[Senate Hearing 113-45]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-45
HOW COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM SHOULD ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF WOMEN
AND FAMILIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 18, 2013
__________
Serial No. J-113-8
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa, Ranking
CHUCK SCHUMER, New York Member
DICK DURBIN, Illinois ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota JOHN CORNYN, Texas
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut TED CRUZ, Texas
MAZIE HIRONO, Hawaii JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Kolan Davis, Republican Chief Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Grassley, Hon. Chuck, a U.S. Senator from the State of Iowa...... 2
Hirono, Hon. Mazie, a U.S. Senator from the State of Hawaii...... 1
prepared statement........................................... 109
Klobuchar, Hon. Amy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota,
prepared statement............................................. 126
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont,
prepared statement............................................. 128
WITNESSES
Martin, Susan F., Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International
Migration, Georgetown University, Washington, DC............... 12
Moua, Mee, President and Executive Director, Asian American
Justice Center, Washington, DC................................. 9
Ng'andu, Jennifer, Director, Health and Civil Rights Policy
Projects, National Council of La Raza, Arlington, Virginia..... 14
Panetta, Karen, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, and Vice President,
Communications and Public Awareness, The Institute of
Electrical & Electronics Engineers-United States of America
(IEEE-USA)..................................................... 7
Poo, Ai-jen, Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance, New
York, New York................................................. 6
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Mee Moua to questions submitted by Senator Klobuchar 31
Responses of Jennifer Ng' abdu to questions submitted by Senator
Klobuchar...................................................... 35
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Access Women's Health Justice, Oakland, California, letter....... 37
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Laura W. Murphy, Director,
New York, New York, statement.................................. 42
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 49
American Jewish Committee (AJC), Foltin, Richard T., Director of
National and Legislative Affairs, Office of Government and
International Affairs, Washington, DC, statement............... 50
APIAHF Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum,
Washington, DC, statement...................................... 52
Baumgarten, Alexander D., and Katie Conway, on behalf of the
Episcopal Church, New York, New York, statement................ 61
Choice USA, Washington, DC, statement............................ 63
Colorado Organization for Latina, Denver, Colorado, statement.... 68
Church World Service (CWS), New York, New York, statement........ 73
Family Unity:
Story of Nadine.............................................. 74
Story of Sudhir.............................................. 75
Story of Lauren.............................................. 76
Story of N................................................... 77
First Focus Campaign for Children, Washington, DC, statement..... 78
Forward Together, Oakland, California, statement................. 81
Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 86
Ginatta, Antonio M., Advocacy Director, US Program, Human Rights
Watch, New York, New York, statement........................... 88
Guttmacher Policy Review (GPR), Washington, DC, article.......... 93
Health Food IR, joint letter to President Obama and to all
Members of Congress............................................ 100
Immigrant and Victim Advocacy Organizations, March 15, 2013,
joint letter................................................... 110
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, statement 118
Imprint Immigrant Professional Integration, Nikki Cicerani,
spokesperson, http://IMPRINTProject.org, statement............. 123
Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), Sister Janet
Mock, Executive Director, Silver Spring, Maryland, statement... 127
Martin, Susan F., Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International
Migration, Georgetown University, Washington, DC............... 130
Moua, Mee, President and Executive Director, Asian American
Justice Center, Washington, DC, statement...................... 134
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd,
Silver Spring, Maryland, statement............................. 140
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF),
Washington, DC, statement...................................... 141
National Center for Lesbian Rights, Washington, DC, statement.... 147
National Council of La Raza, Jennifer Ng'andu, Director, Health
and Civil Rights Policy Projects, Washington, DC, statement.... 152
National Immigration Law Center (NILC), Washington, DC, statement 159
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH), New
York, New York, statement...................................... 163
Panetta, Karen, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, and Vice President,
Communications and Public Awareness, The Institute of
Electrical & Electronics Engineers-United States of America
(IEEE-USA)..................................................... 172
Planned Parenthood, Dana Singiser, Vice President of Policy and
Government Relations, Washington, DC, statement................ 195
Poo, Ai-jen, Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance, New
York, New York, statement...................................... 197
Praeli, Lorella, Director of Policy and Advocacy, United We
Dream, Washington, DC, statemenet.............................. 201
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 204
Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP), New York, New York,
statement...................................................... 209
Sauti Yetu Center for African Women and Families, New York, New
York, statement................................................ 214
Sojourners, Jim Wallis, President and CEO, Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 216
Stolz, Rich, Executive Director & Ada Williams Prince, Director
of Policy, OneAmerica, Seattle, Washington, statement.......... 217
Tiven, Rachel B., Executive Director, Immigration Equality,
Washington, DC, statement...................................... 225
Women's Refugee Commission, New York, New York, statement........ 230
HOW COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM SHOULD ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF WOMEN
AND FAMILIES
----------
MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:01 p.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mazie Hirono,
presiding.
Present: Senators Hirono, Franken, Grassley, and Sessions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MAZIE HIRONO, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF HAWAII
Senator Hirono. Good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to
call to order this hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
This hearing is titled, ``How Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Should Address the Needs of Women and Families.'' It will be an
opportunity to learn about how immigration impacts women and
families as we begin to consider the ways in which we will
reform our immigration laws.
I want to welcome each of the witnesses and Senator
Grassley and Senator Franken for joining us.
I would like to thank Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member
Grassley, and their staffs, for making this hearing possible.
Now I know that we have folks here that some of us know
very well, and I would like to give Senator Franken the
opportunity to say a few words about his good friend who is on
the panel today.
Senator Franken. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is so great to
have Mee here.
[Laughter.]
Senator Franken. This confusion, by the way, with Mee's
name is a running joke in Minnesota, but it is great to have
Mee here.
It is a really distinct pleasure to introduce Mee Moua,
currently president and executive director of the Asian
American Justice Center. Ms. Moua was a State senator in
Minnesota, chair of the Judiciary Committee in our State
Senate; but not only was she a State senator, she was the first
Hmong American State legislator in United States history.
I read Ms. Moua's testimony. It will be about uniting
families and how important that is. And no one is better able
to talk about families than Mee. She has just the most
wonderful family. She is a pillar--was a pillar, now she is
living here in D.C. in her new role, but just a pillar of St.
Paul, of the Hmong Minnesotan community, and has the warmest
home that I have ever been in. No warmer home than the Mouas',
than Mee's.
It is great to have you here, Mee.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Senator Franken.
The debate on immigration reform has often focused on the
needs of the business community. And despite the fact that
immigrant women are about as likely to have a bachelor's degree
as immigrant men, and women make up 51 percent of migrants in
the U.S., employment-based visas go to men over women by a
ration of 3:1. As a result, women are far more likely to
immigrate to this country under the family based system. But
this often means that they are here as dependent spouses
without the ability to work legally.
As we look to reform our immigration laws, we must consider
how women and families will be affected. Historically, women
have been treated as unequal in our immigration system, with
citizenship tied to their husbands. In fact, 100 years ago, if
a U.S. citizen woman married a non-citizen, she would lose her
citizenship.
I know firsthand that immigration is a women's issue and a
family issue.
My mother brought my brother and me to this country when I
was a young girl to escape a terrible marriage at the hands of
my father. He was an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler, and I
did not get to know him much.
Instead of watching our family continue to suffer, my
mother made the courageous decision to seek a better life for
us. So she plotted and planned in secret, and when I was nearly
8 years old, we literally--my brother, my mom, and me, later my
younger brother and grandparents--escaped to this place called
Hawaii and this country called America.
It is from my own experience as an immigrant that I believe
immigration reform should make the family immigration system
stronger, not weaker. And we should not ignore the challenges
immigrant women face.
The purpose of this hearing is to look at these challenges
and how we should correct these problems in the debate on
comprehensive immigration reform.
We will hear about immigrant women in the workplace and the
problems of exploitation that they often suffer. We will hear
about the importance of family immigration to our communities
and our economy. And we will hear about how comprehensive
immigration reform should address the integration of
undocumented women and children to fully participate in
society. I look forward to a great discussion.
Before I turn to introductions and witness statements and
questions, I will first offer the opportunity to Senator
Grassley to make an opening statement. Senator.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHUCK GRASSLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF IOWA
Senator Grassley. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a very
important hearing because immigration is something that is
going to be worked on, I think, in both Houses of Congress. It
is a long time in coming, and it needs to be worked on even
though there are still big differences of opinion about exactly
what should be done.
We have a distinguished panel to testify. All of you have a
passion for changing our immigration system and improving it
for generations of families to come. This Congress has an
opportunity to enact real reform, an opportunity to ensure that
our welcome mat remains on display while upholding our
longstanding dedication to the rule of law.
Today people in foreign lands want to be a part of our
Nation. In fact, almost a million people every year come to
this country legally because we are a very welcoming country
and always have been, and people will go to great lengths to be
a part of our great society. We should feel privileged that
people love our country and want to become Americans.
Immigration reform is not an easy undertaking. I know this
from 32 years of experience on this Committee. That is why
Congress in 1990 authorized a bipartisan commission to review
and evaluate the immigration system.
