[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 73 (Thursday, June 6, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H3285-H3289]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    RECOGNIZING THOSE WHO SACRIFICED OR RISKED THEIR LIVES ON D-DAY

  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 as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to first of all recognize 
and memorialize those whose lives were either given and/or risked on 
this date in 1945.
  We have heard many moving comments, many moving speeches in tribute 
to the D-Day heroes. I can add little to the beautiful oratory that has 
been exemplified here by a number of speakers with regard to D-Day and 
what we owe the folks who participated in that horrendous event.
  I also think to myself about the America for which those men either 
died or sacrificed their lives, and the kind of America that existed 
then, and, to a certain extent, the kind of America that exists today, 
and the difference that may exist. For the most part, it is the same 
America, and that is a good thing. But there are things that I think 
are somewhat disconcerting when we look at the Nation today.
  Not too long ago, I think it was about a week ago, actually, there 
was an article in my local paper, in the Denver Post. It talked about 
the difference in attitudes of people today who are 20 years old or 
younger, the difference in attitudes between them and people older than 
them with regard to patriotism or love of this country.
  It found that people 20 years old or younger really, perhaps to put 
it this way, knew very little about America. They really had very 
little understanding of who we are as a nation, who we are as a people, 
and the principles upon which this Nation was founded. They did not 
understand, in fact, the significance of September 11.
  Many of them stated that the event was not that significant, from 
their standpoint, and maybe we even deserved it. That was some of the 
discussion. I have heard, as a matter of fact, from many people who are 
in academia, many people in higher education, and one professor in 
particular, a professor of economics at the University of Colorado who 
came up to me at a dinner that I was at not too long ago, last week, I 
believe, and he talked about what happened in his classroom on 
September 11 and the day after.
  He said he came into his classroom and there was a buzz. He did not 
know what had happened yet. He had not seen the television accounts, 
but the kids had, the students had. This was at the University of 
Colorado, as I say. They asked him what he thought about that event. 
He, having just heard of it, said, I will think about it and talk to 
you about it tomorrow. What is your opinion?
  He said that most of them felt that we deserved it; that it was 
something that America, because we are a country that takes advantage 
of so many other people around the world, that our support for Israel 
really set us up for this, and for a variety of other reasons that we 
actually deserved it. This was on September 11, when most of us were 
reeling from the impact of that event on our minds and on our hearts.
  He said he went back the next day, and he said, I have thought about 
it. I thought to myself that perhaps the reason that you feel the way 
you do is because you do not believe in the rule of law. You do not 
believe that there is anything actually that you can describe as good 
or bad, evil or precious; that everything is the same, and that laws 
essentially, as a nation is created by law, is based on the concept of 
good and evil, and that once we destroy that concept in our own minds 
or that once we kind of buy into this idea that everything is 
essentially the same, that there are no actions that we can describe as 
bad, that there are in fact no countries that we can describe as evil, 
there are no cultures that are less deserving of our praise than 
others. Once we buy into that multiculturalism, cultural relativism, 
once we buy into that concept, then it is not hard to understand how 
they can come to believe that the United States probably deserved what 
happened to it.
  Because, after all, we are no better than anybody else on the planet, 
in fact, as we tell our children in school day in and day out, in 
schools throughout the Nation, in classrooms throughout the Nation, 
that there is nothing unique about America.
  We teach our children from the doctrine of relativism, cultural 
relativism. It permeates our schools and it permeates our lives. It 
permeates our philosophy of government, and has for far too long, and 
it has an effect.
  When we do that, when children do not understand who we are or what 
we are as a Nation, it is not surprising, then, that they would respond 
as they did in this professor at the University of Colorado's 
classroom. Why would we expect them to be shocked and just abhor what 
had gone on? Nothing is unique about America, nothing is good. As I 
say, mostly we tell them that everything is bad; that America's history 
is rife with examples of slavery and a variety of other ills, what we 
did to the Native Americans, and all the things that we heap upon 
ourselves, all the problems that were undeniably problems.
  They are nothing about which we should be proud, that is true. But if 
we only concentrate on that, if we think that is all America is is the 
maltreatment of Indians and/or the institution of slavery, if they 
think that is all there is, then no one could be expected to be 
enthusiastic about the concept of America.

