议长先生， Mr. President,
去年我在芝加哥的一次全面移民改革游行上发表了讲话。我放眼望去，看到了人群中的面孔。我看到了父母、公民和非公民、波兰裔和墨西哥裔的人、辛勤工作的美国人和孩子们。我知道的是，这些人是我们应该拥抱的，而不是恐惧的。我们能够也应该在他们身上看到我们自己。 Last year I spoke at one of the marches in Chicago for comprehensive immigration reform. I looked out across the faces of the crowd. I saw mothers and fathers, citizens and noncitizens, people of Polish and Mexican descent, working Americans, and children. And what I know is that these are people we should embrace, not fear. We can and should be able to see ourselves in them.
我这么说不是为了贬低任务的复杂性。我这么说是因为我相信这种态度必须指导我们的讨论。我们能够也应该修复我们支离破碎的移民制度，并以一种反映美国价值观、理想和我们接受移民来到我们国家的传统的方式来做到这一点。 I do not say that to diminish the complexity of the task. I say it because I believe that attitude must guide our discourse. We can and should be able to fix our broken immigration system and do so in a way that's reflective of American values and ideals and the tradition that we have of accepting immigrants to our shores.
现在，我认为提交到议事厅的法案是一个良好的开端，但我坚信它需要一些修改。我正在与其他人合作来改进它。 Now, I think that the bill that has come to the floor is a fine first step, but I strongly believe it requires some changes. And I'm working with others to improve it.
在处理移民改革时，我认为我们必须制定强硬、务实的改革，确保并促进移民合法、有序地进入我们的国家。同样重要的是，我们必须尊重帮助建设美国的木匠和砖瓦匠的尊严；来美国与家人团聚的成衣工人和农场工人的尊严；像我父亲那样为了寻找梦想来到美国的学生的尊严。我们是一个移民国家，随着这场辩论的推进，我们必须尊重这一共同的历史。 In approaching immigration reform, I believe that we must enact tough, practical reforms that ensure and promote the legal and orderly entry of immigrants into our country. Just as important, we must respect the humanity of the carpenters and bricklayers who help build America; the humanity of garment workers and farmworkers who come to America to join their families; the humanity of students like my father who came to America in search of a dream. We are a nation of immigrants, and we must respect that shared history as this debate moves forward.
为了以一种不需要我们在二十年后重新审视同样问题的方式修复制度，我继续相信我们需要加强边境和工作场所的执法。这意味着雇主必须使用一个可行的强制系统来验证其工人的合法性。 To fix the system in a way that does not require us to revisit the same problem in twenty years, I continue to believe that we need stronger enforcement on the border and at the workplace. And that means a workable mandatory system that employers must use to verify the legality of their workers.
但为了改革成功，我们也必须回应是什么吸引人们来到美国，以及是什么把他们推离家园。在我们能团聚家庭的地方，我们应该这样做。在我们能引进更多具有我国经济所需技能的外国出生工人的地方，我们应该这样做。这些目标不是相互排斥的。我们不应该说，讲西班牙语或工人阶级的移民只配做临时工人，而不能获得成为美国家庭一员的权利。 But for reform to work, we also must respond to what pulls people to America and what pushes them out of their home countries. Where we can reunite families, we should. Where we can bring in more foreign-born workers with the skills our economy needs, we should. And these goals are not mutually exclusive. We should not say that Spanish speaking or working class immigrants are only good enough to be temporary workers and cannot earn the right to be a part of the American family.
关于移民挑战中最紧迫的部分——生活在美国的1200万无证移民——我们必须创建一条获得公民身份的途径。现在，没有人宽恕未经授权进入美国的行为。通过支持获得公民身份的途径，我并不是说非法入境应该不受惩罚。获得永久居留权和最终公民身份的途径必须足够严格，以明确表明未经授权的入境是错误的，并将受到惩罚。 With regard to the most pressing part of the immigration challenge -- the 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. -- we must create an earned path to citizenship. Now, no one condones unauthorized entry into the United States. And by supporting an earned path to citizenship, I am not saying that illegal entry should go unpunished. The path to permanent residence and eventual citizenship must be tough enough to make it clear that an unauthorized entry was wrong and will be punished.