In 1997, with the help of our witnesses, the United States
Commission on Immigration Reform presented their findings and
recommendations. They are just as important today as they were
15 years ago. The Commission stated, ``A properly regulated
system of legal immigration is in the national interests of the
United States. Such a system enhances the benefits of
immigration while protecting against potential harms.''
The Commission also noted: ``Immigration contributes in
many ways to the United States: to a vibrant and diverse
community, to a lively and participatory democracy, to its
vital intellectual and cultural life, to its renowned job-
creating entrepreneurship and marketplaces, and to its family
values and work ethic.'' Yet they knew then what we know now:
that there are costs as well as benefits from today's
immigration.
The Commission found many flaws in our immigration
policies, and we have a long ways to go to make it perfect. It
is in our Nation's best interest for future generations and
future families to begin a serious discussion on how we can
enact real reform that will sustain for years to come.
All the witnesses before us are very important. I would
like to talk about the witnesses that my side of the aisle was
able to have on the panel.
Ms. Martin will provide insight on how we should enhance
our family immigration system, including the fact that Congress
must set priorities and determine which type of immigration
will serve the national interest.
Dr. Panetta will bring a different perspective to the
hearing, discussing how American engineers, particularly women,
are being skipped over for high-skilled and high-paying jobs in
the United States. She will discuss how the H-1 Visa Program is
harming American engineers and how women may fall behind even
more if we do not fix the program. Her testimony sheds light on
the reasons why we need legislation in this area.
I plan to introduce a bill today to ensure that American
workers are given first opportunity at jobs in science,
technology, engineering, and math. In fact, my bill would close
loopholes in the program, reduce fraud and abuse, provide
protection for American workers and for visa holders, and
require more transparency in the recruitment of foreign
workers.
All of our witnesses are distinguished witnesses, and I
thank all of you for participating in today's hearing.
Thank you.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Senator Grassley.
This afternoon, we are joined on the panel by Ai-Jen Poo,
director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-
director of the Caring Across Generations Campaign. Founded in
2007, NDWA is the Nation's leading voice for the millions of
domestic workers in the United States, most of whom are women.
Ms. Poo has been organizing immigrant women workers since 1996.
In 2000, she co-founded Domestic Workers United, the New York
organization that spearheaded the successful passage of that
State's historic Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010. Ms.
Poo serves on the board of directors of Moms Rising, National
Jobs with Justice, Working America, the National Committee for
Responsive Philanthropy, and the National Council on Aging. She
has been recognized with the Ms. Foundation Woman of Vision
Award, the Independent Sector American Express Engine
Leadership Award, Newsweek's 150 Fearless Women's list, and
Time's List of the 100 Most Influential People in the world.
Impressive.
Next is--you are all impressive, by the way.
Next is Dr. Karen Panetta, professor of electrical and
computer engineering at Tufts University and director of the
Simulation Research Laboratory at Tufts University. She is also
a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers and is the worldwide director of IEEE Women in
Engineering. IEEE is the world's largest professional
association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and
excellence for the benefit of humanity. Dr. Panetta received a
B.S. in computer engineering from Boston University and an M.S.
and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Northeastern
University. She was also the first female electrical engineer
given tenure in the Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department at Tufts. Before joining the faculty at Tufts, Dr.
Panetta was employed as a computer engineer at Digital
Equipment Corporation. Her research in simulation and modeling
has won her research team five awards from NASA for outstanding
contributions to NASA research and excellence in research. She
is a NASA Langley Research Scientist JOVE Fellow, is a
recipient of the NSF Career Award, and won the 2003 Madeline
and Henry Fischer Best Engineering Teacher Award.
We are also joined by Mee Moua, president and executive
director of the Asian American Justice Center. The AAJC is one
of the Nation's premier civil rights advocacy organizations.
AAJC works to advance the human and civil rights of Asian
Americans and to build and promote a fair and equitable society
for all. Ms. Moua leads AAJC's efforts to promote civic
engagement, forge strong and safe communities, create an
inclusive society, and empower Asian Americans and other
underserved communities. Ms. Moua was a three-term Minnesota
State senator, where she chaired the Senate Judiciary
Committee. Born in Laos, Ms. Moua immigrated to the U.S. in
1978. Mee Moua and I have been friends, and she certainly has a
story to tell. She attended Brown University as an
undergraduate, earned a master's degree in public affairs from
the University of Texas, Austin, and earned a law degree from
the University of Minnesota.
Also on the panel is Professor Susan Martin, the Donald
Herzberg Professor of International Migration at Georgetown
University Law School--my alma mater, by the way. Professor
Martin also serves as the executive director of the Institute
for the Study of International Migration in the School of
Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The institute
provides balanced, multidisciplinary analysis of the
complicated issues raised by immigration policy and law. A
long-time expert on immigration and refugee policy, she came to
Georgetown after having served as the executive director of the
U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, which made its final
report to Congress in September 1997. Prior to joining the
Commission staff, Professor Martin was the director of research
and programs at the Refugee Policy Group, a Washington-based
center for analysis of U.S. and international refugee policy
and programs. She was assistant professor in the American
Studies Department at Brandeis University and lecturer for the
History of American Civilization at the University of
Pennsylvania. Professor Martin holds a B.A. from Rutgers and an
M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Finally, we have Jennifer Ng'andu, the deputy director of
the Health Policy Project of the National Council of La Raza.
NCLR is the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy
organization in the United States and works to improve
conditions and opportunities for Hispanic Americans. At NCLR,
Ms. Ng'andu is responsible for the oversight of development and
advancement of Federal policies aimed at improving the health
status of Latinos and creating parity for immigrants in the
health system. She provides expertise on health and nutrition
policy, Affordable Care Act and health reform, access in health
disparities for racial and ethnic populations, immigrant
eligibility for health programs and public benefits, hunger,
and obesity. Ms. Ng'andu holds a bachelor's degree in
psychology from Duke University.
At this point I would like to ask all of the witnesses to
stand and raise your right hands as I administer the oath. Do
you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about
to give to this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Ms. Poo. I do.
Ms. Panetta. I do.
Ms. Moua. I do.
Ms. Martin. I do.
Ms. Ng'andu. I do.
Senator Hirono. Thank you. Please be seated. Let the record
show that the nominees have answered in the affirmative.
I have a statement that I would like to read portions of
from Senator Amy Klobuchar. She says:
``I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. I
had hoped to join you, but prior obligations in Minnesota and a
snowstorm in Minneapolis have prevented me from making it back
in time. I want to give a special welcome to my friend and
fellow Minnesotan, Mee Moua.''
You have a lot of fans here today, Mee.
``Mee has been an incredible advocate over the years on
many, many issues. Most of the talk about immigration has
centered on the plight of the undocumented, border security,
and economic motivations for changing our laws. But family
concerns are just as important, and we must ensure that our
policies reflect family reunification as a top priority.''
If there are no objections, I would like to enter Senator
Klobuchar's full remarks into the record. Seeing no objections,
we will proceed.
[The prepared statement of Senator Klobuchar appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Hirono. Welcome once again to all of you.
I would like to recognize each of the witnesses, starting
from my left, so, Ms. Poo, if you would provide us with your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF AI-JEN POO, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL DOMESTIC WORKERS
ALLIANCE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Ms. Poo. Thank you, Chairwoman Hirono, and thank you,
Senator Grassley and Senator Franken, for this opportunity. My
name is Ai-jen Poo, and I am the director of the National
Domestic Workers Alliance. We represent a growing work force of
mainly immigrant women who take care of our children, our aging
loved ones, and our homes. And I bring their spirit, passion,
and hopes with me today.
Women like Pat Francois, who is sitting behind me, a nanny
in New York City for many years, Pat takes great pride in her
role: arranging play dates, taking the children to the
children's museum and the library, reading stories, playing in
the park, and most importantly, keeping them safe. She makes it
possible for her employers to go to work every day knowing that
the most precious parts of their lives are cared for while they
are gone. Millions of working moms and dads count on women like
Pat in order to participate fully in today's workplace. But Pat
is undocumented and cannot participate fully in our country
that she now calls home.
Today, women and children represent two-thirds of all
immigrants in the United States. Unfortunately, past rounds of
immigration reform debates have excluded women's experiences,
which is why this Committee should be truly commended for
holding this hearing.
To move us to solutions, here are three basic conditions to
ensure that millions of women are not left behind on the road
to citizenship.
First, the road to citizenship must be wide. Pat, like most
domestic workers, does not have pay stubs to prove she worked
for her employer. Her world, like much of the informal economy,
is a paperless world. If the road to citizenship requires proof
of employment at any stage, domestic and informal sector
workers will be run off, along with the estimated 40 percent of
undocumented women who are stay-at-home moms, which we also
know is work. Instead, we can use proof of presence to
determine eligibility both broadly and accurately.
Second, the road to citizenship must have on ramps.
