[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 134 (Wednesday, September 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H11071-H11091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2202, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION REFORM AND
IMMIGRANT RESPONSIBILITY ACT OF 1996
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 528 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 528
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be
in order to consider the conference report to accompany the
bill (H.R. 2202) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act
to improve deterrence of illegal immigration to the United
States by increasing border patrol and investigative
personnel, by increasing penalties for alien smuggling and
for document fraud, by reforming exclusion and deportation
law and procedures, by improving the verification system for
eligibility for employment, and through other measures, to
reform the legal immigration system and facilitate legal
entries into the United States, and for other purposes. All
points of order against the conference report and against its
consideration are waived. The conference report shall be
considered as read.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California [Mr. Drier] is
recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Woodland Hills,
CA [Mr. Beilenson], pending which, I yield myself such time as I may
consume. All time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks and include extraneous materials.)
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, illegal immigration is a major problem that
exists in this country, and nearly every one of us knows it. In my
State of California, this may be the single most important law and
order issue we have faced in a generation. Three million illegal
immigrants enter the country each year, 300,000 to stay here
permanently. More live in California than in any other State. In 3
years, that is enough people, Mr. Speaker, to create a city the size of
San Francisco.
Mr. Speaker, it is increasingly clear that this Congress is dedicated
to results. I believe results are what the American people want from
their representatives here in Washington, both in Congress and at the
White House. When there is a national problem like illegal immigration,
they want action. Today, with this bill that we are considering that
was crafted so expertly by chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman
from Texas, [Mr. Lamar Smith], we are giving them a response.
{time} 1200
Mr. Speaker, back in the 19th century, the German practitioner of
politics Otto von Bismarck made a very famous statement, with which we
are all very familiar, that people should not watch sausage or laws
being made.
That dictum has never been more true than in looking at what has
taken place over the past couple of years. Under the barrage of 18
months and tens of millions of dollars of special interest attack ads,
as well as the political rhetoric that came along with Congress
changing hands for the first time in four decades, Washington has not
presented a pretty picture to the American people.
But look beyond the rhetoric, the soundbites, and the smokescreens,
Mr. Speaker. Look at the results. We have gotten bipartisan welfare
reform, bipartisan telecommunications reform, bipartisan health
insurance reform, a line-item veto measure that passed with bipartisan
support, environmental protections that have had bipartisan support,
and now a major illegal immigration bill that also enjoys tremendous
bipartisan support. In each case, the final product from this Congress
has been a major accomplishment where past Congresses have
unfortunately produced failure.
Mr. Speaker, in California, illegal immigration is a problem in its
own right, but it is also a factor that contributes to other problems.
It undermines job creation by taxing local resources, it threatens wage
gains by supplying undocumented labor, it has been a major factor in
public school overcrowding, forcing nearly $2 billion in State and
local resources to be spent each year educating illegal immigrants
rather than California's children.
As with other major national problems, the American people want
results, not rhetoric, as I was saying. H.R. 2202 fills that bill. It
is not perfect. There are Members of this House who spent years trying
to address illegal immigration who think that the bill could be better,
and I am one who thinks that this bill could be better. This conference
report is not the answer to all of our problems.
However, that is not a fair test, and it is not the test that the
American people want us to use. People do not want us to kill good
results in the name of perfection. There is no question that this
conference report, filled with bipartisan proposals to improve the
fight against illegal immigration, should pass, and pass with broad
bipartisan support, as I am sure it will.
The bill dramatically improves border enforcement, fights document
fraud and targets alien smuggling, makes it easier to deport illegal
immigrants, creates a much needed pilot program to get at the problem
of illegal immigrants filling jobs, and makes clear that illegal
immigrants do not qualify for welfare programs. Together, Mr. Speaker,
this is not just a good first step; it takes us a good way toward our
goal of ending this very serious problem of illegal immigration.
Mr. Speaker, I must note that the 104th Congress did not just come
around to this problem at the end of the session. This important bill
only adds to other accomplishments, other results.
Congress tripled funding, Federal funding, to $500 million to
reimburse States like California for the cost of housing felons in
State prisons if they are illegal aliens. The remarkable fact is that
we are 1 week from the close of fiscal year 1996 and the Clinton
administration has not distributed $1 in fiscal year 1996 money to
States like California.
The welfare reform bill, signed by the President, disqualified
illegal immigrants from all Federal and State welfare programs and
empowered State welfare agencies to report illegals to the INS.
Congress also created a $3.5 billion Federal fund to reimburse our
hospitals for the cost of emergency health care to illegals, only to
see that provision die due to a Presidential veto.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I must add that promoting economic growth and
stability in Mexico, in particular, whether through implementing the
North American Free Trade Agreement or working with our neighbor to
avoid a financial collapse that would create untold economic refugees
on our Southern border is critical to the success of our fight against
illegal immigration. We want to do what we can to
[[Page H11072]]
give people an opportunity to raise their families at home rather than
come to this country for jobs and other benefits.
Mr. Speaker, now is the time for final action on this important
illegal immigration bill. California must deal every day with that
flood of illegal immigrants who are coming across the border seeking
government services, job opportunities, and family members. There is
simply no question that the President, for all his rhetoric, has failed
to make this a top priority. Once again, as with welfare reform, we can
give the President a chance to live up to his rhetoric. Let us pass
this rule, pass this conference report, and give the American people
another issue of which they can be very proud.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California
[Mr. Dreier] for yielding me the customary 30 minutes of debate time,
and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to say at the outset, I say it gently and nicely, this is not
directed personally to my truly good and close friend whom I admire,
respect and like a huge amount from California, but I want to say to
our friends on the other side that I am personally shocked and
astounded by the lack of comity and collegiality that was shown in this
particular instance. This is the first time I can recall in my 18 years
of service on the Rules Committee where the majority party started
taking up a rule before the minority party was here, and in fact we
learned of the rule being taken up at this time after having been
assured, I know it is not the gentleman's fault, so I am not directing
my comments at all to him, I say to my good friend, but to whoever is
responsible for changing or speeding up the course of action here. We
were assured this would not be taken up for some time, until sometime
after we had disposed of the intelligence bill and after at least some
of the other bills on suspension would be taken up, and our people are
not prepared or are not so prepared as they would have been an hour or
two from now to debate this matter.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BEILENSON. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. DREIER. I just want to say that I agree with the gentleman. I
wish that it had been run in a more orderly fashion. I was assuming
that there would have been a recorded vote on that intelligence bill.
Mr. BEILENSON. I understand. As I said to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Dreier], my friend, I know it was not the gentleman's
doing. I just wanted to say if we seem a little hurried on this side
and some of our folks have not arrived yet, it is because they did not
expect to have to be over here quite at this time. At any rate, let us
get down to the matter. We do have the remainder of the day to deal
with this and its other matter. Mr. Gallegly's amendment, and we could
have given ourselves a little more time, it seems to me.
Mr. Speaker, we do oppose this rule and the legislation it makes in
order, the conference report on the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
By waiving all points of order against the conference report and its
consideration, this rule allows the leadership to bring this measure to
the floor fewer than 24 hours from the time it emerged from the
conference committee. Hardly anyone besides the majority Members and
staff who worked on the conference report knows much about its specific
provisions. We know that it does not contain Mr. Gallegly's amendment
on educating children of illegal immigrants, which is, we think, good.
That is, it is good that it does not contain it, but that is the only
provision that has received much attention in the press. We are being
asked to rush to judgment on a matter that needs far more deliberation
and discussion than it will have prior to the vote on final passage.
Furthermore, the rule essentially sanctions House consideration of
legislation that is not the product of a legitimate House-Senate
conference committee. There is good reason why no Democratic member
except for one signed the conference report. Democratic members who had
worked hard on this legislation along with their Republican colleagues
from its inception were completely shut out of the conference process.
There was no consultation with Democrats over the past 5 months after
the House and Senate had both passed immigration bills of their own.
Democratic members went to the conference meeting yesterday not knowing
what was in the final product and were not given the opportunity to
offer amendments despite the fact that the proposed conference report
contained many new items and quite a few that were outside the scope of
the conference itself and no vote was taken on the report. And now here
on the floor we are being asked to endorse this egregious practice by
adopting this rule. We should not do that, we should defeat this rule
or, failing that, we should defeat the conference report itself.
Mr. Speaker, those of us who represent communities where large
numbers of immigrants settle have been working hard for a number of
years to get Congress and the administration to stop the flow of
illegal immigrants into the United States. Many of us have also been
trying to slow the growth or slow the rate at which legal immigrants
are flowing into our country.
Our efforts have been supported by not only people who are affected
directly by rapid population growth resulting from immigration, but
also by the vast majority of Americans everywhere. More than 80 percent
of the American people, according to poll after poll, want Congress to
get serious about stopping illegal immigration, and they want us to
reduce the rate of legal immigration. Unfortunately, this legislation
would do neither. This measure is a feeble and misguided response to
one of the most significant problems facing our Nation. For us to spend
as much time and energy as we have identifying ways to solve our
immigration problems and then produce such a weak piece of legislation
is, I think it is fair to say, a travesty, and eventually the American
people, perhaps soon, I hope soon, will understand that we have not
fulfilled our responsibilities in this matter.
If we truly care about immigration reform, we must vote down this
conference report today so that the Congress and the President will be
forced to revisit this issue next year. Otherwise, I am afraid the
Congress and the administration will have an excuse to put this issue
aside and it will be years again, literally years, before we get really
serious about stopping illegal immigration and reducing legal
immigration.
One of this bill's greatest defects is its lenient treatment of
employers who hire illegal immigrants. An estimated 300,000 illegal
immigrants settle permanently in the United States each year. As we all
know, virtually all of them are lured here by the prospect of jobs
which they are able to obtain because the law allows them to prove work
authorization through documents that can be easily forged.
That will continue to be the case despite this legislation's
reduction in the kinds of documents that can be used to prove work
eligibility. As a result, it is next to impossible for employers to
determine who is and who is not authorized to work in the United
States.
This is not a problem we recently discovered, Mr. Speaker. Congress
knew a decade ago and more when we first established penalties for
employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants that it would be
difficult to enforce the law, impossible actually, if we did not have
some kind of system requiring employers to verify the authenticity of
documents that employees use to show work authorization.
Moreover, because more than 50 percent of illegal immigrants come
here legally and then overstay their visas, we cannot stop these types
of immigrants simply by tightening border control. The only real way we
can stop them is by forcing employers to check their work authorization
status with the government.
But despite knowing full well that the lack of an enforceable
verification system is the largest obstacle to enforcing employer
sanctions and thus the biggest hole in our efforts to stop illegal
immigration, this legislation fails to cure that major principal
problem.
For employment verification, the bill provides only for pilot
programs in
[[Page H11073]]
States that have the highest numbers of undocumented workers. Because
these pilot programs will be voluntary, employers will be able to avoid
checking the status of their employees. Thus, businesses that hire
illegal immigrants, and there are plenty of them, Mr. Speaker, who do,
will continue to be able to get away with it the same way they do now,
by claiming that they did not know that employees' work authorization
documents were fraudulent. And that will continue until the Congress
revisits the issue and passes legislation making verification
mandatory.
To make matters worse, the bill fails to provide for an adequate
number of investigators within either the Immigration and
Naturalization Service or the Labor Department to identify employers
who are hiring illegal immigrants.
The other glaring failure of this piece of legislation is its failure
to reduce the huge number of legal immigrants who are settling in the
United States each year. Many people have been focusing on the problem
of illegal immigration, which is understandable. Undocumented
immigrants and employers who hire them are breaking our laws and should
be dealt with accordingly. But if a fundamental immigration problem we
are concerned with, and I believe it is, it certainly is amongst the
people I represent back home, is the impact of too many people arriving
too quickly into this country, the sheer numbers dictate that we cannot
ignore the role that legal immigration plays. About three-quarters of
the estimated 1.1 million foreigners who settle permanently in the
United States each year do so legally.
{time} 1215
It is the 800,000, more or less, legal immigrants, more so than the
estimated 300,000 illegal ones, who determine how fierce the
competition for jobs is, how overcrowded our schools are, and how large
and densely populated our urban areas are becoming. More importantly,
the number of foreigners we allow to settle in the United States now
will determine how crowded this country will become during the next
century.
The population of the United States has just about doubled since the
end of World War II. That is only about 50 years ago. It is headed for
another doubling by the year 2050, just 53 or 54 years from now, when
it will probably exceed half a billion people. Half a billion people in
this country. Immigration is the engine driving this unprecedented
growth.
Natives of other lands who have settled here since the 1970's and
their offspring account for more than half the population increase we
have experienced in the last 25 years. The effects of immigration will
be even more dramatic, however, in the future. By the year 2050, more
than 90 percent of our annual growth will be attributable to immigrants
who have settled here since the early 1990's; not prior immigration,
but just the immigration that is occurring now and will continue to
occur if this bill is allowed to pass.
As recently as 1990, the Census Bureau predicted that U.S. population
would peak and then level off a few decades from now at about 300,000
people. In 1994, however, just 4 years later, because of unexpectedly
high rates of immigration, the bureau changed its predictions and now
sees our population growing unabated into the next century, into the
late 21st century, when it will reach 800 million, or perhaps 1 billion
Americans, in the coming century.
Now, a year ago, there was a near consensus among Members and others
working closely on immigration reform that we needed to reduce the
number of legal as well as illegal immigrants entering this country.
The Clinton administration has proposed such reductions, and both the
House and Senate Judiciary Committee versions of the immigration reform
legislation also contained those reductions. All three proposals were
based on the recommendations of the immigration reform commission,
headed by the late Barbara Jordan, which proposed a decrease in legal
immigration of about a quarter million people a year.
The commission's recommended reduction would still, of course, have
left the United States in a position of being by far the most generous
nation in the world in terms of the number of immigrants we accept
legally. We would continue to be a country which accepts more legal
immigrants than all of the other countries of the world combined.
But, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, after intensive lobbying by business
interests and by proimmigration organizations, both the House and the
Senate stripped the legal immigration reduction from this legislation
entirely, and did so with the Clinton administration's blessing. Now,
unless the Congress defeats this legislation today, reductions in legal
immigration, are unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Our failure to reduce legal immigration will only be to our Nation's
great detriment. The rapid population growth that will result from
immigration will make it that much more difficult to solve our most
pervasive and environment problems such as air and water pollution,
trash and sewage disposal, loss of agriculture lands, and many others,
just to name some of the major ones.
More serious environmental threats are not all that we will face when
our communities, especially those in large coastal urban areas,
speaking mainly, of course, at the amount, of California and Texas and
Florida and New York and New Jersey, but there are others that are
already being affected and more that will be in the future, areas that
are magnets for immigrants, whether legal or illegal, are already
straining to meet the needs of the people here right now. There could
be no doubt that our ability in the future to provide a sufficient
number of jobs or adequate housing and enough water, food, education,
especially health care and public safety, is certain to be tested in
ways that we cannot now even imagine.
