Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the underlying immigration bill, but, more importantly, to talk about an important amendment that I hope can be brought up. I have spoken on the Senate floor about this before and have provided great detail as to why it works to ensure that we have employment verification at the workplace, why it is so important, really, the critical element, I believe, in terms of immigration reform. I believe strongly if we do not have a stronger employee verification system at the workplace, the rest of this legislation is not going to work. We are not going to have the people come out of the shadows that those who are proponents of this legislation would like to see, and I would like to see. Significantly, we are not going to be able to curtail future flows of illegal immigration. People come here to work, and it is that magnet of employment that over the years has drawn people to this great country. If we are just going to put up more fences and have more Border Patrol, which I support, we are not going to get at the problem. First, when people want to get here badly enough, they figure out a way to go over or under those fences. They figure out a way to go around them. That has been the story of our country. Every time we have increased enforcement, including some sectors of the border now where there are double fences, people still manage to find their way across in order to find work.…
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