Undocumented women like Pat are particularly vulnerable to
abuse, sexual harassment, and severe exploitation, including
trafficking. One of Pat's employers was verbally abusive for
years while threatening to have her deported if she challenged
him, until 1 day he physically assaulted her.
Common-sense reform must include provisions like those--our
current policies allow unscrupulous employers to wield the
threat of deportation like a weapon. Common-sense reform must
include provisions like those in the POWER Act, to ensure that
women suffering serious workplace violations are protected and
eligible for U visas.
Third, the road to citizenship must take us into the
future, acknowledging the increasingly critical role of
immigrant women in the American economy. Currently less than
one-third of all employment visas are given to women as
principal holders. Yet 2011 marked the first year of the ``age
wave,'' when the baby-boom generation has begun to turn 65 at a
rate of a person every 8 seconds. That means that the demand
for care workers, who are mostly women, is projected to
increase by 48 percent over the next decade. But the population
of U.S.-born workers who could fill this need is only growing
by about 1 percent.
We must create a highway into the future so that the
workers we need, especially women, can come to work in the
United States with their families, with full worker's rights,
portability between employers, and the ability to obtain green
cards and citizenship.
Senators, many of you have relied upon babysitters or
nannies to care for your kids, and many of you have
housekeepers, and 1 day many of you may need elder care
assistance. Who is going to take care of America as we age?
In fact, it is hard to find anyone in America today whose
life has not been touched by the care of immigrant women.
Because we as a Nation count on them, we are counting on you.
Women need reform, and we cannot wait. Hundreds of women have
come to Washington this week to urge you to act swiftly, with
full inclusion of women and their families, including LGBT
families, because immigration reform is a women's issue. It is
about women's equality, it is about keeping families together
and strengthening families, and it is an economic issue key to
the well-being of the entire Nation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Poo appears as a submission
for the record.]
Senator Hirono. Dr. Panetta.
STATEMENT OF KAREN PANETTA, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF ELECTRICAL AND
COMPUTER ENGINEERING, TUFTS UNIVERSITY, MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS,
AND VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AWARENESS, THE
INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS-UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA (IEEE-USA)
Ms. Panetta. Thank you, Chairman Hirono, Ranking Republican
Member Grassley, and Senator Franken and the other members of
this panel. I am honored to be here today to testify on your
theme: ``How Comprehensive Immigration Reform Should Address
the Needs of Women and Families.''
I represent IEEE-USA, the 206,000 members of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in the United States. We
are a professional society, the largest organization of
technologists in the world, founded by Alexander Graham Bell,
who was an immigrant, and Thomas Edison, who was not. That
global perspective has always been a part of the IEEE-USA.
We know innovation comes diversity of talents, and we seek
the world's brightest individuals to work with as equals. IEEE
knows that one of the world's most valuable resources that has
been underutilized is women. That is why IEEE created the Women
in Engineering Program and why I started a Nerd Girls program.
So today's subject is critical.
On behalf of the largest representative of America's high-
tech workers, let me get right to the point. If we truly want
to help women and families, do not increase the H-1B Visa
Program. Increase STEM green cards instead.
As an engineer, I use data to identify how things break so
we can prevent catastrophic failures. I am here today to tell
you that the H-1B Visa Program is a place where our immigration
system is broken. Who wants to double the number of outsourcing
visas for companies who take American jobs, give them to
temporary foreign workers, and then ship those jobs overseas?
Yet that is what some in the Senate propose doing through the
I-Squared bill.
The IEEE-USA view is simple: we favor green cards, not
guest worker visas. The greatest damage clearly results from
offshore outsourcing. The official data from the Department of
Homeland Security shows that all of the top 10 users of the H-
1B program and 15 of the top 20 are outsourcing companies. My
written testimony documents this for each State.
For all the talk about H-1Bs helping to create American
jobs, the facts show something else. Look at Nielsen in
Florida, Pfizer in Connecticut, the gaming industry in Nevada,
just to name a few well-documented cases where American jobs
were replaced by outsourcing.
In my written testimony, I review the four primary
arguments made in favor of H-1B and show how in each case the
arguments do not match the data.
For example, employers will argue that it takes too long to
get a green card. Absolutely correct. But it is not an argument
for the H-1B. It is an argument for enabling employers to get
green cards for workers when they are hired. We strongly
endorse Microsoft's recent proposal to pay a total of $25,000
in fees to take foreign STEM graduates from their student visa
to a green card. No need for an H-1B. It is a principle. If an
employer is willing to pay a substantial fee for a worker who
supposedly possesses skills that the employer cannot find in
American applicants, then that company should be eager to
sponsor that worker for a green card immediately. This would be
a solid proof that that employer actually needs that person's
skills.
But we are talking about the impact of comprehensive
immigration reform on women and children. The contrasting
treatment of families in the H-1B program compared to green
cards actually mocks our values. Most of the 220,000 nuclear
family backlog counted by the State Department are spouses and
children of employment-based permanent immigrants, separated
because they received their green cards and then got married.
As software consultant Matt Arivalan testified to the House
Judiciary Committee last week, he said: ``I was shocked to find
that because I had made a commitment to America, my wife must
wait in another country for years. If I was just a temporary
worker, my wife would not be 12,000 miles away.''
Finally, let me warn the Committee about the obstacles
which the H-1B creates for American women in STEM fields. It is
hard to get promoted when you do not get hired in the first
place. The existence of this preferred pipeline for new hires
has hugely discouraging effects on independent American women
considering the STEM fields. Why? Because my own experience
tells me that the vast majority of H-1B workers are men, and
this does not make for a diverse work force or work
environment.
IEEE-USA represents more high-tech workers than anybody
else. One from inside the industry, looking at the offshoring
companies that dominate the H-1B program, tells us that their
global hiring is 70 percent. But in the U.S., where outsourcing
companies get more than half of the capped H-1B visas, the
ratio is more like 85 percent men. Shouldn't this raise a red
flag?
But as an engineer, I do not like making decisions without
hard data. IEEE-USA has been trying for months to get the
actual data from DHS. It is a simple question: How many women
get H-1B visas?
So we urge this Committee to include this data in their
investigation to better understand the effect the legislation
will have on women and families. More green cards for advanced
STEM students, men and women, is the way to go, as IEEE and so
many others have urged?
Green cards do not create a disincentive to hire
Americans--including American women--the way H-1B does. That is
because the green card means the new American is treated as an
equal. Isn't that what our immigration system is supposed to
do--help our economy and new families?
Let me conclude by thanking the Committee for the honor of
being asked to testify. I want to particularly thank Senator
Grassley for his leadership on the issue and for his H-1B
legislation to be introduced this week. I will be happy to
answer any questions in my areas of expertise.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Panetta appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Ms. Moua.
STATEMENT OF MEE MOUA, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASIAN
AMERICAN JUSTICE CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Moua. Madam Chair, Senator Grassley, and Senator
Franken, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here with
all of you on behalf of the millions of Asian Americans and
Pacific Islanders all across this country. It is a pleasure to
be in this historic hearing highlighting how comprehensive
immigration reform should address the needs of women and
families.
When I was 9 years old, my family came to the United States
as political refugees. Our people's role as special guerilla
unit fighters for the United States during the secret war in
Laos rendered us displaced and homeless after the U.S.
Government left Southeast Asia. To save our lives, we were
forced to flee in secrecy, leaving behind our home and our
loved ones.
When we arrived in the United States, my grandfather, my
uncle, and our only aunt remained trapped in Laos. One uncle
was at a refugee camp in Thailand, and another uncle was
resettled in France. When they were eligible, my parents
studied hard for their citizenship exams in the hope that they
would be able to bring my grandfather and my uncle and his
families to the United States.
Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away before my father
could become naturalized. Shortly thereafter, my uncle also
passed away while imprisoned in a political work camp.
In 1996, my parents tried to sponsor the one uncle in
France, but the process took so long that by the time they were
eligible to come to the United States, they decided to remain
in France because their children were already married and had
their own families.
The separation and hardship experienced by my father and
his siblings underscored the heartache and disappointment many
immigrant families endure in their search for family
reunification. The lucky ones are able to overcome life
circumstances and delays to eventually succeed, but far, far
too many simply just give up.
The purpose of today's hearing is to dig deeper into the
realities of our family based immigration system and understand
how it affects women, children, and families. The principle of
family unity has long been a core value of our immigration
policies in the United States, and family based immigration has
been a central pillar of our current legal immigration system.
Since our founding as a Nation, each wave of new immigrants
and their families have strengthened our communities, enriched
our culture, and the fruits of their entrepreneurial spirit
have strengthened our middle class and invigorated our economy.
Unfortunately, the U.S. immigration system is badly broken
and outdated with the unintended consequences of separating
mothers from daughters, brothers from sisters, and wives from
husbands.
As of November 2012, nearly 4.3 million close family
members were waiting in the family visa backlogs. Latino and
Asian American families are affected the most by these long
backlogs, with over 1.3 million waiting in Mexico and over 1.8
million waiting in numerous Asian countries.
