[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 173 (Thursday, December 13, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H10148-H10153]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL AND THE SECURITY OF OUR BORDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, although I can certainly agree with many 
of the comments of the previous speakers with regard to what this 
Congress has accomplished to date, there is an issue, of course, that I 
must bring to the attention of the Congress, of my colleagues, and the 
Speaker, that has not been dealt with. It is almost incredible to stand 
here and say this in light of everything that has happened since 
September 11. We have, indeed, prosecuted a war against the 
perpetrators of the September 11 tragedy, and we have prosecuted it 
successfully. I am immensely grateful to the President of the United 
States for his efforts to bring these people to justice. In many ways, 
I am pleased with what the Congress of the United States has done in 
efforts, as has been stated earlier, at least on the House side, in 
terms of enhancing the economic viability of the Nation, passing a 
stimulus package, and the rest.
  However, while we focus on issues like those that have been described 
here, having just passed a massive education bill earlier this 
afternoon, we have abandoned, we have refused to deal with one of the 
most important, one of the most significant and uniquely Federal 
responsibilities given to us under the Constitution, and that is the 
issue of immigration control, immigration reform, and the security of 
our borders.
  Amazingly, I say, we have refused to do that. Here we are approaching 
the end of this particular session of Congress. I would have hoped that 
all of our colleagues could have seen what most Americans see. Poll 
after poll after poll by Americans of every stripe, of every political 
philosophy, of every ethnic background, every single poll tells us 
something we evidently do not understand in this Congress, and that is 
the American people want immigration reform. They want us to do 
everything we can to gain control of our borders, to make them more 
secure, so that while we are bombing the people, al Qaeda and others 
responsible for the terrorist acts of September 11, while we are 
bombing them in Afghanistan, the people of the United States want to 
know that the Government of the United States is doing everything it 
can to protect them from more of these folks coming across these 
borders with the intent to do harm. Yet nothing has been done. Nothing.
  We have passed stimulus packages, we have passed education reform, we 
have done a number of things, again, that many people can be quite 
proud of; but amazingly, we have refused to deal with this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I used to stand up here on the floor of the House and 
talk about the need for immigration reform at a point in time when 
there were relatively few Members of this body who were interested in 
doing that. I recognize that it was not a popular issue to address. 
Many Members on both sides have very deep-seated feelings about this 
issue. Some of them revolve around the political imperatives that they 
face in their own districts, the recognition that to talk about 
immigration reform always puts one into the position of being attacked 
for a variety of reasons, all of them unrelated to the real issue of 
immigration reform. But I felt it was necessary to do so. But I also 
understood entirely the political dynamics of this body. I am a 
political person; I do understand what motivates individuals in terms 
of their voting record.
  I recognize fully well that it would be difficult to ever move this 
issue forward in this session, the next session, or the one after that. 
That was several months ago that I had that impression and knew that I 
was fighting an uphill battle.

                              {time}  1700

  I used to talk about the importance of gaining control of our borders 
and the importance of security, and I would reference the fact that we 
have had several instances of terrorists doing

[[Page H10149]]

