Tuesday, May 23, 2006

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

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman. I rise to oppose the Kennedy amendment. I come to the floor as chairman of the subcommittee on occupational safety in the HELP Committee. I come to the floor because the issue this amendment addresses has nothing to do with immigration. It affects immigrants and nonimmigrants. It affects employment. It amends the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is a massive increase in fines and penalties. It changes many penalties from civil to criminal. There has not been a single hearing or anything else.

The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts knows full well that we have just completed 6 months of hard work on the Mine Safety Act, which this Senate today will pass unanimously in response to the terrible tragedy at the Sago mines. He knows how much time and effort went into the hearings and the studies to see to it what OSHA needed to do and what we needed to do. To summarily come to the floor on an immigration bill and amend the OSHA laws and the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, to throw in massive penalties, massive criminal fines--in fact, just to give you an example, it dramatically increases criminal and civil penalties, with up to as much as 5 years in jail for a workplace accident. Arbitrary provisions such as this have no business on the floor of the Senate being tacked on to a bill that deals with a major pressing problem in an entire other area.

Just to add the piece de resistance, this amendment, as I read it, overturns the Supreme Court ruling in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. the National Labor Relations Board. What that would, in effect, do is force employers now to go pay back compensation to illegal immigrants who were working in the workplace and put the Justice Department as their designated attorney when they are not even here legally in the first place. Now, if that action is the right thing to do, it certainly needs to be done in civil debate and through the committee process and not as a last-minute attachment to a bill that is in itself controversial and in itself comprehensive.

So with all due respect to the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts but with respect for the integrity of the committee system, I submit this amendment should not be adopted, and I will oppose it.