are taken many times to a country where one of the parents was born. Sometimes the parent just takes off to a country they are familiar with. They want to get away from the wife or husband, recognizing that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get the baby back. The tragedy is of a thousand stories a year; there are many thousands of stories I could retell. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported about a woman by whose name is Lilly Waken. Her two daughters left home for a party. The children never came back. Frantically, she called the police. She called the hospitals. She learned that her husband had taken them away and had bought three one-way tickets to Damascus, Syria. That was 18 months ago. She hasn't seen her children since. My amendment is all about fairness and prevention. It is about preventing a problem that plagues this country, the international children's abduction problem. As I have indicated, 1,000 or more children are abducted every year in our country. These children, as I have indicated, are abducted during or shortly after a contentious divorce, sometimes even by an abusive parent, at a time when these children are most vulnerable and uncertain about their future. They are then snatched from custody of one parent and hauled over to a foreign country. In the case that I first spoke of, a young boy by the name of Mikey Kale from Las Vegas was taken to Croatia. His mother worked for months and months, and was finally able, after spending a tremendous amount of money trying to get the return of her son--remember, this is in a country that was Mikey Kale Passport and Notification Amendment at war--she was able to get her child back. I am proposing this legislation, the Mikey Kale Passport Notification Amendment, after this young boy taken to Croatia, Mikey Kale. This amendment is very simple. It will require that parents who are married must both sign for a passport for their child. If there has been a divorce, the one with primary custody must sign for the child to obtain a passport. We have a provision in this bill so that, under extreme circumstances, the Secretary of State can waive the requirements if the Secretary determines that the circumstances do not permit the obtaining of the signatures of both parents. Madam President, this legislation was passed before in this body. It went to the House where it was knocked out in conference. Why? For the same reason that the State Department indicated in a recent article in Parade Magazine, it is going to create too much paperwork. I say, Madam President, that is too much baloney. It may be too much paperwork for them. But for the parents and the children involved in this, it is better to spend a little extra time when someone comes to get a passport to make sure that the passport is obtained properly. It is not asking too much of the State Department to insure that people who are going to get a passport for a child to check out that the child is, in effect, not being kidnaped. The aim of the amendment is prevention. It prevents parental abductors from obtaining U.S. passports for their minor children. One of the best ways to prevent international parental abductions is to make it more difficult for the abductors to obtain a passport. Madam President, prior to coming to this body I practiced law and did divorce work, among other things. When Mikey Kale's mother came to me, it flooded memories back to my mind about a case that I had where there was a contested divorce. I represented a police officer from Henderson, NV. Suddenly, my client picked up the two children and went to Mexico. He called me from Mexico, and said, ``I'm not coming back until I get what I asked for from my wife.'' So I called the opposing counsel and told him what had happened. My client stayed down in Mexico for years until finally the mother of the two children, in effect, gave him what he wanted. It was a difficult situation. The children were never in school during that period of time. Madam President, this is a very serious problem. We who are parents and grandparents know that we are the ones who are looked upon as protectors of our children. But those who should be protecting children are doing the worst for the child by taking them to a strange country, recognizing that the standards and customs in that country are much different from ours, and that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to get that child back. It is reported that the State Department has had thousands and thousands of these reported kidnapings, and that they just write them off after a year or two, closing 80 percent of their files. This amendment is a simple legislative solution which will implement a system of checks prior to the issuance of a minor child's passport thereby protecting both parental rights and the rights of the child. [[Page S4979]] Two years ago the same amendment passed. The State Department and their lobbyists prevailed upon those in conference to remove this provision. In the meantime, 2,000 children in this country have been abducted to other countries--2,000 children. Think of the grief that has been caused to those children and to the parents of those children. This, Madam President, should stop. We should not listen to what the State Department says, that because they are understaffed and don't want to go into the details of who has custody, they cannot implement this preventive measure. I say let's save some pain and suffering of these little children, and also of one of the parents. This problem is more common than one would think. As I stated earlier, 1,000 children are abducted every year. Here in the United States missing and abducted