[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 24, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6544-H6549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Wilson of South Carolina). 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, as I was sitting here preparing my 
remarks, I listened to the remarks of my colleagues; and it is 
encouraging, to say the least, to think that there are people on both 
sides of the aisle who have concern about the fiscal house that we try 
to keep in order around here. It is discouraging to think about the 
fact that regardless of who happens to run this place, the Republicans 
or the Democrats, it appears to me, anyway, as we look over the numbers 
over the last couple of decades, that it really hardly matters most of 
the time; that we are spending certainly more than we should and that 
our deficits are a result of our inability as a body, not as a party, 
but as a body, to control our appetites, to control the willingness, 
the desire, the need to respond to a plethora of programs and 
supporters of programs throughout the Nation that constantly demand 
more. Nonetheless, I am glad to hear it, and I am always hopeful that 
we will be able to actually change the situation around here when it 
comes to spending. I do not hold much hope out for it, but I have that 
spark of hope that does remain alive.
  Mr. Speaker, before I get on to the issue that usually brings me to 
the floor of the House, which is, of course, immigration and 
immigration-related issues, I would like to just for a few moments talk 
about something that I am also very, very concerned about and also, I 
think, should be a concern of the Members of the body, and that is the 
situation in Sudan, a country that has experienced at least a decade, 
actually 2 decades of incredible internal conflict, a country that has 
experienced more casualties of its population, 2 million dead at the 
present time, more than 4 million displaced. These are numbers that are 
far higher and far more significant, frankly, than any other country 
since the Second World War.

                              {time}  2130

  Yet, little is known about the situation in Sudan. Unfortunately, 
relatively few people seem to care. But there are folks who do care. 
Since this past Wednesday, people have been gathering in Galvez Park 
here in Washington, D.C. to pray and stand for the people of Sudan, who 
are subjects of a brutal, genocidal campaign.
  Saturday, September 21, high school and college students led an all-
day vigil. These young people represent the best of American ideals. 
They are acting on behalf of the people that they have never met, but 
whom they know are being oppressed. We should marvel at their 
commitment, but more so, we should join them.
  I stand here today to talk about what has brought these young people 
from across the country here to the Nation's capital, and to talk about 
how the government of the Sudan, the National Islamic Front, has for 
years and continues today mercilessly to drive back Christians and 
animists from their homes, starve them, kill them because they are not 
Arab Muslims.
  I want to tell the Members about the bombing. The government of Sudan 
has converted Russian cargo planes into primitive bombers called 
Antonovs. These planes regularly fly over villages and towns in 
southern Sudan, far from the front lines of the fighting. These 
villages have no military value, the only people who live there are 
civilians; yet, still the bombers come. Sometimes they drop bombs; 
sometimes they do not. That is part of the terror campaign the 
government is waging. No one in southern Sudan knows if they will be 
next.
  When the planes drop bombs, they are not precision weapons, like we 
used in Afghanistan, to avoid civilian casualties. Rather, they are 
crude homemade bombs, sometimes 55-gallon drums packed with explosives 
and nails, designed to maximize civilian casualties.
  These primitive bombs are rolled out of the back of planes, falling 
at random

[[Page H6545]]

