John Cornyn: “this amendment is one I believe is absolutely essential to the functioning of this comprehensive immigration reform plan…”

“this amendment is one I believe is absolutely essential to the functioning of this comprehensive immigration reform plan which has been shaped over the last 2 weeks on the Senate floor. It is premised upon the concept of information sharing, and in a post-9/11 world this is the concept with which we have become familiar because the failure to share information between law enforcement and intelligence-gathering authorities and other agencies of the Federal Government was one of the causes of the terrible disaster this country sustained on September 11, 2001. This amendment strikes an appropriate balance between confidentiality of the records of the applicant for benefits under this bill and fraud detection. The compromise we have heard and which has been carefully crafted by a bipartisan coalition here will not in any way be unraveled or hurt by this amendment. Finally, I believe an illegal alien will not be deterred from applying because of this amendment. This amendment does not remove confidentiality per se. It applies only after an application is denied and the need for confidentiality passes. The text is modeled after the Violence Against Women Act. And I ask my colleagues, if the limitation on confidentiality is OK in the case of women who are subjected to violence, why isn't it OK for workers who are simply here illegally?…”