[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 131 (Friday, September 26, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H7915-H7917]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 94, CONTINUING 
                    APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 1998

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Committee on Appropriations be discharged from further consideration of 
House Joint Resolution 94 when called up; and that it be in order any 
time on Monday, September 29, 1997, or any day thereafter, to consider 
the joint resolution in the House; that the joint resolution be 
considered as read for amendment; that the joint resolution be 
debatable for not to exceed 1 hour, to be equally divided and 
controlled by myself and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey]; and 
that the previous question be considered as ordered on the joint 
resolution to final passage without intervening motion, except one 
motion to recommit, with or without instructions.
  The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Louisiana?
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I would 
like to ask the distinguished chairman whether or not in this provision 
is a provision entitled 245(i), dealing with immigration?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to advise the gentleman 
there are several extensions of existing authorized law that are 
expiring, among them an extension of section 245(i) of the Immigration 
and Naturalization Act.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I would yield to my friend, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], and ask him whether there have 
been Members of this body who object to that and raise objections to 
that particular provision?
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I will just say to the gentleman that my 
office has been deluged with calls over this matter. I personally am 
very much concerned with it. In my district alone, we have I do not 
know how many cases where people are able to pay $1,000 and extend 
their stay in this country, where other people coming from Italy or 
Ireland or other places do not have the $1,000 and they are not allowed 
to.
  There is something wrong with this. I just am concerned about it 
being in this legislation. I do not know how this shows up in a CR. We 
were told this would be a clean CR with no riders. I am concerned about 
it on behalf of about 55 Members that called in.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, this particular 
provision was only voted on in the House of Representatives once, and 
when it was voted on it was rejected with a substantial margin.
  Instead, this was snuck into law based on agreements made behind 
closed doors in conference meetings, et cetera, that it would be a 
temporary measure, and that this would be the

[[Page H7916]]

time when it would sunset. Now here we see another attempt to sneak 
through a major immigration loophole, which would permit tens of 
thousands, no, not tens of thousands, not even hundreds of thousands, 
perhaps millions of people, to stay in this country illegally.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield further, 
let me simply attempt to clarify the record.
  This authorization was included in the supplemental appropriations 
bill in the spring with the full knowledge of the Members of the House 
in order to avoid precipitous action and avoid immediate deportation 
of, as the gentleman has said, tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds 
of thousands of people.
  These are people who have been in the United States for a number of 
years, been here legally, presumably most of them working and paying 
taxes to the Treasury of the United States, and, by virtue of the 
expiration of previous law and change of law, were facing immediate 
deportation.
  There has been an attempt by a number of proponents to give them an 
opportunity to either change the law or make their case that they 
should not be deported. All this provision does is extend that 
provision for about three weeks, so that we can determine whether or 
not it should be included in the long-term solution.
  If the gentleman objects to this provision, it means in effect that 
extension will not go into effect for 3 weeks, and tens of thousands of 
people will face immediate deportation. It would seem that such an 
objection would be precipitous and unwarranted, and would cause undue 
hardship for a lot of innocent people. I urge the gentleman not to 
object.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I was notified that 
this is not a 3 week extension. First of all, I was notified this was 
not going to be in the bill; it was going to be a clean CR and this was 
not going to be there. I was informed 5 minutes ago as I was on the 
road here that it was in the bill.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield further, just to clarify 
the record, so the gentleman understands, the gentleman and I have had 
discussions about this last night, and I have to say, I did not know 
too much about this either.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. It was not the gentleman who misinformed me.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the gentleman, 
because, if he will yield further, I do not intend to mislead him, but 
I want to make sure he fully understands the provision before us.
  In the joint resolution, House Joint Resolution 94, section 123 reads 
specifically, ``Section 506(c) of Public Law 103-317 is amended by 
striking September 30, 1997, and inserting October 23, 1997.'' In 
effect, we are talking about a three-week extension, not any extension 
beyond that.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. What would then happen?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. It means nothing happens. We have another 3 weeks. 
Existing law is extended for the purposes of this continuing resolution 
so that we can resolve the business of the Congress and adjourn at a 
reasonable time this year.
  If in fact the gentleman's objection is heard and this provision is 
struck, it means we do not have those 3 weeks to make this 
determination, and that immediately the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service has to go about the business of deporting tens of thousands of 
people for a short period of time.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. If I could be assured there would be a vote, an up 
or down vote on this particular issue on the floor, rather than having 
this included in a larger piece of legislation in which the Members of 
this body would not be able to express their will on this particular 
issue, if I could be assured that there will be an up or down vote, I 
would withdraw my objection.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield further, I would simply 
say we are attempting to accommodate the authorizing committees that 
have direct jurisdiction over this particular law. This is not a 
provision that the Committee on Appropriations normally deals with. So 
I would not be able to give the gentleman assurances to that effect. 
But I am sure that under the proper circumstances, if we can have that 
opportunity to debate that issue in the next 3 weeks, it would be far 
more prudent to have that debate that the gentleman has requested than 
to entertain an objection at this time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, let me simply reiterate what the chairman of the 
committee has said. This is an effort to simply extend this, along with 
a number of other provisions in the law, for 3 weeks, the same as all 
of the other items in the CR, so that there is more opportunity to deal 
with the issue.
  The real live consequences for people if this is not done is that 
persons have to leave the country and they cannot return for 2 years. 
That would create an unacceptable disruption of human beings' lives if 
in fact the Congress were to decide in 3 weeks that they were entitled 
to stay here.
  We are not prejudging the outcome of this. The committee is simply 
extending it for 3 weeks so that a proper resolution can be reached.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me accept the 
idea that people want a proper solution to this. The proper solution 
was to not sneak this into law in the first place. The proper solution 
was to have an up or down vote on the floor on this issue.
  We are not talking about just individual people's lives, we are 
talking about people who came here and are here illegally in the United 
States of America. Most of these people were people whose visa had 
certain restrictions on it, and they decided just to flaunt the law and 
stay here illegally anyway, which gives everybody who gets a visa to 
come to the United States an incentive to just violate their visa 
agreement to come into the United States. So these are not just 
ordinary citizens.
  However, and I would address this to the Chair, if the Chair can 
guarantee me there will be an up or down vote on this issue in the next 
3 weeks, I will be very happy to withdraw my objection. But if the 
Chair, who happens to be the Speaker of the House, and we are very 
happy to have the Speaker with us today, cannot guarantee me that, I do 
not understand why I should withdraw my objection.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further on that 
point, I do not want to speak for the Speaker because he certainly 
speaks for himself, but we have a Committee on Rules in this House, and 
I can just tell the gentleman that this contentious matter will not 
come to the floor without a rule that would allow a vote on it. Since 
this is only a 3-week extension, I guess I would recommend to the 
gentleman, and I have some strong feelings, as he knows, about it, that 
he not object, and then we will speak to the Committee on the Judiciary 
and we will make sure it goes through regular process. I think that 
would give the gentleman his guarantee.

