[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 111 (Thursday, August 2, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H5327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Osborne). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, we are once again approaching a national 
discussion with the regard to the issue of immigration, and I am glad 
we are doing so because it is, of course, an important one.
  I am concerned because many times this particular issue is one that 
we are reluctant to deal with. We are reluctant on the floor of the 
House; we are reluctant oftentimes in the court of public opinion to 
discuss the issue of immigration or immigration reform for fear that 
somehow or other our concerns on this particular topic would be 
interpreted as being either anti-immigrant or racist in nature.
  But it is a fact, Mr. Speaker, that it is one of the most significant 
and perplexing problems we face as a Nation. It is, I think, one of the 
most serious of the domestic policy issues that we face as a Nation, 
because it affects us in a variety of ways. Massive immigration into 
the United States, especially massive numbers of illegal immigrants 
into the United States, cause a number of problems. They cause problems 
not just for people in the United States, but they cause problems even 
for those coming in.
  We have heard, of course, many times of the situations that have 
occurred as people have come across the border, have been taken 
advantage of either by people on this side or on the other side of the 
border, people who charge large sums of money for taking people into 
the United States illegally; and then when these folks get here, they 
are oftentimes taken advantage of by employers who know that they can 
pay them lower than the going rate for wages, they can withhold 
benefits, they can do all of this because the employee being illegally 
here cannot do, or refuses, or is fearful of, doing anything about it. 
So it is bad for the person coming across the border, and it is bad for 
people here for a variety of reasons.
  Massive numbers of people coming across the border, legally and 
illegally, low-skilled and, therefore, low-wage earners, have a 
depressing effect on the income of low-income people in the United 
States. It is difficult for people here to get jobs sometimes; it is 
certainly difficult for them to compete with people who are working for 
even lower than minimum wage levels.
  But there are even more important and pressing problems that we face 
in this country as a result of massive immigration, and those problems 
deal specifically with the cost of infrastructure that has to be 
developed and created in response to the growing numbers of people in 
the country.
  We have time and time and time again talked about the problems that 
the Nation faces as a result of an energy crisis. Yesterday, this 
House, to its credit, passed the President's bill, an energy reform 
proposal that hopefully will bring us a long way towards solving the 
energy crisis that we face in this Nation. But why do we face the 
crisis, is the concern that we should all have.
  Why is it that there is not enough energy to go around? Well, the 
fact is, Mr. Speaker, that the problem is a direct result of the 
numbers of people that we have coming across the borders in the United 
States.
  The massive numbers of illegal immigrants and legal immigrants have 
increased the population of the United States dramatically over the 
last 10 years. According to the United States Census, immigration 
accounts for over 55 percent of the population increase in the country. 
As a result, there are, of course, lots of pressures that are brought 
about in terms of infrastructural costs.
  Recently, we have witnessed something else happen. We have witnessed 
a proposal on the part of a Working Group in the White House, a 
proposal to provide amnesty to at least 3.5 million Mexicans who are 
here illegally. Now, that is peculiar in many ways.

  First of all, we tried this once before. In 1986, we proposed and, in 
fact, adopted an amnesty plan. It was designed at that time to reduce 
the number of illegal aliens coming into the country, to help us get a 
grip on our immigration problem. It, of course, did not work. It did 
exactly what we would assume it would do, Mr. Speaker. It encouraged 
many millions of others to come into the country illegally in the hopes 
that they too, in time, would be given the opportunity to be legalized 
because of their illegal activity, I mean as bizarre as that sounds, as 
incongruous as that sounds, as illogical as that sounds. But, 
nonetheless, we have done that.
  I am concerned about this proposal, and I do hope that we will 
eventually strike it down.

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