However we look at it, Mr. Speaker, however we look at it, failing to
reduce the current rate of immigration, legal and illegal, clearly
means that our children and our grandchildren cannot possibly have the
quality of life that we ourselves have been fortunate to have enjoyed.
With twice as many people here in this country, and then more than
twice as many, we can expect to have at least twice as much crime,
twice as much congestion, twice as much congestion, twice as much
poverty, twice as many problems in educating our children, providing
health care and everything else.
In terms of both process and outcome, this conference report is a
grave disappointment. It is notable more for what it is not than for
what it is. Instead of a conference report that reflects only the views
of the majority party, this measure could have been a bipartisan
product as immigration bills traditionally are, but it is not. Instead
of a measure developed in someone's office, this continuing resolution
could have been the result of a conference committee, but it is not.
Instead of legislation that is lax or lenient on employers who hire
illegal immigrants, this could have been a measure that finally
established a workable system that enforced penalties against those who
knowingly hire illegal immigrants, but it is not.
Instead of a bill that fails to slow the tide of legal immigrants,
except by singling them out for unfair treatment, as it does, this
could have been a bill that reduces the rate at which immigrants settle
here and thus help solve many problems which confront us as a society
already, but it is not.
Mr. Speaker, the bill this rule makes in order, does not, to be frank
about it, deserve our support. I urge our colleagues to vote it down,
both the rule and/or the conference report, so that Congress and the
President, and the administration, which did not do its duty, it seems
to this Member by these issues, both the Congress and the President
will be forced to return to this issue next year and to produce the
kind of immigration reform legislation that the American people want
and that our country badly needs.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my very good friend, the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith], the chairman of the subcommittee.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding
me time.
Mr. Speaker, the comments by opponents of this legislation simply do
not represent the views of most Americans.
[[Page H11074]]
They do not even represent the desires of a majority of the Members of
their own party. Every substantive provision in this compromise
conference report has already been supported by a majority of Democrats
and a majority of Republicans either in the House or Senate.
I find it curious that when the American people want us to reduce
illegal immigration, every single criticism made by the opponents of
this bill would make it easier for illegal aliens to enter or stay in
the country, or it would make it easier for noncitizens to get Federal
benefits paid for by the taxpayer.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to my friend, the
gentleman from Sanibel FL [Mr. Goss], the chairman of the Subcommittee
on Budget and Legislative Process.
(Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the vice chairman of the Committee on
Rules, my friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier], for
yielding. I wish to commend the gentleman for his efforts on this
important bill. I can say that he has been persistent and he has been
instrumental in getting us to this point.
I support the rule, but I do agree with the gentleman from California
[Mr. Beilenson] that there was a mixup in the scheduling, and I think
that we have understood there was nothing sinister behind it. A vote
dropped off, so we got ahead of ourselves.
Mr. Speaker, many months ago the House passed 2202 to reform our
Nation's broken immigration system.
This landmark legislation will tighten our borders, block illegal
immigrants from obtaining jobs that should go to those who are in the
United States legally, streamline the process for removing illegals,
and make illegal immigrants ineligible for most public benefits.
All along in this process, the drumbeat from the American people has
been very clear--it's long past time for reform. We have come to
understand that reform is not for the faint of heart--that there are
tough choices to be made and that there are real human beings on all
sides of the immigration process. In the end, I believe we have
legislation that is tough but fair--legislation designed to keep the
door open for those who want to come to America but are willing to do
it via an orderly, legal process, not sneak in the back or side door.
H.R. 2202 will add 5,000 new border patrol agents over the next 5
years Yes, 5,000. It will make illegal immigrants ineligible for many
public benefits, while still allowing them access to emergency medical
care. It also requires future sponsors to take more responsibility for
their charges--a prospective change that is a win for immigrants and
for American taxpayers alike, reducing the $26 billion annual tab
American taxpayers currently pay. H.R. 2202 sets up a 3-year voluntary
pilot program in five States so employers can use a phone system to
verify Social Security numbers of prospective employees. If the pilot
is successful, we may finally have a simple and effective way for
employers to fulfill their legal responsibility to hire only eligible
workers. There is no national identity card and no big brother database
in this legislation. Mr. Speaker, as with all things that are borne of
compromise, this legislation is not without disappointments. In my
State of Florida, we know that undocumented immigrants cost Florida
taxpayers millions of dollars every year in education costs. The
Governor's office estimated the cost for 1 year to have been $180
million. Nationwide for 1 year the estimate was more than $4.2 billion.
We simply cannot afford to educate all of the world's children while
extending a magnet that fuels illegal entry into our country. Although
I am disappointed it's not in this bill, I am pleased that this House
has a chance to debate the Gallegly language as a separate measure, to
end the current unfunded Federal mandate and give States an opportunity
to make their own decision about how to handle this problem.
Overall, Mr. Speaker, this is a solid bill. It is one more example of
this Congress, under our new majority, living up to its commitments.
One more time we have promises made, promises kept.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Gene Green.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from
California for yielding me time. Tony, we will miss you next year and
all your work you have done for not only our district, but the people
of California, and the people of our country.
Mr. Speaker, there is a consensus that illegal immigration is a
national problem that needs to be addressed. I believe our immigration
laws need to be strengthened. But this conference agreement ignores the
real reasons for illegal immigration and does little to protect
American jobs. The reason people are in our country illegally is not to
go to school, it is to get a job.
A successful control of illegal immigration requires comprehensive
efforts not only to police our borders, but also to effectively reduce
the incentives to employ illegal immigrants.
The bill has serious deficiencies in regard to employment and work
site enforcement. The conference report does not contain the Senate
provision that would authorize 350 additional enforcement staff for the
Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, to enhance worksite
enforcement of our laws.
This conference report does not contain the Senate provision
authorizing enhanced civil penalties for employers who violate the
employment sanctions and specified labor laws. Higher penalties would
also serve to reduce the incentives to employ and thereby deter illegal
immigration.
This conference report does not contain the Senate provision that
would have provided subpoena authority to the Secretary of Labor to
carry out enforcement responsibilities under this act.
Even though I served on the conference committee, and I was honored
to do so, I nor other Democrats were given the opportunity to offer
amendments to correct these deficiencies: We will have real immigration
reform when we as Democrats are not locked out of the process.
Is this bill better than no bill? Maybe. But the people of America
want something that will stop illegal immigration. This will not stop
it. It may be better than the status quo because of the additional
border patrol, but it does not go as far as the American people want it
to go to deter illegal immigration. That is why this is not the panacea
that you may hear from the other side of the aisle. It is an election
year gimmick to say we passed immigration reform, but we have not.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Texas just said, this
bill is clearly better than the status quo.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from
Orlando, FL [Mr. McCollum], the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 2
minutes to me.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a comment. There are a few things in
this bill that maybe I could quibble over, but very few. There are a
number of things that are not in this bill that I would like to see
here, and I know many other Members would. But, overall, this is an
excellent work product. There are some very significant things in this
bill.
One of the things this bill does is to reform the whole process of
asylum, that is the question where somebody seeking to come here or to
stay here claims that they have been or would be persecuted for
religious or political reasons if they return to the country of their
origin.
We have had lots of people coming in here claiming that. Most of them
who claim it have no foundation in claim at all. Once they get a foot
in the airport or wherever, they make that claim, they get into the
system, many of them are never heard from again. We do not get the kind
of speedy process we need to resolve this.
Under this legislation there is a system much better than we have
today for resolving the whole question of asylum from A to Z. We have
an expedited or summary exclusion process that will be guaranteed in
the sense you get two bites at the apple. If you ask for asylum at the
airport, an asylum officer specially trained will screen you. If you
think you have been given a raw deal
[[Page H11075]]
and he says you do not have a credible fear of persecution and decides
to return you straight home, you get to go before an immigration judge.
That has to be done though within a matter of 24 hours, 7 days at the
most.
It is a very, very positive provision, because it you do not qualify,
you are going to be shipped right back out again, and do not get caught
up in our system. And the list goes on and on.
So this is a very important and positive bill. But there are a couple
of things that I think should have been in here that are not. One of
them is the strengthening of the Social Security card that the
gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson] talked about at some length.
We need a way, a very difficult way, to get rid of document fraud, in
order to make employer sanctions work. All too many people are coming
into this country today getting fraudulent documents for $15 or $20 on
the streets, including Social Security cards, drivers licenses or
whatever, and then they go get a job. There is no way to make a law
that says it is illegal to knowingly hire an illegal alien work.
{time} 1230
And until we solve this fraud problem and we do more than we are
doing in this bill to do that, we will never make it such that we can
cut the magnet of people coming in here illegally.
But the bill is excellent. Let us vote for this bill and work on
these other matters in the next Congress.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], the minority whip.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me this
time.
And let me say at this point briefly to my friend from California,
whom I have had the honor of serving with, and we were in the same
class together, been here for 20 years, how much I have appreciated his
friendship and his counsel and all that he has done for this
institution. He is truly one of the most decent people I have ever
served with in public life, one of the brightest people I have ever
served with, and I will miss him dearly as we go into our next
Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the comments of my friend from
California in opposing this rule and opposing this conference report. I
do so for the following reasons:
This conference report weakens protection for American workers while
making it easier for employers to hire illegal workers. The conference
report includes broad language that is not contained in the House-
passed bill which rolls back antidiscrimination protections and makes
it more difficult for American workers to bring employment
discrimination claims.
Workers will now have to prove that an employer deliberately had an
intent to discriminate, which is an almost impossible standard to meet.
Workers who are wrongfully denied employment because of computer
errors, and we know in this brave new world we live in that is becoming
more and more common, under this bill they will not be able to seek
compensation from the Federal Government because of that error because
they were just kind of wiped out on the list and were not able to get a
job.
At the same time it does this, it does something else. It will make
it easier for employers to hire illegal workers. The conference report
does not include the Senate provision that would have increased
penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal workers.
Now, that is significant, because each year more than 100,000 foreign
workers enter the work force by overstaying their visas. Many are hired
in illegal sweatshops, in violation of minimum wage laws. And we have
seen what the Labor Department has unveiled in this regard over the
last couple of years: Sweatshops all over this country with illegal
people who are working in these sweatshops and no crackdown on the
employers. The conference report does not include the additional 350
labor inspectors.
Let me also say something about class. This is a bill that
discriminates against average working people in this country and
average folks. Millions of Americans would be denied the ability to
reunite with their spouses or minor children because they do not earn
more than 140 percent of the poverty level, which is the income
standard set by the conference report in order for it to sponsor a
family member to come here.
A third of the country would be ineligible to bring in folks under
this particular conference report. But if you have a few bucks, no
problem. If you are an average worker in this country, we are sorry.
Another point in this bill that I think Members should pay attention
to: An individual serves his country. They are here not as a citizen
but as a legal immigrant, and they decide to serve in the armed forces,
the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Army, and they put in 2 years or 4
years, and then they leave and get in an automobile accident and take
advantage of some medical benefits. They can go under this bill. They
can be deported.
There are a lot of things in this bill that are discriminatory
against a lot of people who care about this country. I think it is a
bad piece of legislation. Say no to the rule. Say no to the bill. We
will come back and do it right in the next Congress.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume
and would say to my friend, if he does not like the sponsor provision
that exists today, he should try to get rid of it rather than leaving
it absolutely meaningless.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Huntington
Beach, CA [Mr. Rohrabacher], my friend, and one of the strongest
proponents of legal immigration.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule
and the conference report.
Mr. Speaker, millions of illegal aliens have been pouring into our
country, and we have heard year after year after year a reason of why
we should not act. There is always going to be a reason that the other
side will prevent us from acting.
In fact, for years those of us on the Republican side have begged for
an immigration bill, and we have been prevented time and time again
from having any type of legislation where we could come to grips with
this problem.
In California, our health facilities and our schools have been
flooded with illegal aliens. Our public services are stretched to the
breaking point. Tens of billions of dollars that should be going to
benefit our own citizens are being drained away to provide services and
benefits to foreigners who have come here illegally.
Who is to blame? Certainly not the immigrants. We cannot blame them
if we are to provide them with all these services and benefits. This
administration and the liberal Democrats, who have controlled both
Houses of Congress for decades, have betrayed the trust of the American
people.
We are supposed to be watching out for our own people. When we
allocate money for benefits, for service, SSI and unemployment
benefits, it is supposed to benefit our citizens, the people that are
paying taxes, who fought our wars. Instead, when we have tried to make
sure these are not drained away to illegal aliens, we have been stopped
every time by the Democrats who controlled this House.
This bill finally comes to grips with the problem that has threatened
the well-being of every American family. And, yes, we are going to hear
a little nitpicking from the other side of why it is not a perfect
bill. But the American people should remind themselves, it is this type
of nitpicking that has placed their families in jeopardy for decades
and permitted a problem of illegal immigration to mushroom into a
catastrophe for our country.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
California, and let me say as a new Member of Congress, I have admired
his leadership, his determination, and particularly the demeanor in
which he has led not only his district, the State of California, but
the Nation, and I thank him very much for his services.
It is important as we rise to the floor, Mr. Speaker, on this issue,
to chronicle for the American people just how far we have come. This
legislation started out as a combination of some effort in response to
legal immigration and illegal immigration.
Unfortunately, the provisions of the legal immigration part of this
legislation were extremely harsh and, in fact,
[[Page H11076]]
did not capture the spirit of the Statue of Liberty, which indicates
that this Nation, bar none, regardless of the standards used by other
countries, we do not follow, we lead, was not a country that would
close its doors to those seeking opportunities for work but
opportunities for justice and liberty and freedom.
So I am delighted that we were able to separate out the major parts
of legal immigration and to acknowledge that, yes, we must work with
regulating the influx of those coming into this country, but we should
never deny the opportunity for those seeking political refuge and
needing social justice and fleeing from religious persecution. Our
doors should never be closed.
I am disappointed, as we now look at illegal immigration, we have
several points that need to be considered. This is not a good jobs bill
for America because it does not give to the Department of Labor the 350
staff persons needed to make sure that employers are following the
rules as they should.
And, likewise, I would say that this is an unfair bill with respect
to those who are here legally, for it says if they want to bring their
loved ones, their mother, their father, their siblings, they must not
be a regular working person, but they have to be a rich person.
I thought this country was respective of all working citizens, all
working individuals who worked every day. But now we require a high
burden of some 200 percent more over the poverty level than had been
required before in order for a legal resident, a citizen, to bring in
their loved ones to, in essence, join their family together. I think
that is unfair.
Then we raise a much higher standard on those citizens who now, or
those individuals who are seeking employment who may be legal
residents. Now they must prove intentional discrimination. I think that
is extremely unfair.
We likewise determine that we do not have the ability for redress of
grievances by those individuals who have been discriminated against.
That is unfair.