things in the United States, certainly not to the extent in terms of 
the damage caused by the September 11 events, but we have had similar 
events. We have had all kinds of warning signs that something like 
September 11 was coming.
  In the spring of 1993, Mr. Speaker, a Middle East terrorist named 
Mohammad Salameh struck the first blow at the World Trade Center.
  He, if Members will recall, detonated a bomb in the garage. It killed 
eight and it wounded many. The mastermind of the plot was a notorious 
Egyptian sheikh named Omar Abdul Rahman. The sheikh had been behind the 
assassination attempt or the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar 
Sadat, had fled his own country, and was on the State Department's list 
of known terrorists.
  However, recognizing his background, knowing who he was and what he 
was responsible for and what he wanted to do to us, all he had to do 
was to walk into an American embassy in Khartoum, claim refugee status 
because he had been driven out of Egypt for the murder of the 
President, and get it, get refugee status, and come to the United 
States of America, come specifically to New Jersey and begin recruiting 
terrorists, which he did, begin spouting his hatred of the United 
States, of this great satan, in the mosque in New Jersey; recruiting 
people into his organization, one of them being Mr. Salameh, the 
perpetrator of the crime in the World Trade Center.
  That did not warn us? That did not tell us something about the nature 
of our immigration system, about the nature of our visa process, about 
our need to actually control the flow? That did not tell us something, 
that a man like this sheikh could get into this country by simply 
claiming refugee status, and then we, of course, open the door wide?
  We now hand out refugee status like it was candy. Refugee status used 
to mean something. People used to have to prove beyond a reasonable 
doubt that their lives were in danger in the country they came from for 
political reasons, and that they were not, at the same time, a threat 
to the United States of America. It means nothing today. We hand it out 
like candy.
  In fact, approximately 93 percent of the people who come to the 
United States who claim refugee status may not obtain it originally, 
but they simply walk away after they claim it, because at that time 
when you claim refugee status, you can stay while a process is under 
way to find out whether or not you get it, even though in New York City 
alone, the port of New York, at JFK, only a few thousand will be 
granted refugee status originally, but all the rest who claim it simply 
walk out the door.
  They become, essentially, refugees in the United States because no 
one ever goes after them; no one has the slightest idea who or where 
they are. When one goes to the INS and asks them, where are the people 
who have come here as refugees, but you have denied refugee status to 
them, they do what I call this logo, and this should be the logo of the 
INS. It is simply this: a person standing there shrugging his 
shoulders, hands out, saying essentially, ``I don't know.''
  For almost everything we ask the INS about in these kinds of 
situations, that is the response we get: ``I don't know; cannot tell 
you; I am not sure; I do not know; we have no figures on that; we do 
not keep records on that.'' That is the most constant refrain we get.
  So in the spring of 1993, again, it should have told us something; 
but amazingly, it evidently did not, not enough to get this body and 
the administration to move in the area of border security.
  Why? Because there is a fear of doing so. There is a fear of 
alienating a certain segment of the population in the United States, 
newly arrived immigrants, immigrant families, whatever; maybe the fear 
of alienating other nations, other countries, to tell them to try and 
please help us gain control of our borders.
  Whatever it is, and there are plenty of reasons why we have refused 
to move forward, we did not. We did nothing.
  In 1993, another asylum seeker entered the United States. His name 
was Mir Aimal Kansi, K-A-N-S-I. Mr. Kansi, as Members might recall, 
later shot and killed six people as they waited in their cars outside 
the CIA offices in McLean, Virginia. He fled back to Pakistan, probably 
with the aid of the Pakistani Government, and has never been seen 
since.
  Time and time again, we have been shown that we are vulnerable; that 
people coming into the United States, if we do not be careful, if we do 
not clear them, if we do not know for sure who they are and keep track 
of them when they are here, if we do not do that, we are putting 
ourselves in jeopardy.
  We had all of these warning signs. There were many more, many more 
times when people were apprehended for totally separate events. There 
was a guy caught trying to come across to the United States, come into 
the United States through Canada with all the bomb-making equipment and 
that sort of thing; and just by happenstance, totally serendipitously, 
it turned out he was prevented from coming in. But we know, actually 
now we know that thousands of people are here in the United States who 
we suspect now of coming in here with devious intents.
  Now, when I talk about these people, I am not just talking about the 
people who are here illegally; they just simply come across the borders 
of the United States, north, south, east, and west, and are here 
illegally pursuing their lifestyle, attempting to achieve a better 
life.
  Everybody knows a story of someone who has a family member or 
something who has come here, even illegally, with the intent of 
essentially just making a better life for themselves and not with the 
intent of doing harm to the United States. But I am talking about a lot 
of other people who have come here for other reasons. We know they are 
here, and we are not sure where. We are rounding people up, we are 
detaining them and trying to go through now and trying to find them.
  Just recently, we have indicted someone who we found was a co-
conspirator or the allegation is that he is a co-conspirator with bin 
Laden and al Qaeda. Guess what? Guess what they got him on? Violation 
of his immigration status, violation of his visa.
  Every single one of the people on the planes that were here in the 
United States on September 11, the 19 people who in fact perpetrated 
the crime, all of them were here on some sort of visa status. Most of 
them had, as I understand it, violated their visa status in some way or 
another and could have been thrown out before September 11, had we paid 
the slightest bit of attention to the people who come in here and why 
they come and where they come from.
  But this was not the modus operandi of the INS. The focus of the INS 
at the time was to say that its real purpose had little if anything to 
do with the enforcement of our immigration laws, but it had everything 
to do with trying to make sure immigrants to the United States got 
services, benefits, as one of the individuals from INS told a radio 
audience in Denver when I was home not too long ago.
  She said, yes, we have a responsibility to go out there and look. We 
do not do this rounding up of people anymore, and going to worksites 
and any of that stuff. We find illegal aliens, and we try to explain to 
them they are here illegally, and then how they can get benefits. This 
is what she considered to be the job of the INS.