Like that experience by my family, many American families
have been waiting years, even decades, to be reunited with
their loved ones. For other families, our dysfunctional legal
immigration system forces them to choose between remaining
apart for years on end or remaining in the shadows as
undocumented immigrants for the chance to be with their
families.
In Pacifica, California, a committed and loving family of
four faced separation under our current immigration system. Jay
and Shirley--Jay is a U.S. citizen and Shirley is originally
from the Philippines--are the parents of twin sons. Shirley and
Jay have been together for more than 20 years, but because Jay
is unable to sponsor Shirley for residency, their family was
nearly torn apart when, in 2009, ICE agents arrested Shirley in
front of their children and attempted to deport her back to the
Philippines. Shirley, Jay, and their twins, who were profiled
in People magazine, are depending on Congress to include GLBT
families in immigration reform to ensure that they have a
permanent solution to remain together in this country.
While Jay and Shirley's story highlights how our current
immigration system discriminates against GLBT families by
prohibiting citizens and legal permanent residents from
sponsoring their permanent partners for immigration purposes,
the heartache and hardship they endured as they were forced to
make hard choices is representative of the real experiences of
many immigrant families across this country. This is simply
unacceptable and does not live up to our ideals as a Nation
that values families and fairness.
Given this broader picture as the backdrop, I want to now
turn to the fact that women immigrants are disproportionately
harmed by our broken system. We know that approximately 69.7
percent of all immigrant women attain their legal status
through family based visas, compared to 60 percent of men.
Since women are more often denied access to resources and
education and face social constraints in their home countries,
they are overrepresented among family based immigrants and
underrepresented among employment-based immigrants.
In those circumstances where they are the dependents of a
male visa holder, women are not legally allowed to work under
our current system and, therefore, are completely tied to their
spouse. This creates an imbalance of power, which renders women
wholly dependent on their spouse and in some unfortunate cases
particularly vulnerable to an abusive partner.
An immigration system that disadvantages women as an
unintended consequence inevitably hurts families and
communities. Immigrant women, like all women, keep their
families together, invest in their children's education, engage
in their communities, and contribute to the growth and to the
prosperity of our economy.
In 2012, we witnessed a historic election. Immigrants, both
Latinos and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, play a key
role in our electoral outcomes. They vote in unprecedented
numbers, and they overwhelmingly support a vision of inclusion
and fairness while rejecting xenophobic policies that pit
communities against one another. High-income earners versus
low-income workers and new Americans versus the more
established communities.
In the last 3 months, you, our elected representatives,
have made it clear that you intend to keep the faith with the
American people to deliver a common-sense fix to our broken
system.
Today I stand with these panelists to urge you to ensure
that women and their families remain at the core of your
solutions, that the fix of our broken family immigration system
addresses among other critical issues the inhumane backlogs for
families and workers, and that it provides balance and
flexibility for a comprehensive system that values all family
members, including our brothers and sisters, children of all
ages, and LGBT families.
Whether it was through the Mayflower, Ellis Island, Angel
Island, or now all the ports of entry, most immigrants came to
the U.S. with nothing but hope and their families. Regardless
of the hardships they encountered or endured, hope and family
permitted each successive generation of immigrants to muster
the courage to survive, persevere, and make a deeply rooted
life in this country. We may all come from different national
origins, eat different foods, practice different religions, and
even speak different languages, but the immigrant heart is what
binds us as one people--united in hope and opportunity for a
more prosperous future for all of our families. That is why we
love this land, and for those who are working hard for our
prosperous economy, let our policies also work hard for them.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Moua appears as a submission
for the record.]
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Ms. Martin.
STATEMENT OF SUSAN F. MARTIN, DONALD G. HERZBERG PROFESSOR OF
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Martin. Thank you, Madam Chair, Senator Franken, thank
you for providing this opportunity to testify this afternoon.
I have been asked to discuss relevant findings and
recommendations of the Commission on Immigration Reform, which
I served as executive director, as well as my own views on
immigration issues. I am pleased to do so. Although the
Commission's report was issued 15 years ago, many of its
recommendations remain as relevant today as they were in 1997.
I should also note that the recommendations of the
bipartisan Commission were adopted unanimously or in certain
instances by a vote of 8-1, showing substantial bipartisan
support for credible immigration policy.
Let me begin with the Commission's overall perspectives on
legal immigration.
First, the Commission considered a robust legal immigration
system to be in the national interest of the United States. It
argued that immigration policy should serve three core
interests and that all of these were equally important:
maintaining family unity, encouraging economic competitiveness,
and preserving U.S. humanitarian leadership in the world, and
that these are served through family reunification, employment-
based, and refugee admissions, respectively.
Second, the Commission did not believe that there is a
magic, a priory number of immigrants that should be admitted to
the United States. Rather, numbers should be readily adjusted
to address changing circumstances in the country and the world.
It is well to note that current family and employment-based
admission numbers were set in 1990 and have not been changed in
the intervening 23 years, despite major changes in the country
and the composition of our population.
Third, the Commission believed that priorities should drive
admission numbers and not the reverse. At present, our
immigration system is largely managed through backlogs and
waiting lists. Ceilings have generally been assigned in an
arbitrary manner, often as a result of political compromise
rather than empirical evidence as to the likely demand for
visas' different categories. The Commission instead recommended
a true preference system in which all demand is met in the
highest categories in a timely way.
Let me turn to how these principles translated into
specific recommendations related to family reunification. The
backlog of applications for all of the numerically limited
family categories had expanded quite significantly at the time
of the Commission's deliberations. The Commission recognized
that all of these categories were important to segments of the
population within the U.S. The members' judgment, however, was
that there is a special bond between spouses and between
parents and minor children that necessitates the most rapid
family reunification in these instances, regardless of whether
the sponsor in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent
resident. Not only is the immediate family the basic building
block of society, but there is also a legal and fiduciary
responsibility for spouses and minor children that do not exist
in relationship to adult children or siblings of adult
sponsors.
The Commission was fully supportive of maintaining the
numerically unrestricted admissions categories for spouses,
minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens and recommended
that sufficient visas be allocated for the admission of all
spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents within
no more than 1 year of application. The Commission also
recommended that adult children who were dependent on their
parents because of physical or mental disability be included in
these admission categories.
At present, according to the State Department Visa
Bulletin, spouses and minor children who applied 2\1/2\ years
ago are now eligible to enter the country, which seems to be a
violation of that principle of very rapid family reunification.
The Commission, recognizing that there were concerns about
an infinite number of visas being offered at any given time,
recommended the elimination of the admission categories for
adult children and siblings, despite recognizing that there are
very good reasons to continue to have a very expansion family
reunification process.
Currently we offer a few visas to many different family
categories, however not enough visas to any one category.
If you look at the category for the brothers and sisters of
U.S. citizens worldwide, there is now a delay of 12 years
before admission. If you are applying from the Philippines,
because of the per country limits, it is a 24-year wait. That
does not appear to be rational, and particularly not to be
bringing in people beyond their projected working years and
toward the period in which they will be retiring.
The Commission did not address the phaseout of these
categories, so I speak personally on this issue. Given that
many U.S. citizens have petitioned for their adult children and
siblings, assuming that the system would remain as it is, my
recommendation would be to balance the interest in a more
efficient system for family reunification with preserving
enough visas to permit the admission of those already in the
queue before changing our overall policies.
Changing these policies is particularly important in the
event that the Congress will determine to regularize the status
of those who are currently undocumented in order to ensure that
we do not have a return of the very extensive backlogs that we
had in the 1990s for the spouses and minor children of the
IRCA-legalized population.
Let me finish with just three quick other points. I know I
am running over.
One is that in addressing the needs of women, we need to be
thinking very carefully with regard to ways of still increasing
and improving the implementation of the Violence Against Women
Act as it pertains to women. Fortunately, that Act was
reauthorized recently. But we still have a problem ensuring
that immigrant women and children who were abused have access
to the information, legal, and economic resources that will
permit them to benefit from the terms of the legislation.
Similarly, in terms of the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act, also reauthorized this year, there is a disparity between
the numbers granted the T visa for protection of trafficking
survivors and the estimated total numbers of trafficking
victims in the U.S. Between 2002 and 2012, DHS has only
approved 3,269 applications.
We still lack the tools to identify trafficking victims and
help the survivors gain access to the type of legal assistance
as well as safe houses and other services that are needed to
ensure their protection.
Then a final point is in relationship to long delayed
legislation to remedy problems in our asylum, detention, and
refugee resettlement programs as they apply to women and girls.
The Refugee Protection Act, introduced by Senator Leahy,
includes important provisions that would help facilitate family
reunification for refugees and asylees; eliminate the 1-year
filing deadline for asylum applications, which hinders the
ability of women who have been raped and suffered other
atrocities from coming forward; and changes in provisions that
currently deny asylum and resettlement to those who provided
material support to an insurgency, even if that support was
coerced, as in many of the cases of rape.
To conclude, comprehensive immigration reform should
recognize that family unity is a core value. Ensuring speedy
reunification is in the national interest of the country.