children are counted meticulously, in some countries they keep no records whatsoever. Forty-five nations have signed a Hague treaty designed to resolve international child custody disputes. Most countries have not. Finding a missing child is very difficult. This problem is no better illustrated, as I have indicated, than that of Mikey Kale for whom this amendment is named. Let me repeat. On Valentine's Day in 1993, Mikey was abducted by the ex-husband of Barbara Spierer and taken to Croatia--kidnaped, for lack of a better description. As I have said, after tremendous emotional and financial efforts, Barbara was one of the lucky ones. She got her baby boy back. Regardless of the number of cases--whether it is 1,000 cases, which it is, or 10 cases a year, which it isn't--one case of abduction is one too many. My amendment seeks to prevent even that one tragedy from occurring. One of the most difficult and frustrating elements for parents of internationally abducted children is that the U.S. laws and court orders are usually ignored in a foreign country. If they are not ignored, the possible pain and expense of legal representation in that country are unbearable. Many of these cases involve parents who have relatively no assets. So the one who is, in effect, left behind, when the child has been kidnaped, can do nothing. One country alone has 45 cases of American children being abducted. Letters to that foreign head of state have had no effect, and none of the 45 have been voluntarily returned. An inconceivable, irrefutable fact is that once a child is abducted from the United States, it is almost impossible to get the child back. Madam President, once again, the aim of this amendment is prevention--prevention of anguish to families, prevention of parental rights being violated, prevention of a child being abducted. Until more can be done, I believe a simple, cost-effective legislative solution to protect our children's rights is essential, and I ask my colleagues to join me. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I would like to speak on the amendment, but what I will do is note the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I will speak very briefly in support of the Reid amendment. I think the concerns he has raised here are very important ones and need to be addressed. I would actually add to the examples he used other situations which have occurred to constituents of mine in which following a divorce decree in this country, a spouse who maintains dual citizenship in some fashion goes to a country of his or her other citizenship with the child after there has been an agreement with regard to visitation. The American citizen spouse who remains in the United States then seeks to visit on the basis of that visitation agreement and finds, when visiting the foreign country, the child is not available, cannot be found, has disappeared, usually just to another city or another relative's home or something else, but basically because of the limited amount of time the visiting spouses have in the country, they no longer have the opportunity to see their children. This is not the case of an abduction per se, but it is relatively similar in terms of the implications. So I think the outlawing this amendment takes helps to address the most egregious form of this problem. But I indicate to the Senator from Nevada I not only would be willing to accept this amendment and support it, but I look forward to working with him--and I know of several other Senators who have approved--to see if there are ways we could also address these other cases where we may not be dealing with abduction, but still dealing with the circumstance where parents are prevented from seeing their children. So I thank the Senator from Nevada for his amendment. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for bringing this matter to our attention once again. As we were saying a few moments ago, this was accepted in the last debate on immigration reform in 1996. When it went to conference, there were a number of us who were excluded. If we had been able to participate, we would have supported this measure. But we were in a different regime at the time. In so many areas of immigration policy there are the opportunities for abuse by a few. But as the Senator has pointed out, thousands can still be affected by the injustice. The Senator has identified one instance in which a family was harmed. We would be glad to work with him and with Senator Abraham to see what could be worked through in the conference. If somehow we are not persuasive in the conference, we will join with him later in offering his amendment on appropriations bills or other bills. But I think the Senator has made a strong case, just as he did the last time. I think he has identified a very important issue. Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that my request for the yeas and nays be withdrawn subject to the manager of the bill accepting the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment (No. 2414) was agreed to. Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, be recognized for 7 minutes in order to offer an amendment, and immediately following the conclusion that I be recognized for the same purpose of offering an amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object--I do not intend to--he will go for 7 minutes and then we will have a chance to respond to his amendment? Are we going to have time to dispose of his amendment before the Senator from Arkansas? Mr. REED. I think in that time we can dispose of the amendment. Mr. BUMPERS. The amendment, I think, can be disposed of in 7 minutes. Mr. KENNEDY. That is fine. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized. Mr. REED. I thank the Chair. Amendment No. 2415 (Purpose: To strike section 4, relating to education and training in science and technology) Mr. REED. I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:. The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed] proposes an amendment numbered 2415. Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 27, beginning with line 1, strike all through page 29, line 10. Mr. REED. Madam President, my amendment would strike section 4 of [[Page S4980]] the underlying legislation. This section proposes to amend the State Student Incentive Grant Program, the SSIG Program. I first want to recognize Senator Abraham's efforts on behalf of this legislation and to underscore that I understand the issue the Senator is attempting to address is the lack of suitable training in our country to provide the types of scientists and engineers which this legislation hopes to attract through immigration policies. But I would object to the importation of the SSIG Program into this legislation; to pull SSIG in is inappropriate. We all recognize we do have to educate and train more Americans to take up these high-tech jobs, but this immigration bill is not the right vehicle, and the SSIG Program is not the right approach to simply target high-tech training in the United States. I would like to briefly set the record straight with respect to SSIG, its status, and I hope its future. First, the State Student Incentive Grant Program is within the jurisdiction of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. We have been considering its reformation and improvement over the last several months, and we have made progress in that regard. We are on the verge, after deliberation in the committee, of bringing a bill to the floor which will make significant improvements to SSIG. I would like to also point out that the State Student Incentive Grant Program was initiated back in 1972 by Senator Jacob Javits of New York. It was created not as a way to bootstrap high-tech learning in the United States, but to meet a critical deficiency--the need to provide resources to low-income students to enable them to go to college in a vast array of programs, letting them make the decision of where their talent will carry them, but giving them the resources to go to college and stay in college. In its more than 20-year history, it has been a remarkably effective program. It takes Federal dollars and offers a one-for-one dollar match with the States to provide need-based grants to students. It has no federal overhead. It delivers money in the form of grants to low-income students that need these resources to go on to college. Now, if we are talking about providing more opportunities for Americans to be scientists, to be engineers, to do all the things that we want them to do and not have to rely upon foreign nationals coming into our country, SSIG is the wrong place to start. We should be starting in the elementary and secondary schools. We should be recognizing that in many of our schools, particularly low-income urban schools with high minority enrollments, 50 percent of those students are likely to have a science or math teacher who never concentrated on science or math in college. And that is one reason we are not developing, here in the United States, those skills necessary for this high-tech age. So, if we are really interested in having Americans qualify to take these jobs, bringing SSIG into this bill, hijacking it, Shanghaiing it into this bill is not going to do it. We have to start early and consistently to reach young people. I believe we have made progress in this regard. We have made progress, both in terms of identifying the need to improve elementary and secondary education, and, as I mentioned before, we have made progress working closely with my colleague, the Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, to improve SSIG. We have introduced, with 17 other Senators, a bipartisan proposal to reform SSIG. It is called the LEAP Act. This proposal will create a two-tiered proposal: Up to $35 million, there will continue to be a one-for-one match of Federal dollars to State dollars; but when we go beyond that amount, we will allow the States a great deal more flexibility, flexibility that they will have to recognize by matching $2 for every one Federal dollar. But within that more flexible regime of options, we have actually built in, at the request of Senator Abraham, the ability of States to develop scholarship programs that are targeted to mathematics and computer science and engineering. In effect, working very closely with the Senator, who is sincerely committed to improving the quality of education throughout this country, we have done in the LEAP Act in the Labor Committee what is purported to be done here in this legislation. Now, we are concerned--frankly, I am concerned--that if we act in this immigration bill, we might upset the progress we have made to date on the LEAP Act. We might, in fact, compromise its fundamental commitment not to one specific sector of study but to a broader social purpose--of giving low-income students the chance to go on to college. I hope we will not do that. I feel very strongly about SSIG. I felt very strongly last year--again, working with Senator Collins from Maine. We came to the floor, we literally saved this program from extinction with an overwhelming vote of 84 to 4 to maintain appropriations for SSIG. Having, in a sense, given renewed life to this legislation, I want the opportunity, with my colleagues, to ensure that we continue this program as a need-based program and not at this moment, for convenience, for an attempt