on those below. These bombs maim and kill, they destroy crops and 
homes, they fall on hospitals and churches. No one in southern Sudan is 
immune from their reach, and it may be only a matter of the shifting 
winds whether you or your neighbor is hit by a bomb.
  The first country I visited as a Member of Congress, and I had only 
been here as a Member of this body for a few months, and this was a 
little over 3\1/2\ years ago, the first country I ever visited was 
Sudan. I went there with a delegation led by Senator Brownback.
  I will never forget, we went into a little town called Yei. When we 
got there, all the kids in the village gathered around us very closely, 
and they would hardly move. As we tried to move through the village, 
they were almost stuck to us. They were yelling something. Of course, I 
did not understand it. I asked our guide to interpret for me, what was 
going on; why were they clustering around us so closely. He said, it is 
because they believe that because you are an American Congressman, they 
won't be bombed; they cannot be hit by a bomb, if one flies over; that 
they won't bomb you because you are here from the United States. Of 
course, I was hoping the same thing, to tell you the truth.
  The reality is, of course, there was no such discrimination, and 
there were bombs that fell, even while we were there. They destroyed 
hospitals and they destroyed schools and they destroyed people.
  The government targets churches, relief compounds, hospitals, 
markets, fields, and homes. It rains bombs down on villages with no 
military value except to further the government's campaign of terror. 
The barbaric bombing is going on as we speak.
  On September 9, the bombs came down on the town of Yabus, killing two 
children, ages 4 and 7, and wounding eight. Yabus has no military 
value, but is one of the major staging areas for the relief workers in 
Sudan.
  Last Thursday, the government bombed the town of Lui, the site of no 
military installations, but of a large hospital run by Samaritan's 
Purse, a Christian relief organization headed by the Reverend Franklin 
Graham. This is the only hospital serving approximately 400,000 people. 
Yet, the town has been bombed repeatedly. These attacks are appalling, 
and they are plainly directed at killing civilians, either directly, or 
by denying them food and medical aid. It is an unimaginable horror.
  The people in Galvez Park prayed all week for the victims of these 
bombings. We must join with them. We cannot tolerate the Khartoum 
regime's brutal actions. We must stand firm with the people of Sudan in 
their quest for peace and for life.
  Mr. Speaker, this House passed a bill that I sponsored called the 
Sudan Peace Act. It went to the Senate, where it has languished. 
Senator Brownback has introduced an amendment to the bill that I hope 
will be the thing that actually does allow it to move forward. I 
believe that will happen relatively soon. I hope it will happen in time 
to save the lives of the people who are now so directly affected by 
this campaign of terror, the most recent campaign of terror.
  Only a few days ago, really, I had the opportunity to meet with some 
representatives of the Khartoum government in Sudan. They assured me 
that there was no such action; that they were being cautious in the way 
they advanced the efforts on the part of the military, and that the 
bombing of civilians and the strafing of civilians was absolutely 
prohibited. But, of course, that is apparently not true.
  I do hope that the good Lord hears the prayers of the people that 
have been gathered here in Washington all week for those in the Sudan 
who hunger for nothing but peace, but who, for now a generation, have 
heard nothing but war and seen nothing but war.
  I hope that the Sudan Peace Act quickly comes back to the House and 
we are able, in a conference committee, we are able to address this 
issue as a body, as a Congress, I should say; and that the President 
will sign it, and that will affect the outcome of this war, that it 
will bring it to a quick close.
  Let me now talk about another issue that of course is of great 
concern to me, and is oftentimes an issue that is not very well 
addressed, or not very well amplified, either in the media or even here 
in the House. That is the issue of immigration and immigration reform.

  In my own district, Mr. Speaker, over the last week or so, a little 
over a week now, we have had the most extraordinary discussion, I guess 
I should put it that way, public discussion in the press and in the 
media in general. Of course, on the radio and talk shows everybody is 
talking about a couple of things that I want to address tonight, 
address to the Members tonight.
  As a matter of fact, the issues have spread beyond my district. They 
are now being discussed, as I see the clips coming into my office, they 
are being discussed in cities all over the country. These are two 
events in Denver, Colorado. Let me briefly review them.
  A little over 1\1/2\ months ago, the Denver Post, which is the major 
newspaper in Colorado, printed a story, a front-page story, about a 
family, the Apodaca family. It was a story, according to the author of 
that particular piece, that was brought to the Post by the Mexican 
consulate in Denver. The name of the family was provided by the consul, 
and the purpose of this collaboration was to set the stage for a more 
general debate on an issue of state politics.
  In this particular case, we are talking about whether or not people 
in the State of Colorado and in the United States, for that matter, 
illegally, that is to say, people who came into this country without 
our permission, whether they should be given the same opportunities for 
subsidized educational expenses, in this case, higher education, as a 
citizen of the State of Colorado and as a citizen of the United States 
of America.
  This is not unique to Colorado, this is happening all over the 
country. Legislatures in Utah, Texas, and California are dealing with 
this. Some have dealt with it already, and passed laws that will allow 
people who are here illegally to attend institutions of higher 
education and have their education subsidized by the taxpayers of the 
State.
  This is being pushed by immigration advocates, immigration advocate 
groups all over the country. It is being pushed even by representatives 
of the Mexican government; as I say, the Mexican consul.
  The story focused, as I say, on one family, the Apodaca family; in 
particular, the oldest boy of this family, who wanted to go to the 
University of Colorado, but could not afford it if he did not have that 
experience paid for by the taxpayers of the State. It presented them in 
a very sympathetic light.
  They are, apparently, by all accounts very fine people, a nice 
family. The father is employed in some business that was not identified 
in Greeley, Colorado. They have, I think, maybe four or five kids. This 
particular young man that wanted to go on to school was an A student. 
So certainly, the story appealed to the emotional side and said, look, 
here are folks who have been here, they are hard-working, the kids have 
been in school. Why should we not give them access to higher education 
at taxpayer expense?
  This goes along with the agenda or this is part of an agenda 
throughout the country to obtain all kinds of benefits for people who 
are here illegally: driver's licenses, welfare, tuition payments, and 
the like. The hope or the desire is that eventually we will eliminate 
all of those things in this Nation that would distinguish one as being 
here illegally.
  That is to say, if they can come into the country illegally but have 
their children educated, as they can today; go through the public 
school system at our expense, at taxpayer expense; if they can have 
access to all of the social services that any other citizen of the 
United States has access to; if they can obtain a driver's license as 
their sort of passport into society, which a driver's license is in our 
country; if they can have all of these things, then there is very 
little, if anything, that can distinguish them as someone here 
illegally. They are just here. They are just simply in the United 
States, and therefore, they have all the rights and privileges of a 
citizen of the United States.
  That is the desire of the folks who push this agenda. They used the 
Apodaca family perhaps willingly; that is to say that, for all I know, 
the Apodaca family was quite willing to

