House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, HEARING, May 3, 2007, Thursday

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May 3, 2007 Thursday

TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING

COMMITTEE: SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

SUBCOMMITTEE: HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

HEADLNE: REP. ZOE LOFGREN HOLDS A HEARING ON IMMIGRATION REFORM

SPEAKER:

REP. ZOE LOFGREN, CHAIRWOMAN

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.

WITNESSES:

PATRICIA BUCKLEY, SENIOR ECONOMIC ADVISER TO THE COMMERCE SECRETARY

LEON SEQUEIRA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

PETER ORSZAG, DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

RACHEL FRIEDBERG, SENIOR LECTURER, ECONOMICS, BROWN UNIVERSITY

GERALD JAYNES, PROFESSOR, ECONOMICS AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES, YALE UNIVERSITY

WADE HENDERSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS

VERNON BRIGGS, PROFESSOR, INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS, CORNELL UNIVERSITY

BODY:

HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,

CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL

LAW HOLDS A HEARING ON IMMIGRATION REFORM

[excerpt]

Finally, Dr. Briggs?

BRIGGS: Thank you, members of the committee. I'd love to respond to some of the other people and the presentations of today, but maybe we'll get to that a little bit later.

For over 40 years, Congress has been trying to respond to the unexpected consequences of the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965. Everything that the congressmen sitting up there in 1965 said was not going to happen did happen.

The expansion of mass -- the return of mass immigration was totally unpredicted. Neither political party takes any credit for it. It didn't happen because any one of them pushed for it. It happened because of an accident.

That's why they're great -- as Father Hesburgh said, you have to be very cautious when you take immigration policy changes. There are unexpected consequences.

The foreign-born population was eight million people in 1965. It's 36 million today -- completely unexpected. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying it was unexpected. It was not what was supposed to happen.

Immigration is a policy-driven issue. That's why I urge you to consider the policy, which is what my life's been about, public policy. What you do makes a difference in this field.

A lot of times, you can do policy and nothing happens. In this field, it does happen. And quite often, things happen you didn't expect.

Samuel Gompers, America's foremost labor leader, in his autobiography wrote, "Immigration is, in all of its fundamental aspects, a labor issue." A labor issue.

But no matter how people are admitted to the United States, what category they get in or how they come in, the adults join the labor force, and quite often their spouses and children eventually do, too.

Thus, the labor market impact of what is done must be a guiding consideration, not the only one, but a guiding one, when legislative decisions are made.

What's wrong with the existing immigration system? And I'm quoting basically from the Commission on Immigration Reform, which every one of my recommendations follows -- every one -- chaired by Barbara Jordan, an African-American, lest anyone forget.

The major conclusion of the Jordan commission was that there was an incompatibility between the human capital being provided by our foreign-born population and that of the native-born population of the country as a whole. That is even worse -- 57 percent today.

Fifty-seven percent of the adult foreign-born population have only a high school diploma or less. That's where the impact is. And that's the people I defend, the low-wage workers of the United States of all races.

And that's the ones that are being most adversely affected by immigration policy, which is exactly what the Jordan commission concluded.

And every study that I know about impact of immigration on low- wage workers has said they are the ones who are adversely impacted. I don't dismiss that.

Some people say well, somebody else benefits. These guys lose. It's a negative -- net gain. It's wrong.

Any public policy that hurts the poor, the low-income and the minority and youth and women population of the United States, as a product of it, is a policy you've got to be deeply concerned about, that it disproportionately impacts.

The Clinton administration, the Council of Economic Advisors, which I quote, clearly stated that in their report, that the relative supply of less educated persons has contributed to increasing income equality in the United States.

And today, the unemployment rate for people without high school -- with high school -- without high school diplomas is 6.8 percent. For the black workers without high school diplomas today, it's 12.8 percent. Those are the ones still searching for jobs.