to respond to a legitimate concern about training high-tech personnel, to distort the purpose, the goals, and the future of SSIG. I think, working together with my colleagues, we can maintain the integrity of SSIG and we can also, using the Higher Education Act, strengthen it, reform it, and make it adaptable and make it accessible to a new generation of American students. I have had the opportunity to work with Senator Abraham. We have, I think, mutual appreciation of the need for SSIG. I hope, working with him over the next several weeks as this measure goes forward, and given his commitment to work together on this whole topic of the State Student Incentive Grant Program--I am prepared at this moment to seek unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn. The amendment (No. 2115) was withdrawn. Mr. REED. I yield to the Senator from Michigan, if he had a comment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan. Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I briefly would like to do a couple of things. First, I compliment the Senator from Rhode Island as well as the Presiding Officer for their efforts on this issue. As I mentioned earlier in my opening statement about the legislation before us, our office has been very grateful to you as well as to Senator Jeffords and others on the Labor Committee for the efforts that have been engaged in to help us craft, in the higher education bill, language which was consistent with our objectives in terms of trying to provide ways by which we can incentivize more young people in our country to fill these jobs we know are going to be created in the future. And under no circumstances, I think the Senator from Rhode Island knows, and I know the Senator from Maine knows as well, are any of us involved in the development of this legislation seeking to, in any context, reduce or undermine the SSIG program. To the contrary, I think everybody who is a cosponsor is a strong supporter. So we look forward to working with you. I have appreciated the efforts of the Senator from Rhode Island to assist us in this and thank him for what he has already done and what we look forward to doing together, to find a way to address this issue in the context of other legislation that will be before us. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator, my friend from Rhode Island. We have had the good opportunity to work with the Senator from Rhode Island and also the Senator from Maine on this particular issue. I know that the Senator from Rhode Island is someone who has been on the education committees, not only in the Senate but also in the House of Representatives, and is someone with a number of years of experience with this important issue. The Senator from Rhode Island has spent a lot of time in developing an understanding of this particular program and how it works in the States. He has also found how it can best be targeted in ways that offer the best opportunity for needy students, giving focus in areas of important need--math and science and other skills. So, we will continue to work with him. We appreciate his leadership and the leadership of the Senator from Maine in this area. [[Page S4981]] We have been trying to work to assure that Americans are going to develop the skills to be able to compete in these areas. This is really a combination of both the education and training aspects that Senator DeWine, Senator Reed, and Senator Collins have been working on, as well as the Senator from Michigan. And that is a reflection of the good faith of the Senator from Michigan on it. So I appreciate his willingness of the Senator from Rhode Island, at this time, to continue to work with us. We give the Senator the assurance we will continue to work very closely with him, and with the Senator from Maine, as we move on into the conference. But I appreciate his cooperation and leadership on this issue. Amendment No. 2416 (Purpose: To repeal the Immigrant Investor Program) The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized, under the previous order. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers], proposes an amendment numbered 2416. Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the end of the bill add the following: ``SEC. ----. REPEAL OF IMMIGRANT INVESTOR PROGRAM. ``Section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, (8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)) shall be repealed effective on the date of enactment of this Act.'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be advised that there are 90 minutes equally divided under the time agreement. The Senator from Arkansas. Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Chair for reminding me. Madam President, this amendment repeals a provision in the immigration laws that was a tragic mistake when it was enacted. My amendment to strike that provision deals with economics, it deals with patriotism, it deals with immigration, and it deals with fraud. In order for my colleagues to understand precisely what we are talking about, let me set the stage. I fought this battle in 1989 and, at the expense of sounding a little self-serving, lost, but predicted what has happened would happen. The immigration bill considered by the Senate in 1989 included a provision of the bill to increase investment because we were headed into a recession. We decided we would take a page out of the play books of Canada and Australia. We thought, if they can sell citizenship for $200,000, citizenship in the United States ought to be worth at least $1 million. It is a very logical assumption. So, we said, in that bill in 1989, we will reserve 4,800 visas for foreigners who wants to come into this