[[Page H6546]]

expose themselves to the public as being here illegally, as having 
entered this country without our permission. But they did not really 
have, or it did not seem from the story that they had a very big 
concern about that.
  In a way, of course, we can understand why they could have been 
encouraged to come forward without some great fear of repercussions. 
There are 9 million to 13 million people living in this country 
illegally. The INS has done little if anything about it. This 
government has done little if anything about it.
  There are many reasons why we have shirked our responsibility as a 
Federal government to assure the sanctity and integrity of our own 
borders, but for all the reasons that exist that have caused this 
situation to occur, we now see, as I say, people willing to come 
forward in the press and say, I am here illegally; essentially, what 
are you going to do about it?
  I do not know about the Speaker, but here is what I thought when I 
read that article. I thought, is it not amazing? I am sure the Speaker, 
like every other Member of this body, is confronted by people in his 
office who is asking us to help them adjust their status in the United 
States; to obtain some sort of INS recognition that would allow them to 
stay legally.

                              {time}  2145

  We all know that there are literally millions of people around the 
country trying to come to the United States legally. We know there are 
people that have spent years in the process, filling out the forms, 
taking language courses, doing everything that we ask them to do to 
become American citizens legally. They do it. God bless them for doing 
it.
  I speak to these folks as often as I get a chance. I have spoken to 
groups that have become citizens of the United States when they are 
taking their oath of citizenship; and I tell them, first of all, 
welcome to the United States, almost. Secondly, I thank them for doing 
this the right way, for coming here and working through the process to 
become an American citizen even though I know it is challenging, it is 
onerous; but I thank them for doing it the right way.
  It was ironic in a way that several days after this story appeared, 
there was a very small story that appeared in both papers in Denver 
about all of the immigrants that were being sworn in as legal citizens 
of the United States, a small story relative to what this family, who 
chose not to come that route, but to come here illegally, small, small 
story compared to what the Apodacas got.
  I thought that was unfair, simply and basically unfair. If a person 
comes to this country legally and they go through the process to have 
the newspapers showcase a family who has done it the other way, snuck 
into the country, albeit these folks are I am sure fine people, I have 
nothing against them. They seem like, from what I read in the paper, to 
be people we would be happy to have as neighbors and friends, but that 
is irrelevant to the situation. The situation is they came here 
illegally, and they are being showcased; and we are being asked to give 
them a special advantage, an advantage that we give usually to 
citizens.
  So we are telling all of the people who have come here the right way 
that they are nothing but suckers and that really they could have saved 
themselves a lot of time and money and certainly a lot of brain damage 
going through the bureaucratic hoops that they are put through to come 
here legally by simply sneaking into the country, staying under the 
radar screen, eventually we will give them all the same amenities, all 
of the privileges of citizenship. That is what that story said to me. 
It was unfair.
  About a month after the story appeared, I called the INS in Denver, 
the head of the INS, a gentleman by the name of Mr. Comfort; and I said 
to Mr. Comfort, I have a question for you, a hypothetical question, and 
that is, What would you do if somebody came up to you on the street 
today, as you were exiting your building, and said you know, I am a 
good guy, I have a wife and family and a job and everything but I am 
here illegally and so is my family, what would you do about that if 
they confronted you with it? Well, of course, I would have to take them 
into custody, and I said, Really? He said, Yes. I said, Then what would 
happen? He said, Then we would have to go through a hearing process and 
if they were determined to be here illegally then, of course, we would 
set up deportation arrangements.
  I said, Well, that is interesting. What did you do about the family 
that told you that in the paper about a month ago, the Apodaca family? 
He said, Well, we have not done anything about it. He said, We really 
do not have the resources; it is really not the same because it is not 
coming up to me on the street, even though, yes, it is on the front 
page of the Denver Post, and they tell you the name and where they are. 
He said, It is not the same. He said, And I do not have the resources 
to go after them. I said, I am not really asking you to send in the 
SWAT team or devote any resources away from the very important tasks 
with which you are involved, catching terrorists and felons who are 
here illegally; but I do wonder whether or not you would not just send 
a letter, why would you not just send a letter maybe to the family and 
ask them to come in and talk to you because they are saying that they 
are here illegally and you want to talk about the status.
  He agreed that that could be done and that that would be done, and I 
hung up the phone.
  The next day, the Denver Post printed another story and the headline 
was ``Congressman Tancredo Demands Deportation of Jesus Apodaca.'' 
Although I never mentioned him nor did I demand anything, that is the 
way the Post chose to portray this story; and they ran a picture of 
this young man, again a very sympathetic figure in this whole thing. He 
came here, of course, as a young kid with his parents. He had no choice 
in the matter, and I can certainly understand his plight.
  This grew into a huge, huge debate in Colorado with everybody taking 
sides and the media getting involved and that sort of thing, the media 
actually promoting it certainly, because here we had set up this 
interesting debate; and it was worthy, I think, of the interest of the 
media, not to mention the way in which a portion of the media, in this 
case the Denver Post, chose to spin the story.