  We had great hopes that with the change of administration from the 
Clinton administration to the Bush administration there would also be a 
change in policy with regard to immigration; that we would be able to 
begin to control our own borders. A new person was put in place, Mr. 
Ziglar, who was appointed to head the INS. But again, I must say, Mr. 
Speaker, we have been disappointed, disappointed with the new director 
and with his lack of enthusiasm for the enforcement side of his job.
  As it turns out, Mr. Ziglar has an extensive background in the area 
of immigration law because evidently, according to his own testimony in 
the other body, he had been a staffer for a member over there, Mr. 
Kennedy, and actually helped write some of the legislation that we are 
now trying to deal with in terms of immigration reform, legislation 
that created so many loopholes, ultimately, that even Mr. Ziglar

[[Page H10150]]

now says hampers their ability, the INS's ability, to actually get 
something done. He was actually a staff member of the committee, he 
told the committee he was testifying in front of the other day.
  So it is apparent that we have someone now running that agency who 
has no difference in terms of philosophy or what he believes the 
direction of the agency should be, no difference from any of his 
predecessors. He thinks of the INS as a great social service agency 
whose duty and responsibility is to get as many people into the country 
as possible and to ``get them benefits as quickly as possible once they 
get here.''
  Interestingly, one of the other pieces of legislation, major pieces 
of legislation that was passed by this body, by this House not too long 
ago, just yesterday, was the so-called voter registration reform bill.
  After all of the problems we saw with regard to voting and the voting 
machines and the chads and all the rest of that stuff, there was a 
great clamour for some sort of reform in the process. So we are going 
to spend millions of dollars to help communities buy new machines and 
that sort of thing.
  Fascinatingly, fascinatingly, when I went to the author of the 
legislation and asked if there was anything in there to prevent people 
who are here illegally, people who are not citizens of the United 
States, if there was anything in the bill to prevent them from voting, 
he said they really could not get that through, and that he was hoping 
that the other body would in fact do that; that we could somehow, 
somewhere, add to the bill the requirement that one be a citizen to 
vote, ``But we were fearful that that cannot be fixed.''
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I ask Members, am I the only one here, and my 
colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) often says, beam me 
up, beam me up, Mr. Speaker, because he cannot believe what is going on 
around here. I would have to add my voice to his. Beam me up, also.
  Is it really true that this body cannot produce a piece of 
legislation that says one has to be a citizen in order to be able to 
vote? Much too controversial. The INS does not support it; the 
administration probably does not support it.
  Mr. Speaker, we have not changed our attitudes, even though there are 
over 3,000 dead in New York, even though a plane crashes into the 
Pentagon just a few miles from where we stand tonight, and even though 
the perpetrators were all themselves noncitizens of the United States; 
even though we know that time and time again people have come across 
our borders with the intent to do us harm and have carried out many 
actions; and even though we know that we cannot pass anything in this 
body that even remotely reflects our concern for the security of our 
border.
  Beam me up. Beam me up, Mr. Speaker. It is absolutely beyond my 
ability to understand why we are so fearful, why it has taken us so 
long, why we have yet to deal with this issue, and why there are still 
people who, although they will not say as much, they will not be quite 
as open, quite as vociferous, quite as demanding and visible today as 
they were prior to the September 11 about their desire to see open 
borders, people who still have a desire to provide amnesty for all the 
people who are here illegally.
  Although we do not get them saying that so often, we know that they 
are really still in control.

