Monday, May 22, 2006

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on the Chambliss Amendment to the Immigration Bill
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Let me respond to the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts.

Something he said--I am sure unintentionally--was very incorrect. He said we are going to force people, by what the Senator is trying to do, to earn less than the minimum wage. What we are, in fact, trying to do is to ensure that those who are working in the fields, who are illegal and are being abused and are not being paid the adverse effect wage rate, prevailing rate, or anything else, all those--maybe 1.8 million--will now get a pay raise under what the Senator is trying to do. He is saying they will be paid the higher of the minimum wage or the prevailing wage.

I ran for the Senate in the years 2003 and 2004. Although I worked farms in the 1950s, I had not been on a farm in a long time, and I spent a lot of time in south Georgia, slept in a lot of barns on farms. I got to know the onion folks, the peanut folks, and the row crops.

I spent the night in a farmer's barn--a mighty nice barn, I might add, with a nice double bed--I spent the night in the barn, and he complained about what happened. He hired H-2A workers, as he should, legal workers. According to the law, he paid them the adverse effect wage rate, and the farmer down the road from him hired illegals and paid them the minimum. They got away with paying much less for picking the same crop he was because he was obeying the law.

The circumstances the Senator has right now in the United States of America are the following: The unintended consequence of the adverse effect wage rate is that you are driving farmers to hire illegally rather than hire legally and pay them at adverse effect wage rates. That is what the Senator is trying to correct.

But it is absolutely incorrect to allege or to say that the bill of the Senator from Georgia, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, would force people to be paid below the minimum wage. It will, in fact, ensure that workers will be paid the higher of the minimum wage or the prevailing wage; is that not correct?

Facts are stubborn things. We can argue about a lot of things, but treating people right is something Senator Chambliss has been doing in Georgia, what I have grown up in Georgia doing, and I am sure what the Senator from Massachusetts does. The argument here is about repealing a law that has the unintended consequence of making it attractive to hire illegal aliens to work. What this bill is supposed to be doing is fostering legal immigration and equitable treatment for all.

I commend the distinguished Senator from Georgia. I commend the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. I pledge my support to this amendment and congratulate him on this effort.