  I assure my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, that if the Apodaca family is 
here illegally as they claim to be, of course I do not know whether 
they are or not. I do not know whether they were put up to this or not. 
They may be perfectly legal, but they were used in order to advance 
this agenda that I was talking about of getting tuition and driver's 
licenses and all the rest of it; but if they are, in fact, here 
illegally, as they claim to be, then the law says they should face 
deportation hearings, and if the judge says that they should be 
deported, they should be deported. I am absolutely in support of that 
process.
  I have no great hope that the INS will diligently pursue this, 
knowing the INS; but I think they should at least do what they told me 
they would do, that is, to write a letter to the family, ask them to 
come in and discuss this issue with them.
  This, as I say, was playing out in the paper over several days when 
all of the sudden another story appeared. This was a front page, above-
the-fold story again in the Denver Post. This was, I think, last 
Thursday or Friday. Apparently, according to the Post, two people came 
into the Post, the Denver Post, and identified themselves as being here 
illegally, in and of itself an interesting situation. I mean, do people 
really just advance that? Of course they do because they were put on 
the front page of the paper and no big deal; but they went one step 
further, and they said not only are we here illegally, but we are 
felons. We falsified the documents that we supplied to our employer so 
that we could get hired. That is a felony. They said we were hired by a 
company, a construction company that eventually did work in Congressman 
Tancredo's basement. They put in a home theater and finished our 
basement.
  So the above-the-fold headline, banner headline in the Denver Post, 
remember this story took precedent over the situation we were in with 
Iraq, the economy, a variety of things that I actually consider to be 
even more important, but the Post did not. The Post thought this was 
deserving of that kind of placement, and the headline was

[[Page H6547]]

