Good morning and thank you for that warm welcome. I am pleased to be here to talk about immigration reform; a topic I believe is the domestic social issue of our time. In a few minutes you will hear from President Bush who has made this issue one of the highest priorities of his Administration.
I am proud to be a part of his Cabinet, and on a team that recognizes the critical importance that immigration reform plays for the security and prosperity of the American people.
I came to this country in 1960 from my birth place in Havana, Cuba. I was six years old and learned English from a bellhop at a hotel in Miami. Those early experiences have shaped my love of this country and my desire to contribute to its strength and its future.
My family believed in the freedom and opportunity that defines this nation. Like others before and after us, we came in search of the American Dream. Our story has been repeated again and again throughout our country’s history.
But today we are at a tipping point, in desperate need of a solution to a broken immigration system, which has failed to keep pace with the number of people seeking that dream, and consequently put the security of the American people in jeopardy.
Under the President’s direction, Secretary Chertoff, members of the White House staff and I have worked for months alongside a bipartisan group of Senators to craft a comprehensive immigration reform policy.
There has been a clear demonstration of strong bipartisan support and goodwill throughout this process.
Past efforts have failed to fix the system because they were not comprehensive. We must address all elements together, or none will be solved.
The reality is that there are 12 million people in our country living in the shadows. We need to know who they are, where they are, and if they pose a danger. But mass deportation is not a realistic or humane option. Neither is amnesty.
The solution is somewhere in the middle of this complicated issue. There are numerous stakeholders. Business, workers, religious groups...the list is endless. Importantly, this is not a Republican or Democrat issue. It is an American issue.
There are two things we must achieve with comprehensive immigration reform. The first one is national security.
We must secure the border. It is not enough to suggest we need to enforce the laws we already have on the books. They are weak and need to be strengthened.
When the President was the governor of Texas, he presided over 1,200 miles of our border with Mexico. He knows this issue firsthand and the challenges our Border Patrol agents face day in and day out. The good news is that we have made tremendous progress at our borders.
Today the President will update you on the actions we have taken, and the tools immigration reform will provide to further this effort.
The second thing we must achieve through reform is economic growth. Last year our economy grew at 3.1 percent. To continue that growth we need a growing workforce. Our unemployment rate is 4.5 percent—below the average of the last four decades. Yet, as you know, there are still thousands of jobs left unfilled.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that one of the occupations with the largest job growth in the near future will be carpenters. According to BLS projections, the number of carpenters will increase by 186,000 between 2004 and 2014.
We will need workers to fill those jobs.
Unfortunately, the demographics are not on our side. The number of people in the prime working years, ages 25-54, is expected to increase by a mere 0.3 percent per year over the next seven years.
At the same time, the proportion of low-skilled workers in the U.S. is declining. In 1970, 36 percent of the labor force did not have a high school diploma. Today just less than 10 percent of the labor force does not have a high school education.
But of 18.9 million jobs that will be created between 2004 and 2014, almost a third will be low-skilled jobs.
Farms, ranches, hotels, construction sites... Native-born Americans have, in many ways, moved beyond low-skilled jobs and immigrants are the next wave to continue up the economic ladder.
The tightening labor market also impacts our high skilled workforce. Comprehensive reform would also end the process of chain migration and includes a merit system that balances family connections with the demands of our growing economy.
To keep our competitive edge, we must ensure that America remains the world’s number one innovator. To do so, companies need the option to dip into the larger global pool of skilled workers to meet their needs.
Reform would increase the number of H-1B visas which allow foreign workers with specialized skills to work in this country.
Immigrants help drive overall economic growth through productivity and investment and they bring added creativity, energy, vitality and entrepreneurship to our economy.
Every country is going to have to embrace immigration to prosper—it has been our historic advantage and will continue to keep us competitive in the 21st century.
Let me close by reiterating that President Bush is absolutely committed to this effort.
We know immigration reform must keep national security as our top priority. And it must also acknowledge the immigrant contribution to our economy. If we can achieve these two goals, then we will achieve a third priority—American unity.
This debate has been very difficult. It has taken tremendous leadership from the President and from the leaders in the Senate to get it to this point. It will take leadership to move forward with reform.
In the end, the welfare of our society is at stake. We have an historic opportunity to embrace our heritage, enhance our competitiveness and secure our country. For the sake of American unity we have to find a way forward.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