                              {time}  1815

  No one could be expected to be too upset when foreigners come to the 
country and drive airplanes into buildings, kill 3,000 people. It is 
illogical to assume that they would be anything else but what they are. 
There is a price that we pay in this country for that kind of education 
and for a lack on the part of many people in this country to actually 
even tell their own children about America. This fear that if you extol 
the virtues of America and explain that, yes, there was in fact slavery 
in the United States, but it was the United States, it was the West in 
general that has abolished slavery, Western European and American 
thought, Western European liberal democracy, actually brought this 
world far more good things than it ever did bring bad things. And that 
is something most people have to understand and do not now know or 
believe. Western civilization gave this world far more in terms of 
personal wealth, the rule of law, a philosophic basis for man to live 
in peace and harmony, and one in which, as I say, provided the most for 
the most, called democratic capitalism, free enterprise. These are all 
great parts of the Western civilization that we so often decry. And we 
do this at our peril.
  It will eventually eat away at the fiber of this country so that it 
is not just those children or those people here 20 years or younger who 
take this cynical view of America and who refuse to be excited by the 
flag. In this article they talked about the fact that they were not 
patriotic at all. They did not even think about the country in 
patriotic ways. And the only way they described patriotism was, as one 
person said, patriotism does not mean following your country blindly. 
Well, that is true, of course. It is absolutely true. It does not mean 
following your country or your government blindly. But it does mean 
understanding what the government is all about, what our Nation is all 
about and what we owe those people who died for it or gave their limbs, 
as my father-in-law did on the U.S.S. Hornet in the World War II where 
he lost both of his legs.
  The country for which those men gave their lives on D-Day is not the 
same country today in many ways. And it is, I think, discouraging. Now, 
that is not to say that there are not many millions of children, we had 
a lot of them here just a little bit ago, who exemplify the best in 
America, and who certainly are willing to talk about the United States 
in patriotic terms and certainly probably are willing to risk their 
life and limb to defend it; and we have hundreds of thousands of men 
and women presently in the Armed Forces of the United States doing 
exactly

[[Page H3286]]