something like Tancredo Hires Illegal Aliens to Finish His Basement.
  Of course, no one knows the truth of that story and the reality is, 
Mr. Speaker, that that story could not have passed the discretion of a 
high school newspaper editor because, of course, what do we have here? 
We have an allegation made by two people who were not identified about 
their relationship to a company that I hired to finish my basement, a 
situation over which, of course, I have absolutely no control. I did 
not hire the folks that actually did the labor. I hired the contractor. 
It is a reputable firm in Denver. According to the newspaper, they have 
all of the documentation necessary by the law to confirm that these 
people were here illegally.
  What do we have? What is this story? This is a fascinating thing. The 
story is that two people alleged, and they are themselves alleged to 
exist. I do not know that they exist. I do not know even if two people 
came to the Denver Post and claimed that they, in fact, were ever in my 
home. Let us face it, Mr. Speaker, this is a very, very emotional 
issue. It is possible that people would even make up something like 
that in order to advance a particular agenda. It is possible. I am not 
saying it happened. It is possible. I do not know what happened. 
Neither would I suggest does the Denver Post.
  Of course, there is no way to tell. No one can judge the merit, the 
truth of this matter because they will not tell who these people are. 
They are withholding their names because the Post said they fear that 
these people will then be prosecuted. So the Denver Post, if they 
believe these people, they are harboring felons who have given false 
information in order to be hired.
  Again, I do not know whether the people who worked in my basement, 
who were employees of the company that I did hire, were here legally or 
not. I have not the foggiest idea, to tell my colleagues the truth. It 
is not my responsibility to try and do that.
  As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, if I were to go to them and ask 
them after they were hired, let us say they are working in my basement 
and I heard them down there and said I am just going to go down there 
and find out if these folks are here illegally, and if I went down 
there and said, hey, stop for a second, are you legal, I want to see 
your papers, of course, I would be sued. Of course, I can be sued under 
the Civil Rights Act because you cannot ask people like that. Only the 
employer can request that kind of documentation. Even the employer 
cannot say things like, are you here legally. They can say I need the 
documentation that you are a citizen. I have to fill out an I-9 and 
need Social Security and driver's license. If you are presented with 
that as the employer, that is what you keep on file, which according to 
the newspaper, this particular company I hired, has on file.
  So what is the story? What is the story here that commanded front 
page, above-the-fold attention? Fascinating.
  I do not where this will go. I have no idea. Will the INS 
investigate? I cannot get them to. I have a hard time getting them to 
actually do anything about people who are here illegally and that have 
been absconders; 360,000 people so far have been ordered deported 
already from the United States for various violations from rape, 
robbery, murder, just name it. They have been ordered to be deported. 
They have simply walked away from the courtroom, and the INS has never 
found them or gone after them.
  So I doubt very much whether the INS is going to get too involved in 
either of these two cases; and as I say, I certainly do not want them 
and I do not rank these cases on the same level as the potential 
terrorists that are here, the felons that are here. I want them to 
devote a lot of time to that; but they should not ignore this case, 
either one really now because this is such big news. They certainly 
should not ignore the Apodacas.

                              {time}  2200

  I have not yet seen in the paper any company that comes and says, I 
would like you to showcase me because I hire illegal aliens, but they 
are all nice guys; so we should change the law. I have not seen that. I 
assure you, Mr. Speaker, that should that be on the front page of the 
Post, I will call the INS and I will say, I would like to know, what 
are you going to do about this? I cannot demand anything because 
frankly I cannot. It is an executive branch agency. But I can inquire 
and I would inquire if some company did what the Apodacas did. I would 
inquire. I would say here are people that are blatantly claiming their 
status as illegal and/or claiming to have violated the law by knowingly 
hiring people who are here illegally. Either of those two cases, I 
think, demands a little bit of attention, if it is nothing more than a 
letter.
  But the Post has written in the last 10 days, I think 28 articles so 
far. There have been 28 articles, editorials and/or commentary about 
this. I have never seen really anything command so much attention as 
long as I have been in political life, which has been a long time, and 
I am a very controversial figure; but I do not remember anything like 
this. That is just that newspaper. The Rocky Mountain News has also 
written story after story. It has been on the news. I get clips from 
California and Texas and Chicago and calls from all over the country 
about these two stories, the Apodaca case and my basement.
  The issue of course is not the Apodacas. The issue that we should be 
really debating and discussing is not just the companies out here that 
are alleged to have hired illegal aliens or the companies that do, 
because of course we all know there are plenty of them. I do not doubt 
for a moment that I have had dinner at a restaurant and been served by 
or had my meal prepared by someone who was in fact here illegally. I 
would bet any money that has happened. I would bet that I have gotten 
in a cab in this city and have been driven to a location by someone who 
is here illegally. We all know this happens.
  The issue is not just the individual who has done that. The issue is 
the whole concept of immigration, immigration reform, and the integrity 
of borders. That is what we have to talk about tonight, and I hope 
night after night after night after night and day after day that is 
what we have to talk about because the ramifications of illegal 
immigration into this country, massive immigration, both legal and 
illegal, are enormous. As I have said on many occasions, they will 
determine not just what kind of country we are, that is to say, 
balkanized, factionalized, or united; but it will also determine if we 
will be a country. That is why I devote as much time and attention to 
this issue as I do.
  It is not an issue that is easy for us to talk about. The stories 
that I have just described that were in the paper have caused a lot of 
people a lot of pain. The company that I hired was identified. It has 
received calls from people who have threatened them and left messages 
of the most vial nature. Families, a lot of people have been affected 
by it. Certainly I guarantee that our office has received a similar 
type of response along with, of course, an overwhelming number of 
people who are supportive of our efforts in this regard.
  This is an issue America is talking about whether we want to talk 
about it or not. It is an issue that Americans care about whether we 
care about it or not. It is an issue that Americans want us to deal 
with whether we want to deal with it or not. Poll after poll after poll 
tells us that the American people want us to crack down on illegal 
immigration, want us to crack down on employers who are employing these 
people, want us to reduce the number of people coming into the country 
even legally because they know there is something happening in the 
United States that needs discussion and warrants their concern. We 
choose not to deal with it because we are fearful of the consequences. 
We are fearful of the kind of response that the stories in the Denver 
Post and Rocky Mountain News have elicited, the vitriolic antagonistic 
sort of communications that we get when we start talking about this. 
Nobody likes this stuff, Mr. Speaker. Certainly I do not. Nobody likes 
being called names. Nobody likes being vilified in the press or 
anywhere else, I assume. And I assure that if I did not think that this 
issue merited the attention of this body and of this government, I 
would not bring it up. There are other things that I also believe are 
important; but this issue has, as I say, an overwhelming importance I 
think to