And let me say this in conclusion, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me
say that we treat juveniles unfairly and we should vote down the rules
and vote down the bill.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Mount Holly, NJ [Mr. Saxton].
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for
yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, first let me say that I support the rule and I will vote
in favor of the bill itself today. However, I am deeply disturbed by
one aspect of the bill.
Most of the provisions of the bill, I think, are in accord with good
sound policy. However, this bill does contain one provision, to exempt
the Immigration and Naturalization Service from both the Endangered
Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
This provision is intended to address an issue that has to do with
the California-Texas-Mexico border. However, the way this section is
written, the exemption applies to the entire border of the United
States, not just the California-Mexico border near San Diego.
This waiver is not necessary, either in theory or in reality. Section
7, as a matter of fact, of the Endangered Species Act provides the
framework to address any fence building. I have letters from the
Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior stating that
these waivers are not necessary.
Mr. Speaker, if it is important enough to exempt the Immigration and
Naturalization Service from these important environmental laws, then we
have to grow food, why do we not just exempt the Department of
Agriculture? We have to get around in this country, so why do we not
just exempt the Department of Transportation? And flood control is
extremely important in my district, so why do we not just exempt the
Corps of Engineers?
Mr. Speaker, this is a bad provision, and while I am going to vote
for this bill, I pledge to spend the next 2 years making sure we
straighten out this part of the bill which, to me, is a serious
problem.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra].
Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from
California, a friend of mine, for yielding me this time.
I also want to join all my colleagues who are acknowledging the many
years of service the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson] has
provided to this institution and to the people of America. They
probably do not realize how instructive he has been in helping us
fashion all sorts of policy, and I certainly will miss him, and I hope
that he continues to be involved in policy for this country, because he
has been a voice that has brought reason and, I think, a great deal of
wisdom to this country's policies and laws.
Mr. Speaker, let me go on to say that I am very disappointed in what
we have here today, for a couple of reasons, not only because I think
substantively this is a bill that needs a great deal of improvement,
but because procedurally it is disappointing to see, in the greatest
democracy in the world, that the Republicans, the majority in this
Congress, saw fit not to allow anyone to participate in the structuring
of this final version of the bill unless one happened to be Republican.
Not one point in time, since the bill first passed out of the House
of Representatives back in March, have Democrats had an opportunity to
provide amendments to this particular conference report or to
participate even in discussion of amendments on this report.
We had a conference committee yesterday that was only for the purpose
of offering an opening statement. We did not have a chance to make an
offer of an amendment that say, ``This is a provision that needs to be
changed; can we change it?'' Not a word. We were not allowed one
opportunity to do so.
This has come to the floor, with changes made in the back room in the
dead of night, and some people are only now finding out what some of
the provisions are.
I want to give you one example of how procedurally this bill has gone
wrong. In conference we happened to have found out, because we were
handed a sheet that same morning, that a provision in the bill that we
thought was in, which would deny a billionaire a visa to come into this
country after that billionaire had renounced his U.S. citizenship.
In other words, we have a billionaire in this country who renounces
his U.S. citizenship, says, ``I do not want to be a U.S. citizen any
more.'' Why? Because he wants to avoid taxes. If an individual is not a
U.S. citizen, they do not pay U.S. taxes.
So he renounces his citizenship, goes abroad, and then comes right
back, applies for a visa to come back into this country. He has not
paid any taxes, and he gets to come back into the country.
We had a provision in the bill that said, no, if an individual
renounces their U.S. citizenship because they want to avoid taxes, they
cannot come back in. We walk in that morning, and that provision is no
longer there. So these billionaires can come back into the country
without having paid their taxes.
{time} 1245
We said, why did you put that back in there? Why did we not have a
chance to discuss this?
Good news? Billionaires cannot come back in, if they renounce their
citizenship. Bad news? We did not know it until this morning when we
walked in and found it is back in the bill. That is the democratic
process that we have undergone in this bill, where Members are not told
what is in the bill until the last moment.
What is the result? One Member called it, one colleague called it
nitpicking. I do not call it nitpicking when through a stealth move we
remove increased penalties for employers who we know are hiring people
who are not authorized to work in this country.
Why? I do not know. Who does it hurt? Only those employers who are
violating the law. Why do we want to reduce the penalties on employers
who are violating the law?
Final point I will make, young student in college, tries to get
financial aid, has been valedictorian in high school. Because he is a
legal immigrant, he happens to be qualified for a Pell grant. Gets a
Pell grant for 1 year, is now deportable because the person qualified
for a Pell grant or maybe a student loan. Crazy.
[[Page H11077]]
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the
gentleman from Scottsdale, AZ [Mr. Hayworth], my thoughtful and hard-
working and eloquent colleague.
(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from California for
this time. Mr. Speaker, I would make the observation that despite the
prevailing winds of what is politically correct, this is one of the few
instances in official Washington where a description accurately fits
the act it is describing, for this rule and this legislation addresses
the problem of illegal immigration. By its very definition, it is an
act against the law. And for that reason primarily, if an action is
taken which is illegal, there should be sanctions against those who
would participate in that illegal act. That is why I rise in strong
support of the rule and the legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I come from the border State of Arizona. It is of great
concern to the people of Arizona that we close the door on illegal
immigration. Hear me clearly, on illegal immigration, because by
closing this illegal back door, we can keep the front door open to
immigrants who have helped our society and helped our constitutional
Republic.
I think of one of them who hails from Holbrook in the sixth district
of Arizona, who makes that place her home. Her name is Pee Wee Mestas.
She is a restaurant owner. She came to this Nation legally. Her mother
applied for a visa, went through the necessary legal steps to become a
citizen. Her mother worked hard, going to school, going to cosmetology
classes while working as a domestic servant to provide for her family.
Pee Wee's mom was willing to work hard and follow the rules. Because
she was, she raised up a generation of citizens, citizens who work hard
and play by the rules.
That is the basic issue here. End an illegal act and instill
responsibility. If it is good enough for the Mestas family, it should
be good enough for the United States of America. Support the rule.
Support the legislation. Let us take steps to end illegal immigration.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
New York [Ms. VELAZQUEZ].
(Ms. VELAZQUEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend
her remarks.)
Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to
offer thanks to the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson] for his
guidance, leadership, and vision, and we all are going to miss him.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong opposition to this
conference report. This so-called immigration reform bill not only
attacks a wide range of very hard-working Americans but, worst of all,
it wreaks havoc on the lives of children. When did we become such a
distrustful society that we would even turn on our most vulnerable
members?
In a frenzy to shove undocumented immigrants out of the country, the
Republican majority has crafted one of the most offensive pieces of
legislation ever. They did not make this bill any better simply by
removing the bar on undocumented children attending public school. The
conference agreement still severely restricts legal immigrants' access
to benefits, even though they play by the rules, they work hard and
they pay taxes. But yet those multibillionaires who renounce their
citizenship just so they cannot pay taxes, they are welcome to come
back.
I ask my colleagues and urge them to vote down the rule and vote this
legislation down.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Lula,
GA [Mr. Deal].
Mr. DEAL of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of terms here
the today. One is unfairness. Let me talk about the greatest unfairness
there is. That is those citizens and those legal immigrants who are
finding their jobs taken away from them, who are finding their taxes
increased to pay for the jobs that are going to those who are illegally
in this country and the benefits that are going to them.
There are a lot of things that we as Americans hold dear. One is
citizenship. Those of us who are lucky to achieve it by the virtue of
birth or those who have achieved it by virtue of immigration and
naturalization. Another thing we hold dear is that we are a country
that has a system of law.
I submit to you that the ever-increasing tide of illegal immigrants
undermines both of these things. Citizenship should not be cheapened.
Respect for the law, which includes immigration laws, should not be
denigrated.
This bill is the first major step this institution has taken in the
direction of dealing with illegal immigration in more than a decade. Is
it perfect? Certainly not. But does it begin to restore the sanctity of
citizenship and respect for the law, yes, it does.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Berman].
(Mr. BERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, first I want to say to my colleague from
California, whom I have known for 34 years, who walked precincts in his
first campaign, that I will truly, sincerely and sorely miss him. He is
a model legislator and a pleasure to work with. I wish him well.
The gentleman from Arizona, who spoke a few minutes ago, is so
totally wrong when he says this is the bill that will finally do
something about illegal immigration. Everyone knows, when they think
about it, the only effective ways to do something to deter illegal
immigration are at the border, and this bill authorizes more Border
Patrol, but already the Committee on Appropriations and the
administration have gone far beyond the authorization contained in this
particular bill to do that. Setting up and committing to a national
verification program to make employer sanctions meaningful. This bill
started out like that but totally fell apart on the House floor,
primarily at the behest of the majority party Members. And then to go
after those industries that systematically recruit and employ illegal
immigrants in order to have a competitive edge in wages and working
conditions in their own operations.
The Border Patrol increase is being done by the administration and
the other 2 provisions are outrageously ignored in this conference
report.
I voted for this bill when it came out of the House of
Representatives. I indicated I would vote for it in the form it was in
if the Gallegly amendment was removed. The Gallegly amendment was
removed, but in a dozen different ways the conference report is worse
than the House bill and in many cases, notwithstanding the Committee on
Rules waivers, exceeds the scope of what either House did in the most
draconian ways. Draconian against illegal immigration? No. Draconian
against legal immigrants.
This is truly a desire by the people who lost on both the House and
Senate floor in their efforts to cut back on legal immigration to do
the same thing, but in the most unfair fashion, not straightforwardly
by reducing the numbers but by focusing on the working class people in
the society and stripping them of their right to bring legal immigrants
over.
The new welfare law bars legal immigrants from programs such as SSI
and food stamps and from Medicaid for 5 years. It gives States the
ability to permanently deny AFDC and Medicaid to legal immigrants.
This conference report goes much, much further than that, makes legal
immigrants not ineligible for these three or four programs but subject
to deportation for use of almost every means-tested program for which
they are eligible under the welfare law. In other words, what the
welfare conference did not do, they decided to do here, and not declare
ineligibility but make you subject to deportation.
Let me tell you what that means. You are a legal immigrant child who
goes through high school, applies to a college based on your superb
academic performance and test scores. You get admitted to an expensive
university, ivy league college, Stanford. You apply for a student loan.
If you are on that student loan for more than a year, you are subject
to deportation. What an outrageous provision that is. What a slap in
the face of this country's traditions that is.
Let me tell you how much else they do here. For the first time in
American history, an U.S. citizen will be subject to an income test
before he can bring his spouse into the country.
[[Page H11078]]
I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, a ``no'' vote on the conference
report.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Packard], former mayor of Carlsbad, now of Oceanside,
CA.
(Mr. PACKARD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support of this rule
and the conference report. Immigration has been the most significant
critical problem in my State for many, many years. I have worked a
lifetime, it seems, on trying to resolve our serious illegal
immigration problems. They are affecting southern California and
California generally and the Nation generally in very significant ways.
In fact, the two bills that I introduced on the first day that I
started this session of Congress, the 104th Congress, have been
incorporated into this bill, one of which would increase the Border
Patrol to 10,000 agents, and the second would deny Federal benefits to
illegal aliens. In essence, that was Prop 187 in California.
But this bill is not only about protecting our borders from those who
are entering here illegally. It is about protecting American taxpayers
from being forced to pay for those who are breaking our laws just to be
in this country. California alone pays out billions of dollars per year
to deal with the problems of illegal immigration. This bill will help
to ease this problem by removing the incentives for immigrants to cross
our borders illegally, and by reimbursing those States who have to
incarcerate illegal immigrant felons.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is the culmination of a process that began in
California with Prop 187 and continued through the Immigration Task
Force called by the speaker. I want to congratulate all those who have
worked so hard on it. I particularly want to congratulate Lamar Smith,
who has worked to put this bill together. I also want to congratulate
Elton Gallegly for his efforts, and certainly I will support his bill
and the vote on this issue.
Let me conclude by simply telling the minority leader of the
Committee on Rules, Mr. Beilenson, at least on this issue how much I
have appreciated working with him. He is one of the gentlemen of the
House. It has been a real pleasure to work with him over these years.
We will miss him dearly.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Gallegly], my very good friend who has chaired our Task
Force on Illegal Immigration, former mayor of Simi, CA.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise
today in strong support of this rule.
For the better part of the past decade I have been working to bring
badly needed reforms to our Nation's immigration laws. Unfortunately,
for far too long I have felt like I was talking to myself.
That is clearly no longer the case. Immigration reform is an issue on
the minds of nearly all Americans, and nearly all express deep
dissatisfaction with our current system and the strong desire for
change. Today we are delivering that change.
I truly believe that this conference report that we will be hearing
shortly represents the most serious and comprehensive reform of our
Nation's immigration law in modern times. It also closely follows the
recommendations of both the Speaker's Task Force on Immigration Reform,
which I chaired, and those of the Jordan Commission. Approximately 60
percent of the recommendations made by the Speaker's Task Force have
been included in this conference report.
They include, in part, provisions to double the number of Border
Patrol agents stationed at our borders to 10,000 agents; expanded
preinspection at foreign airports to more easily identify and deny
entry to those persons with fraudulent documents or criminal
backgrounds; tough new penalties for those who use or distribute fake
documents, bringing the penalty for that offense in line with the use
or production of counterfeit currency.
{time} 1300
Mr. Speaker, the primary responsibilities of any sovereign nation are
the protection of its borders and enforcement of its laws. For too long
in the area of immigration policy, we at the Federal Government have
shirked both those duties. It may have taken a long time, but policy
makers in Washington are finally ready to acknowledge the devastating
effects of illegal immigration on our cities and towns.
Finally, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the gentleman
from Texas [Mr. Smith], who chairs the Subcommittee on Immigration and
Claims for all the effort that he has put into this, putting his heart
and soul into this legislation. I would also like to thank him for
welcoming the input of myself and other members of the task force in
crafting this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this
rule and let us pass immigration reform that this Nation sorely needs.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my very good friend the
gentleman from Imperial Beach, CA [Mr. Bilbray].
(Mr. BILBRAY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, as somebody who lives on the border with
Mexico and grew up with the immigration issue, I am very concerned to
hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say, ``Let's not do
it now. Let's put it off and try to do something else in the next
Congress.''
I as a mayor and as a county supervisor, I worked with the problems
in our community with illegal immigration, crime, the impacts on our
health care system. In fact, if my colleagues go to our hospitals
today, they will see there are major adverse impacts. Talk to our law
enforcement people about the major impact of illegal immigration. The
cost is not just in dollars and cents.
And I would ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if you
don't care about the cost to the working class people, because this
illegal immigration does not affect the rich white people, illegal
immigration hurts those who need our services and our jobs in this
country more than anything else, those who are legally here. But if you
don't care about that, let me ask you to care about the humanity that
is being slaughtered every day along our border because Washington, not
Mexico, not Latin America, not anywhere else in the country, but
Washington and the leadership in Washington has pulled a cruel hoax
that says, ``Come to our country illegally, and we will reward you.