Strong families make strong communities, which in turn make for
a strong nation. Setting priorities to accomplish this goal
would immeasurably strengthen U.S. immigration.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Martin appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Ms. Ng'andu.
STATEMENT OF JENNIFER NG'ANDU, DIRECTOR, HEALTH AND CIVIL
RIGHTS POLICY PROJECTS, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA, ARLINGTON,
VIRGINIA
Ms. Ng'andu. Good afternoon, Chairman Hirono, Senator
Franken. On behalf of the National Council of La Raza, I thank
you for the opportunity to be here today. I have been proud to
work for NCLR for the past 9 years, where I direct their Health
and Civil Rights Policy Projects. We have been engaged in key
debates and legislative efforts to make sure that we improve
and promote life opportunities but, most importantly, the
health and well-being of Latino families. And as we represent
some 300 affiliates, local community-based organizations around
the country, we see firsthand how they are each day working to
integrate these Latino families, some immigrants, some not, and
ensure that they pursue the American dream.
It is important to elevate the role of women with any
immigration reform conversation, and to that end, the fact is
that family immigration has been the essential road map to
citizenship for generations of Americans in pursuit of a better
life. Immigrant families are among the most economically mobile
within our country, and the women in these families are often
the drivers of that success. Women urge their families to
integrate, to learn English, engage in civic duties of all
kind, and achieve citizenship.
On the whole, immigrant women and their families are net
contributors to their country, and they come here willing to
pay their fair share and take up the rights and
responsibilities of their fellow Americans. But there are often
gross misrepresentations of how they live within our country,
including overinflated assessments of their use of benefits.
So I start by setting the record straight. Many people are
largely unaware of the fact that all immigrants, lawfully
present or not, face restriction to public benefits. And
undocumented immigrants are almost entirely banned from most
major public health coverage and safety net programs.
Lack of access is often buffered by their lower ages,
strong presence in the work force, and positive health
behaviors. Immigrants are not only less likely to use benefits,
but when they actually do receive access to a program, they are
also likely to use a lower value of them.
To be sure, lower utilization of benefits does have some
negative consequences. Immigrants who are yet to be naturalized
have very high uninsurance rates--in fact, it is almost 60
percent--and they and those within their families are likely to
experience certain hardships, such as food insecurity.
NCLR's own focus groups conducted in 2009 provide warning
of the tradeoffs that immigrants may take up without viable
insurance options. Many participants, moms and dads, within
mixed immigration status families noted that they had put their
families at severe financial risk in order to make sure that
their children had essential health care. When it came to their
own health needs, the majority went without, compromising their
own well-being while trying to preserve their children's.
The irony is that, despite immigrants' eagerness to take on
shared responsibility, the system does not always let them in.
Take, for instance, the recent changes to the health care law
that created the first-ever statutory restriction to the
private health insurance market. Beginning in January 2014,
immigrants without legal status will no longer be able to
purchase insurance in the private insurance marketplace that
other uninsured Americans will use. Despite the prohibitive
costs of insurance, somehow 375,000 undocumented immigrants
have found a way to purchase insurance on their own, and while
the employer-based market has been a source of coverage to some
3 million undocumented immigrants, there is a question of
whether that market will provide the same opportunities since
it has been eroding.
I ask you, Does it make sense to prevent immigrants from
buying insurance, an action that could bolster the market for
millions of Americans?
Furthermore, the immigrant restrictions ensure a 5-year bar
to public programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. It can be devastating
when someone falls on hard times. And I would give an example
of an immigrant victim of domestic violence who is petitioning
here under the Violence Against Women Act. She is barred from
SNAP and other programs for 5 years, and many immigrant women
have cited that those dangerous situations keep them--that
leaving those dangerous situations actually creates additional
economic challenges, including risk of hunger.
I end by emphasizing that Americans support the complete
road map to citizenship and that the full opportunity to
participate is one that they support as well. Health care and
social services may not be a part of the core process to meet
citizenship requirements, but many of these programs and
services underpin this ultimate aim.
It is common sense that immigrant families who pay their
fair share of contributions are allowed to take part in the
systems that are fundamental to American life. We should also
recognize that while some families will fall on hard times and
need resources, so many of them will come out ahead if we just
make a small investment in their well-being. Each policy
investment in immigration reform must be mindful of America's
pocketbook, and maximizing citizenship should be the primary
focus.
By the same token, it comes down to a simple adage: ``Penny
wise or pound foolish.'' Giving immigrant women and families
the tools for full integration now will pay off in their
contributions later.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ng'andu appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Hirono. Thank you very much to all the panelists.
Before we get to our 7-minute rounds of questions, I would
like to ask unanimous consent that an open letter to the
President and all Members of Congress on ensuring access to
affordable health care and needed nutrition assistance and
immigration reform, signed by 360 organizations from across the
country, be entered into the record. Hearing no objections, I
will be entered into the record.
[The letter appears as a submission for the record.]
Senator Hirono. And I would also like to ask unanimous
consent to put the statement of Chairman Leahy into the record.
Without objection, so entered.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Leahy appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Hirono. We will now start on 7-minute rounds of
questioning. I will begin.
First of all, once again I want to thank all of you for
coming and testifying today.
Ms. Poo, you talked about how difficult it would be should
we create a pathway to citizenship for people, particularly
women, to have the kind of documentation that we might require
of them, and we had this experience when we had so-called
amnesty a couple of decades ago.
So, once again, to ensure that we learn from the past and
allow mainly women to get on to the path, an earned path to
citizenship, how would you want us to--what kind of
requirements should we place on mainly women, domestic workers
and others like them, to get on this path?
Ms. Poo. Thank you, Chairwoman, for the question. I think
that there are many solutions to this problem to ensure full
inclusion. One is in terms of offering--allowing people to
submit affidavits that prove their presence in the country,
like past frameworks for immigration have in the past asked
for, proofs of presence as opposed to proof of employment. This
would allow people who work in the paperless informal economy
to be able to prove that they have been in this country and
contributing and building communities, which many have.
I think some level of flexibility that accounts for the
many different kinds of institutions within the community that
can vouch for presence. Community organizations, institutions
like churches, many people can vouch for the presence.
Senator Hirono. So the main thing is to allow some level of
flexibility and ability to have multiple ways that one can
prove that they have been in this country.
Ms. Poo. Absolutely.
Senator Hirono. Even if without documents.
Ms. Poo. Exactly.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Ms. Panetta, I take it that you are very much against the
H-1B visas, and instead you would support something like the
STAPLE Act, which Senator Flake introduced when he was a Member
of the House.
How many women do you think would be able to come in
through the STAPLE kind of legislation?
Ms. Panetta. Well, first of all, let me say I am not
against the H-1B or my organization is not against H-1Bs. We
are against H-1Bs for use of permanent jobs that are supposed
to be temporary positions. Right now the H-1B is being--we are
against trying to use it as a purgatory to try and buy an
individual for 6 years without a commitment to a green card. So
that is what we are against. And we are against outsources,
using it for that purpose. There are genuinely valid cases for
using it for temporary workers, so we are not 100 percent
against it.
Senator Hirono. Thank you for that clarification.
Now, we have heard testimony that there really is a huge
disparity in the women who get to come under a work visa
program, and you are suggesting that we go with a STAPLE Act
kind of process. Do you have any sense as to how many women
would be able to come in through that kind of visa?
Ms. Panetta. Well, I can tell you, one of the problems that
we have here in the United States is that 18.4 percent of all
undergraduate degrees in engineering go to women, so it is a
huge issue, and we know that in engineering, or all the STEM
disciplines, that we just need more engineers total. So to get
more women--and we know that in countries like India, some of
the top graduates are women, and yet they do not get
opportunities to come here.
So by providing STEM-educated people with the opportunity
to come to the United States, men and women, we believe that
that would be able to make an impact on the number of women and
diversity in the work force, which has also huge cultural work
environment implications. So we are hoping that we are not just
addressing numbers but we are changing work cultures as well.
As for specific numbers, I could not give you a ballpark
number since we--I could get back to you with that, though,
from our organization if we could actually do some data mining
for you.
Senator Hirono. Thank you. I think you noted in your
testimony that you were involved with creating the Women in
Engineering Program, and I commend you for that because I am
familiar with that program in Hawaii.
Ms. Moua, as we read in the Washington Post recently, there
might be an idea to either limit dramatically or eliminate
certain kinds of family visas, mainly for adult children or for
siblings. What kind of impact do you think that would have on
family reunification?
Ms. Moua. Thank you, Madam Chair. As we know, the system is
badly broken, and the evidence can be found in the long
backlogs, visa backlogs that we are experiencing on a daily
basis. It is concerning to us that there is a proposal on the
table for consideration to eliminate married adult children as
well as the brother-sister category.
We all know that as immigrants our families are part of our
network, our family is what permits us to be able to set root
and really build a life together in this country. And based on
what I have just shared with you about my father's experience,
you know, when you contemplate a long-term life, creating a new
home, wanting to really set root, you want your families to be
around you. And the idea of eliminating the third and fourth
preference is concerning to, I think, all immigrant
communities.