[[Page H6548]]

the American public and to me, and it has got nothing to do with race 
and it has got nothing to do with ethnicity, although that is always 
the card that is played when one talks about it.
  But what is interesting, Mr. Speaker, is that I went on a television 
station in Denver, I think it was yesterday morning, as a matter of 
fact, and did just a 2- or 3-minute explanation of this issue, and as I 
was leaving, a young man came up to me who was evidently a staff person 
there, who had on a little microphone thing and earphones. He came up 
to me as I was leaving and he spoke with a bit of an accent, and he 
said to me, Congressman, I want to tell you that I absolutely agree 
with you, 100 percent agree with you. You know what I had to go through 
to get here legally, and I just got my papers a little bit ago.

  And I thought this guy speaks for millions of people who do not get 
publicized by the Denver Post. His picture will not be on the front of 
the Denver Post. He did it the right way. But there are millions of 
people out there who recognize the injustice here, the unfairness of a 
system that in fact sets up these huge barriers and tells people that 
if they come to the United States and they want to be a citizen, here 
is what they have got to do. It is a very heavy responsibility, and 
here are all of the things that one must do to become a citizen and 
here are all the papers one has to fill out to become a citizen, and we 
will have to wait for years and we will go through processes, and one 
might have to go to court and might have to spend thousands and 
thousands of dollars to become a citizen, to come here legally; and yet 
people do it. While at the same time, the same government turns a blind 
eye to all of the folks coming across that border at their will?
  Am I the only person who sees the injustice here, the unfairness of 
it? I guarantee I am not because I guarantee, Mr. Speaker, that we have 
heard from thousands of people in my office over the course of time who 
feel exactly the same way, and I know there are millions of people out 
there who also feel the same way. But we ignore it; we pretend it does 
not exist because there are all kinds of political pressures here. The 
Democratic Party does not want to deal with this issue because they 
know it means votes and the more folks they can bring in here, legally 
or illegally, the more folks will eventually end up in the camp of the 
Democratic Party. That is their experience; that is what they believe.
  On the other hand, the Republican Party is loath to discuss this 
issue because there are of course workers, laborers who come here and 
compete for jobs and therefore keep wages low; and so as long as we can 
ensure the flow of low-skilled, low-wage workers, we will have the 
Denver Post and certainly the New York Times and the Wall Street 
Journal pressing for more and more immigration, both legal and illegal. 
We have the administration that wants to make it a wedge issue in the 
next election; and, Mr. Speaker, even though we have gone through all 
of the debates in this body in the last several months over things like 
amnesty for people who are here illegally and we have been able to stop 
it from happening, I assure that after this next election when things 
quiet down and we have 2 more years before we have to face our 
electorate, there will be another push to provide amnesty for people 
who are here illegally and to essentially open the borders.
  Here is what I suggest that we all do. I suggest that we have a 
larger debate on the topic of borders: whether or not they should 
exist, whether or not we should have them. What is the purpose? What 
purpose do borders serve? Are they anachronisms as some of our 
colleagues would suggest? Are they simply impediments to the free flow 
of goods and services? Or are they meaningful? Do they distinguish 
nation states? Do they indicate and actually give as an example what 
sovereignty is all about?
  I think borders are important, but I may be in the minority, Mr. 
Speaker. Maybe a majority of the people in this House and the President 
of the United States believe that borders are of no significance. That 
could be. If that is the case and my side of this debate comes up short 
of the votes to sustain our position, so be it. That is the Nation in 
which we live. That is the democracy we all here take an oath to 
support. But let us at least have a debate. Let us at least have the 
bill. I want to see people go on record. I want to see people stand up 
and make a vote as to whether or not they want borders or they do not. 
Because, Mr. Speaker, if we have them, if we decide to have them, then 
that means something. It means they have to have integrity. It means 
they have to be defended and not in the halfway measures that we are 
presently doing, not just putting some folks down on the border putting 
their lives in peril as we are doing.