that, risking their safety, risking their life and limbs in service to 
the Nation and in defense of the Nation. And I say, God bless them. God 
bless those people who have given their lives in service of this 
Nation.
  I am reminded, however, of a poem that I had to learn when I was in 
high school, a poem by Thomas Macaulay, and it is called Horatius at 
the Gate. And I only remember a short bit of it. It went on for a lot 
longer than I can recall tonight. But it was something like this, 
again, Horatius at the Gate, and I have to explain the background of it 
for just a second.
  There was a time, I believe it was under the Emperor Trajen in 
ancient Rome when barbarians were at the gate of Rome and had conquered 
everything in between their land and Rome itself. And there was great 
panic and fear throughout Rome as to what was going to happen at the 
point in time that the barbarians breached the gates and came into the 
city. And as myth or story has it, a young man by the name of Horatius 
bravely volunteered to go to one end of a bridge that separated Rome 
from the horde that was invading. And he took two friends with him and 
they volunteered to go to the other side of the bridge and hold off 
the, because it was a narrow bridge, hold that as long as they could 
against the army oncoming while the rest of their compatriots cut down 
the bridge on the other side, therefore, of course, giving their lives 
in this cause.
  The poem, again, as I remember it by Thomas Macaulay says, ``Then out 
spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate: `To every man upon this 
earth death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing 
fearful odds, for the ashes of his father, and the temples of his 
gods.' ''.
  Now that is all I can recall of that poem. But I think about it often 
because I think to myself if we do not, in fact, tell our children 
about America, if we do not imbue them with a sense of history about 
who we are and what we are, and the good things of America, the 
wonderful, incredible things it has given the world, the things that 
make it the envy of the world, the things that make it the place to 
which if we raised all of the gates all over the world, everyone would 
come.
  And what does that tell you? All of those of you who have such a 
cynical view of America, all those of you who have this culturally 
relativistic view of America, what does that tell you that if you lift 
the gates they all come here? It tells you that there is something 
better about America, something unique. And you know that we have to 
tell our children this because, in fact, if we do not tell our children 
this, there is absolutely no reason to think that they would 
intuitively come to these conclusions.
  I taught for 8 years in the Jefferson County Public School system, 
and I can remember thinking to myself, no kid comes to this classroom 
with an appreciation of fine art. I was not an art teacher. No kid 
comes to school with an appreciation of fine music, classical music. 
Nobody just intuitively says, boy, I think I want to paint. They may 
want to paint, but they do not have an appreciation for fine art or 
fine classical music or classical literature. You do not just have that 
in you. Generally you have to be taught those things in life.
  I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that children do not innately understand 
the beauty of America. It is just a place to them. It is where they 
were born. It is like if I had not even seen anything else, this is the 
world to me, so what is the big deal. They have to be taught. We have 
to believe it, we as parents have to believe and pass this on to our 
children. And we are.
  And something is happening in our country that I believe deserves our 
attention. I do not mean that it is catastrophic. I am not claiming it 
is the end of civilization as we know it, especially Western 
civilization, although I am claiming it is a danger to Western 
civilization, and I do believe that we are in this world, as Mr. 
Huntington puts it in his book, ``Clash of Civilizations,'' we are, in 
fact, fighting, the West as a civilization is in a way at war. Not a 
war we have brought upon ourselves, but a war started a long time ago. 
It is a clash that we have been wrestling with, dealing with for 
literally hundreds of years. It is the West against radical Islam. That 
is the most dramatic clash of civilization that I can think of to date. 
And as I have said, it is a clash that has been going on for a long, 
long time.
  I must disagree with those among us, those political pundits, those 
observers of the scene who suggest that the war we are in today is a 
war with only a small element of the religion of Islam, somebody that 
has, in fact, some group that has in effect highjacked the religion. I 
believe it is much broader than that. I believe we are at war with 
fundamentalist Islam. And it is far, far more expansive than just a 
small group of people who happened to climb into planes on September 
11.
  Speaking of that, one little interesting factoid I came across at 
some point in time, I cannot remember when, but in 1683 the Muslim 
armies made their greatest incursions into the West. It was the 
farthest they ever got and it was to the gates of Vienna. As we all 
know, the battle had been going on between the Crusaders and the Muslim 
world for some time and Islam, I should say, specifically for some 
time. And the farthest into the West that the Islamic armies were able 
to get was the gates of Vienna in 1683.
  There the King of Poland turned back the Islamic armies. That was the 
last great battle of that clash, of that particular clash. And it is 
interesting to note the date of that battle, 1683, as I said, but more 
specifically the date was September 11, 1683.
  Now, a coincidence, certainly very possible. An interesting little 
factoid, that is the way I always refer to it. But I am telling you 
that people in the Islamic world know this battle and know this date. 
It is not a tiny fragment of history to them. It is something very 
important to them.
  My point is here we are in a clash of civilizations, I believe. 
Samuel Huntington's book I have referenced before and I reference it 
again tonight because I believe it is enormously important. I believe 
every American should read it. And by the way, I do not get any 
royalties or anything else. I know I have talked about it a lot, but it 
is just because I consider it to be a very, very good analysis. I read 
it once in the mid 1990s when it first came out. After September 11 I 
went back and read it again because I found it to be quite profound and 
quite prophetic.
  Mr. Huntington talks about this clash of civilizations, which is the 
name of it. And I will not give a book report on it tonight, but I will 
say that for people who are still interested in analyzing the events 
leading up to September 11 and subsequent events, for people who are 
interested in looking at the background of the conflict right now going 
on in Israel with the Palestinians, the conflict that is now causing us 
to focus a great deal of attention on India and Pakistan, these are 
clashes of civilizations.
  It is a clash of civilizations that goes on in Sudan. Sudan is 
perhaps the quintessential clash of civilization. Or maybe put it this 
way, a flash point in this clash of civilization. It is perhaps the 
best example we can look at to explain what is going on in the world 
today. Arabic north, Islam is the religion. Black African in the south 
with Christianity and animism as the religion. Two different cultures. 
Two different languages. Actually, many different languages. But two 
different countries essentially that have been artificially bound 
together by the British after their colonization. And after they 
actually left the country they created this here kind of artificial 
country we call Sudan. I say it is artificial because the two people 
groups have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They have nothing 
in common with each other. They have been fighting now for 47 years. 
They will be fighting for the next 100 years if the country continues 
to stay as it is today, one nation surrounded by one boundary.
  I believe that Sudan needs to be divided into two nations. I believe 
the United States should recognize South Sudan as the new government of 
Sudan of the south. And we should do so quickly and provide them with 
whatever aid necessary to help them defend themselves against the 
Khartoum government.