Nation and bring $1 million and hire 10 people: We will give you a green card at the end of 2 years, and, at the end of an additional 3 years, we will make you a citizen of the United States. Then in the conference committee we decided we could do even better than that. We said: You don't have to bring $1 million dollars; bring $500,000. If you put a hamburger joint up that will hire 10 people in an area of high unemployment or in a rural area, we will do the same thing for you. We cut the price of citizenship from $1 million to $500,000 and the 4,800 slots that we reserved in the Senate bill increased to 10,000 in the conference report. Multiply $1 million by 10,000 visas and just think of all the magnificent investment we would have in this country and how many jobs we would create. Madam President, that ``ain't'' all. We said not only will you not really have to create 10 jobs with your $500,000 or your $1 million, you only have to maintain 10 jobs. What does that mean? If old Joe's hamburger joint is about to go out of business and he has 10 employees and you are willing to buy his place and keep those 10 employees working, you have maintained 10 jobs, so you qualify for American citizenship. Then in 1993 we decided we would liberalize it a little further. Not only do you not have to create 10 jobs, not only do you not have to maintain 10 jobs, all you have to do is indirectly provide 10 jobs if you invest in businesses located in certain areas known as Regional Centers . What does that mean? You are making widgets. You employ five people to make widgets. You have two people to distribute them and three people to sell them. Those are indirectly created jobs. Therefore, you get your green card at the end of 2 years, and you get your citizenship papers at the end of 5 years. I can remember at that time how we thought Hong Kong was going to flood this Nation with people with $1 million in their pocket because they were terrified of the Chinese taking over Hong Kong. I must say, the program, such as it is, has been mostly of people from the Pacific rim--Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan. Madam President, do you know the nice thing about this? If you have $500,000 to invest, bring the little wife and kids, too, you are all welcome. They are also going to ultimately be entitled to citizenship. What have been the results? Madam President, a cottage industry of consultants and limited partnerships has grown up in this Nation. No plan the U.S. Congress has ever devised has been scam-proof, and God knows this one is no exception. What do these consultants do? Why, they advertise in the newspapers in Hong Kong, in Oman, in Taiwan, and they say, ``You don't even need $500,000, you don't need $1 million, you only need $100,000.'' We have gone from $1 million to $500,000 to $100,000. We have gone from creating jobs to maintaining jobs to indirectly providing jobs. It is incredible what has happened to this program. How do they get by with this? These consultants form limited partnerships. They get several of these people who have $100,000 and they pool all those $100,000 contributions from various people. What about the $500,000 requirement? How are you going to put up $100,000 and meet that? Easy. You give a promissory note for $400,000. You give $100,000 in cash--incidentally, there is a little matter of a $35,000 to $50,000 fee that goes to the consultant. So if you come, you ought to have $150,000 in your pocket, $50,000 for the consultant and $100,000 to show your good faith, and then be willing to sign a note for $400,000. But not to worry. At the end of 2 years, your note is forgiven. Forget the $400,000 note. If you are in the $1 million class, forget the $900,000 note. And if, at the end of 2 years, the business has not done well, shut it down. When you shut it down, you can go down to the courthouse and apply for your citizenship 3 years later. You do not have to maintain the business for the ensuing 3 years to get your citizenship. Shut that sucker down after 2 years; it has probably been a loser anyway. Madam President, Russell Burgoise was quoted in an April 13, 1998 New York Times article. He is a spokesman for the Immigration Service. He said: ``These plans don't meet either the spirit or the letter of the law.'' Recently, when the INS sought to revoke up to 5,000 visas, the New York Times in the same article said ``influential Members of Congress protested the Government was changing rules in midstream,'' and the INS backed off. Late in 1997, the Times of Oman, not a widely read paper in Washington, contained an advertisement which said: ``U.S. green card for anyone who can show U.S. $500,000.'' They ought to be prosecuted for misleading advertising. It doesn't take $500,000, just $100,000 would do fine if you know the right consultant in this country. It is an interesting thing that it took these consultants and these limited partnerships to figure out how to get the program going. Until the latter part of 1996, the investor visa program had been an even worse disaster than its worst critics--namely me--had predicted. Nobody was showing much interest. In 1992, 280 people applied, 240 were approved. In 1993, 384; 1994, 407; 1995, 291; 1996, 616; in 1997, 1,110. The consultants are getting geared up now. It is still a far cry from the 10,000 slots available, but in 1997, 1,110 petitions were approved. But over the last 7 years, only 3,284 have been approved. So, despite the fact that the program has been weakened unbelievably to [[Page S4982]] make almost anybody eligible for it, nobody much has been applying. Out of 7 years, we only got 3,000-plus, and we are supposed to be doing 10,000 each