Come to our country, and we will give you benefits.''
I ask my colleagues to consider this:
In my neighborhoods in south San Diego, we have had more people die
in the last few years being slaughtered on our freeways, drowned in our
rivers, run off of cliffs. More people have died, my colleagues, trying
to cross the border illegally in San Diego than were killed in the
Oklahoma bombing.
Now I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who wanted to
delay and put it off, Would you delay addressing one of the greatest
terrorist acts that we have seen in our neighborhoods and along the
border than we have seen in our lifetime? If Oklahoma's explosion was
so important that we address that slaughter, please do not walk away
from the loss of humanity down in San Diego and in California along the
border. There are people that are dying because they are told to come
to this country and we will reward them.
Please join with us. Support the rule. Let us reform illegal
immigration and let us do it now. Quit finding excuses.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of our time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Camp). The gentleman from California is
recognized for 30 seconds.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, we urge, as we have before, a ``no'' vote
on this rule. The rule allows consideration of a conference report that
was not given proper consideration by the conference committee, a
conference report on which the minority party had no involvement. More
importantly, the conference report that this rule makes in order is a
feeble and misguided response to one of the most significant problems
facing our Nation. Passage of this legislation will allow employers who
hire illegal immigrants to continue to do so and to get away with it.
Passage of this legislation will let Congress say that we have done
something about illegal immigration when in fact we have not done the
real work that we know that we have to do.
[[Page H11079]]
The real tragedy, Mr. Speaker, and I say to my friends, is that we
have missed here a great opportunity to know what to do. The Members
who have worked hardest on this issue know what we need to do.
So I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that we defeat this rule and force the
Congress and the President to revisit this issue next year and then
produce the kind of immigration reform legislation that the American
people want and that this country so badly needs.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to
simply say that this may be the last rule that will be managed by my
very good friend from California and to join in letting my colleagues
know that he will be, by me, sorely missed. He has been a great friend
and, I do appreciate the advice and counsel that he has given me over
the years.
Let me say on this particular measure, Mr. Speaker, that as we look
at this issue, it has been a long time in coming. Getting to this point
has been a struggle, and I should say to my friends on the other side
of the aisle that I can certainly relate to the level of frustration
that those in the minority have felt, because having gone through four
decades of serving in the majority, they find that they are not able to
have quite the control that they did as now members of the minority.
But I believe that, as was the case when this bill first emerged from
the committee, that it will in the end enjoy tremendous bipartisan
support. The measure earlier this year had a tremendous number of
votes. As I recall, there were only 80 some odd votes against the bill
itself and 330 votes in support of it, and so the vote may not be
identical to the earlier one, but I do believe that there will be
Democrats and Republicans alike recognizing that this Congress has done
more than past Congresses to deal with this problem of illegal
immigration.
The American people have asked us to do it, and the 104th Congress
has been result-oriented as we go through the litany of items from
telecommunications reform, welfare reform, line-item veto, unfunded
mandates. We have provided tremendous results, and this immigration
bill is further evidence of that.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the
previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 254,
nays 165, not voting 14, as follows:
[Roll No. 430]
YEAS--254
Allard
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Bass
Bateman
Bentsen
Bereuter
Bevill
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Boucher
Browder
Brownback
Bryant (TN)
Bunn
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cardin
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Christensen
Chrysler
Clinger
Coble
Coburn
Collins (GA)
Combest
Condit
Cooley
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Crapo
Cremeans
Cubin
Cunningham
Davis
Deal
DeLay
Dickey
Doolittle
Dornan
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
English
Ensign
Eshoo
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fields (TX)
Flanagan
Foley
Forbes
Fowler
Fox
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frisa
Funderburk
Furse
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Greene (UT)
Greenwood
Gunderson
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hamilton
Hancock
Hansen
Harman
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Holden
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Istook
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kasich
Kelly
Kim
King
Kingston
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Laughlin
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Lightfoot
Linder
Livingston
LoBiondo
Longley
Lucas
Manzullo
Martini
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McKeon
Metcalf
Meyers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Montgomery
Moorhead
Morella
Myers
Myrick
Nethercutt
Neumann
Ney
Norwood
Nussle
Orton
Oxley
Packard
Parker
Paxon
Payne (VA)
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Pryce
Quillen
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Riggs
Roberts
Roemer
Rogers
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Salmon
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaefer
Schiff
Seastrand
Sensenbrenner
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Shuster
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Solomon
Souder
Spence
Stearns
Stenholm
Stockman
Stump
Talent
Tate
Tauzin
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Torkildsen
Torricelli
Traficant
Upton
Vucanovich
Walker
Walsh
Wamp
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Wolf
Young (AK)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NAYS--165
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews
Baesler
Baldacci
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Beilenson
Berman
Bishop
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Brewster
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant (TX)
Chapman
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Cummings
Danner
de la Garza
DeFazio
DeLauro
Dellums
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Durbin
Edwards
Engel
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Fazio
Fields (LA)
Filner
Flake
Foglietta
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Geren
Gonzalez
Green (TX)
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hastings (FL)
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hoyer
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jacobs
Jefferson
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kennelly
Kildee
Kleczka
Klink
LaFalce
Lantos
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Luther
Maloney
Manton
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
McCarthy
McDermott
McHale
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller (CA)
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Murtha
Nadler
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Pelosi
Pickett
Poshard
Rahall
Rangel
Reed
Richardson
Rivers
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sawyer
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Skaggs
Slaughter
Spratt
Stark
Stokes
Studds
Stupak
Tanner
Taylor (MS)
Tejeda
Thompson
Thornton
Thurman
Torres
Towns
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Volkmer
Ward
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Wise
Woolsey
Wynn
Yates
NOT VOTING--14
Barton
Diaz-Balart
Gibbons
Heineman
Lincoln
Mascara
Moran
Peterson (FL)
Pomeroy
Rohrabacher
Rose
Williams
Wilson
Young (FL)
{time} 1327
Mrs. CLAYTON and Messrs. DEUTSCH, TORRES, LEWIS of Georgia, and
LUTHER changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut, Ms. FURSE, and Mr. ARMEY changed their
vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
{time} 1330
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 528, I
call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2202) to amend the
Immigration and Nationality Act to improve deterrence of illegal
immigration to the United States by increasing Border Patrol and
investigative personnel, by increasing penalties for alien smuggling
and for document fraud, by reforming exclusion and deportation law and
procedures, by improving the verification system for eligibility for
employment, and through other measures, to reform the legal immigration
system and facilitate legal entries into the United States, and for
other purposes.
[[Page H11080]]
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. Riggs). Pursuant to House Resolution
528, the conference report is considered as having been read.
(For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of
Tuesday September 24, 1996, at page H10841.)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] and the
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith].
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, this conference report gives Congress the best
opportunity in decades to address the illegal immigration crisis. Every
3 years, enough illegal aliens enter the country permanently to
populate a city the size of Boston or Dallas or San Francisco.
Classrooms bulge; welfare jumps; the crime rate soars. Innocent victims
pay the price, and law-abiding taxpayers foot the bill.
This bill secures America's borders, penalizes alien smugglers,
expedites the removal of criminal and illegal aliens, prevents illegal
aliens from taking American jobs, and ends noncitizens' abuse of the
welfare system.
By doubling the number of Border Patrol agents and securing our
borders, we will protect our communities from the burdens imposed by
illegal immigration: crime, drug trafficking, and increased demands on
local police and social services. The benefits of securing our borders
will be felt not only in border States but throughout the entire
Nation.
If we cannot control who enters our country, such as illegal aliens,
we cannot control what enters our country, such as illegal drugs. To
control who enters, this bill increases criminal penalties for alien
smuggling and document fraud. The Nation cannot allow alien smuggling
to continue, especially since many alien smugglers are also kingpins in
the illegal drug trade.
Illegal aliens should be removed from the United States immediately
and effectively. Illegal aliens take jobs, public benefits, and engage
in criminal activity. In fact, one-quarter of all Federal prisoners are
illegal aliens. This bill will lower the crime rate, lower the cost of
imprisoning illegal aliens, and make our communities safer places to
live.
This legislation also relieves employers of a high level of
uncertainty they face by streamlining the hiring process. It makes the
job application process easier for our citizens and legal residents by
establishing voluntary employment quick-check pilot programs in 5
States. The quick-check system will give employers the certainty and
stability of a legal work force.
Since the beginning of this century, immigrants have been admitted to
the United States on a promise that they will not use public benefits.
Yet every year the number of noncitizens applying for certain welfare
programs increases an astonishing 50 percent. America should continue
to welcome those who want to work and produce and contribute, but we
should discourage those who come to live off the taxpayer. America
should keep out the welcome mat but not become a doormat.
This legislation also ensures that those who sponsor immigrants will
have sufficient means to support them. Just as we require deadbeat dads
to provide for the children they bring into the world, we should
require deadbeat sponsors to provide for the immigrants they bring into
the country. By requiring sponsors to demonstrate the means to fulfill
their financial obligations, we make sure that taxpayers are not stuck
with the bill, now $26 billion a year in benefits to noncitizens.
The provisions in this conference report are not new. These are the
same reforms that passed the House on a bipartisan vote of 333 to 87,
and in the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 97 to 3. And these are the
same reforms that President Clinton has urged Congress to pass and send
to his desk.
This bill will benefit American families, workers, employers, and
taxpayers across the Nation, but especially in California, Texas,
Florida, and other States that face the illegal immigration crisis on a
daily basis.
Mr. Speaker, America is not just a nation of immigrants. It is a
nation of immigrants committed to personal responsibility and the rule
of law. It is time for Congress to stand with the American people and
approve this conference report.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.
(Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with a bill that is so
flawed, we will need a lot of speakers to make it clear why Members
should not support the immigration conference report that is now before
them.
What we do to the environment is a crime. The National Environmental
Protection Act is the Nation's founding charter for environmental
protection, and this bill repeals that law, in effect, when it comes to
border-related construction. That means when we are working on
highways, roads, bridges, fences, that it is OK to ignore the
environment. Do my colleagues really mean that?
This conference report means that border construction can pollute our
public waterways anyway, dirty our air, create hazardous point sources
that can create dangerous runoffs, and generally ignore any adverse
environmental impact of that construction. Do my colleagues really want
that in a conference report?
This is yet another Republican attack on the environment. If it
pleases my colleagues on the Democratic side, I will offer a motion to
recommit the conference report to correct these glaring wrongs.
The next matter that my colleagues should carefully consider is the
part that deals with the American workers. What we are doing here is
giving us a conference report, and the lack of procedure has been amply
dealt with, but what we are doing now is that we are being told to take
it or leave it. I think that this amendment process, which we were
completely shut out of, deserves a no vote on the conference,
regardless of anything Members may like about it.
It was the Republicans, I say to Chairman Hyde, that railed and
railed about how unfair we were. It was the Speaker of the House, Newt
Gingrich, that has railroaded every conference bill for the last year.
We do not even come to conference and have a right to offer an
amendment. The process alone deserves every Member of this House to
reject this conference report on due process procedural grounds.
And then what about the discriminatory aspects of this bill? Not only
do we weaken illegal immigration but we say yes to more discrimination,
because we now have onerous material that was not even in the bad bill
I opposed in committee and on the floor.
We now have included unilaterally provisions that tell employers that
they may engage in practices of racial discrimination so long as it
cannot be proved that they had intent to violate the law. Coming out of
the Committee on the Judiciary, I think it is a very sad day for any
legislation to come out doing this to the most sensitive problem in our
society.
Vote ``no'' on the conference report.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds and say
that the last provision that the gentleman from Michigan referred to
was in the Senate bill which passed by 97 to 3.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr.
Hyde], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.
(Mr. HYDE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I listened to the last gentleman in the well
and I am a little bewildered because we marked this bill up, it took us
9 days, and we dealt with 103 amendments, 39 of which were decided by
rollcall vote. The bill, when we finally got it to the floor, passed
333 to 87 in the House and 97 to 3 in the Senate. Prior to introducing
the bill, the House Immigration Subcommittee heard from more than 100
witnesses and the Democrats were present and participated fully. So the
gentleman, I think, is mistaken.
In any event, this is among the most important pieces of legislation
this Congress will handle. A country has to control its borders. A
country has the right to define itself. I think this is a
[[Page H11081]]
good bill. It cannot please everybody, but it pleases a lot of people
and I think it ought to pass.
I am pleased to speak in support of the conference report on H.R.
2202, because I believe it will facilitate major progress in addressing
one of our Nation's most urgent problems--illegal immigration. In
reconciling House and Senate versions of this landmark legislation, we
provide for substantially enhanced border and interior enforcement,
greater deterrents to immigration related crimes, more effective
mechanisms for denying employment to illegal aliens, and more
expeditious removal of persons not legally present in the United
States.
The most difficult matter for the conferees to resolve concerned
public education benefits for illegal aliens. Because public education
is a major State function, the House had recognized the interests of
each individual State in issues involving public school attendance at
State taxpayer expense.
In that connection, we appreciated the fact that concerns about the
welfare of unsupervised children and adolescents might lead many States
to continue providing free public education to undocumented aliens--and
we did nothing to discourage such choices at the State level. The
compromise House and Senate conferees initially developed, both gave
expression to the right of a State to choose a different course and
extended important transitional protections to current students.
Because of an explicit veto threat from the President, however, we
subsequently decided that it would be preferable to address this entire
issue in the context of other legislation rather than place at risk the
many needed enforcement-related provisions of this bill.
The conferees also struggled with the issue of how to fairly and
expeditiously adjudicate asylum claims of persons arriving without
documents or fraudulent documents. We recognized that layering of
prolonged administrative and judicial consideration can overwhelm the
immigration adjudicatory process, serve as a magnet to illegal entry,
and encourage abuse of the asylum process. At the same time, we
recommended major safeguards against returning persons who meet the
refugee definition to conditions of persecution.
Specially trained asylum officers will screen cases to determine
whether aliens have a ``credible fear of persecution''--and thus
qualify for more elaborate procedures. The credible fear standard is
redrafted in the conference document to address fully concerns that the
``more probable than not'' language in the original House version was
too restrictive.
In addition, the conferees provided for potential immigration judge
review of adverse credible fear determinations by asylum officers. This
is a major change providing the safeguard of an important role for a
quasi-judicial official outside the Immigration and Naturalization
Service.
The conference document includes a House provision I offered in the
Committee on the Judiciary to protect victims of coercive population
control practices. Our law--which appropriately recognizes persecution
claims in a number of contexts--must not turn a blind eye to egregious
violations of human rights that occur when individuals are forced to
terminate the life of an unborn child, submit to involuntary
sterilization, or experience persecution for failing or refusing to
undergo an abortion or sterilization or for resisting a coercive
population control program in other ways. A related well-founded fear
clearly must qualify as a well-founded fear of persecution for purposes
of the refugee definition.