                              {time}  1715

  I go back to Mr. Ziglar's testimony just the other day in front of 
the Senate committee. This is the INS commissioner, John Ziglar. When 
he fielded a question asking whether the administration is still 
considering an amnesty for Mexicans and why, if the INS needs more 
money, does not Congress pass 245(i) extension?
  Let me explain 245(i). This is simply another bureaucratic term for 
the process of amnesty. That is all, providing amnesty for people who 
are here illegally. This is a big issue in the Congress. We cannot do 
anything about border security, but they are still hoping that somehow, 
someway, we are going to be able to get an extension of 245(i) to 
provide amnesty to millions of people here illegally, to give them a 
reward for breaking the law.
  They are still trying to figure it out. They are still determining 
whether or not they can put it on to an appropriations bill, whether or 
not they can hide it in one of the bills we are going to be dealing 
with here next week, one of the three, two or three final appropriation 
bills we have in front of us, because if they can stick it in a huge 
package of legislation, it will be less likely for us to be able to 
defeat it, those of us who are opposed to it, and it will be much 
easier for people to vote for it because people will say I had to vote 
for the defense appropriation, did I not. So they are trying to figure 
out ways to do that.
  As we stand here tonight, they are trying to figure that out. They 
are not dealing with the issue of border security itself, amazing 
again, incredible, but true, but here is the commissioner of the INS, 
appointed by this administration. Remember, this is not a Clinton 
appointee. When he was asked about this, he responded regularization, 
this is a euphemism, regularization, this is a euphemism for amnesty, 
regularization has taken a back seat, but he said the President has not 
abandoned it, it is just going to be on a slower track until the 
climate dies down. Until the climate dies down, until we no longer have 
our sensitivity as acutely honed as we do today to the problems with 
illegal immigration into the country. When it is quieter, they will 
sneak it by us, that is what he is saying. This is the new commissioner 
of the INS. Someone ought to be beamed up and he is one.
  We have over 300,000 people, Mr. Speaker, approximately 318,000 that 
we can identify, 318,000 people who have been ordered to be deported 
from the United States over the last several years. We have about 
100,000 go through this process every year, and some of them are 
actually deported, but 300,000 of them walk away. They simply walked 
out of the courtroom and into American society.
  Please understand, Mr. Speaker, these are people who did not simply 
overstay their visas. These people oftentimes have committed crimes 
against the United States. That is how they got caught. No one gets 
caught for simply overstaying their visa. No one gets caught for not 
having a visa. So no one should be surprised that no one goes after 
visa violators. When we ask the INS, how many people violate their 
visas every year, visa status? They go into their logo stance, I do not 
know, got me, probably a lot, we do not know, we do not keep track of 
them.
  Well, these 318,000 that we have found to be out there and only, by 
the way, after we pressed the INS for quite some time, did they release 
this information, when we brought every time we could possibly make the 
point, I would try, others would try to use this as an example of the 
problem, that 300,000 people were out there already, walked away and 
they had been ordered deported. No one had the slightest idea where 
they were, what they were doing.
  The other day the INS finally decided they would, in fact, allow 
other agencies access to the names, that they would put them into the 
crime database. So that now if a policeman in Jefferson County, sheriff 
in Jefferson County, Colorado, just happens to pull somebody over for 
drunken driving or running a red light or whatever and enters their 
name into the database in the computer, it may come up and say this 
guy, this person is here illegally, was ordered deported.
  That is a good step. I am very happy the INS did this, of course, do 
not get me wrong. This is what they considered to be, however, a major 
reform effort, putting the names into the database. I agree they should 
do that, do not get me wrong. The question now becomes one of what they 
will do once in a blue moon when somebody does, in fact, get arrested 
and are found to have been ordered deported, what will the INS do?
  Will they do what they have done up to this point in time when they 
are called by local officials who say we have got a bunch of people 
here we just rounded up, they are all here illegally, we just stopped a 
car on the road because it did not have any taillights, any headlights, 
broken windshields, and we found out there were six people hidden in 
the trunk, there were was a van with 19 in there and they are all here 
illegally, and what will the INS tell them? I do not know what to do, 
let them go. Hey, what the heck. We have not got time to come out 
there. They are just here illegally.

[[Page H10151]]