year. AIS, one of the consulting organizations I mentioned a moment ago, specializes, as I said, in pooling investors to bankroll larger products. Now you should know that a lot of people invest their $100,000 not to become American citizens; they come here because they want to purchase citizenship for their children and educate them here. Or they come here for any host of other reasons. Maybe they are actually coming with their family. That would be a fairly laudable purpose. But they do not come because they want citizenship. And a lot of people will freely tell you the reason they did not want to be citizens of the United States is because they will have to pay taxes. They have to pay taxes on all of their income all over the world wherever it may come from. They are not about to do that. They only have to come here twice a year to keep their eligibility for the green card. AIS has advertised ``Alternate residency: Less restrictive and expensive than other plans in other countries.'' You are not becoming a citizen of the United States. You do not have to love the flag. You do not have to say the Pledge of Allegiance. You do not have to fight our wars. You do not have to be any particular age. You do not have to have any specialized education. You do not have to have any experience. You do not have to know the language. All you need is ``green.'' You do not have to know anything about the poor and huddled masses that Emma Lazarus wrote about. Madam President, this program is so rife with fraud. In some instances, you can get your entire $500,000 back. If you invest $500,000 or $1 million, there are some plans under which you can get it all back and still get your citizenship. Harold Ezell, a former INS regional immigration commissioner--now a lawyer in Newport Beach, CA--this is a former INS official's quote. What did he say about Congress, about this bill? ``They were smoking something when they wrote it.'' ``We've shot ourselves in the foot.'' Another attorney said, ``You know, since we're blatantly soliciting the wealthy, we might ought to charge $2 million.'' Madam President, the investor visa program makes no economic sense either. The underlying bill we are debating today would raise the cap on the number of workers who will come into this country who have skills, principally for the computer industry. The Senator from Michigan, who is handling this bill on the floor, wants to raise the annual limit on people coming into this country from 60,000 to 95,000. Now, you think about the incongruity of raising the level of people we invite into this country because they have a skill and because we have a labor shortage. We would not do it otherwise. We have a labor shortage of so-called skilled workers. At least, that is the proposition. I do not believe it, and I am not going to vote for the bill. I will announce that right now. This country, incidentally, as great as we are, to be depending on the rest of the world to send us their skilled workers so we can stay afloat in the computer industry, or whatever, is the height of something or other. If we have a $50 billion surplus looming this year, for Pete's sake, let us educate our youngsters so we do not have to depend on anybody else for these skills. That should not be too difficult. But here we are saying we want to invite an additional 35,000 laborers into this country because we have a labor shortage, and at the same time saying, ``If you will give us $100,000 or $500,000''-- whichever the case may be--``and hire 10 people, we'll give you citizenship.'' There is an outfit in West Virginia called InterBank, and they want to create a telemarketing business. While the deal has not been approved yet, the wages will be $6 an hour. I have not seen a McDonald's in I don't know how long that didn't have a sign in the window saying, ``Help wanted. Pay up to $6 an hour.'' We are desperate for workers at all levels in this country, and here we are asking people to put up money and come into this country and hire workers. How silly can we get? Even if it were not rife with fraud, even if it were not shameless to be selling American citizenship, it makes no economic sense. It is an oxymoron to vote at the same time to bring 95,000 workers in and ask somebody else to come in and hire more workers. Every time Alan Greenspan appears on a television station, every time he appears before the Banking Committee, every time he appears before the Joint Economic Committee, Wall Street and all of America holds its breath for fear he is going to announce an increase in interest rates. And why are they afraid he is going to raise interest rates? Because they have a labor shortage. In Economic 101 at the University of Arkansas, I was taught--and it is still a fundamental economic principle--that when you have a labor shortage, you have to pay more for labor. You think McDonald's is paying $6 an hour because they want to see how far they can exceed the minimum wage? They are paying $6 an hour because they cannot find workers for any less than that. That is still a pitiful wage, but be that as it may, I am not here to debate that. What I am saying is, everybody is scared to death that this labor shortage is going to kick wages up, that in turn is going to create inflation, and inflation is going to cause Alan Greenspan to raise interest rates, and raising interest rates is going to bring the longest sustained period of economic prosperity in the United States to a grinding halt. These are not things that you have to be a rocket scientist to understand. Everybody knows precisely what I am talking about. Finally, Madam President--and I am reluctant to say this because I am not one who has stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate and waved the flag and beat my chest and talked about what a great patriot I am. I put in 3 years in the Marine Corps in World War II, for a very simple reason--we were in a war where the absolute freedom of this Nation was at stake. Not even a second thought about it. And 25, 30 other million men and women did the same thing. I have voted against constitutional amendments on flag burning. Nobody is more deeply offended than I am to see an American flag burn. There are ways to deal with it. But you do not need to tinker with the Bill of Rights for the first time in more than 200 years. I still get goose bumps at a military parade when Old Glory goes by. And I am offended by a law which puts American citizenship up for bid by either the wealthy or those willing to participate in a fraud. How crassly we demean this precious blessing we call citizenship. Emma Lazarus who wrote those magnificent words in the Statue of Liberty about, ``Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses,'' Emma Lazarus must be whirling in her grave to even hear such a debate as this going on. The families of the people whose sons and daughters fought those wars for citizenship and freedom--and the families of those who died, and they did it because they valued citizenship so highly--must be weeping at the thought of citizenship being sold to the highest bidder. It is vulgar. How we champion citizenship that we once prized so highly. Madam President, these people are not the poor. They are not the huddled masses who were our ancestors and who came here for freedom to contribute their labor and their values to live, live free, and to raise their families and die here, even in battle, if need be. These people who we welcome for $1 million are coming twice a year because that is the only way they can keep their green card. They don't want citizenship because that would require them to pay taxes. What in the name of God has happened to this place? I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia. Who yields time? Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield the Senator from West Virginia such time as he may need to speak in opposition to the amendment by the Senator from Arkansas. Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I am grateful to my friend from the State of Michigan. I start out by disputing any thought by the senior Senator from Arkansas that the words ``patriotism'' and ``Bumpers'' don't go side by side--I know the Senator himself knows that [[Page S4983]] to be true--in his service in the Marine Corps, his service in this body, the things he has been through over the years. He is a patriot. He is a marvelous man. He happens, however, to be marvelously wrong on the amendment that he puts forward, which in spite of the larger framework of the immigration bill, is a very specific and very targeted amendment which would do enormous damage to what we are trying to do in areas of my State that need this program desperately, and which do enormous damage to some of the things that I and others I work with--Governor Underwood and others--are trying to do in the State of West Virginia. I refer to the attempt to eliminate the EB5, the immigrant Investor Program. I didn't say that with an abundance of fluency, and there is a reason for that. It is not one of the things that trips off your lips. I confess that it was not until relatively recently, in the last several years, that I, indeed, learned what it was at all because we had not had experience. Let me give a little context. I was Governor of the State of West Virginia for 8 years and I was always very frustrated, and I say to my fellow Governor from the State of Arkansas, of all of the money that was discretionary to the Governor during the 8 years that this Senator was Governor, I spent 75 percent of it on water and sewer, which of course is invisible and never seen. And I put more per capita in one of our poorest counties in southern West Virginia called McDowell County, which used to be referred to as the $1 billion coal field, and now is mostly worked out and people have left. Even when I came to West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer in 1964, I say to the Senator, there were tens of thousands of people in McDowell County, the Senator would remember. Now there are about a handful. I felt that I had not come through properly in spite of efforts for McDowell County, for Wyoming County, for Mercer County, for southern West Virginia, for people who had broken their backs and given their lives, many of them, and who walk around, some of them carrying oxygen tanks. For some it is a 10-minute walk from one side of a room to another side to adjust the television and back because of something called black lung or because of diseases they have accumulated by virtue of being coal miners. These are the areas I am talking about. There are other areas in West Virginia and the State of Arkansas and in the State of Massachusetts and in the State of Michigan and in the State of Maine, all of our States, where people just don't have the opportunity to have jobs because they live in rural areas. It might be a worked-out coal mining area which is called rural, or it might be an area which is mostly trees which would be called rural, but it is rural and jobs don't tend to go there. People don't tend to build the interstates over there. I am old fashioned about it, but the reason that I stayed in West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer, more than anything I wanted to see people go to work. I think my friend from Arkansas understands that. I think he understands it very well. What I found was