  One young man a little over a month ago, Kris Eggle, 28 years old, a 
park ranger in Arizona, Organ Pipe Cactus National Park. Mr. Eggle and 
a border patrol agent interdicted a couple of people coming across the 
border from Mexico who had just killed four people in Mexico as a 
result of some drug war-type of thing. And Mr. Eggle got out of his car 
to go over and stop these people to put them under arrest. They got out 
of their car with automatic weapons and killed him. Mr. Eggle's face 
has not appeared on any newspaper that I know of, and his story has not 
been told by any major newspaper of which I am aware, but he died in 
the line of service to this country. He died because we told him to go 
down there along with his comrades in the border patrol and the custom 
agents and the U.S. Forest Service. We told him to protect our borders, 
protect the sovereignty of the Nation. But, Mr. Speaker, we do not 
believe in that war. We sacrificed Kris Eggle. And 2 weeks ago, two FBI 
agents were dragged across the border into Mexico and beaten almost to 
death with rocks. They are now in a hospital in Texas, both of whom, as 
I understand, in critical condition in a coma.

                              {time}  2215

  Their faces have not appeared on any major newspapers that I have 
seen. The story has not been told. May 27, a Mexican vehicle from the 
Mexican Army, a Mexican Humvee comes across into the United States, is 
confronted by a border patrol agent and is fired upon by Mexican 
military. The bullet goes through the rear window of the vehicle and 
ricochets off the metal screen that separates the cab and the back and 
goes out the right window.
  A foreign power, the military of a military power comes into the 
United States, and what they are doing, frankly, is protecting drug 
shipments. Many of the people on that border, many of the Mexican 
military and Mexican police are actually working for the drug cartels 
and protecting drug shipments into the United States.
  On the northern border, we have drug shipments coming across in huge 
proportions. There are cartels up there that are run by Muslim 
individuals. There are 25,000 Muslims living in Calgary, Canada. A 
portion of them are involved with a drug trade into the United States, 
according to Mr. Hutchinson, our drug czar. A portion are involved with 
smuggling drugs into the United States, mostly methamphetamine 
components, which are cooked down here, sold down here, the funds go 
back up there, and they support terrorist activities throughout the 
world.
  Both of our borders are places of warfare. The Denver Post and 
newspapers all over this land want to portray the face of illegal 
immigration as the Apodaca family, benign, good citizens, sympathetic 
in every respect. That is what they want Americans to believe is the 
face of illegal immigration. But the face of illegal immigration on the 
borders is something much uglier. It is the face of murder, of rape, of 
robbery, of drug cartels, drug smuggling, and of people coming into 
this country for the purpose of doing us great harm, terrorist 
infiltration. Go to the southern borders and the northern borders, see 
what I have seen. Look in the faces of the Border Patrol who know that 
they have been asked to hold back a flood, and have been given a sieve. 
They know that their lives are in danger, and we do not give them any 
support.
  We do not really want to close those borders because it would mean 
the end of the flow of cheap labor, and the end of the flow of 
potential voters for the Democratic Party. How vile the motive. That is 
why we do not do it.
  If people cared about these folks, if people really cared about the 
safety and security of even the people coming across illegally, they 
would stand with