  Do my colleagues know what a previous INS assistant director said 
when he was speaking to, just a short time ago, just last year I think 
it was, speaking to a group of people who were here illegally? They 
were probably giving them a party, for all I know, probably like a 
cocktail party thrown by illegal aliens for the INS. It would not 
surprise me. It certainly should because I guarantee my colleagues they 
have nothing to worry about and they do owe a great deal to the INS, 
and the INS, this person, I wish I had the name in front of me, I have 
used it before on the floor, told the assembled group of illegals that 
being here illegally was not against the law. Now, I do not know if the 
people to whom he was speaking understood the English language well 
enough to understand the perversity of that statement. Yeah, he said 
being here illegally is not against the law.
  So this is what we have to deal with. Should we be surprised then 
that it is so difficult to get the INS to change their philosophy 
because we have got the same people, essentially the same ideas about 
who we are and what we are.
  I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that they will come in and say when we 
have asked them, why do not you try to do something about that? They 
will say, well, it is the resources. It is the fact that Congress has 
passed laws tying our hands. That is absolutely true. Plenty of dumb 
laws have been passed by the Congress. Plenty.
  Again, I do not know where to start. There are so many goofball 
things we have done here to try and encourage massive immigration into 
the country of illegals. But combine that stupid activity and the 
stupid actions of Congress over the past 10 years with the incompetence 
and the lack of willingness to enforce immigration laws that is inbred 
into the INS, and it is no wonder we have a disaster of the nature that 
we have faced and that we are still facing, we have faced on the 11th 
and we are still facing.
  Is there any Member of this body, is there anyone in the United 
States of America who does not think that there are still people either 
in the United States or trying to get into the United States but with 
the purpose of continuing the jihad against us? Is there a human being 
here who thinks that? Does anybody believe that even if we bomb 
Afghanistan into dust that our worries are over within terms of 
terrorist activity in the United States of America? Does anybody 
believe that?
  I cannot imagine there is anyone, certainly in this body, and I 
cannot imagine that there is a thinking person in the United States 
that would agree that all we have to do is destroy the al Qaeda network 
in Afghanistan and we are all going to be okay.
  So then what is it that we can and should be doing to ensure our 
safety in this Nation besides bombing Afghanistan? We should, of 
course, be defending our own borders. We should, of course, be using 
the National Guard to defend the borders and every State that is 
adjacent to the border of Canada and/or Mexico. We should be using 
technology to help stop people from coming.
  Now we will never be perfect. We cannot be perfect. I recognize that 
fully well. We will work and work as hard as we can to make sure our 
borders are not porous and we will never be able to make it perfect. 
But on the other hand, does that mean that we do nothing because we are 
afraid of the political ramifications of saying we are going to clamp 
down on immigration. We are afraid that the Hispanic community in the 
United States would vote against us.
  But I will say again, Mr. Speaker, the fascinating thing about this 
topic is that we can see by poll after poll after poll that those 
Hispanic Americans that have been here for generations, some of them a 
lot longer than my family has been in the United States, legal 
Americans, people who have been here, people who have recently 
immigrated to the United States legally and are of Hispanic descent, by 
large majorities they agree with us that the border should be enforced, 
the border immigration laws should be enforced.
  Seventy-three percent in a recent poll said, this is Hispanic 
Americans, said that employer sanctions ought to be enforced for people 
who hire illegal immigrants. It is fallacious to think that the entire 
community of Hispanics living in this country today would automatically 
in a knee jerk fashion vote out anybody who dared suggest that we 
should actually try to maintain integrity of our own borders.
  I will say, I would say, that regardless if I faced that kind of 
political problem which I may very well do. I mean, I get plenty of 
mail, I assure you, that suggests that my political days are numbered 
because of the position I have taken vis-a-vis immigration. So what? So 
what?
  Is it not our responsibility in this body to provide for the 
protection of the life and property of the people in the United States? 
Is not that primary? Is not that the most important thing we are here 
for? Is not it even more important than the education bill? Is not it 
even more important than the economic stimulus package? To protect the 
life, the property of the people of the United States. How do we do 
that if we ignore the fact that our borders are porous, that people can 
come into this country at will and do harm?
  How do we ignore this? Yet, we have.
  We are coming to the end of this session. We have ignored the most 
sacred responsibility we have as Members of this body. We have done so 
because of our fear, our fear that our actions would be either 
misinterpreted or for whatever reason, we will suffer political 
consequences.
  We have refused to do so because Members on the other side of the 
aisle recognize that massive immigration into this country, both legal 
and illegal, eventually turns into votes for them. That is what they 
believe. It may be true. It does not matter. It is more important to 
keep this Nation safe than to worry about our political future. 
Because, frankly, what does it matter what our political futures are if 
our Nation is being destroyed around us. And there are many ways that 
that destruction can come.
  It can come as a result of the bombs that people place in buildings, 
or the planes they turn into bombs and drive into buildings. And it can 
come from the disintegration from our own society that can happen as a 
result of massive immigration. Forty-five million Americans today do 
not speak English, cannot speak English. Forty-five million Americans 
cannot communicate with their fellow Americans in the language of this 
country. Forty-five million Americans, therefore, are inhibited from 
achieving full integration into this society. Many of them, of course, 
choose not to integrate.