In particular, Madam Chair, I would like to really
highlight the fact that if those categories were eliminated,
unless some alternative provision was put on the table, I think
that it would disproportionately affect women and their
families, because as I had stated in my testimony, over 67, 68
percent of women come to this country through the family base
and less through the employment base. And I think that if we
were to eliminate those categories, brother-sister sponsorship,
sister-sister sponsorship, it would have a pretty
disproportionate impact on women.
Senator Hirono. I recently heard the situation of a person
whose parents--she is a naturalized U.S. citizen now, having
come with a green card, and her only surviving family member is
a brother, and so this person has been waiting for over 6 years
for the brother to come. And so there are those kinds of
circumstances that perhaps we--that we should be aware of.
Ms. Ng'andu, you talked about the safety net and the access
to various kinds of social programs, and the people who are
here with visas have to wait 5 years before they can access
certain kinds of programs. So let us assume that we do provide
an earned path to citizenship. Knowing that the people here
with the visas, they have to wait 5 years, what do you think
would be an appropriate length of time for those who are on the
path to citizenship, they do not have a visa, yet what would be
a reasonable period of time, do you think, for them to wait
before they can access social services? I know that we would
want them from day one, but let us talk about if that is really
not in the offing.
Ms. Ng'andu. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Going back to the
adage, ``Penny wise and pound foolish,'' we do not want to see
waiting periods for these legal immigrants to these programs
because we recognize that there is a chance that they fall on
hard times and that they may need access to these programs.
The other thing that I will say about that is that it is
important that we provide opportunities for immigrants to pay
their fair share and get into the system. So if we can provide
access to things like private market coverage, encourage
employers to provide health coverage to their employees, then
we can bolster up the system, and that makes it better for
Americans.
By and large, immigrants are using less health care
services, and so what we would say is that it is important to
create that structure for individuals who do fall on hard times
to be able to access certain particular safety net services so
that they are able to get the preventive types of care that
they need.
And I will just give you one example of that. We have
eliminated the 5-year bar as a State option for pregnant women
and children for certain types of lawfully present immigrants,
and for every $1 invested in prenatal care, we save $4 out of
that. So we understand that that is going to be a really
important savings across the system.
Senator Hirono. So you would say that at the very least,
for those people who are here undocumented, that at the very
least they should not be having to wait longer than those who
are here with green cards to access certain services?
Ms. Ng'andu. What I would say is that Americans support
actually providing health care to legalizing immigrants, to
gain access to the health care services they need. And,
actually, the Kaiser Family Foundation just did a poll, and a
broad set of Americans across all sorts of backgrounds actually
said that if someone cannot get coverage through their
employer, then as part of the integration process, those with
provisional status, using the lingo that is being used right
now, should either be given access to Medicaid without the
waiting periods or be given access to what are now the new
health insurance exchanges that will be implemented in 2014.
So I think people back this idea that someone who is coming
here and who says that they want to take on the
responsibilities of Americans also gets the ability to have the
rights and be integrated into that process.
Senator Hirono. So with regard to health care, then, if we
do, let us hope, comprehensive immigration reform, then we can
take care of the prohibition in the Affordable Care Act that
disallows non-citizens from even being able to purchase health
insurance, that we need to address that in a very specific way
to allow those on provisional status to be able to go to the
health exchanges or to pay for their health care insurance.
Ms. Ng'andu. Well, and I think it just makes sense. You
know, if we have 375,000 undocumented immigrants today who now
have to go into a virtual black market of health insurance to
buy their insurance because they cannot be a part of the
legitimate system, then that is a problem. And I think
comprehensive immigration reform, it is all about making sure
that we have a legitimate system, that we are fixing the broken
mess within our system. And so that means that we need to
actually revisit the other infrastructures that actually keep
immigrants from participating in our society.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Senator Grassley.
Senator Grassley. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I am going to start with Dr. Panetta. You talked about how
many H-1B visa holders in the United States are male. Some
researchers in this field suspect that 70 percent of an
offshoring firm's work force is comprised of men.
First of all, an explanation from your point of view of
such an imbalance, and why are more men than women coming into
the country on H-1Bs?
Ms. Panetta. Well, first of all, there are more men out
there coming in because companies are hiring them, and
companies decide who they want to hire. And in the case where
you are offered somebody that you can put on trial and try out
for 6 or 7 years, or 6 years without a promise of a green card,
it is more in the benefit of a company to have this more ``try
them out before you buy,'' worth more investing in an American.
So I would say that one of the problems that we have to
look at is why aren't women being allowed to come in, and that
maybe the hiring types of things that are going on in companies
is an issue.
These are supposed to be temporary work visas, and one
company might argue, well, women do not want to come here on
temporary work assignments. But, in fact, a lot of these visas
are being used for permanent positions.
So to answer your question, Senator, I believe that more
men are coming simply because companies prefer to hire the men
over the women.
Senator Grassley. OK. Professor Martin, and also to
apologize to you and Ms. Moua, I missed your testimony because
I had a meeting with our Lieutenant Governor for a short period
of time. I am sorry.
Professor Martin, you discussed the Commission's
recommendations to eliminate the admissions category for adult
children and siblings. You said that the long waiting times in
these categories undermined the credibility of the admissions
system. I see your point about providing false hope to many
people who may have to wait a dozen years or more to be
eligible for a visa.
Could you tell us how Congress should change the system
going forward? Should it be an immediate change or a phase-out
approach?
Ms. Martin. Thank you, Mr. Grassley. As I said in my
testimony, I am speaking here personally about the way in which
the proposal should be implemented. In my view, it should be a
phased-in process. I think that the very large number of
Americans who have sponsored brothers and sisters and adult
children--the very large number of U.S. citizens who have
sponsored adult children and brothers and sisters who have gone
by the rules, have followed the procedures that are in place,
are owed a certain level of respect for that process. And my
recommendation would be to provide additional visas for a
transitional period that would allow the backlog to be cleared
and do it in a very expeditious way, because it makes no sense
to let it drag out for 12, 15, 20, 25 years, but that in the
meantime, new applications not be accepted so that as we move
forward, we will not be adding to the waiting list.
Senator Grassley. I will continue asking you another
question. What lessons can we learn from the 1986 legalization?
I was on the Committee talking about the same issues back in
the 1980s. We had the same problems then, and we thought that a
legalization program would solve it once and for all. So when
it comes to once and for all, I have to say we were wrong. The
problem got worse, and backlogs continued.
So what can Congress learn from 1986? And, second, if we
passed another legalization program for the 11 million
undocumented people and the family-based preference system
stayed the same, what would be the consequences?
Ms. Martin. Let me start with the first part of your
question, which has not been the particular topic for this
hearing, but I think the lessons of the 1986 law is that if you
legalize without taking steps to address the future flow of
undocumented migrants, you have a problem in terms of having to
deal with that issue again a few years later.
I think that problem has to be dealt with through a
combination of enforcement, particularly in the work site, but
new channels for legal immigration to meet legitimate demand
for workers. So it has to be some combination of work site
enforcement plus new work site programs. And I tend to agree
with Dr. Panetta that it makes no sense to use temporary
programs for permanent jobs, but we do also have temporary
jobs, and temporary programs do make some sense in that
context.
I am very much supportive of an earned regularization
program. In response also to Senator Hirono's question before
about how to make sure that it operates properly, I think it
should be as simple, as straightforward as possible. The more
documentation that we require of people means that--part of
what happened in IRCA was it became the full employment for
counterfeiters bill, because if you make demands that are
unattainable, people will find a way around them. So I think we
should be quite straightforward and very simple in terms of our
provisions.
With regard to family reunification, the IRCA legalization
did not initially include a family unity provision. That was
adopted in 1990. That would make it easier for families to come
together. I would hope that any new formulation takes into
account from the very beginning that many of the legalized will
have spouses and minor children still in their country of
origin, and that that be taken into account, and that we have
sufficient visa numbers to allow expeditious family
reunification in those cases so we do not buildup the kind of
backlogs that we saw in the 1990s.
Senator Grassley. Dr. Panetta, you touched on the Optional
Practical Training program, OPT. I am interested in knowing how
students you have mentored have been treated as an OPT worker.
There are no wage requirements or numerical limits. Last May, I
asked the Government Accountability Office to review the
programs, including the controls in place to prevent fraud and
abuse. I am still waiting for the report. There is widespread
belief that employers use the program to gain the expertise and
labor of foreign students without having to pay for it. In
Fiscal Year 2010, over 95,000 OPT applicants were granted; very
few applications are denied. There are very few controls in
place to ensure that these foreign workers are not mistreated.
There is also no requirement that a company first recruit and
hire an American student with the same skills.
Two questions: What has been your experience with the OPT
program? And do you have any insight on how students are being
treated on that program?
Ms. Panetta. Thank you for that question, Senator, because
the reason I am here before you today is because of my
experience that I have seen over 18 years of my students being
tortured by this process.