there were just certain blocks, certain ways, certain impediments that nature put up which just didn't allow some of our good people to be able to go to work by accident of their birth or by the fact they were so close to their families that they didn't leave and go to other places like so many others had done from Appalachia. So they stayed and they can't work and they want to work, and they want so badly to work but there is no work. So that is how I came to know what the EB5 Immigrant Investor Program is. ``Give us your poor,'' the Senator from Arkansas said. Well, our income and our population is increasing, I am happy to say, in West Virginia at a very healthy rate. Things are being done right there. People have caught the flavor of it and there is a sense of optimism which I haven't seen there in 20 or 30 years. But I learned about this program that the Senator wants to eliminate in this amendment. It is just a little thing down here. It says, ``Repeal. . . Section 203(b)(5),'' et cetera--one sentence which nobody can understand, but I know exactly what it does. It would eliminate everything that I am talking about, just eliminate it. It would be gone. I learned about this program because of a company called InterBank. It is a merchant banking company. They run a program which is called Invest in America. Nothing wrong that I can see in that, especially because in this program InterBank has pooled millions of dollars in foreign investments, millions of dollars to establish new operations in teleservicing--telemarketing some call it; I call it teleservices--in exactly the kind of areas in West Virginia I was talking about. I was in Welch, WV, in McDowell County on a freezing-cold day when they announced they were going to create 400 new jobs. The next day they had 1,500 applicants from that county; the word traveled so fast. This was considered the best news that had ever happened to that county. And now they are looking at others. They are looking, in fact, at putting, 10, 12, 15,000 jobs across the State of West Virginia in precisely the kinds of places where nobody else will go to invest, and they want to do it in telemarketing, or teleservicing as I prefer to call it. West Virginia is important in that we are wired very well in terms of fiber optics, so it is a superb place for them to do that. It is like with the telephone system. If you are in Washington, DC, and you call information, you are talking to somebody in West Virginia. Where you live, where you reside doesn't make that much difference anymore. But it makes a tremendous difference in southern West Virginia and in other parts of West Virginia where people do not have work, where people remember having had work because of coal mining or remember when they had an opportunity for work, but they were rejected for work. Now they realize that they could get into these programs and get trained because InterBank is going to put a lot of money into training people, West Virginia people, and I assume people in other parts of the country, other industries like them in other parts of the country. We are talking about $7 or $8 an hour. I don't ridicule that. And I don't ridicule it because it is a company that has benefits particularly when it is a company that provides health benefits, which is something I care about as much as anybody on this planet, and they are included. My people will get them or my people will not get them, depending, and it is true for all the rest of the people in this country who interact with this program as to whether this amendment passes or fails, which is why I hope so much that it fails. Yes, it is true there has been some abuse, and the Senator, I believe, quoted the New York Times. I don't necessarily think because something is in the New York Times and it is printed, it defines what national policy is to be, but I read it every day and I respect it very much, and there was an article saying there had been some abuse. There have been 30 or 40 articles talking about the abuse in Medicare and I don't hear anybody talking of getting rid of Medicare, because HCFA is trying to crack down. There is, I am sure, abuse in the farmers assistance programs which help the Senator and the people he represents from Arkansas, which don't do our people any good at all in West Virginia. All I am saying is that there is always abuse in Federal programs, but it is usually a little bit. In the case of the INS, I have talked with Doris Meissner about the problem of abuse and about these programs. She has put our InterBank program on hold, in fact, even though they have done nothing wrong, because they have the FBI and the INS who looks into this, and the State Department looks into it. They have a total of five separate reviews that are involved in this. The INS is not only taking steps to correct whatever abuse that may exist, but they are so adamant about it that they are taking those programs where there are no problems and making them wait until they have a chance to look at the entire thing. I pleaded with Doris Meissner to approve this program, which had no deficiencies, and she said, ``I can't do it. We have to put it near the end of the line so we can review all of these programs to make sure there is no fraud and abuse, and where there is, we can get rid of it.'' Now, is the idea that somebody would be able to bring some money into the United States to put a West [[Page S4984]] Virginian, or a Washingtonian, or Oregonian, or somebody from Maine, Vermont, or Wisconsin, to work, that they would bring in some money and they would be given a period of a couple of years for review and, after the review, which is a three-agency review, they be allowed t