The second major problem of our immigration system, of course, is the massive abuse of this system. We have 36 million foreign-born persons. Twelve million are illegal. We have had six other -- sorry, seven other amnesties since 1986.

I supported the amnesty in 1986, strongly. That gets a lot of criticism. But that was the last amnesty that we should have ever had. And there should never be another one.

We've had seven since then, legitimizing six million illegal immigrants, so big that we can say maybe half the foreign-born population in the United States today is in here in defiance of the public policy.

Something is wrong with the public policy when half the people that are in the country have broken the law coming in.

The losers when you have illegal immigration are the low-wage workers -- United States -- who have to compete in terms of their labor market for those jobs, and many of them become discouraged and leave the labor force. These are the people who need protection of the law the most.

Lastly, there's evidence that without any evidence of real labor shortages, in my view there's massive abuse of the temporary worker programs we already have today.

The massive expansion of visa programs for unskilled workers I think is unjustified, and certainly for even skilled workers is questionable.

What do we do to reform this? And these are exactly the commission -- this is where immigration reform goes. I'm not in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. I'm in favor of real immigration reform.

And this is exactly what the Jordan commission said. The first thing we want to do is to begin to deal with this issue of incompatibility of human resources.

And they suggest that getting rid of those extended family categories -- the three of them that would -- in which a lot of extended family members come in on the coattails of people who come in legally in the United States.

And that's what throws the system -- the human resources out of kilter with the labor -- the human resource needs of our population -- to delete those categories.

And that reduces the chain migration effects, which is the most dangerous thing about the amnesty program, is the potential chain effects down the trail. If we follow the Jordan commission, that would diminish that issue.

It might make some support for amnesty more acceptable. But it's impossible to accept it today with that chain migration system -- effects in the system.

And Barbara Jordan make it very clearly -- the last of the -- the first thing that they -- well, they recommend is that there, of course, be no (inaudible) quotes, no unskilled immigration under the legal immigration system. None. And that ought to be cut out.

What should we do to -- I'll be -- very quickly here. What should we do to -- in terms of immigration reform, strong enforcement of employer sanctions. It should be the centerpiece as Father Hesburgh said it was supposed to be.

That should be the focus of everything we talk about, stronger enforcement. That's the first thing we must do -- show this law's going to be enforced.

Enforcement must become a reality. There must be no amnesty, for all the reasons I put down there -- most importantly, the extended family categories.

And what it would do -- and in my view, it could lead to a Marxian nightmare 10 years or 20 years from now when all the family reunification principles kick in of amnesty for 12 million people, and tens of millions of more persons come in on the coattails of those who have been given amnesty.

We can expect massive fraud in -- so that even more will come in. We can expect that the low-wage labor market will simply be inundated, and this will disproportionately affect African-Americans, Latinos and all low-wage workers (inaudible) will be disproportionately affected by amnesty.

And finally, of course, it's inconceivable that the Department of Homeland Security could ever administer this -- a massive amnesty program.

Well, I talk about non-immigrant labor, which I -- be just with respect to guest worker programs, just in conclusion.

How can anybody in Congress be advocating for guest worker programs, when every commission -- every commission -- has said no guest worker programs for unskilled workers?

How is it possible people could still be talking about this? And every reputable scholar who's (inaudible) guest worker programs for the reasons I outlined in my testimony, has shown it always fails.

Well, there's a lot more that could be said, but I'm outnumbered.

LOFGREN: Thank you, Dr. Briggs, and your full statement is a part of the statement, and I have read it, and I hope the other members have.

Before beginning the questions, I've decided to take my place at the end and defer to the chairman of the full committee, who is here, and let him begin with his five minutes of questioning.

Mr. Conyers?

CONYERS: Well, that's very kind of you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it very much.

Dr. Briggs, you caught me off guard this afternoon. It's late in the day. You agree with Barbara Jordan, but the larger question is would Barbara Jordan agree with you?

BRIGGS: I hope so.