Our modification of the refugee definition responds to the moral
imperative of aiding victims and potential victims of flagrant
mistreatment. We also take a public stand against forcible interference
with reproductive rights and forcible termination of life--a stand that
hopefully will help to discourage such inhumane practices abroad.
This omnibus legislation includes a number of miscellaneous
provisions that are responsive to a range of problems. For example,
certain Polish applicants for the 1995 diversity immigrant program
reasonably anticipated being able to adjust to permanent resident
status; by facilitating their adjustment in fiscal year 1997 we
effectively rectify a bureaucratic error. We also recognize the
equities of certain nationals of Poland and Hungary who were paroled
into the United States years ago--and thus entered our country
legally--by affording them an opportunity to adjust to permanent
resident status. I welcomed the opportunity to seek appropriate
conference action in these compelling situations.
This omnibus immigration legislation makes major needed changes in
the Immigration and Nationality Act. The primary thrust of the
conference document is to respond in a measured and comprehensive
fashion to a multifaceted breakdown in immigration law enforcement. I
urge my colleagues to support it.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] who is completing his 14th year. He
has served with great distinction in the Congress on a variety of
committees, including the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. I thank my good friend from Michigan for
yielding me this time and for those nice remarks.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] and the gentleman
from Texas [Mr. Smith] have spoken of a bill that passed by wide
margins. Indeed it did. But it is not the bill before the House today,
and that is the whole point that we are making. It was changed
radically before it even got to the floor by the leadership. It has
been changed radically since, and that is why we say to Members today,
vote for the motion to recommit but do not vote for this bill.
Members of the House, I was a cosponsor of this legislation. I stood
in a press conference alongside the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith]
and said we have got to do something to reduce legal immigration and to
reduce illegal immigration. With a great deal of criticism from many
people on my side, I said we had to pass a bill, and I was for the bill
we introduced. But that is not the bill that is before the House today.
We put together a bill that was to have reflected what the Barbara
Jordan Commission recommended to us was to have been a bipartisan bill.
It was going to be tough on employers that hire illegal aliens and
include tough measures to stop illegal aliens from coming into the
country and taking jobs.
But somewhere along the way, in the back rooms, the stuff that was
tough on the folks that bring illegal aliens here, and that is to say,
the employers that attract them here with a promise of jobs, somehow it
disappeared, and in its place was put a list, a wish list offered up by
lobbyists for the biggest employers of these illegal aliens in the
country.
The bill that passed the House committee included 150 wage and hour
inspectors that were asked for by the Jordan Commission. The Senate
bill included 350. Why? Because people that hire illegal aliens also
violate the wage and hour laws. Why? Because half of the jobs in this
country that are lost to illegal aliens are lost to illegal aliens that
did not get here by sneaking across the border. They are the ones that
got here with a visa, but then they did not go home, they overstayed
the visa. You can put a million Border Patrol agents at the border, but
you are not going to find that one-half of the problem. The only way
you are going to find it is with wage and hour inspectors. Those are
gone from the bill. Why? Because some lobbyist for an employer
somewhere wanted it done.
The bill eliminates the increased civil penalties for employers to
tell them we are not going to put up any more with chronic violators of
the laws that say you cannot hire people that are not citizens or are
not here legally. Those enhanced civil penalties are gone. Why? Because
the American people wanted them gone? Because the Jordan Commission
said that they ought to be gone? Of course not. Because a lobbyist for
an employer that hires illegal aliens came down here and said, ``Mr.
Gingrich, you Republicans do your job and get us off the hook.'' And
that is exactly what they did.
{time} 1345
They also added into the bill gratuitous language that eliminates the
anti-discrimination provisions in the current law. Not in the bill, but
in the current law. We passed a bill in 1986. Many Hispanics said this
is going to result in inadvertent discrimination against Americans who
are of Hispanic descent because they are going to be confused with
somebody who is here illegally.
The GAO, after the bill was passed, did a study and found that they
were right, so we included in the law strong prohibitions on
discriminating against people in the course of asking for a job by
asking them for too many papers or giving them a hard time when they
come to the workplace. The law says you can ask for one of several
papers, and that is all you can do.
But now the Republican provision says it does not make any difference
if you ask them for all the papers in the world. If you cannot prove
you intended to discriminate against them,
[[Page H11082]]
you are not guilty of discrimination. That is a fundamental violation
of the compact that we made between the groups in this country that
make up our population, so that no one would be disadvantaged by the
enforcement of a bill and law that is difficult to enforce. Well, it is
gone.
The simple fact is this: What the employers that hire illegal
immigrants wanted got done in this bill, and what working Americans who
need to have their jobs protected, from being lost to illegal aliens,
was not done. Worse, those that are the subject of discrimination,
inadvertent or advertent, now have lost their protection.
Mr. Speaker, this is not a good bill. I can see the handwriting on
the bill. I know it is an election year. Anti-immigration rhetoric is
real good in an election year, and I am sure we are probably going to
see a lot of folks coming down here thinking well, I should not vote
for this, but I am probably going to have to. You do not have to. Vote
for the motion to recommit. We fix all of these problems and a few I do
not have time to mention. Vote for the motion to recommit. Vote against
the bill.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman
from California [Mrs. Seastrand], who has been such a fighter in our
effort to reduce illegal immigration.
Mrs. SEASTRAND. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support of the
conference report to H.R. 2202. It has completely rewritten the laws
regarding the apprehension and removal of illegal aliens and will fully
fund initiatives to double the size of our Border Patrol and increase
the level of immigration enforcement in the interior of these United
States. It will implement a strategy of both prevention and deterrence
at our Nation's land borders.
This legislation will require aliens who arrive at our airports with
fraudulent documents to be returned without delay to their point of
departure, making it far more difficult for aliens to enter the United
States, either across our land borders or through our airports. It will
also aggressively attack immigration-related crimes. It is going to
increase penalties for alien smuggling and document fraud and expand
the enforcement capacity against such crimes. It will also make it
easier for employers to be certain that they are hiring legal workers
by providing a toll-free worker verification number that employers may
call to verify the eligibility of employees to work legally in the
United States.
I will just tell you, America, and especially California, needs
immigration reform, and we need it now.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank], the senior member of the
Committee on the Judiciary, who has worked with great diligence on
trying to reform the bill.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, we have here Congress and
American politics at its absolute worse. We have a very important
issue, illegal immigration.
I worked for a very long time in a bipartisan way with departing
Senator Al Simpson, whose departure I regret now even more than before,
and others, in 1986 and in 1990 to fashion legislation in a bipartisan
way to deal with this problem. Bipartisan, because this is not and
ought not be an ideological issue. Some issues are legitimately
partisan.
I was sorry to here hear the chairman of the Committee on the
Judiciary defend the shabbiest legislative procedure I have ever seen
here. Yes, we had full markups; yes, we had full debates. And then once
we did, this bill disappeared into a series of secret meetings between
the Republican House and Senate staffs, it seemed to me, with some
input from the Members, and the Dole campaign, and virtually all of the
things on which we seriously worked in committee disappeared, and
others appeared.
Now, this is a popular issue, getting rid of illegal immigrants to
the extent that we can, as it ought to be. Unfortunately, this is a
bill which does not do nearly as much as it could to diminish illegal
immigration, and, instead, as the gentleman from Texas noted, makes it
a little easier than it used to be for people to take advantage of them
once they are here.
This is a bill that says gee, it would be nice if there were not so
many illegal immigrants, but as long as they are here, maybe we can get
a little cheap work out of them. That is the general thrust.
But then it does other things. I want to talk about one thing that
appeared that was in neither bill.
At the Republican Convention we had speakers who talked about AIDS
and how terrible it is. When the Republican leadership amended the
military bill to say that if you are HIV positive you would be forced
out, that was recognized to be a mistake and it was repealed. But here
they go again.
What they have done is to take the issue of illegal immigration, a
popular issue, and use it as a shield behind which to do ugly things to
vulnerable people. The gentleman from Texas pointed out the extent to
which they are weakening the civil rights protection. Here is another
thing they do. It was not in either bill. It has not been voted on, and
in the most extraordinary arrogance ever seen, we were not allowed to
offer an amendment on this or any other thing in the conference.
Because I will give my Republican leadership friends credit, they know
how embarrassing this is, and therefore they are determined not to let
anyone vote on it, so they did it in a forum in which you could not
vote.
They simply say, OK, we got a bill on illegal immigration. By the
way, they are going to stick in a couple of these things, and you have
no way to vote, other than no on the whole bill.
The one I am talking about has to do with people who are HIV
positive. This bill says if you are a legal immigrant, you came here
legally, and there has been some economic misfortune and you get very
sick, you cannot take federally-funded medical care for more than a
year. That in and of itself seems to me to be cruel and unfair.
But then they say, well, in the interest of public health, we do not
want epidemics around, we will make an exception for communicable
diseases. That was in the bill as it came out.
Then, in the mysterious darkness that they use instead of a
conference report, they gave an exception to the exception. What is the
exception to the exception? If you are here legally and you are HIV
positive, you may not get any treatment if you need Federal funds. If
you are here legally and you contracted this terrible illness, which
they profess to think is something we ought to fight, then you are, by
this bill, condemned to death, with no help, because you cannot get
Federal assistance.
I guess when they tote up the death penalties that they want to take
credit for, they ought to add one: Legal immigrants here with HIV
illness.
They created an exception for communicable diseases, but then they
created an exception to the exception, so that if you are here legally
and you get HIV, no matter how, and, by the way, we have changed the
law, I did not agree with it, but this is the law, no one is now
challenging it, so if you are known to be HIV positive and we test you,
you cannot come in. So we are not talking about becoming a magnet for
people who are HIV positive to come here. There is already a limit on
that. What we are talking about are people who are here and become HIV
positive, or who are here and become HIV positive when they got here,
and they are denied medical treatment for more than 12 months, which,
of course, if you are HIV positive, is the medical treatment you need.
What is the reason for that? What is that doing in a bill to deal
with illegal immigration? I am talking about illegal immigrants. They
can be deported if they take advantage of this medical care. I do not
think it is a good idea to deny medical care to people in need
elsewhere.
But this? We said ``Gee, we made a mistake. We should not kick people
who are HIV positive out of the military.'' Should we kick them out of
existence? Because that is what you do when you say to people who are
here and do not have a lot of money and who are HIV positive, that you
cannot get any medical treatment beyond 12 months.
I take it back. When they are about to die, then I guess they can get
some.
This is an unworthy substantive and procedural piece of legislation,
and it ought to be defeated.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from
[[Page H11083]]
Virginia [Mr. Goodlatte], a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
(Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this
legislation, and I commend the gentleman from Texas for his outstanding
work, in working so hard to put together a bill that has had very, very
difficult times getting different pieces of legislation included.
I agree with some of the Members on the other side that I would like
to see legal immigration reforms. I would like to see an employer
verification system that really will help employers screen out
fraudulent documents. But it is time for us to do and see the good
things that are in this bill.
So I strongly disagree with those who did not get one piece of
legislation into this bill that they would like or dislike and are
going to vote against the entire bill, which they admit has dozens and
dozens of positive, good illegal immigration reforms dealing with
cracking down on illegal entry at our borders, dealing with illegal
overstays in the country, dealing with cutting off access to government
benefits for people who are not lawfully in this country.
Mr. Speaker, I urge the support for this legislation.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn], one of the only two medical doctors in the
House.
(Mr. COBURN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I just want to answer a couple of questions
about this in terms of HIV in regard to AIDS. This bill does not deny
treatment to legal immigrants that have AIDS. What it says is the
government does not have a responsibility to pay for that treatment on
non-U.S. citizens. I think if we poll the vast majority of the people
in this country, I think they would agree with this.
The second thing is most Americans in this country pay for their own
health care, either through a health plan, insurance payment, or
working. They pay for their health care. We have created a class in
this country that does not feel that it should pay for its health care
on a disease that at this point in time the vast majority of which is a
preventible disease.
The third point that I would like to make is that this bill does deny
AIDS treatment to illegal immigrants, illegal. Yes, it does. Illegal
immigrants, those people who are here illegally. So what we are saying
with this bill is that if you have a sponsor and you are here legally,
that sponsor should cover for your cost of the AIDS treatment.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman
from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank].
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I understand why the
gentleman did not want to yield. The bill does not say that legal
immigrants can get AIDS treatment and illegal cannot. It gives
disabilities to both of them for getting it with Federal funds. Anybody
who can pay for it on their own the bill does not affect. The bill says
with regard to legal and illegal immigrants, they cannot get it with
Federal funds. The distinction between legal and illegal does not exist
in the bill. The degree of penalty may be different. In both cases the
bill says if you are here legally or illegally and you have HIV, you
cannot be treated with Federal funds. That includes legal immigrants.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say
what the bill says, and that is it does not deny AIDS treatment to
legal immigrants. It simply says the immigrant's sponsor, not the
American taxpayer, should pay for the treatment.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman
from Massachusetts. [Mr. Frank].
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, it is a good sign that they
are uncomfortable when it is described accurately. It does not just say
you go after the sponsor. If you are a legal immigrant and you are
treated, you can be deported for it. It becomes a deportable offense to
be a sick person who gets treated if you have AIDS. At least describe
accurately the harm you are inflicting on people.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Dornan].
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, let me take 10 seconds out of the beginning
of my short remarks here as a border State Congressman from California.
One of the greatest selling jobs of all-time was to take the
behavioral conduct ring out of the word AIDS. If we were discussing
this as what it is, a fatal venereal disease, and it had the ring of
syphilis, which is no longer fatal, I do not think we would be going
back and forth like this. We would say illegal immigrants cannot get
treatment for syphilis, and if they are legal then their sponsor has to
take care of it.
But because we have done this magnificent PR on the only fatal
venereal disease in the country, we still go back and forth as though
AIDS is a badge of honor. It shows you are a swinger and you are part
of the in crowd in this country. Sad.
I cannot add anything to the brilliance of the gentleman from
California [Mr. Gallegly] or the gentleman from Texas or the people who
have worked out an excellent piece of legislation. I just, for my 5
grown children and my constituents, want to get up and say: Illegal-
legal. Illegal is lawbreaking; law breakers have no rights in this
country.
{time} 1400
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Berman].
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to join my other colleagues in
indicating how sorely I will miss my friend from Texas, who is really a
great Member of Congress, and I am sorry he will be leaving this body.
The people of my congressional district and of southern California,
and probably the entire country, desperately want us to do something
effective to stop illegal immigration. It is wrong to conclude that the
people who voted for Proposition 187 are racist or xenophobes. They are
people who are looking at what has happened: The employer sanctions did
not work, the other strategies did not work, the refusal or earlier
administrations to fund the Border Patrol and the Congress to
appropriate the money left the border essentially unprotected. They
want something done.
The problem with this bill is it cons the American people into
thinking major new steps are going to be done.