Students get hired on OPT and have up to 29 months to get
promoted to an H-1B, which should not be a bridge to the green
card. They come, we educate them here; sometimes our Government
pays for their education, and then they want to stay and they
want to be citizens of the United States.
What happens is they get their practical training
certificate. They get to work for a company. That company then
never gives them a definitive, honest offer of what they will
see, and then they let that time elapse up until the point that
the person gets very uncertain about what their future is. No
one wants to know--with a month left on their OPT, whether they
are going to have a job or whether they are going to be shipped
off, and that has been the case.
The students that I have worked with have worked long
hours, 16-hour days, never questioning, very complacent because
they know that if they ask questions or if they make waves,
even on their pay, a lot of them have come back and shown me
the same person in the same job getting paid substantially
magnitudes less, they are getting paid much less than those
individuals. And when they bring it up--one of them was so bold
to bring it up--they then postponed even giving him a decision
on when they would be filing for a visa for him.
Since these students are so brilliant and they are
wonderful contributors to our Nation's economy, I often step in
and actually help them find new positions with companies that
will treat them better and give them more of a commitment to
citizenship.
So, yes, it is being abused terribly by companies in the
United States, and it is used as an opportunity to hide the
fact that they are being underpaid, that they are being
overworked, and that they have no voice.
When it comes to women, this problem is even more further
exacerbated because women most likely will have--I have here--a
lot of my students have children, and they are afraid that they
are going to be thrown out of the country and even though their
children are U.S. citizens. They have no opportunity to be
treated with the full rights as their children should be and as
their children's neighbors and their parents are.
So it is a horrible flaw in the program, and that is why I
am not in favor and my organization is not in favor of using
OPT, then H-1B as a bridge. We think that if somebody is
worthwhile for a company and has skills that you truly need,
then send them directly to the green card. These people are
very competitive, and if they know those opportunities are
there, that is the incentive. So it has been a problem, and I
thank you for asking that question.
Senator Grassley. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Franken.
Senator Franken. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Moua, I want to pick up where Ms. Martin was talking
about backlogs, and maybe instead of picking up, go back to
what the effect of these backlogs is on families.
In the first hearing we held this year on the subject of
immigration reform, I highlighted the case of a Minnesota green
card holder, a legal immigrant who filed to be reunited with
his wife and four children in November 2010 and only got his
application processed in February of this year. During that
wait, his eldest son turned 21. That kicked him into a separate
visa category with a 19-year backlog.
Our immigration system is broken when, if you play by the
rules, you do not get to see your wife for 3 years and your son
for 20.
Can you talk a little bit more about just what the impact
of these backlogs is on families?
Ms. Moua. Thank you, Senator Franken. I think that it is my
mistake for not bringing the map to share with all of you about
how complex the multiple systems we have in place are. I think
that the family that you have talked about is a family that is
caught in all the multiple backlogs that are implied in the
current problem that we have. You can have a mixed status
family where each family member is experiencing a different
kind of backlog. Whether you come from--if you come from Mexico
or any of the Asian countries, the wait times will differ,
anywhere from 4, 6, 8 years to 23, 24 years, as we have seen in
the Philippines.
What that does is that for families who are caught in that
limbo, it does not permit them to be able to visit one another
while they are caught in that limbo. And for some families, it
is not just about children, particularly if you are a legal
permanent resident and you are not able to bring your spouse or
minor children with you, you are separating children from their
parents, you are separating husbands and wives from each other.
In the situation involving our GLBT binational permanent
partners couples, they are not able to be reunited with their
families.
In situations like our Filipino vets, you know, we gave
them things by giving them citizenship to live in this country,
and yet we are making them wait 20, 25, 26 years to bring their
adult married children to be with them in their golden years,
to be able to take care of them.
You know, family immigration is good for our economy, and
we know that our communities and all Americans benefit when we
are able to provide immigrants with an opportunity to set
roots.
We know that siblings provide immigrants an immediate
social support system that is able to help them with child care
or if they fall on hard times or in instances when they need
some help to start a business. The family network is what has
helped our immigrants, regardless of how you come to this
country, survive and start a life in this country.
You know, Senator Franken, children will always be our
children, whether they are over the age of 21 or not. And for
us to start thinking about which piece of our family is
expendable or is tradeable or should not be considered part of
our long-held core value in our immigrant policies, which is
family unit, for us to start to think about which members of
our family we are going to trade away is a dramatic and drastic
departure from the core values of what has been driving this
country since our founding days, where families have come
together and, through the network of families, be able to web
together, a future together, dependent on each other.
Senator Franken. And don't these backlogs sort of
incentivize illegal immigration? I mean, if you are overseas
and have no prospect of seeing your parents for over 20 years,
you are going to--I know that I would like to think that my
kids would do everything they could to be with me because they
love me so much.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Moua. Senator, in my remarks, I talked about the family
where one of the moms is facing deportation, and it is in
circumstances like that where families feel like, you know, the
choices before them are long, inhumanely backlog and waits or
to choose to make those hard decisions to live in the shadows
or to live in fear and take that risk. And I think that we know
far too many families who are oftentimes forced into those
circumstances.
Senator Franken. I am thrilled that you are working to
protect families in the immigration reform process. I want to
ask you some questions about how this debate affects children
in Minnesota and around the country.
Even though undocumented immigration has gone down overall,
the number of children arriving alone at our borders has
doubled in recent years. The Federal Government is supposed to
arrange for attorneys for these children, but only half of them
are actually getting lawyers. Recently, the American Bar
Association told me about a Minnesotan who was brought to the
country as a 1-year-old and who attended four court hearings
without a lawyer.
Now, obviously, a 1-year-old is a pretty dramatic case, but
it is happening to all ages of children. At this point, Madam
Chair, I would like to enter into the record the stories of
three other young Minnesotans who entered the country when they
were either 11 or 13 years old, but who suffered because they
had no attorney to help them.
Senator Hirono. Without objection, so ordered.
Senator Franken. Thank you.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Senator Franken. Ms. Moua, do you think this is a problem
we need to address and to solve? And Ms. Martin, too.
Ms. Moua. Thank you, Madam Chair and Senator. Senator
Franken, let me take a small shot at them, and then any of our
panelists should weigh in because this is an area that is close
to many of our hearts.
I agree with you that children are children, are our
children, and we all have an obligation to make sure that our
children, regardless of their parentage, are able to navigate
through our systems and that we take care of them.
The children that you talk about who arrive on our borders
without their parents and who are living in this country as
minors, is serious and we need to take care of them. You add
that to the children who are U.S. citizens, whose parents have
either been deported or are in the process of removal, many of
whom may not have relatives here to care for them, who are also
living in limbo without their families.
It does not make sense for us to create a system where we
have got children living in this country and not have the
opportunity to have their families and their parents here to
help them take care of us, when in those situations we would
take U.S. citizen children, deport their families, which is
their core support, and then have the public system put them
into a foster care system and pay for that when their parents
are willing and able and capable of being here to take care of
their children so that they can be a family together.
Senator Franken. I have a piece of legislation, the Help
Separated Children Act, which addresses when--we have had a
situation in Minnesota where we had meat-packing plants raided,
and the parents--you know, we would have an 8-year-old come
back from school and see their brother, who is a year old, at
home with no one taking care of him because the parents had
been taken in. And this kid had to take care of the baby
brother for a week while a grandmother came from Texas or
something.
Ms. Poo.
Ms. Poo. I would like to thank you for your leadership on
this issue, and the bill that you have introduced is very
important. There are a number of due process issues that we
have to pay attention to, making sure that parents can actually
see to the well-being of their children, which is what they
were meant to do.
I had the opportunity recently to visit a shelter in
Tijuana, Mexico, where women who have been deported end up as
they try to figure out what happened to their children after
they have been deported. And I met a woman who was still
holding the shirt that she was trying to put on her 2-year-old
son as she was separated, detained, and deported. And it took
her weeks to figure out what happened to her child. And if you
can imagine the pain that she felt and imagine what that child,
that 2-year-old child felt as he watched and witnessed as his
mother was separated from him indefinitely.
So I think the issue--there are many due process issues.
Families belong together, children need their parents, and
families need one another. And I appreciate your question and
your leadership.
Ms. Martin. If I could just add, there have been some
improvements made in the last few years since the separated
children are now under the custody of the Office of Refugee
Resettlement rather than Homeland Security. But we still have a
big gap in terms of there not being someone who is appointed as
a guardian for the children whose principal responsibility is
figuring out what is in the best interest of the child. And the
fact that we do not have legal assistance paid for by the
Government in these cases, we tend to see them as civil cases,
but the consequences particularly for a separate child are
certainly as extreme as they are in criminal cases.
So having the funds to be able to provide for legal
assistance in these cases I think is absolutely essential.
Senator Franken. Well, I hope the Justice Department can
actually supervise this sometimes instead.
Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony. Thank you for
this hearing, Madam Chair.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Senator Franken.