                              {time}  1830

  So all that said, let me get back just now to the idea that Horatius 
was at the gates, and my point here is that if we did not tell our 
children about who we are, if we do not, in fact, explain to

[[Page H3287]]

them what the West really means, what Western civilization is all 
about, if we condemn Western civilization to the trash heap of history 
to our children via the way we explain it, via the way we teach it, 
then it is exactly where it will end up because when the time comes for 
the next Horatius to be at the gate, when the time comes for the next 
group of people to risk their lives on some beachhead far away or even 
nearby, where will they be? Where will they come from? Will Horatius be 
there for us? Who will be the next Horatius at our gate?
  As I say today, thank God, I believe there are hundreds of thousands 
or millions of people who are willing to stand at the gate. I just 
wonder how long that will be the case if the generation is already 
coming up here in the United States that thinks of this country as not 
really worth fighting for.
  I remember when I was in college, it was during the late 1960s, and 
we were in the midst of a very, very ugly war and a great deal of anti-
war sentiment in the United States; and I remember a guy carrying a 
sign in a protest rally at my school, and it said there is nothing 
worth dying for. I remember thinking to myself at the time, I mean, 
here is a guy who looked like he had just gotten back from the spring 
break in Cozumel and who probably drove up to the campus in his BMW and 
really dressed really quite well under the circumstances, even though 
carrying a sign, not a lot of his friends were dressed very well, he 
was, and I remember thinking to myself, here is a person who lives in 
the greatest society ever created, ever to actually be on this planet, 
who has benefited in every possible way from the sacrifices of so many, 
here he is with a sign saying there is nothing worth dying for.
  The most depressing part of that to me, Mr. Speaker, was really what 
could have been written there on the other side of the sign is there is 
nothing worth living for, and that is really the only other way that I 
think we can look at what he was really saying there and what a dull, 
drab life that must be, a life that gives someone nothing worth dying 
for and essentially nothing worth living for.
  I think that although he may have been an aberration, that today 
there are far too many people that could hold up that same sign. They 
were in this professor's class at CU, as I mentioned earlier, and we 
have all come across them.
  The clash of civilization that I mentioned is the big picture; and it 
gets down to a very specific thing: how do we see it in the United 
States. We saw it on 9-11, a very specific clash point of the clash of 
civilizations. And one of the other things that Huntington points out 
in his book that I found so interesting is he talked about massive 
immigration not just into the United States but all around the world 
and how that affects how nations act and react, especially democracies; 
and it is interesting to note that it is becoming more and more 
difficult for our friends and allies in Europe to actually put 
themselves in the position of supporting the United States as we may go 
into Iraq or other areas of the Middle East.
  One of the reasons why they are having a difficult time doing that 
is, of course, over time, over the last decade or so, they have had a 
massive number of people come in who are Arabic, who are Muslim; and 
therefore they make up, of course, a bulk of the voting block in the 
country, and that puts pressure on a democratic government.
  Here in the United States, we have certainly a massive immigration, 
not from the Middle East, although we have quite a number, we have 
massive immigration primarily from Mexico; but we have massive 
immigration from all over the world. There is an effect of massive 
immigration into the United States. It will have an effect, and it is 
something that needs to be discussed.
  I know to many people it is kind of a frightening topic, one that a 
lot of people want to shy away from, but I believe that everything I 
have said tonight to date makes it imperative that we talk about this 
because it will impact who we are, what we are and whether we will in 
fact survive as a Nation and as the leader of the West in this clash.
  We are becoming a cleft Nation, I think that is the way Huntington 
put it, as a matter of fact, cleft, split in half, because of massive 
immigration. We are developing two countries within this country, a 
country with two different languages, two different cultures, sets of 
ideas. We have a strange phenomenon that has never, ever happened 
before in the history of immigration into this country, which we all 
recognize fully well is everyone's background here, everyone, including 
Native Americans. At some point they came across a land bridge from 
Siberia. So everybody in this Nation is a result of someone 
immigrating, emigrating from where they are, emigrating into the United 
States or into North America.
  Never before in the history of immigration into this Nation, even in 
the heyday, in the early 1900s, when my grandparents came, 1903 my 
grandfather came, never have we seen anything like this where people 
are refusing to actually disconnect from their country of origin and 
reconnect with America.
  This is evidenced by many things, not the least of which is the very 
dramatic and very easy to explain, I guess, aspect of this phenomenon, 
that is, that there are now at least 6 million people in the United 
States that claim dual citizenship. This is unique. That has never 
happened before in America. When most people I know came to the 
country, they did so, as I say, even if they wanted to, really if they 
wanted to stay connected to their country of origin, it was very 
difficult to do. They came to the United States, and they lived in 
ghettoes where they could speak the language of their home country; but 
in a relatively short time, they were either overwhelmed by the country 
or themselves were forced into the American mainstream.
  Again, this is not happening in America today. The multiculturalism 
phenomenon, the multiculturalism philosophy tells us we cannot forcibly 
have people integrate into our society; we have to teach them in their 
own language in our schools. We will do anything to help them actually 
separate themselves out of our society and create these Balkanized 
areas of the United States.
  What we do is to instead of accentuating our common desires and 
common traits and characteristics, we accentuate all of the 
differences. That creates a Balkanized society. It is not a good thing, 
I believe.
  I may be wrong. I certainly may be wrong in my interpretation of what 
massive immigration means to a culture, but I believe that at least it 
needs to be debated. That is the least we can expect when we recognize 
that the potential for having it affect America so dramatically is 
there.
  Of course, there is a national security issue. Of course, there is a 
national security issue. Who for a moment thinks that our borders can 
possibly remain undefended and essentially porous and that we will not 
be, therefore, prime, prime targets for the next person who wants to 
come into the United States and do something untoward?
  Not too long ago I was in Arizona, and we visited the border; and it 
is hard to believe that this is a picture of the border, but it is. On 
this side of this barb-wire fence here is the United States; on the 
other side, Mexico. There is a well-rutted road here, deeply rutted 
road, I should say, that comes through; and by the way, this road is 
not on any forest service map. This is not an official road. This is a 
road made by people coming into the country illegally. This is a gate 
they come through.
  On this side of the gate there is a sign with the following words: 
``All persons and vehicles must enter the United States at designated 
ports of entry only.'' This is underlined, a designated port of entry. 
Any person or vehicle entering this point is in violation of the U.S. 
code such and such, et cetera, et cetera. This is a sign facing the 
United States in a place along the border that is completely 
undefended, and it is almost an interesting metaphor for the entire 
problem here on the border.
  Down here is another place along just a few miles from this one where 
this is Mexico on this side, this is the United States here, and there 
is a cattle guard at this gate. So no cattle can enter the country 
illegally at this point. We can rest assured of that. As we see, this 
road tells us anybody else can and they

