Byron Dorgan: “let me point out that to the 11 million to 12 million people who have come to this country illegally, this sunset issue…”

“let me point out that to the 11 million to 12 million people who have come to this country illegally, this sunset issue has nothing to do with those folks. They are here. I have not come to the floor suggesting that we interrupt the bill with respect to their plans for these folks. I have said in addition to the 11 million to 12 million, the suggestion that we need to bring in more who now live outside the country makes no sense to me. Even as jobs are moving out the front door of this country--nearly 4 million of them have gone in the last 5 years--you can hardly make a strong case that we ought to bring jobs in the back door, and particularly low-wage jobs. I know that there are not many of us here who spend our days trying to figure out how you get a job at the bottom of the economic ladder, or how do you make ends meet on a minimum wage that hasn't been raised for nearly 9 years, or how you provide for your family at the bottom of the economic ladder and have health care being stripped away and no retirement program. Not many of us experience that. But that is what a lot of American workers are experiencing every single day. This provision deals only with the issue of the extra guest workers who do not now live here but who this bill says we should bring here because we need them to be here to do those jobs. The fact is these jobs ought to go to people in this country who are struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder.…”