                              {time}  0915

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would ask the Chair whether or not this Member has 
a commitment that there will be an up or down vote on this issue.
  The SPEAKER. The Chair would not comment from the chair on that kind 
of question. There are procedures of the House that the gentleman has 
been advised of by the Committee on Rules chairman, steps that could be 
taken by the Committee on Rules. The gentleman has rights he can 
exercise as a Member, but the Chair does not engage in that kind of 
dialogue.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Let me note this. I do have a commitment 
from the chairman of the Committee on Rules that we will have an up or 
down vote on this issue.
  Let me remind my fellow Members, the reason why there is a problem 
right at this time and these people's lives face disruption is only 
because this body was prevented from having an up or down vote on the 
issue.
  I am not up here to try to prevent the democratic process from 
working; I want the democratic process to have a chance to work. We 
have a right, and our constituents have a right, to have a vote on the 
floor on issues of this magnitude. We are talking about 400,000 people 
who already stayed, they overstayed their visas, or they snuck into 
this country, so they are here illegally, and they have applied under 
this

[[Page H7917]]

program. I was told when the one debate that we won on the floor, the 
one vote that there was on this was lost by the other side, that there 
would only be several thousand, maybe 10,000 people applying. It is a 
major loophole. Now, if this body wants to do that, I have no 
objection. Well, I would object, I would vote against it, but that is 
fine.
  I am only asking that we put ourselves on the record for our 
constituents on this particular issue. That is what democracy is all 
about, and I have some friends here, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Diaz-Balart] who is totally on the other side on this, who I understand 
feels very strongly. I just think we should all be on the record in 
saying that, and with this agreement by the chairman of the Committee 
on Rules that there will be an up-or-down vote on this within the next 
3 weeks.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the gentleman 
cannot be guaranteed a vote up or down in the next 3 weeks on it. This 
is a 3-week extension. If nothing is done, it expires, and the 
gentleman has won his case. I simply said to the gentleman that if this 
is going to come before the floor, we would see to it in the Committee 
on Rules that there would be a vote on it, if there is going to be a 
further extension of permanent law.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I will accept that assurance, and I 
hope everybody understands that we came to this point where people's 
lives might be disrupted because the democratic process was ignored in 
the past, and this thing was put into law without a vote on the floor.
  Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Louisiana?
  There was no objection.

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