[[Page H3288]]

do, in fact, enter illegally all of the time, in fact, by the hundreds 
of thousands. This particular area has now become the most heavily 
trafficked area along the border for drugs coming into the United 
States and for people coming in illegally.
  So the idea that we have protected borders is an illusion; and so 
when we talk about immigration, when we talk about especially illegal 
immigration, which is really exemplified here, we have to understand 
there are implications for the United States. There are, as I say, 
cultural, political, economic and national security issues that we have 
to take into consideration when we talk about the border, and we may 
not like to. It is one of the things I know people, go, oh, geez, we 
are not going to talk about the border, not going to talk about 
immigration because we know a lot of people get upset when we talk 
about immigration.
  Well, that is true; but they are going to just have to get upset 
because I believe it is an enormously important topic. It has 
implications of great magnitude, far beyond just the things that we 
have a tendency of talking about in terms of jobs and resource 
allocation and all the rest of that stuff. It has very, very 
significant implications, massive immigration, into this country. It 
deserves our attention.
  Thank God tonight the President of the United States is going to be 
on nationwide television, I am told, in about 1\3/4\ hours, at which 
time he is going to announce a proposal which I can only say is the 
most hopeful thing I have heard so far in this debate or the discussion 
we have been having over the past several months about immigration and 
immigration control.
  It is a proposal to actually make the office of homeland defense a 
part of the Cabinet, a Cabinet-level Department with a lot of 
interesting responsibilities, and I do not know the extent to which the 
President will get into the details of this, but I will tell my 
colleagues that it is to his credit that he is bringing this up; and I 
do hope that the Congress of the United States responds quickly to his 
request for creation of this Cabinet-level Department, homeland 
security.
  Because in it I am assuming he will have to have that part of the INS 
which is now identified as the enforcement arm. I am assuming we are 
talking about moving that there. I am assuming a lot of things here 
tonight because, as I say, I do not have all of the details. I am 
assuming that we are going to take certain roles and responsibilities 
away from other agencies, like Customs and Treasury and Agriculture. 
All of these agencies have specific functions for border patrol, border 
control, enforcement of our immigration laws.