This President is the first President to put the money where the
mouth is. He has proposed, and the Committee on Appropriations, to its
credit, has funded massive increases in Border Patrol. He has initiated
through Executive order an expedited procedure for asylum, which has
reduced those frivolous asylum applications by 58 percent. We are
depositing more criminal aliens and more illegal immigrants than we
ever did before, and all the trend lines are up.
What the Jordan commission and every single independent academic
study of this issue says, without a verification system we will never
make employer sanctions meaningful. Nothing else. Nothing else is
serious if we do not do that and make a commitment to do that.
Second, we know there are industries that systematically recruit and
hire illegal immigrants, and for reasons that I do not know, the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] has a theory which sounds plausible
to me, this conference committee struck inspectors and investigators to
cover those industries. We should not be conned.
Let me turn to what it does with legal immigrants. For the first time
in American history, even when we had the moratoriums on immigration, a
U.S. citizen, and, remember, this bill puts an income requirement on
petitioning for spouses. An individual has to make 140 percent. Fifty-
three percent of the unmarried American people do not make 53 percent,
do not make 140 percent of the poverty standard. Mr. Speaker, 53
percent of the American people do not make it.
A graduate student woman in medical school, who is not making that
money, falls in love and marries a physician in France. She cannot
bring him in because, even though he is affluent, has all the assets
needed, there is no indication in the world he will go on any
government program, she cannot bring him in.
This is the stupidest as well as the meanest provision I can imagine.
When
[[Page H11084]]
we had moratoriums on immigration in this country, we allowed U.S.
citizens to bring in their spouses. Why would we want to change that
now?
I urge a ``no'' vote on a bill that is soft on illegal immigration
and harsh and mean on legal immigrants.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Hunter], who has contributed so much to this bill.
Mr. HUNGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, for my friend who just spoke, let me set the record
straight. When he claimed the Clinton administration has funded
thousands and thousands of Border Patrol agents, Republican amendments
have added 1,700 Border Patrol agents over the last 3 years above and
beyond what the Clinton administration requested. President Clinton cut
93 Border Patrol agents in the fiscal year 1994 budget. We added 600.
The next year we came with an additional 500, and the next year with an
additional 400 agents.
The Clinton administration has been dragged kicking and screaming to
the border. They have opposed the border fence every step of the way.
My last point is, even after they opposed the additional Border
Patrol agents, President Clinton then sent his public relations people
to San Diego to welcome the agents that he had opposed. If these people
just linked arms, all the Clinton public relations people, we would not
need a Border Patrol because they would stretch across the entire
State.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Berman].
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would say to my friend, the gentleman from
California knows that no President has proposed more Border Patrol
agents than this President. The Committee on Appropriations, not the
authorizing committee, the Committee on Appropriations has funded those
positions and more. He has signed those bills. We are doing more now
than we ever did before.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Gallegly], the chairman of the House task force on
illegal immigration.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, this is truly a humbling moment for me because this
conference report is something that truly I wondered if we would ever
see in this body.
I came to Congress nearly a decade ago, and since that time my
overwhelming focus has been on two things: to stop the unchecked flow
of illegal immigration in this country and to find a way to convince
those that are already illegally in this country that it is time to go
home. This conference report goes a long way toward accomplishing both
of those objectives.
For many years many of us in California, Texas, and other States that
have been disproportionately impacted by illegal immigration have been
walking through the halls and through this body ringing alarm bells. We
have been urging this Congress to wake up to the fact that our country
is, in effect, under a full-scale invasion by those that have no legal
right to be here yet who come by the thousands every day and consume
precious social benefits that are denied every day to legal residents
who are truly entitled to those benefits.
Today this is a different bell ringing in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker,
and the bell is a bell of change. The passage of this conference report
finally signals the willingness of this Congress to seriously address
the issue of illegal immigration.
Mr. Speaker, we are a generous Nation, by far the most generous
Nation on the face of the Earth. This legislation does not endanger or
threaten that generosity but, in fact, it does nothing more than to
preserve it.
The simple fact is that the greatest potential threat to legal
immigration is illegal immigration. There are many who would see us
close the front door to legal immigration because the back door to
illegal immigration is off the hinges. We simply cannot allow this to
happen. I believe this conference report goes a long way toward
ensuring that it never will happen. I urge its passage.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman].
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time. I want to point out a couple of important health consequences
from this bill.
In the welfare bill we excluded legal aliens from health care but we
left those who are already patients to be covered under Medicaid. They
are now excluded.
Second, we exclude any legal alien from any Medicaid services
whatsoever. That is going to put a burden on the counties and the
States and on the hospitals and on people who pay for private insurance
when that insurance goes up, because a lot of people are still going to
get care, but their care is going to have to be paid for by someone
else.
On the AIDS issue, what we are doing is really a disastrous policy.
This bill provides that all people can be tested but they cannot get
care. Why would anybody want to come to know whether they are HIV
positive if they cannot then get any medical care to assist them? They
will rather be ignorant about it and spread the disease.
For those of us who call ourselves pro-life, understand that this
bill would allow a pregnant women to be tested; but when she is
determined to be HIV positive, she will not be allowed to have the
Government pay for her AZT to stop the transmission of HIV, which is
successful under this treatment to two-thirds of those children.
We will condemn babies to getting AIDS when it could have been
prevented. That, to me, is antilife and nonsensical, and this bill
smacks of a lot of injustices that have not been thought through.
I want to point this out to Members as another reason to vote against
a very unjust bill.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Cunningham].
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, every substantive issue in the bill
before us today has been voted on by the House or the Senate. I would
say to my colleagues on the other side that even in welfare, many of
them, no matter what we did, they would vote against it, both for
political reasons and issue reasons.
In California over two-thirds of the children born in our hospitals
are to illegal aliens. Members should take that into effect when they
are talking about helping the poor and American citizens and taking
away funds from Medicaid.
We have over 400,000 children K through 12. At $5,000 each to educate
a child, that is over $2 billion. They should try to take that out of
their State for education.
Some 70 percent of the environment is done at the State level.
Members should think about $3 billion taken out of their States. They
could not afford that.
This bill does not help all of those things. Prop 187, that the
Gallegly amendment was in, passed by two-thirds in California. It has
been taken out of this.
There are some things in here that I do not like as well, but I would
ask my colleagues on the other side to think about how they could
afford it in their States, and I think it would be very difficult.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from California [Mr. McKeon].
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this conference
report and commend the gentleman from Texas, Chairman Smith, for his
great leadership in bringing this bill to the floor.
As legislators we work on an endless number of issues, but today we
are addressing one of our Nation's most critical, that of protecting
our borders. H.R. 2202 not only secures our borders with the addition
of 5,000 new Border Patrol agents, it also streamlines the deportation
of criminal aliens, protects American jobs and holds individuals
responsible to support immigrants that they sponsor, and, finally,
eases the tax burdens on all Americans.
It is no longer possible to ignore the magnitude of the illegal
immigration problem. These reforms will go a long way toward restoring
reason, integrity, and fairness to our immigration policy and to
controlling our borders. Through the adoption of this conference
report, the 104th Congress achieves another commonsense change for a
better America.
[[Page H11085]]
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from New York [Mr. Nadler].
(Mr. NADLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, this bill, which contains some valid
provisions to enforce our immigration laws, has been poisoned with
unconscionable provisions that violate fundamental American values.
The bill would deny treatment to people with AIDS but not to people
with syphilis. It would promote discrimination in employment by
removing provisions of Federal law, of present law, designed to prevent
that.
The bill would not permit an American citizen, denied a job because
the Federal Government made a computer mistake, from recovering
damages. This is outrageous and will result in Americans being denied
jobs and having no recourse.
The agreement will undermine American family values by curtailing the
ability of American citizens to sponsor the entry of family members
into the community.
The bill exempts the Immigration and Naturalization Service from our
environmental laws, even though none of these laws have ever hindered
the enforcement of immigration laws.
The bill will send genuine refugees back to their oppressors without
having their claims properly considered. If a person arrives at the
border without proper documents, the officer at the border can send
that person back without a hearing. Guess who cannot get proper papers?
Refugees. A refugee cannot go to the Gestapo and KGB and say: I am
trying to escape your oppression, please give me the proper papers so I
can go to America.
The bill eliminates judicial review for most INS actions. Just think,
a Federal bureaucracy with no judicial accountability. When did the
Republicans become such spirited advocates of unrestrained big
government? No government agency should be allowed to act, much less
lock people up or send them back to dictatorships, without being
subject to court review.
{time} 1415
Should we ensure that our immigration laws are respected and
enforced? Of course. Do we need to undercut public health efforts,
destroy our environment, debase our fundamental values, violate the
rights of American citizens and waste taxpayer dollars on foolish or
dangerous enterprises in order to enforce our immigration? Of course
not.
This bill is not a credit to this country. I hope Members stand up
for American values and vote ``no.''
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the
distinguished gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], chairman of the
Committee on International Relations.
(Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I support the passage of this important
immigration conference report. The American people want and expect the
Federal Government to do its job of controlling our borders. We have a
strong obligation in protecting our citizens from illegal criminal
aliens, who prey on them with drugs, and other crime-related activity.
I am particularly proud to support this immigration bill which
includes some of my own initiatives directed at these serious threats
from criminal aliens, engaged in both the illicit drug trade as well as
international terrorism.
The first provision provides clear authority to our National Guard
units to allow them to move criminal aliens facing deportation to INS
deportation centers, when these aliens have engaged in drug related
offenses. In the past, many States did so effectively with their
National Guard units. My provision restores that vital authority to our
National Guard as part of its counterdrug mission.
The National Guard can now help expedite the deportation out of the
U.S. on Guard air flights of large numbers of these criminal aliens
involved in the deadly drug trafficking in our communities after they
serve their jail time, and before they can return to the streets, and
once again in their trade in drugs. I hope many Guard units will do so.
The provision recognizes the limits on the INS's inability to
individually transport numerous criminal aliens for deportation, using
INS personnel on commercial flights. We have provided one more
effective tool in the war on drugs, the use of our National Guard in
the deportation of criminal aliens involved in drugs.
Nearly one-fourth of our Nation's jail cells in the United States,
are occupied by criminal aliens, mostly those who have engaged in drug
related offenses. We need more effective and creative tools to handle
this crisis. I hope that our State and local authorities and the INS
takes advantage of this assistance that the National Guard can provide.
New York City Mayor Giuliani on ``Face the Nation'' recently said it
best with regard to our Nation's drug crisis, including criminal
aliens, on what the Federal Government can best do to combat the
serious drug problems facing our cities and local communities:
What the Federal Government could do is to deport more of
the illegal drug dealers that we have in our city (sic)
unfortunately, very few deportations take place of the people
who are actually selling drugs who are illegal immigrants and
that would be very helpful.
My provision helps do just that. Senator Dole has wisely urged an
even greater role for our excellent National Guard already involved in
the battle against illicit drugs. Today we provide the first
installment on Senator Dole's wise call for additional Guard action.
My other provision in the conference provides for criminal asset
forfeiture penalties for visa and passport fraud and related offenses
surrounding misuse or abuse of these key entry and travel documents.
Nine of the original indictable counts in the World Trade Center
terrorist bombing involved visa or passport fraud. It was clear that
those responsible for that bombing misused our travel and entry
documents to facilitate their deadly terrorist blast. By this measure
we have made those who would make and help create fraudulent visas and
passports to promote terrorism and drug smuggling here at home, subject
to even tougher penalties.
The potential loss of the printers, copiers, buildings, and large
financial proceeds of this massive illicit business in key U.S. travel
and entry documents, should help further deter terrorism and other
criminal activity, facilitated by these fraudulent travel documents.
Although this is a good bill, I am hopeful that the sponsors will
review provisions in the conference report that would greatly expand
``deeming'' for legal immigrants beyond the compromise agreed to in the
recently enacted welfare bill, which combines the income of the
immigrant and the sponsor for Medicaid eligibility determination.
Regrettably, the deeming provisions may adversely affect many States
with high immigrant populations, including New York, which are
implementing welfare reform. The result may potentially cause a marked
increase in the amount of uncompensated care for area hospitals and
increase the costs of the Ryan White treatment program. I have brought
this issue to the attention of Chairman Smith and have asked him to
consider the contention that confusion is likely to result as the
States implement the language of the two bills and I thank him for that
consideration.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support the conference
report, and urge its adoption.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Rohrabacher].
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this
conference report. Today when this bill passes, the American people
will be able to judge for themselves who is on their side and who is
for draining dollars meant for our people, draining those dollars away
from American families and taking them and giving them to foreigners
who have come to this country illegally.
We have had to fight for years, first through a democratically
controlled Congress and now this administration which has fought us and
dragged us by the feet every step of the way but we have finally got a
bill to the floor.
Giving illegal aliens benefits that should be going to our own people
is a betrayal of our people. People who are sick, they come to our
borders. Yes, we care about them. I do not care if it is AIDS or
tuberculosis. But if someone is sick and illegally in this country,
they should be deported from this country to protect our own people
instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that should go for
the health benefits of our own citizens. The question is, To whom do we
owe our loyalty? Who do we care about? The American people should come
first.
[[Page H11086]]
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Bilbray] who actually lives on the border and
faces the crisis of illegal immigration every day.
Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this conference
report. I would like to thank Chairman Smith and Chairman Simpson for
the leadership they have shown on this bill. I would also like to
commend Senator Feinstein of California for her commitment to make the
conference report work and encourage the President to sign it into law.
I think that the public is sick and tired of seeing the partisan
fighting on important issues such as this. Senator Feinstein had a
major concern about one portion of the bill, part of the bill I feel
strongly about, and that is the issue of the mandate of the Federal
Government that we give free education to illegal aliens while our
citizen and legal resident children are doing without. But, Mr.
Speaker, this Member, and I think the American people, are not willing
to kill this bill because of a single provision.
I think there are those who will find excuses to try to kill this
bill and try to find ways not to address an issue that has been ignored
for over a decade.
We must not forget that California has been disproportionately hit
with paying $400 million a year in emergency health care, $500 million
for incarceration costs, and $2 billion in providing education for
illegal aliens in our State.
Congress must still recognize that these are federally mandated costs
and it is up to the Federal Government to either put up or shut up in
ending these unfunded mandates.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Florida [Mr. McCollum], chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime.
(Mr. McCOLLUM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill today. It
is a very, very fine product. H.R. 2202 is a much needed boost to our
efforts against illegal immigration.
Included in the bill are 5,000 new border patrol agents, more INS
agents to track alien smugglers and visa overstayers, more detention
space for illegal aliens, and the list goes on and on.
I am most pleased that many of the asylum reform provisions that we
have needed for years and I worked on with the gentleman from Texas for
years are now in this bill. We have very generous asylum laws but now
we are going to have provisions that make it a lot more difficult for
somebody to come here and claim that they have a fear of persecution if
they are sent back home to their native country, when they really do
not, and be able to overstay and stay and get lost in our country and
never get kicked out. Instead we have got a provision that I think is
very fair for summary and expedited exclusion which, by the way, is
already law as a result of the antiterrorism bill earlier this year but
which we are making much more livable and a better product today.