These are important issues, so we have been going over, and
I want to thank Senator Sessions for your patience. Please go
ahead.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Well, these are difficult issues. We need to work through
them, and we need to create a system, I think, that serves our
national interest. And I would repeat that. The goal of a good
immigration system for the United States of America should
serve the national interest of our Nation. It should includes
systems that are readily enforceable and that are enforced,
that are legitimate, creating a system that we can be proud of.
I am very impressed with the Canadian system. I think it is
a very good system, and we can a learn a lot from that. So we
are into the difficult problems today, and this hearing has
taught us a lot about the human consequences of any decision
process when somebody gets admitted and somebody else does not.
Just because it is painful and you made a choice to come to
amendment does not necessarily mean, I think, that you get to
bring your aging parents or your brother and sister. It just
may not mean that. It is up to the United States to decide that
question about who legitimately should be entered as we
establish a good system of immigration.
I think that is where the American people are. I think
their instincts are good and decent. I think they are
fundamentally correct. They are not anti-immigrant. We remain
one of the most welcoming nations in the world for immigrants,
and we are proud of that, and I want to stress that point. And
no one is proposing that has any seriousness that we are going
to restrict fundamentally the number of people who come into
our country. We just need to decide how and what standards we
will use for that and then how we can make sure it is
accurately carried out.
Madam Chair, this is a valuable hearing, and I wish that
the Committee had been moving stronger over time to confront
the real issues that presumably eight Senators are meeting
somewhere, maybe this very minute, trying to decide. They might
be under the table or down the hall or somewhere.
[Laughter.]
Senator Sessions. I do not know where they are, deciding
the fate of millions. But I would suggest these are things that
we need to be talking about.
I will ask you, Ms. Martin, you worked on the Jordan
Commission, and that was an remarkable effort. It, I think,
came close to providing the Nation a way to deal with our
challenge.
Would you think that a good immigration policy should
decide carefully who would be included in the future flow--
skills, language, family, and those kind of things? Just yes or
not. Should that be one of the decisions we would make?
Ms. Martin. Yes, of course.
Senator Sessions. And that is not always easy, is it? You
have been through it. It is a tough thing.
What about the Temporary Guest Worker Program? It is kind
of like some of these ideas that one person has one vision of a
temporary guest worker and another one has an entirely
different vision of it. It is not an easy thing, is it? It
takes a lot of work to craft a legitimate Temporary Guest
Worker Program?
Ms. Martin. Right.
Senator Sessions. And border security, that is a difficult
challenge. We have made some progress, and we have not made
some progress. But you would need to hear from experts and top
personnel what kind of metrics to use, what kind of technology
to use at the border, would you not?
Ms. Martin. Of course.
Senator Sessions. And what about the impact of very large
numbers of immigrants that would have on--recent immigrants,
women, who are working today and would like to get a pay raise
or like to be able to think they could get a job, you would
need to consider the impact of a large flow of immigrants on
the ability of people to get jobs and maybe have an increase in
their wage, would you not?
Ms. Martin. Yes.
Senator Sessions. And the biometrics, 40 percent, I
understand now they say, that enter the country legally are--40
percent of the people that are here illegally now have entered
legally but did not depart as required. So you would need some
sort of system of entry and exit accounting, would you not?
Ms. Martin. Yes.
Senator Sessions. And workplace enforcement, I think you
mentioned that earlier, that is something we have wrestled with
for 20, 30 years and have not gotten it fixed yet. But that
would need to be fixed, would it not?
Ms. Martin. Yes.
Senator Sessions. And a biometric identifying document,
that is always controversial. But isn't it pretty much in this
modern age a cornerstone of an effective immigration policy?
And the ability of State law enforcement officers to help with
the Federal Government and many, many other issues.
So let me ask you this: With the Jordan Commission, did you
have public hearings?
Ms. Martin. Yes, we did.
Senator Sessions. Oh, you actually had public hearings?
Ms. Martin. Yes, we had public hearings. We had public
consultations that involved experts, advocacy groups,
immigrants coming in and talking about various different
issues. We also had an open microphone so that every person who
came to the hearings was given 1 minute, and sometimes we would
stay for 3, 4, or 5 hours while we waited for everyone to take
their turn.
Senator Sessions. Did you ever listen to experts like law
enforcement officers and people who had done enforcement work
for years and have experience in that? Were they invited?
Ms. Martin. Yes, they were invited, and we also went with
them on their rounds. So I spent a lot of time and the
Commissioners spent a lot of time on the border going out with
the Border Patrol to see what they were actually doing.
Senator Sessions. Well, I think that is good because these
issues are very complex. I talked with the Canadian leaders who
helped craft their policy. They are proud of what they do. They
have created a point system. They do not have the kind of
family unification vision that many of you would favor,
actually. And it strikes me--Ms. Moua, maybe you could comment,
but do you think that a nation that decides that they can admit
an individual is somehow making--somehow has no right to say
that that person's brother would have to qualify independently
rather than being given a guaranteed entry into the country? Do
you think a country could legitimately make that decision?
Ms. Moua. Senator Sessions, coming from the Asian American
community here in the 1880s we were the first people to be
excluded explicitly by the United States immigration policy, I
am well aware that this country has never hesitated in terms of
the way that it chooses to exercise its authority to permit
people to either enter or depart its borders. And we know that
the Asian American community in particular did not get to enjoy
the benefit of immigration to this country until the 1960's
when those restrictionist policies were lifted. So I know very
well and am very aware that immigration----
Senator Sessions. Well, so you would just say, it seems to
me, that it is perfectly logical to think that there are two
individuals--let us say in a good, friendly country like
Honduras, one is a valedictorian of his class, has 2 years of
college, learned English, and very much has a vision to come to
the United States, and another one who dropped out of high
school, has minimal skills, both are 20 years of age, and that
latter person has a brother here. What would be in the interest
of the United States? Which one of those would be in the best
interest of the United States to be allowed to have preference
to enter the United States?
Ms. Moua. Senator, I think that under your scenario people
can conclude about which one would be in the best interest of
the United States. I think the more realistic scenario is that
in the second situation that individual would be female, would
not have been permitted to get an education. And if we were to
create a system where there was some kind of preference given
to, say, education or some other kind of metrics, I think that
it would truly disadvantage specifically women and their
opportunity to come into this country.
Senator Sessions. Well, that certainly is a problem around
the world, and I would think the primary problem with education
and the fact that women have been discriminated against should
be focused on the countries that are doing that primarily.
Ms. Martin, it strikes me that there is a limited number of
people that the United States can accept. We cannot accept
everybody that would like to come, so we should set up
standards that are fair and just and responsible and
reasonable. Your Commission dealt with married adult children
and brothers and sisters, and I suppose--I am not sure what you
decided about aging parents, but when you admit those persons
in preference over people with skills the country needs, people
that are likely to be successful here, you are making a pretty
significant policy decision, are you not?
Ms. Martin. The Commission recommended against continuing
to accept applications for siblings and for adult married
children largely because we thought that the types of backlogs
and waiting lists that had been put in--that had ended up being
in place for those categories made those two categories in
particular almost farcical because, instead of providing a
rapid way for people to be able to come in, join up with their
family members, and work, contribute, whether they are
uneducated or educated, they were instead outside of the
country sometimes for 15, 20, 25 years. And we felt that it was
more important to ensure that all spouses and minor children
were able to enter quickly and be with their immediate
relatives.
Frankly, if the Congress were willing to provide very large
numbers of visas for family and could guarantee that brothers
and sisters could enter within a reasonable period of time,
that is a decision Congress can make. But to maintain a few
visas and when the demand is so large that you end up with
waiting times of 20, 25 years for certain nationalities, that
seems to me to be a ridiculous way of managing the problem. So
it is an issue for Congress.
You know, I started my testimony saying that there is no
special magic number.
Senator Sessions. Well, thank you. I would say that this
has been a good discussion. Professor Borjas at Harvard, who
wrote the book, one of the primary books on this, thinks we
already are admitting more people than the country can accept
in terms of employment and their expectation that they could be
successful. He said that in 2007 when we had 5-percent
unemployment.
So I do think there is a limit to how many that can come.
We have a pretty generous number now. I am not saying that
should be reduced, but I do think that because a person chooses
to leave their home country and come to the United States does
not necessarily mean they have a right to demand that their
brother or their other extended family members be allowed to
come if they do not otherwise meet the standards.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You are very gracious. I am sorry
to go over.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Senator Sessions, and I want to
thank all of the members of the panel.
Our country is a country of immigrants, and the success of
the immigrants in this country is often the success of
immigrants and their families. And so I do not think that we
should be setting up an either/or proposition because, of
course, even those people who are the most highly educated and
skilled immigrants, they have families, too. And so this is--
you know, as a sovereign Nation, of course we can set whatever
limits that we choose as to who can come into our country. But
this is all about doing the kind of immigration reform that
really supports the values that we have in this country. And
one of the values we have in this country is family is
important.
So, with that, I am going to adjourn this hearing, and the
record will remain open for 1 week.
Thank you very much. We stand in adjournment.
[Whereupon, at 3:41 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follow.]
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