[[Page H6549]]

me to try and stop that illegal immigration. It is a dangerous thing 
for these folks. They hire people, called coyotes, who bring them up to 
the United States, and sneak them in. Often the women are raped, the 
men are robbed and they are pushed into the United States into some 
desert area where they perish. Hundreds have perished. They are abused 
on the way, they are abused when they get to the border, and they are 
abused many times by unscrupulous employers in the United States who 
take advantage of them. Knowing that they are here illegally, they will 
pay them less, and not give them the benefits that they deserve, and 
they are cast aside.
  If we cared about them, we would do something about our borders and 
we would do something about our immigration policy. We would create a 
guest worker program that would allow people to come into the United 
States legally to take the jobs that, quote, no one else will take, 
which we have heard and which I will challenge. If there are such jobs, 
fine. There are ways in which people can come into this country 
legally, that their rights can be protected. They do not have to hire 
coyotes. They do not have to come up here and be abused by employers. 
We can tell who they are, how long they are here, who they are working 
for, and when they return. But no, that program will not be adopted. I 
have a bill for that purpose. It will not be heard because it is 
easier, of course, to simply ignore the folks coming across illegally.
  It is easier to hire them. People do not have to go through all of 
the paperwork. Just open your door and say where is your green card, 
where is your work permit, and those things are purchasable at just 
about any flea market in America. You can buy your Social Security card 
and any other kind of identification you want. So employers would just 
as soon not have that kind of burden.
  Of course as I have stated already, there are a lot of people here 
who want to simply abolish the borders. If we have a true guest worker 
program, then you need borders. Borders mean something then because 
then you are distinguishing who can come across them and who cannot. 
But if you do not want borders, then why would you want a guest worker 
program. You would not. What you want is to allow as many people as 
possible into the country, then chip away at every single law in 
the country that distinguishes someone as a citizen, that confers some 
right on them as a citizen. There are municipalities in this Nation, in 
this city, as a matter of fact, that are pushing for voting privileges 
for people here illegally.

  Okay, as I say, Mr. Speaker, if that is where we are going, fine. 
Just make a decision. Make a conscious decision as to the direction 
this Nation is going. Abandon the borders or protect them. That is 
really and truly the choice we have. As long as we ignore it and as 
long as we maintain this half-baked posture, we are abandoning them. 
That is exactly what is happening. We are doing that, I think, to our 
peril.
  I have a dear friend by the name of Hugh Fowler. Hugh and Shirley 
Fowler have been friends of ours for 30 years or more. They gave me a 
great book. It is called ``Crowded Land of Liberty'' by Dirk Chase 
Elderidge, and I certainly recommend it to anyone. It talks about the 
impact of massive immigration.
  There are all kinds of ramifications, as I mentioned, Mr. Speaker. 
Certainly just in terms of the numbers, the growth in our population, 
and everyone wonders how it is in Colorado we have this huge number of 
people coming into the State every year. Growth has gone wild. We are 
building highways and schools and hospitals. California has to build a 
school a day to keep up with the numbers. Where are they coming from? 
Is this the natural birth rate of the country? No, of course not. Our 
natural birth rate is almost replenishment level. It is almost 2.1. The 
increase in population in this country is as a result of immigration. 
Immigrants coming in, immigrants having children. That is the 
population increase. There are ramifications. Crowded conditions, 
crowded public lands. Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone, which 
you cannot get to any more. You have to wait in long lines. Pretty soon 
you will have to have reservations to go to scenic spots in America, 
and there are not that many scenic spots left any more because houses 
are popping up where there once was pristine grasslands. This is 
happening because of population pressure, population growth. Where is 
it coming from? It is coming from immigration.
  Now, it could be okay. That may be absolutely all right with 
everybody, but it should be a condition that we establish in this 
country followed by an honest debate over a controversial issue.
  Mr. Speaker, these are difficult issues. There is certainly no two 
ways about it, and difficult for us to discuss and deal with. I just 
want to say from a personal standpoint, it is good for us all to kind 
of stand back once in a while and think about things that put 
everything in perspective because we have a tendency for all of us to 
get wrapped up in this stuff.
  A little over a week ago my youngest son and his wife had a baby. My 
daughter-in-law gave birth to a little boy named Gabriel. I went out to 
California the Saturday before last to see him. When my son walked out 
of the delivery room carrying him and handed him to me and I took him 
in my arms, I thought, This does put the world in perspective. It is 
for Gabriel and it is for Thomas, my oldest grandson, and for William, 
his brother, that we do all of these things, that we try all of us, not 
just Members of Congress, everyone I know, that is what we labor for. 
It is the future. And it is for them, Mr. Speaker, that I do in fact 
try to advance this issue. I believe it is an important one. I want to 
leave them a country as good if not better than the one I grew up in. 
That is why we labor here.

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