Also we have in here some efforts to try to get document fraud under
control. We lessen the number of documents used in employer sanctions
where we attempt to cut off the magnet of jobs by a 1986 provision that
makes it illegal for an employer to knowingly hire an illegal alien.
There were far too many documents that could be produced to get a job.
Now we have reduced that number to a manageable number.
What is left to be done is we need to find a way to get document
fraud out of it. I think that some steps are taken in this bill, not
enough, and I have introduced another separate piece of legislation I
hope passes the next Congress to make the Social Security card much
more tamper-proof than it is today.
We also have some provisions in here I think are important with
regard to Cuba. We have allowed the Cuban Adjustment Act to continue to
operate and with regard to the expedited exclusion issue, we have made
a special provision so that those Cubans who arrive by air are going to
be not subject to that particular provision.
We have also taken care of student aid problems that were earlier in
this bill, whereby if you are deemed to have the money value in your
pocket of your sponsor, you no longer will be in the case of education,
at least for student aid purposes, excluded from those benefits.
The bill is an excellent bill. I urge my colleagues to adopt it and
we need to send it down to the President and get it put into law.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from Illinois [Mr. Gutierrez].
Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, for generations immigrants have played a
vital role in our economy, but today immigrants play the role of
villain in the Republican's morality play. By exploiting a false image
of millions of illegal immigrants crossing the border into the United
States, Newt Gingrich and his Republican allies have crossed the border
from decency to indecency.
After all, under this bill the simple idea of uniting with your
closest family members will become a luxury that only the wealthiest
will be able to afford. The Republicans say they want to get tough on
crime, so how do they do that? Under this bill legal immigrants are
deportable for the crime of wanting to improve their education to
adding something to this country. That is right, under this bill if you
are a legal immigrant and you use public benefits, including a student
loan for more than a year, you are shown the door. What does that
accomplish? It means that we throw our young people who are taking
steps to gain an education and job skills and, yes, improve their
English skills also. It means that this bill does not simply punish
immigrants, it punishes all Americans who benefit from contributions
that immigrants make to our Nation. Let us defeat this sad, cynical,
and shortsighted legislation.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Horn].
(Mr. HORN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, legal immigration, yes; illegal immigration,
no. Californians and residents of other border States have been
fighting illegal immigration for years. It took the current Republican
majority to take a serious look at this issue. Do not listen to the
charges of those who oppose this bill. It is not cruel to ask
immigrants and their sponsors to live up to their obligations. It is
not heartless to try to put some teeth in our immigration laws. It is a
pretty sad day when you can jump a fence, have more rights in this side
of the border than when you are coming through legally. We need to
protect legal immigration.
Recently I held a hearing near the border. Our border in southern
California is still a sieve. They have simply moved the problem 40
miles east. They refuse to indict those that are coming over with
drugs. And generally it is chaotic still. What it means, we had gained
more congressional seats but that will not be good for everybody east
of California, I am sure. So I would hope we would have the help of our
colleagues throughout this Chamber because this is a national problem,
not just a Southwest, Southeast problem.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from New York [Mr. Richardson].
(Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the chairman and the
ranking member. They worked very hard with this bill. There are still
some problems. The common perception is that once you get the Gallegly
amendment out, the bill is OK. The problems are still there and more
work is needed on this bill.
The Endangered Species Act, nobody has talked about it today, but it
is part of this package. In other words, the Environmental Policy Act
and the Endangered Species Act are waived if we are talking about
construction of roads and barriers at the border. That is not right.
Mr. Speaker, this bill also rolls back three decades of civil rights
policy by establishing an intent standard. It exacerbates the results
and the effects of the welfare reform law but now it seems that we are
castigating legal immigrants.
This bill includes back-door cuts in legal immigration by
establishing a
[[Page H11087]]
new income standard. It guts the American tradition we have always had
to refugees by including summary exclusion provisions that are going to
require instant return of any refugee.
Perhaps, most importantly, what this bill does is it is tougher on
legal immigrants and American workers than on illegal immigration. It
makes life harder for American workers and easier for American
businesses. Eliminated are provisions in the bill to increase the
number of inspectors for the Department of Labor to enforce worker
protections, the Barney Frank amendments that allowed us in the past to
vote for this bill. This bill also strips authority from the courts
with provisions that will eliminate the power of the courts to hold the
INS accountable and eliminate protections against error and abuse.
I want to return to the Barney Frank provisions that allowed many
civil libertarians, those concerned with civil rights, when we passed
very tough employer sanctions in the old immigration bill, to support
this bill because we knew there would be recourse if there was
discrimination. All of these inspectors, all of these that enforce
civil rights provisions are eliminated from this bill. That is a key
component that is going to hurt American workers.
This bill eliminates also longstanding discretionary relief from
deportation that will say to American family members of immigrants
being deported that you get no second chance. I know there are enormous
pressures for dealing with illegal immigration bill. There are
political pressures that are very intense. But we should not allow the
politics and the fact that this is a wedge issue to prevent us from
doing the right thing. The right thing is that this bill needs more
work. We do want to have strong measures against illegal immigration.
There are a lot of provisions here in the bill that are good, that make
sense. But the attack on legal immigrants, American workers, right now,
is stronger than on illegal immigration. Therefore, I think that we
should reject this bill. Give it one more shot.
There is additional time. I understand we will be in next week now.
Let us do the right thing. Let us defeat this conference report.
general leave
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks on the conference report under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bilbray). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, several times today, various opponents have mentioned
that we do not have in this legislation the Department of Labor
inspectors.
{time} 1430
But I want to remind them that they have already lost that argument
twice. That provision was taken out on the House floor by amendment,
and then subsequent to that we passed the House bill without those
inspectors in it. That means two times it has come before this body and
two times the Members have spoken.
The point is that we have already debated that, we have already
voted.
The other thing about the inspectors that seems to be conveniently
overlooked is that in this bill we have added an additional 900
inspectors, 300 each year for 3 years, and these are INS inspectors. It
makes far more sense to have Immigration and Naturalization Service
inspectors enforcing immigration laws than the Department of Labor.
And, Mr. Speaker, I also want to itemize some of the provisions that
are in this bill that might have been overlooked.
We have heard tonight by Members on both sides of the aisle that this
bill doubles the number of Border Patrol agents over the next 5 years.
That is the largest increase in our history.
It also streamlines the current system of removing illegal aliens
from the United States to make it both quick and efficient.
It increases penalties for alien smuggling and document fraud.
It establishes a three-tier fence along the San Diego border, which
is the area with the highest number of illegal border crossings.
It strengthens the public charter provisions and immigration laws so
that noncitizens do not break their promise to the American people not
to use welfare.
It ensures that sponsors have sufficient means to fulfill their
financial support obligation.
It also strengthens provisions in the new welfare law prohibiting
illegal aliens from receiving public benefits, and it strengthens
penalties against fraudulent claims to citizenship for the purposes of
illegally voting or applying for public benefits.
Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that I know my friend from
Texas, Mr. Bryant, opposes this bill, but I still want to say that he
deserves public credit for many of the provisions still in the bill
that he would consider beneficial, even if he does not consider the
entire bill beneficial.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to continue the comments I was making a
while ago and express to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] my
appreciation for his constructive role in the process. Even if he
cannot support the entire bill, he has played a significant role in
getting us to this point, and especially at the beginning when he was a
cosponsor of this bill.
Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I want to make the point once again that the
opponents who we are hearing from this afternoon do not represent a
majority of their own party. They certainly are entitled to try to kill
this bill or block the bill or defeat the bill, but we have every
right, those of in the majority, to try to pass this legislation.
The reason I say that they do not even represent a majority of their
own party is simply because every major provision in this conference
report, which is itself a compromise, is the result of either the House
passage of the bill which passed by 333 to 87, or the Senate
immigration bill which passed by a vote of 97 to 3.
So there is wide and deep bipartisan support for the provisions in
this bill, and I expect to see that bipartisan support continue when
the bill comes on a conference report.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume, only to say that I once again take issue with this
characterization of the bill. This is not the bill that the House voted
on; it is not the bill the Senate voted on. It is a bill that the
Republicans spent 4 months behind closed doors cooking up so it would
serve their electioneering and political interests this year.
The fact of the matter is that this bill now does not have wage and
hour inspectors in it which are necessary, it does not have the
subpoena authority for the Labor Department which is necessary, it does
not have the requirement that employers participate in the verification
project. In other words, they have done exactly what the employers
wanted them to do so that the draw of illegal aliens into this country,
which is to get a job, has not been effective.
Oh, yes, we are talking about more people on the border if the
Committee on Appropriations goes along with this. That sounds good. I
am certainly for that. But the only way we are ever going to solve this
problem is to deal with the fact that there are people out there who
habitually hire illegal aliens, and we had many, many inspectors in the
House committee, had many, many inspectors in the House committee
version, the 150. We had 350 in the Senate bill. They are gone. Of the
enhanced penalties that we had in the bill, the enhanced penalties that
we had in the bill so that habitual offenders would suffer for their
acts have now been removed.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts
[Mr. Frank].
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the
subcommittee has given the perfect rationale for voting against the
bill and for our motion to recommit. He says many of these provisions
are here in part because of the gentleman from Texas, the ranking
member. That is exactly right, and if this bill had only those
provisions, it would not be controversial. He has conceded the point.
[[Page H11088]]
There is a core of agreement on measures to restrict illegal
immigration that would not be controversial.
But here is what happens, and people should understand people
sometimes think the party does not mean anything. Yes, party control
means something. The Republicans are in control of this Congress. That
means their ideological agenda and the interest groups that they are
most interested in get served.
What that means is that we do not get a chance to vote just on the
bill dealing with illegal immigration. It comes with illegal
immigration and an unbreakable format, a conference I have never seen
before, where the chairman just decided no amendments would be allowed
because he is afraid to have his members vote on these things.
Other provisions are there. Well, what are the other provisions? One
provision reaches back to antidiscrimination language. It has nothing
to do with illegal immigration. We have said that we feared, when we
put employer sanctions into the law, that this would lead to
discrimination against people born in America who were of Mexican
heritage. The GAO said, ``You're right, it's happened.'' What they have
done in this bill is to reach back to that section not otherwise before
us and made it much harder for us to protect those people against
discrimination.
Then we will have a recommit to undo that. My colleagues could vote
for the recommit and it will not effect their commitment on illegal
immigration.
With regard to the people with AIDS, that is a provision that was in
neither bill. The gentleman from Texas who does not want to defend
things on the merits says, ``Well, the majority is with me.'' Well,
that was not in the House bill, and it was not in the Senate bill. It
is an add-on in that secret conference that they had.
What this bill does is to weaken our enforcement powers against those
who employ people who are here illegally and then, serving the
Republican ideological agenda, says ``If you're here legally and you
have AIDS, you may die if you need Federal funds because you will get
none. If you are a Mexican-American born here, we will make it easier
for people to discriminate against you. If you are an American legally
eligible to work and the Government falsely certifies that you weren't
and makes a mistake, in the House version of the bill we had a
protection for you.'' In this version of the bill there is none. if
they apply for a job, having been born in this country, and they are
turned down because the government inaccurately reported that they were
not eligible to work, they have no recourse. Our bill would have given
some recourse.
This bill protects the employers. This bill makes it harder if
someone is a potential victim of discrimination, or if they are a
perfectly legal resident of the United States with AIDS, including a
child. Children with AIDS who are not yet eligible to become citizens,
children who are brought here; they did not sneak in, not these
terrible people my colleagues are worried about, children who are here
with AIDS are denied Federal health benefits in certain circumstances
by this bill. That is shameful.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Speaker, the States have indicated that there is likely to be
confusion in the interpretation of title V of this bill in the recently
enacted welfare bill. The intent of some of the provisions in title V
may need to be addressed in the later bill. Until that time the States
should be held harmless on issues which are ambiguous.
However, the immigration bill is not intended to change in any way
the eligibility provisions in the recent welfare bill. Non-citizens are
not eligible for SSI or food stamps, and future immigrants are not
eligible for Medicaid as well as for their first 5 years, and this bill
simply does not change that.
Mr. Speaker, I also on a different subject want to reiterate the fact
that all of us who are strong supporters of this bill also are strong
supporters of employer sanctions. That is why in this bill we have
increased Interior enforcement, we have increased the number of INS
inspectors, we have increased the penalties, and we have this quick-
check system that will allow employers to determine who is eligible to
work and who is not.
So this bill goes exactly in that direction, which of course is
supported by a majority of the American people as well.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida
[Mr. Mica].
Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House today, as we debate
this immigration reform legislation, from a State that has been
impacted and sometimes devastated by a lack of a national immigration
policy.
I notice we have some reforms in here, and there are some good
reforms. We are doubling the number of Border Patrol, but also in this
we are also restricting some payments, some benefits, to illegal
aliens, and we should go even beyond that.
But I tell my colleagues that unless we stop some of the benefits,
unless we demagnetize the magnet that is attracting these folks to come
to our shores--we can put a Border Patrol person every 10 yards across
our border, and we will not stop the flow because people will come here
because of the attraction of the benefits.
How incredible it is that we debate whether we give education
benefits or medical benefits and legal benefits and housing benefits
and other benefits to illegal aliens and even legal aliens in this
country when we do not give the same benefits in this Congress, and
that side of the aisle has denied them to our veterans who have served
and fought and died for this country in many cases, or their families,
and to our senior citizens. So this is a much larger debate.
Finally, my colleagues, we must have a President who will enforce the
laws, and we have not had a President who will enforce the immigration
laws, and we have a new policy every day, and we cannot live that way.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute 15 seconds to the
gentleman from California [Mr. Torres].
(Mr. TORRES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I rise to voice my strong opposition to this
so-called immigration reform bill. There must be some confusion over
what immigration actually means, over what immigration actually is. The
dictionary defines immigration as ``coming into a country of which one
is not a native resident.''
Basic logic tells us that any attempt to reform immigration should
address those issues that directly relate to immigration: strict border
control, effective verification of citizenship, and penalizing those
businesses and industries who knowingly employ undocumented immigrants.
Most Americans would agree with those goals. But this bill goes way
beyond these sensible, logical goals. Instead, it attacks the very
principles upon which this country was founded. America's Founding
Fathers built this country on the principles of fairness and equality,
on honoring the law and creating safeguards against any kind of
discrimination. Throughout history, our country has welcomed those
immigrants who play by the rules, pay their taxes, and contribute to
our cherished diversity.
But this bill ignores those traditions and attacks the very people
who we say are welcome--legal immigrants. The welfare bill effectively
stripped legal residents of many safeguards, and this bill goes on to
clean up what the welfare bill missed.
Under this bill, legal immigrants who enter the country and begin the
process of living the life of an American resident would lose the
protections guaranteed by the Constitution.
