Jon Kyl: “the amendment that was adopted yesterday is a good amendment. I would hate to see us undo what we did yesterday with the…”

“the amendment that was adopted yesterday is a good amendment. I would hate to see us undo what we did yesterday with the Kennedy amendment. Therefore, I rise in opposition to it. What we are talking about is self-petitioning by an illegal immigrant for permanent legal status in the United States--a green card--to be here for the rest of their life. The circumstances in the past for that had always been that either a family member petitioned you in under the law or an employer petitioned you in because he had a job for you. The concept of self-petitioning is a new one in the law in this context. One of the reasons why that is critical is we are trying to assure that while a job may have existed for somebody in the past or even exists today, that job may not be available forever. The concept of temporary workers is just that, that when there is a job available for that worker, then the worker has a temporary visa to fulfill that job. When that jobs goes away, and there is no longer work in that particular area, then the individual's visa would expire, and it would not be reissued until, once again, the work is available. That is the whole concept of ``temporary.'' That concept is eliminated or destroyed with a part of the Kennedy amendment. The first part of the Kennedy amendment does provide for the Department of Labor to make a determination about employment conditions and whether jobs are available in a particular area.…”