                              {time}  1730

  And many of them have no reason, they think, to do so, because 
essentially their culture, their ideas, their language came with them 
and now everybody in their community speaks a language other than 
English and so it is quite comfortable.
  And our schools, our schools continue to push bilingual education. 
Even today, when we passed this massive education reform bill, and this 
is one more thing to go on that list of incredible but true, because if 
we said to everyone in this Nation, if we asked everyone the following 
question, do you believe that a parent should have the right to 
determine whether or not their child should be placed into a bilingual 
education program, what do you think the response would be? I wonder, 
Mr. Speaker. I think, overwhelmingly, people would say, yes, 
absolutely. Seems only right. Yet we could not get that reform into 
this bill.
  Today, even after we passed this reform bill, children all over 
America will be placed, involuntarily, into bilingual education 
classes, classes so that they will be taught in a language other than 
English. Therefore, their ability to achieve success in our schools 
and, therefore, later in life in our system, is severely jeopardized. 
But they will be placed there, and then it will be incumbent upon a 
parent to go through the hoops to try to get them out. And that is what 
we call reform.
  But, of course, many of these parents do not understand the process 
all that well and are very, well, intimidated by the process; but they 
know in their hearts what is best for their children. They know that it 
would be good for the children to actually be taught in English, and to 
be taught English quickly, to be immersed in English, to move out of a 
language other than

[[Page H10152]]

English and into the language of commerce, into the international 
language of commerce and trade. They know that in their hearts; yet 
their children will be placed in bilingual programs without their 
permission. This only helps the disintegration of the culture I have 
described.
  As I say, we can be attacked in a lot of ways, Mr. Speaker. It does 
not just have to be by bombs. And I believe there is a threat to the 
Nation that is represented by massive immigration, especially of 
illegal immigrants, that has to be addressed by this Congress.
  I am happy to see that one of my colleagues has joined us on the 
floor of the House, and I would definitely yield to the gentleman for 
his remarks on this subject.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I think it is very apropos that my 
colleague is talking about the danger of out-of-control immigration to 
our country.
  My staff was recently looking at some of the statements that I made 
back in 1997 in the Congressional Record. On September 29, 1997, there 
was a debate about extending 245(i), which was basically a provision 
which suggested that if someone was in the United States illegally, 
instead of having them have to go back, which they traditionally have 
had to do, to their home country in order to change their status and 
then stand in line and become a legal applicant, 245(i) would have 
permitted them just to give $1,000 and to stay in the United States of 
America and to have their status adjusted here.
  During that debate, I stated, and I think it comes right down to the 
safety of the country, and we are talking about immigration policy: 
``Extending 245(i) also raises serious national security questions.'' 
This is back in 1997. ``Unlike those who enter the United States 
legally, 245(i) applicants are not required to go through the same 
criminal checks, history checks, as they do when they go through this 
check in their home country when they are waiting to come to this 
country legally. The consular offices located in the applicant's home 
country, along with foreign national employees working for the State 
Department, are in the best position to determine if an applicant has a 
criminal background or is a national security risk.''
  Again, this is in 1997. ``Consulates abroad are more knowledgeable, 
they speak the local language, they know the different criminal justice 
systems in the country, and they are the ones who should be screening 
the people before they come to the United States so that we do not have 
criminals and terrorists coming to the United States, not being 
screened, and ending up just paying $1,000 to be put in front of the 
line. Allowing these lawbreakers to apply for permanent status in the 
United States rather than having them returned to their home countries 
to do so circumvents a screening process that has been carefully 
established to protect our country's security.''
  Now, that was back in September of 1997. And let us note that any one 
of the September 11 hijackers who was here in this country would have 
been eligible then to find a sponsor or to marry somebody, just with 
the restrictions that they wanted to tweak this 245(i), that would have 
permitted them to stay in this country. And the general idea of 245(i), 
had that been totally accepted, which was being pushed in 1997, none of 
those guys would have had to go home to get their status changed. Every 
one of the terrorists that slammed into those buildings and was 
involved in this conspiracy to kill thousands of Americans would have 
been given an avenue to stay right in this country legally.