                              {time}  1845

  And, of course, they are all confusing with each other. They do not 
talk to each other and do not operate under the same sort of rules, and 
they have different goals in mind.
  So you can actually have people on the border, down near Nogales and 
El Paso and along the border where we have a port of entry, who 
actually watch the border through binoculars because they know each one 
of the various stations are personed by someone else, by some other 
agency. And so they will watch to see which station is actually being 
guarded by border patrol, which is being guarded by Agriculture, which 
is being guarded by Customs, and if you are smuggling people in, you go 
through one; and if you are smuggling drugs in, you go through another.
  So you have somebody at the border watching through binoculars 
looking and radioing down and saying, go through this line, go through 
that line, depending on what you are smuggling in. That is how goofy 
the whole system is today, and that is what needs to be corrected, and 
I am assuming will be corrected when the President speaks to the Nation 
tonight in terms of at least his policy.
  Now, whether we will do anything about it is another question. 
Because as you know, Mr. Speaker, one of the most difficult jobs we 
have in this Congress is getting over not only the kind of 
philosophical hurdles that confront us with various pieces of 
legislation, but also there are massive egos involved. There is a news 
flash for you; that politicians have big egos. But there are a lot of 
people here in this body who, frankly, are going to be asked to have to 
give up some part of their committee oversight responsibility, and this 
will not go down well.
  You know and I know what will happen, Mr. Speaker, the minute that 
that comes before a committee chairman of long-standing who says, what, 
you mean to tell me my little part of this thing here is going to be 
taken away and given to somebody else? Not on your life. So we will 
start this horrendous battle in the Congress of the United States to 
see whose ego is able to keep this Nation from actually moving forward 
in terms of immigration reform. It is discouraging, but I predict that 
that is what is going to happen.
  The President, if he does what I think he is going to do here in 1 
hour and 15 minutes, will set the ball in our court with this creation 
of the homeland defense agency, which has a specific purpose, and the 
purpose is to defend our borders. It will know what it is supposed to 
do, it will have a clear line of authority, it will have a lot of 
people who are employed there who have an understanding of exactly what 
it is we expect of them, as opposed to the situation today, where we 
have the INS, these two groups within INS, one enforcement and one I 
call the welcome wagon, and they really do not fit each other.
  And even if we change those groups, even if we split those functions, 
as the bill that passed this House sometime ago attempted to do, we 
will have exactly the same people mismanaging the new agency as we have 
mismanaging the present agency. We will have two different lines, two 
different little captions on their doors, that sort of thing, but the 
people will be the same. And that is the problem. We have to get out of 
that agency. We have to get a brand new agency constructed with new 
people, with a common purpose in mind, dedicated to their job, and that 
is to protect the borders of this country and, in fact, provide 
homeland security.
  This is a list that our immigration reform caucus came up with in 
October. This is actually October of 2001. We presented this list at a 
press conference, and we suggested that there were a lot of things we 
could be doing to improve the security of the border.
  Number one on this list is to create a unified border security 
agency. A new agency to be responsible for all aspects of securing the 
border, including, but not limited to, responsibilities currently 
handled by INS, State, Customs, and the Coast Guard. That was our 
number one priority back in October of 2001.
  I am so glad to say that it is at least now taking conceptual form, 
as the President of the United States is going to tell us about this 
evening. Or I guess I should say I hope. That is what I have been told 
is going to happen, and my comments tonight are all based upon that 
assumption.
  The next thing we said was to establish a unified interagency 
database for the purpose of conducting background checks on visa 
applicants. We passed that in the House on October 12, 2001.
  Number three. An automated entry and exit system for foreign 
visitors. This was passed and signed into law. This is the Feinstein-
Kyl bill. The Justice Department announced just yesterday initial plans 
for implementing this particular part of the proposal.
  Number four. Maintain computerized database on foreign students. Also 
part of the Feinstein-Kyl bill that we have passed.
  Number five. Restore political ideologies grounds for exclusion and 
deportation. This did pass the House again on October 12, 2001.
  Number six. Restore authority of consular officers as their first 
line of defense. We have not done that.
  Number seven. Reestablish meaningful deterrents against illegal 
immigration. Well, that is certainly something we have not been able to 
accomplish so far. But I am hoping that part of what happens tonight 
with the creation of this new cabinet level agency will do that.
  We have, however, passed several pieces of legislation requiring the 
INS to hire more enforcement personnel. But because of the huge 
attrition rates in the INS, increasing the total number of agents has 
been very difficult.
  One of the things we put here is a sense of the Congress calling on 
governors of border States, both north and