但这些移民是我们的邻居。他们去我们的教堂，他们的孩子去我们的学校。他们提供了支撑我们国家许多行业的辛勤劳动。我们应该让他们走出躲藏，为他们的错误支付适当的罚款，然后帮助他们成为纳税、守法、富有成效的社会成员。因此，我对我们在这项法案中达成的协议感到鼓舞，该协议将所有约1200万无证移民置于获得公民身份的途径上。我赞扬那些为达成这一妥协而努力工作的人。 But these immigrants are our neighbors. They go to our churches, and their kids go to our schools. They provide the hard labor that supports many of the industries in our country. We should bring them out of hiding, make them pay the appropriate fines for their mistakes, and then help them become tax paying, law-abiding, productive members of society. And so I'm heartened by the agreement that we have in this bill to put all 12 million or so undocumented immigrants on a path to earned citizenship. And I applaud those who worked on this compromise to achieve that pathway.
但提交给我们的妥协协议中还有其他部分引起了我的严重关切。议长先生，我现在想谈谈这些问题。 But there are other parts of the compromise deal before us that cause me serious concern. I want to just address those now, Mr. President.
为了遏制对非法工人的需求，我们需要一个真正强制的就业验证系统。它需要允许雇主向国土安全部查询，以确认其雇员在美国合法工作的资格。这是我去年在我们制定全面改革并通过参议院时所处理的问题。 In order to stem the demand for illegal workers, we need a mandatory employment verification system that is actually mandatory. It needs to allow employers to check with the Department of Homeland Security to see that their employees are legally eligible to work in the United States. This is something that I worked on last year when we crafted comprehensive reform and passed it out of the Senate.
不幸的是，今年的就业资格验证系统版本将赋予国土安全部过大的权力，在没有适当保障的情况下强制筛选在美国工作的每个人。我将与其他人合作提出一项修正案，使这一条款更接近我们去年提出的方案。 Unfortunately, this this year's version of the employment eligibility verification system would give the Department of Homeland Security too much power to force the screening of everyone working in America without appropriate safeguards. I will be working with others to offer an amendment to make this provision closer to what we proposed last year.
至于法案中的客工计划，它提议创建一个新的40万人年度临时工人计划，未经国会批准可增长至60万人。它还将现有的季节性客工计划从6.6万人扩大到第一年的10万人，之后扩大到20万人。 As for the guestworker program in the bill, it proposes to create a new 400,000 person annual temporary worker program that could grow to 600,000 without Congressional approval. And it expands the existing seasonal guestworker program from 66,000 up to 100,000 in the first year, and 200,000 after that.
在他们的临时身份结束时，几乎所有这些工人都必须回国。这意味着在头三年结束时，我们将至少有120万这些新客工在这个国家，其中只有3万人有任何真正的留下来的希望。议长先生，我坚信，我们正在为失败做好准备，并创造一个新的无证移民群体。 At the end of their temporary status, almost all of these workers would have to go home. That means at the end of the first three years, we would have at least 1.2 million of these new guestworkers in the country with only 30,000 of them having any real hope of being able to stay. And it is my strong belief, Mr. President, that we are setting ourselves up for failure and creating a new undocumented immigrant population.
正如我们从过去错误的移民政策中了解到的，认为没有合法居留方式的人只会遵守制度并离开是天真的。他们不会。这群新的二等工人将取代当前的无证移民群体，给美国的工资和工作条件带来下行压力。当他们的时间到期时，他们将进入暗处，我们目前的制度在那里剥削今天的无证移民。 As we've learned with misguided immigration policies in the past, it is naive to think that people who do not have a way to stay legally will just abide by the system and leave. They will not. This new group of second-class workers will replace the current group of undocumented immigrants, placing downward pressure on American wages and working conditions. And where their -- when their time is up, they will go into the shadows where our current system exploits the undocumented today.
我将支持旨在修复宾加曼参议员和其他人提出的临时工人计划的修正案。如果我们要有一个新的临时工人计划，这些工人应该有机会留下来，如果他们证明自己有能力并愿意参与这个国家。 I will support amendments aimed at fixing the temporary worker program that Senator Bingaman and others have offered. And if we're going to have a new temporary worker program, those workers should have the opportunity to stay if they prove themselves capable and willing to participate in this country.