  Now, when we have policies, when we have people advocating this type 
of policy that we are going to change the way we do things around here, 
and this is the policy change, and it is so evidently nonchalant about 
the national security of our country, something is wrong.
  And I would like to applaud the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Tancredo) for the leadership he is providing on this overall issue of 
immigration, because what we have here is immigration out of control. 
And an immigration policy that is out of control is bound to do great 
damage to our country, to our people, and to the national security of 
our country.
  Already we have seen what that means just in terms of traditional 
national security, and that is we have lost almost 4,000 of our 
citizens to a terrorist attack because we did not have proper control 
of our borders. We had people here in our country that should not have 
been here, not to mention of course the failure of the CIA, the FBI, 
and the National Security Agency, which of course was a failure as 
well, but now we are just talking about specific policies.
  In my State, okay, we have not lost 4,000 people to a terrorist, but 
we have criminals who are let loose every day in my State because we 
have a policy of, what? If someone is arrested and they are here 
illegally, that does not automatically mean that they are sent home to 
the country from which they come.
  Mr. TANCREDO. It is called the catch and release policy.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Imagine that. We are turning loose criminals, people 
who have been arrested for crimes in our country and just turning them 
loose among our citizens. This is outrageous.
  And why are we doing this? We are doing this because Americans have 
good hearts and we are afraid to do things that would cause great 
hardship and discomfort to very good people. Ninety-five percent of the 
illegal immigrants, much less the legal immigrants, but 95 percent of 
them are wonderful people, and we are afraid to do something that would 
cause them hardship.
  Well, who are we representing, anyway? Who are we supposed to 
represent? We are supposed to represent the people of the United 
States, the people who happen to be of all races and all ethnic 
backgrounds. The people of the United States are not one race. We are 
not representing a racist point of view or one ethnic point of view. We 
are representing the patriotic interests of every American, no matter 
what color he or she is, or what religion he or she is.
  We should have no apologies that to whomever it is we are saying, ``I 
am sorry, because you are not here legally, you have to go home,'' or 
``you are here illegally and you cannot get benefits to take away from 
our citizens,'' we should not be afraid to do this.
  Mr. TANCREDO. The gentleman is so correct. And let me say, first of 
all, that long before I came to the Congress of the United States, 
there was an individual, maybe more than one, but one I know of who has 
been such a stalwart on the issue of immigration, the safety of the 
American people brought about through the defense of our borders, and 
it is definitely the gentleman who has joined me on the floor tonight, 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher). I am proud that the 
gentleman is here and that he is a strong supporter of our efforts.
  When we talk about who are we representing, it is fascinating, 
because most of the immigrants into this country, legal immigrants, 
people who are here relatively recently and have just come into the 
country, most of them support our desire to try and reform immigration. 
So when the gentleman says, who are we representing, it is true that it 
is as if the majority of the body is actually representing people who 
are not American citizens and who are attempting to come into the 
country illegally. That is what it seems like we are representing here 
instead of our own constituency, instead of the best interests of the 
country.
  David Letterman said on TV not too long ago in his opening monologue, 
he said, ``The Taliban is on the run and don't know where to go. 
Pakistan doesn't want them. Iran doesn't want them. Of course, they 
will have no problem getting into this country.'' And he is absolutely 
right. Unfortunately, it is true.
  I do not know if the gentleman from California heard when I was 
talking earlier about the INS and their attitude about 245(i), but even 
after everything that has happened, the gentleman who is the 
commissioner of the INS, James Ziglar, was speaking in front of a 
Senate committee and said essentially that ``we've not abandoned this 
idea of 245(i) extension.'' He says, ``We're just going to be on a 
slower track until the climate dies down.''
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman will yield, I take it the gentleman 
did remind everyone that on

[[Page H10153]]

the morning of September 11, 245(i), and the extension of it, was 
scheduled to be voted on right here in this body. How ironic that on 
the day that we suffered this horrendous attack, this monstrous 
atrocity that was committed against our people, that we had an attempt 
to open up 245(i)'s wedge into the door, open up a little more.
  We were going to vote on that ``reform'' that day, and of course, 
because of the attacks, we were not able to hold a session that day. 
Conveniently, that proposal has been shelved recently and has not even 
been brought up since then. But just the insanity of the fact that 
people are still considering that type of thing, again making the wedge 
into the door a little bit bigger so people can squeeze through that 
opening. It is just insanity.
  Now we are paying the price for this, and we are paying it in a big 
way. Number one, on these people who died. The people who are victims 
of criminal attacks. Also, our working people who are now working at 
less wages because illegal immigrants in particular are willing to come 
in and work for anything. Yes, we have a huge class of people who have 
benefited, and even the upper middle-class people benefited from having 
this great expansion in the last 10 years. But guess what, a lot of 
working people did not because they were competing against people who 
came here illegally from another country.
  Now, do we really care about those people? Yes, we should care about 
our citizens at that income level who now have a lower standard of 
living. And we can be proud that, yes, the upper middle income in our 
country, those people benefited greatly and now they have three cars 
and now they have houses that are so expensive. Yes, let us feel proud 
that so many of our citizens, 10 percent of our citizens, can live like 
that.