[[Page H3289]]

south, to place National Guard troops on their State borders, Canadian 
border, Mexican border. It was removed from the defense appropriation 
bill last year. We did pass something similar to that in the House not 
too long ago that will probably be taken up in the Senate.
  Eight. Restore asylum protection to its original intent. It is one of 
the most abused categories we presently have for people coming into the 
United States. They simply call themselves a refugee and immediately 
get asylum, and then we never see them again. They never come back to 
any sort of hearing to determine whether they are, and we allow this. 
We say that is all you have to do, just say you are a refugee and then 
come back in a couple of months and we will have a hearing. Of course, 
they say that when they get here, and we never see them again. We have 
not done anything about that.
  Number nine. Establish greater cooperation between local and Federal 
agencies and immigration law enforcement.
  This is an interesting one. The Justice Department considered a 
proposal to encourage cooperation between INS and local law 
enforcement, essentially deputizing local law enforcement agents as INS 
agents. After a backlash from the immigrant groups, the Department of 
Justice appears to have backed off of this particular proposal.
  Number 10. Establishing electronic verification of identity documents 
for employment. Have not done that yet.
  Number 11. Reject further extension of 245(i). 245(i) is amnesty. We 
have not rejected it, it has just not made it out of the Congress so 
far. We came close. We came within one vote of rejecting it on this 
House floor not too long ago. It now is over in the Senate, where I 
understand that a particular member of the other body has put a hold on 
this provision, the 245(i) extension.
  Twelve. Abolish the diversity visa program which awards large numbers 
of visas annually to states that sponsor terrorism.
  Have not done that. We should. In fact, at last count, 55,000 visas 
have been approved since September 11 to people from countries on the 
terrorist list; 55,000.
  Thirteen. Implement a temporary moratorium on immigration in order to 
reduce the workload of the INS, and give agencies time to implement the 
provisions of our entire plan. Include an executive waiver for national 
security reasons.
  Of course, that has not been done. I have a bill to put a moratorium 
on for at least 5 years. I do not think it will get heard, that is the 
best guess I have, anyway, in committee.
  Direct Immigration and Naturalization Service to begin identifying, 
finding and removing aliens against whom a deportation or removal order 
has been issued but not enforced.
  We have not done that. We have, since we published this, we have 
forced the INS to actually tell us how many people fit that category. 
How many people are in the country, we said, who have been ordered to 
be deported?
  Now, these people, by the way, these are not people who got a parking 
fine. These people raped, robbed, murdered, did something, violated our 
laws, committed a felony, ended up in court and were aliens and were, 
therefore, subject to deportation.
  A judge somewhere, an immigration judge, and by the way, these are 
not the hard core judges. These are not the hanging judges. These are 
immigration law judges who, more often than not, let you off with the 
slightest penalty. But a judge somewhere listened to the case and 
hammered down and said this person is out of here, is to be deported. 
Then they walk out the door and we never see them again.
  The INS does not take them into custody. Sometimes they will send 
them a letter saying please report back in 6 months for deportation. Of 
course, it is called a run letter because when people get it, they run. 
So we have not accomplished much here, except we have gotten them to 
finally tell us how many. First they said 300,000. They have revised it 
upward. They now think it is about 500,000; 500,000 people have been 
ordered deported from the United States for violating a law, and they 
have simply walked out the door and we have never seen them again. 
These are the INS numbers. So, believe me, take that with a grain of 
salt as to what the real numbers are.
  Well, again, I hope and pray that the President tonight is going to 
do what I have been told he is, what I have been told is going to 
happen, to announce the creation of this new department level agency, 
and perhaps we will know more about the specifics, what it will really 
mean. But as I say, Mr. Speaker, if this is what he does tonight, if 
this is what he proposes, then it is up to us to follow through. 
Because the next time something happens, we will only have ourselves to 
blame if we do not do everything that we can do.

                          ____________________