Congressional Record - June 25, 2007
I remember addressing this point last year in the debate on immigration. I think it was at night when not many people were on the floor. Senator Kennedy was here. I raised the question of what was happening to wages of working Americans as a result of large-scale immigration, and quoted professors and experts who had demonstrated that where those areas--where immigration reached its highest levels, wages had gone down for workers; they hadn't gone up.Now we are told that businesses cannot get workers, and we are told we are at full employment, but apparently something is awry if wages are not going up in many areas. ...
I will conclude with these thoughts. Let's don't go forward tomorrow. Let Members of the Senate say to those who are promoting the legislation--one former law officer called them mandarins; I jokingly called them the masters of the universe--this legislation will not work. They are good people. They think they were doing good. But the product they produced won't work, and the American people don't like it. I say vote against cloture tomorrow because a vote for cloture is a vote ultimately to move this bill passage.