                              {time}  1745

  What about the other 25 percent of our citizens that are working 
class people and have found their wages stagnated for a whole decade 
because people come in from all over the world and undercut them in 
their attempts to seek higher wages.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, there is a program called the H-1B 
program, and I am sure the gentleman is well aware what it is about. 
You can obtain a visa to come into the United States because your skill 
is so great and there is such a need that we cannot find American 
workers. Therefore, Congress has increased the ceiling on H-1Bs to 
195,000. They usually go into the area of high tech. Most of these 
people are working in the computer industry, computer programmers and 
the like. That industry has suffered the largest decline in this 
recession.
  Hundreds of thousands of people have been laid off, but we in 
Congress continue to allow H-1B workers to come into the country and 
take the jobs that would be there for American citizens. Get this, we 
found the other day another thing for the list of incredible but true. 
Remember I said these are high tech, skilled workers. When we talk to 
people in the industry, they say we cannot find these people here. They 
have Ph.D.s in esoteric areas. We have to get special permission to 
bring them in.
  Mr. Speaker, get this. Five hundred visas are specially set aside for 
models. Super models. You know, ladies that walk around; models. This 
is high tech? I mean, I think we have enough beautiful people in the 
United States, do we really need a special visa category. There are 500 
H-1Bs for super models coming into the United States. Believe me, there 
are a lot of people who I think could take those jobs. But it is just a 
tiny example of how idiotic this whole thing is.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman would yield, ``idiotic'' is a mild 
word to describe this insanity. It is bizarre. It is surrealistic to 
see the type of immigration policy we have and the people who, with a 
straight face, will come and advocate these insane policies as if they 
are, in some way, respectable.
  Frankly, I do not see how, if I was hiring myself out, like a lot of 
people who are advocating these things, such as former congressmen who 
take PR contracts, I do not see how you can advocate for this. The 24-I 
example and the H-1B visas, this is insanity.
  I remember that debate so well because they kept saying we cannot 
find people to take these high tech jobs in the computer industry. I 
said we should try to, for example, go into the schools in the inner 
city and offer to pay entire college tuition for any kids who will 
agree to work for this high tech corporation when they get out of 
school. I am sure there are a couple hundred thousand kids that would 
love to have some type of scholarship program.
  I said, what about disabled people? We are talking about computer 
work, after all. How much work has been done by the computer industry 
to recruit disabled people who can still work with their hands and be 
able to do that job? Well, nobody had taken that really into 
consideration, either. But the easy answer is, of course, to hire 
somebody from the south part of Asia who will come in who is 25 years 
old, and come in and work for $30,000 less a year than our own people 
will work or than will cost us to train our own people to come in and 
do these jobs. In other words, it is no consideration for the Americans 
at all. None.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Reclaiming my time, the gentleman is absolutely 
correct. Study after study, even from those kinds of institutions that 
are pro immigration, study after study shows that the people hurt most 
by illegal immigration into the country are people at the bottom rung 
of the ladder, people who are working for minimum wage. The millions of 
people coming in without skills end up competing for those jobs.

  Today I heard the report of the unemployment rate, and it is going 
up. High tech got hit first. Now we are seeing a major increase in the 
unemployment rate for people with low job skills, people who are often 
brought to our attention by the other side of the aisle, the homeless 
rate is going up, the number of people seeking welfare and food stamps 
is going up. All of that discussion about all those people, but never 
once have I heard those Members stand up and say we have at least 11 
million people in this country illegally who are competing for those 
jobs. Nobody cares about that because that is part of their voter base.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman would yield, during this time when 
we do need some working people in these jobs, it is a fact, that is, 
when wages rise because employers are competing for better workers. 
During that time period, we might have created a situation where 
employers needed employees, and that they would have bid to get their 
services. We might have ended the problem of our own citizens not 
having health care coverage, for example, because the employers in 
order to get people to wash their dishes and wait on the tables, maybe 
they would have had to then offer those workers a health care plan. 
Maybe they would have had to talk to the people washing the cars and 
handling the parking lots, maybe they would have had to offer those 
people a health care plan.
  Instead, we let that opportunity to raise the standard of living and 
help our people get those benefits from the private sector get away, 
and it ends up a burden on the taxpayer, not only of those other people 
but of the illegal immigrants as well.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, as we bring this discussion to a close, I 
want to let individuals know there is a way to contact us about this 
issue, especially people who want to know more about the impact of 
illegal immigration and what they can do about it. This is the e-mail 
address and fax number. It is a way in which people can get connected 
to this subject and perhaps help convince their congressman of the need 
for reform. We desperately need a change. I thank the gentleman for 
joining me.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I salute the gentleman from Colorado 
(Mr. Tancredo). This issue would not be discussed without the effort 
put out by the gentleman.

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