Employers would be given the go-ahead to discriminate by a bill that
does not enforce current immigration requirements and citizenship
verification. Employers would be allowed to exploit workers by
weakening civil rights protections and gutting wage and law
enforcement.
This bill is not about immigration reform, it's about punishing women
and children who play by the rules and represent the very best in our
country. Most legal immigrants work hard for low to moderate wages,
with little or no health insurance. Should the family need Federal
assistance, too bad. Because if one of these workers ends up in the
hospital and cannot pay his bill, and the sponsor cannot pay his bill,
[[Page H11089]]
that worker will be deported. Never mind that he has been paying taxes
for the past few years. Suddenly, it just doesn't matter that he has
contributed to our economy and has followed our laws.
It doesn't stop there. It isn't just the worker. It's his family, his
children. If his child needs medical care and he can't pay, his tax
money suddenly isn't available. This bill sends the child to school
sick, with the fear of deportation always looming in the background.
Legal immigrant children must have their sponsor's income deemed for
any means-tested program. This effectively bars these children from
child care, Head Start, and summer jobs and job training programs.
What does reducing a legal resident's access to health care and
Federal benefits have to do with restricting illegal immigration I
would argue--nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because this is not about
reducing illegal immigration. If it were, I would not be standing
before you asking these simple questions.
For these reasons, I encourage my colleagues to oppose this blatant
offense to our sense of fairness, justice, and equal protection for
every American resident.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from California [Mr. Bilbray].
Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, let us talk about playing by the rules.
If this bill is not passed, those who have broken immigration law and
entered this country legally have more rights than those who are
waiting patiently at the ports of entry to enter into this country.
That kind of confuses me, because my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle have no problem with an immigration agent turning away
somebody at the port of entry if they are coming to a legal port of
entry, without a judge's rulings, without court cases, without lawyers.
But if somebody jumps the fence, breaks the law, then they want to
continue to empower these people with more rights than those who are
playing by the rules.
{time} 1445
I have to say, this is the absurdity of Washington, that we are even
discussing this issue. But they are saying, what if this legislation
passes, what could happen?
Let me tell the Members, as somebody who lives on the border, let me
say what happened today and what has happened in the past. San Diego
County, when I was a supervisor, spent $30,000 sending people back to
foreign countries in body bags, because of how many people are dying
because of this problem.
The fact is, there are law-abiding citizens who are doing without in
their hospitals because the Federal Government is actively dumping
patients onto working-class hospitals and expecting those communities
to pay the bill that Washington has played the deadbeat dad and walked
away from. This bill will finally correct that.
Mr. Speaker, I think the chairman of the committee said quite
clearly, we want to have a welcome mat out for legal immigration, but
there is a difference between having a welcome mat and being a doormat.
Our taxpayers have a right to expect that citizens do have rights and
should be first in our priorities for social programs and for the
taxpayers' dollars; the fact that illegal aliens should not be given
preference over legal residents and citizens.
Mr. Speaker, if our colleagues from the other side of the aisle want
to walk away from this issue, then they are walking away from a major
mandate, not just from the people of California, but across this
country. We had bipartisan support at finally addressing the issue of
the absurdity of welfare, and we passed a welfare reform bill the
President signed. It is time to be bipartisan. Pass this bill. Give the
President the chance to sign this bill, too.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from Florida [Mr. Foley].
Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I commend the chairman of the subcommittee
for his hard work on H.R. 2202.
Mr. Speaker, let us just say everybody is in bipartisan support of
this bill. The House passed the bill 333 to 87. The Senate bill passed
97 to 3. This bill secures our borders, cuts crime, protects American
jobs, and saves taxpayers from paying billions of dollars in benefits
to noncitizens.
The conference report doubles the number of Border Patrol agents,
expedites the removal of illegal aliens, increases penalties for alien
smuggling and document fraud, prohibits illegal aliens from receiving
most public benefits, and encourages sponsors of legal immigrants to
keep their commitment of financial support.
My grandmother came from Poland with a sponsor, a job, and a clean
bill of health. We should expect no less from any other person coming
to this country. We must stop illegal immigration. We must stop the
waste of Treasury dollars towards people who come here illegally. We
need to clean up our communities. This bill goes a long way to doing
it.
Again, I commend the gentleman from Texas for his leadership on this
issue.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman
from Florida [Mr. Stearns].
(Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I would just say to my colleagues, coming
here the wrong way is not the American way. I support this bill. I
compliment the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] for the work he has
done.
As a Representative from a State heavily impacted by our Nation's
immigration policies, I strongly urge all of my colleagues to support
the immigration in the national interest conference report. The
sweeping reforms in H.R. 2202 will stem illegal immigration, secure our
borders, and encourage personal responsibility for legal immigrants.
While America is a nation of immigrants, its borders must be
protected from illegal immigrants. According to INS there are 4.5
million illegal aliens in the United States. By doubling the number of
border patrol agents, H.R. 2202 protects legal residents from the
social and economic burdens of illegal immigrants.
H.R. 2202 improves legal immigration policies to ensure those who
sponsor immigrants have the means to support them. If we don't require
sponsors to fulfill their financial obligations, taxpayers will
continue to pay $26 billion annually for legal immigration. Sponsors
must honor their obligations so legal immigrants may become self-
reliant, productive residents of the United States rather than
dependents of the welfare state.
Again, I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 2202.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Riggs). The gentleman from Texas [Mr.
Bryant] is recognized for 15 seconds.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say that Members
should vote for the motion to recommit. All of the things that will
strengthen this bill are in it, plus the things that have been talked
about by the other side.
Second, I regret the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] and I we did
not work together on this bill at the end. He is a good friend of mine.
I appreciate so much the spirit in which we began. I look forward to
working with him on something we agree on in the future. I thank the
gentleman very much.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my
time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] is
recognized for 1 minute and 30 seconds.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for
his generous comments. I feel the same.
Mr. Speaker, for the sake of American families, American workers, and
American taxpayers, we have to pass immigration reform right now. To
secure our borders is a worthy effort. If we secure our borders, we are
going to reduce crime, we are going to reduce the number of illegal
aliens coming into the country, we are going to protect jobs for
American workers, and we are going to save taxpayers billions and
billions of dollars.
In addition to that, we have to distinguish and say to legal
immigrants, we want you if you are going to come to contribute and work
and produce, but you cannot come to take advantage of the taxpayer. I
urge my colleagues to vote for this conference report, and against the
motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time has expired.
[[Page H11090]]
Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the conference
report.
There was no objection.
motion to recommit
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the conference
report?
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Yes, I am, Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Bryant of Texas moves to recommit the conference report
on the bill H.R. 2202 to the committee of conference with
instructions to the managers on the part of the House to take
all of the following actions:
(1) Enhancing Enforcement of Protections for American
Workers.--
(A) Recede to (and include in the conference substitute
recommended by the committee of conference, in this motion
referred to as the ``conference substitute'') section 105 of
the Senate Amendment (relating to increased personnel levels
for the Labor Department).
(B) Recede to (and include in the conference substitute)
section 120A of the Senate Amendment (relating to subpoena
authority for cases of unlawful employment of aliens or
document fraud).
(C) Recede to (and include in the conference substitute)
section 119 of the Senate Amendment (relating to enhanced
civil penalties if labor standards violations are present).
(2) Preserving Safeguards Against Discrimination.--
(A) Disagree to (and delete) section 421 (relating to
treatment of certain documentary practices as unfair
immigration-related employment practices) in the conference
substitute and insist, in its place, and include in the
conference substitute, the provisions of section 407(b)
(relating to treatment of certain documentary practice as
employment practices) of H.R. 2202, as passed the House of
Representatives.
(B) Disagree to (and delete) section 633 (relating to
authority to determine visa processing procedures) in the
conference substitute.
(C) Insist that the phrase ``(which may not include
treatment for HIV infection or acquired immune deficiency
syndrome)'' be deleted each place it appears in sections
501(b)(4) and 552(d)(2)(D) of the conference substitute and
in the section 213A(c)(2)(C) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (as proposed to be inserted by section 551(a)
of the conference substitute).
(3) Preserving Environmental Safeguards.--Disagree to (and
delete) subsection (c) of section 102 (relating to waivers of
certain environmental laws) in the conference substitute.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask
unanimous consent that the motion to recommit be considered as read and
printed in the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion to recommit.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground
that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum
is not present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
Pursuant to the provisions of clause 5 of rule XV, the Chair
announces that he will reduce to a minimum of 5 minutes the period of
time within which a vote by electronic device if ordered, will be taken
on the question of agreeing to the conference report.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 179,
nays 247, not voting 7, as follows:
[Roll No. 431]
YEAS--179
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews
Baldacci
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Beilenson
Bentsen
Berman
Bevill
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant (TX)
Campbell
Cardin
Chapman
Clay
Clayton
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Cummings
Danner
de la Garza
DeFazio
DeLauro
Dellums
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Doyle
Durbin
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Fazio
Fields (LA)
Filner
Flake
Flanagan
Foglietta
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Furse
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gonzalez
Green (TX)
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Holden
Hoyer
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jacobs
Jefferson
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kennelly
Kildee
Kleczka
Klink
LaFalce
Lantos
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lowey
Luther
Maloney
Manton
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
McCarthy
McDermott
McHale
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller (CA)
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moran
Morella
Murtha
Nadler
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Payne (VA)
Pelosi
Pomeroy
Poshard
Rahall
Rangel
Reed
Richardson
Rivers
Ros-Lehtinen
Rose
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sawyer
Saxton
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Sisisky
Skaggs
Slaughter
Spratt
Stark
Stokes
Studds
Stupak
Tejeda
Thompson
Thornton
Thurman
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Volkmer
Ward
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Wise
Woolsey
Wynn
Yates
Zimmer
NAYS--247
Allard
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baesler
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Brewster
Browder
Brownback
Bryant (TN)
Bunn
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Christensen
Chrysler
Clement
Clinger
Coble
Coburn
Collins (GA)
Combest
Condit
Cooley
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Crapo
Cremeans
Cubin
Cunningham
Davis
Deal
DeLay
Dickey
Dooley
Doolittle
Dornan
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
English
Ensign
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fields (TX)
Foley
Forbes
Fowler
Fox
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frisa
Funderburk
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Geren
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Greene (UT)
Greenwood
Gunderson
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hamilton
Hancock
Hansen
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Istook
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kasich
Kelly
Kim
King
Kingston
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Laughlin
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Lightfoot
Linder
Livingston
Longley
Lucas
Manzullo
Martini
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McKeon
Metcalf
Meyers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Montgomery
Moorhead
Myers
Myrick
Nethercutt
Neumann
Ney
Norwood
Nussle
Orton
Oxley
Packard
Parker
Paxon
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pickett
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Pryce
Quillen
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Riggs
Roberts
Roemer
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Salmon
Sanford
Scarborough
Schaefer
Schiff
Seastrand
Sensenbrenner
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Shuster
Skeen
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Solomon
Souder
Spence
Stearns
Stenholm
Stockman
Stump
Talent
Tanner
Tate
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Torkildsen
Traficant
Upton
Vucanovich
Walker
Walsh
Wamp
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
NOT VOTING--7
Gibbons
Heineman
Lincoln
Mascara
Peterson (FL)
Williams
Wilson
{time} 1511
Messrs. CUNNINGHAM, EWING, LINDER, CHRISTENSEN, McDADE, BAESLER, and
SKELTON changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Messrs. YATES, WYNN, and LoBIONDO changed their vote from ``nay'' to
``yea.''
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
[[Page H11091]]
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Riggs). The question is on the
conference report.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
recorded vote
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 305,
noes 123, not voting 6, as follows:
[Roll No. 432]
AYES--305
Allard
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baesler
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bentsen
Bereuter
Bevill
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Boucher
Brewster
Browder
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brownback
Bryant (TN)
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cardin
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chapman
Chenoweth
Christensen
Chrysler
Clement
Clinger
Clyburn
Coble
Coburn
Collins (GA)
Combest
Condit
Cooley
Costello
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Crapo
Cremeans
Cubin
Cunningham
Danner
Davis
Deal
DeFazio
DeLay
Deutsch
Dickey
Dicks
Dooley
Doolittle
Dornan
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Ehrlich
English
Ensign
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fazio
Fields (TX)
Flanagan
Foley
Forbes
Fowler
Fox
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frisa
Funderburk
Furse
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Geren
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gingrich
Gonzalez
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Green (TX)
Greene (UT)
Greenwood
Gunderson
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hamilton
Hancock
Hansen
Harman
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Hefner
Herger
Hilleary
Hinchey
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Holden
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hoyer
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Istook
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kanjorski
Kasich
Kelly
Kildee
Kim
Kingston
Klink
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Laughlin
Lazio
Leach
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Lightfoot
Linder
Lipinski
Livingston
LoBiondo
Longley
Lucas
Luther
Manton
Manzullo
Martini
McCarthy
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHale
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McKeon
Metcalf
Meyers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Minge
Molinari
Montgomery
Moorhead
Moran
Murtha
Myers
Myrick
Nethercutt
Neumann
Ney
Norwood
Nussle
Obey
Orton
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Parker
Paxon
Payne (VA)
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pickett
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Poshard
Pryce
Quillen
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Reed
Regula
Riggs
Roberts
Roemer
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Salmon
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaefer
Schiff
Seastrand
Sensenbrenner
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Shuster
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Solomon
Souder
Spence
Spratt
Stearns
Stenholm
Stockman
Stump
Talent
Tanner
Tate
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thornberry
Thurman
Tiahrt
Torkildsen
Torricelli
Traficant
Upton
Visclosky
Volkmer
Vucanovich
Walker
Walsh
Wamp
Ward
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NOES--123
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Baldacci
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Beilenson
Berman
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Brown (OH)
Bryant (TX)
Bunn
Clay
Clayton
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Conyers
Coyne
Cummings
de la Garza
DeLauro
Dellums
Diaz-Balart
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Durbin
Engel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Fields (LA)
Filner
Flake
Foglietta
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gutierrez
Hastings (FL)
Hilliard
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jacobs
Jefferson
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kaptur
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kennelly
King
Kleczka
LaFalce
Lantos
Lewis (GA)
Lofgren
Lowey
Maloney
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
McDermott
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller (CA)
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Morella
Nadler
Neal
Oberstar
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Pelosi
Rahall
Rangel
Richardson
Rivers
Ros-Lehtinen
Rose
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sawyer
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Skaggs
Stark
Stokes
Studds
Stupak
Tejeda
Thompson
Thornton
Torres
Towns
Velazquez
Vento
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Williams
Wise
Woolsey
Wynn
Yates
NOT VOTING--6
Gibbons
Heineman
Lincoln
Mascara
Peterson (FL)
Wilson
{time} 1521
Ms. KAPTUR changed her vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
Messrs. KIM, BROWN of California, and HOSTETTLER changed their vote
from ``no'' to ``aye.''
So the conference report was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________