不过，议长先生，我不得不说，这项法案中最令人不安的方面是面向未来移民的积分制。按照目前的草案，它没有反映美国人如何重视将人们与兄弟姐妹或父母联系在一起的家庭纽带。 I have to say though, Mr. President, that the most disturbing aspect of this bill is the point system for future immigrants. As currently drafted, it does not reflect how much Americans value the family ties that bind people to their brothers and sisters, or to their parents.
据我了解，类似的积分制在澳大利亚和加拿大使用，旨在吸引能够帮助生产更多商品的移民。但我们需要考虑的不仅仅是经济；我们还需要考虑我们国家独特的历史和价值观，以及基于家庭的偏好旨在实现什么。按照目前的结构，积分制不给有兄弟姐妹或甚至父母是美国公民的移民任何优先权，除非移民在教育和技能上达到一些最低和任意的门槛。 As I understand it, a similar point system is used in Australia and Canada and is intended to attract immigrants who can help produce more goods. But we need to consider more than economics; we also need to consider our nation's unique history and values and what family-based preferences are designed to accomplish. As currently structured, the point system gives no preference to an immigrant with a brother or sister or even a parent who is a U.S. citizen unless the immigrant meets some minimum and arbitrary threshold on education and skills.
这是错误的，没有承认将美国人与家人团聚的根本道德。它还将一个人的工作技能置于他的品格和职业道德之上。我们的先辈中有多少人能在这个积分制下达到标准？有多少人会在埃利斯岛被拒之门外？ That's wrong and fails to recognize the fundamental morality of uniting Americans with their family members. It also places a person's job skills over his character and work ethic. How many of our forefathers would have measured up under this point system? How many would have been turned back at Ellis Island?
我与主持会议的参议员梅嫩德斯共同发起了一项修正案，在家庭开始计数之前取消了任意的最低积分门槛，并提高了家庭关系的积分。 I've cosponsored an amendment with the president [Presiding Officer Senator Menendez] to remove that arbitrary minimum threshold of points before family starts to count and to bump up the points for family ties.
在适当的时候，我将与主持会议的参议员梅嫩德斯一起提出另一项修正案，以终止法案中的积分制。所提议的积分制至少构成了一场激进的社会工程实验，并背离了我们让家庭和雇主邀请移民来的传统。 And at the appropriate time, I will be offering another amendment with the president [Presiding Officer Senator Menendez] to sunset the points system in the bill. The proposed point system constitutes, at minimum, a radical experiment in social engineering and a departure from our tradition of having family and employers invite immigrants to come.
如果我们要允许这一计划推进，那么国会至少应该在五年内重新审视积分制，让我们有时间深入研究这一概念，并确定其预期或非预期的后果是否值得继续这一实验的代价，或者我们是否应该恢复现有的允许移民通过家庭和雇主担保的制度。 If we are going to allow this to go forward, then Congress should at the very least revisit the point system in five years to give us time to examine the concept in depth and determine whether its intended or unintended consequences are worth the cost of continuing the experiment, or, whether we should return to the existing system that allows immigrants to be sponsored through family and employers.
最后，议长先生，我们必须构建一个拥有广泛两党支持并且能够奏效的最终产品。我同意布朗巴克参议员的看法，现在是修复我们支离破碎的移民制度的时候了。如果我们今年不修复它，我担心关于这个问题的分歧只会加深，挑战只会增加。 In closing, Mr. President, we must construct a final product that has broad bipartisan support and will work. I agree with Senator Brownback that the time is now to fix our broken immigration system. If we do not fix it this year, I fear that divisions over the issue will only deepen and the challenge will only grow.
但我也相信，议长先生，我们必须把它做对。我认为，当我们着手进行这一巨大的事业来更新我们的移民制度时，它必须充分反映这个国家强大的移民传统，并充分反映我们的价值观和理想。 But I also believe, Mr. President, that we have to get it right. And I think that it is critical that as we embark on this enormous venture to update our immigration system, that it is fully reflective of the powerful tradition of immigration in this country and fully reflective of our values and our ideals.
