Alabama Senator Sessions On Ensign Amendment
Mr. President, regarding the Ensign amendment, I will say a few things. No. 1, Social Security is a benefit this country provides to American citizens and people lawfully in this country. That is what it is about, the benefit. For the most part, people get more out of it than they put into it. That is one reason it is going bankrupt.
The people covered by Senator Ensign's amendment have done a number of things that are illegal. They have come into the country illegally or they would not be here, or they would be legal and would be not covered by his amendment. They have worked in the country without authorization, and you are not allowed to work in this country if you are not here legally. So they have committed a second illegal act. In the course of working in this country, they may have submitted forged, false, stolen, or bogus Social Security numbers--a separate crime, if you examine the U.S. Code. Maybe they have even broken other laws.
As Senator Ensign pointed out, so many of these numbers are other people's numbers, seizing their identity and causing all kinds of confusion and disruption in their lives.
Under the language of the bill, not only do they get protection from prosecution for violation of these laws, they would be given the benefits of Social Security. Although he clearly makes--properly so--an exemption for those who came into the country legally under a visa, got a legal Social Security number but overstayed, at least they had a legitimate Social Security number.
Mr. President, I had an opportunity, for strange reasons, in my career as a prosecutor and as a private lawyer to deal with contracts based on illegality. I had a situation in which a client--a young man--was sued by a home builder on the note that he signed to the home builder. The reason he signed that note was the home builder loaned him the downpayment to buy a house. The mortgage and the Federal act required that the deposit or downpayment be your own money or you could not fund it by a mortgage. The builder was in on the deal. He was there at the closing of the loan. He got the big check, so when it came to suing on that note, I defended the client and said the court had no jurisdiction over the case. There is a principle of law--in our English American tradition--founded on fraud, stating that a contract founded on illegality cannot be enforced in court.
So that person who comes into our country illegally and submits a false Social Security number has no legal right to expect to ever collect on that amount. Also, in addition to legally not having a right to that, they have no moral right to that. To have a moral right to come to court, you ought to have clean hands. You should be a person that is legitimately here and then you can make a legitimate claim. I see no reason these persons who come here in order to work and, as a cost of doing business, accept and sign up for Social Security without any expectation whatsoever that they would ever draw those Social Security benefits, should now be awarded by this legislation that would allow them to get it. They would say they paid into it, so they are entitled to it. Not so, in my opinion.
I see how you can make this remark, but I think we are too far down the road of an entitlement mentality. This whole bill contemplates people having an entitlement to come to America, to bring in their parents and children, and they are entitled to have them ultimately be on Medicare and go to hospitals and be treated, even though they are not properly here.
We need to clarify our thinking. We are a great nation, a nation of laws. Let's think this through. That is all I am saying. I submit to my colleagues that the process by which an immigrant who comes here illegally, works illegally, and illegally submits a false, bogus, fraudulent Social Security number as a price to get the job and be paid, that is no entitlement to claim that money--not legally because it is founded on a false claim and a false premise, and not morally because they knew they weren't entitled to it when they came. They knew they were here illegally and they never expected to receive it.
I think the Senator from Nevada has proposed an amendment that is important. It asks us to think, for a change, in this body about what it is going to do, and what it will do to our Nation's bottom line and with regard to the message we send regarding whether we are serious that people should follow the law.
We need to quit rewarding unlawful conduct. Unlawful conduct should have penalties and should result in detriments, not benefits. That is what we are saying. If we don't get that straight in this debate, whatever new laws we pass about immigration, whatever new policies we set, how much of a joke will they be? Will they be the same joke, the same mockery of law that we have had for 20 years since the last amnesty we issued? That is what the American people are asking us to do. Let's create a system that actually works.
Sometimes you have to make decisions. Somebody who came here illegally and worked illegally and submitted an illegal Social Security number is not entitled to draw on the Treasury of the United States. I thank the chairman and I yield the floor.
