[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 26, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1388-H1393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                POSSIBLE WAR WARRANTS RESPONSIBLE PRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Murphy). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, we have had a number of discussions in the 
House over the last several days dealing with the issue of the 
possibility of a conflict in the Middle East and the efficacy thereof, 
and whether or not it is in the national interests of the United States 
to embark upon this venture, whether a preemptive strike by the United 
States is justified, whether or not our sending men and women into 
harm's way is appropriate. And this is the place, of course, where that 
debate should be carried on. Throughout the United States, of course, 
around water coolers and in offices and around dinner tables, the 
debate continues. It is certainly appropriate that it goes on here.
  I just want to reflect upon something that happened not too long ago 
in Denver, Colorado when I was asked to speak at a rally, and the rally 
was organized by people who wanted to show the armed forces, especially 
the Armed Forces of the United States, that the American people believe 
in them, that the American people trust them, that the American people 
admire and respect them, and that we know we place our safety in their 
hands. We know that we place this great Nation in their hands, and we 
know that, in fact, we place the western civilization, in fact, in 
their hands. Its survival will be determined by the actions of people 
like those that we are sending off to the Middle East.
  So it was billed in the newspapers as a pro-war rally. And I was 
asked to speak at this rally, and I indicated to the people in the 
audience that I thought that it had been misidentified by the press. 
And that in fact I knew no one, I really cannot tell my colleagues that 
I have ever met anyone who was, in fact, pro-war, just pro-war.

                              {time}  2115

  I do not know anybody like that. There may be people out there who 
live for the idea of risking life and limb or taking someone else's in 
the act of war, but I just do not know them; and I do not know that 
anybody at that rally could have been so classified or identified. 
Nonetheless, that is the way the press billed it, a pro-war rally.
  As I said, I think it has been mischaracterized. I know why the 
organizers asked me to speak and why I am here, because it is a pro-
America rally. I am here, as I said, to lend my voice to those that 
have already spoken who have indicated their strong support for the 
actions of our government and for the people who are going to serve and 
are serving in the military.
  But I said that also it was interesting to me because there were many 
other rallies that had been held up to that point in time, certainly 
many here in Washington, many on the Mall, and they were organized for 
the most part by the Workers' Party and similar groups. The people who 
spoke at these rallies were people who said little about the issue of 
the advisability of peace in the Middle East, but they did say a lot 
about what was wrong, in their minds, anyway, with America.
  I quoted from some of the speeches that had been made right here in 
Washington on the Mall at these rallies. The quotes were those that 
reflected the sort of atmosphere that prevailed at these ``pro-peace 
rallies.'' I suggested that they were also misidentified by the press 
as pro-peace rallies, just as we were misidentified by the press as a 
pro-war rally; and that most of the discussions and most of the people 
exhorting the crowd were not really interested in just the concept of 
peace and the need for it, but they talked mostly about the problems 
with America: that America needed ``regime change''; that America 
needed a ``revolution''; that President Bush was, well, I will not go 
into the kind of epithets that they tossed out against the President 
and against our system. Also, they led chants of Allah Akbar, Allah 
Akbar, at these rallies.
  When we read what they said, when we read this, we came to the 
conclusion that there was something a little bit different; that maybe 
it was not just a pro-peace rally, but that perhaps their real concern 
was America itself, this Nation and everything it stands for. I 
indicated that I believed that those rallies could be more accurately 
identified as anti-America rallies.
  Now, not everyone, of course, who attends such a rally could be 
identified as anti-American. Many people went there, I am sure, because 
they just simply wanted peace and believed that the foreign policy of 
the United States vis-a-vis Iraq was inaccurate, was incorrect.
  But the organizers of the rally and the people who spoke at these 
rallies were for the most part unconcerned with the actual issues that 
we are confronting here with regard to Iraq, and they were much more 
concerned with what they considered to be the problems with the United 
States, with our system of government, and essentially with who we are.
  Now, shortly thereafter the newspapers in my State carried several 
stories about the rally, and about what I said. I was characterized as 
someone who said, if you are not supporting the war effort, you are un-
American. Of course, that was not accurate; but it is certainly not the 
first time that my statements or anyone's, especially those of us here 
in this body, have been mischaracterized in the press.
  But it made me think about the way in which so many Americans have 
been inclined over the last several decades, really, to look first at 
what America's warts are, America's problems, America's shortcomings, 
without being even the slightest bit interested in what America's 
values are and what America represents for the world.
  I was intrigued by a number of things in this particular debate, not 
the least of which is the attention we pay to people like movie stars 
and entertainment, people in the entertainment business. We focus on 
them.
  As I was coming over here, I was listening to something that was 
referencing an actor. He was on the radio, and I think it was simulcast 
on television. I got to see just part of it, actually, before I came 
over. This actor was talking about what his opinions were with regard 
to the war. He was, of course, very critical about the United States 
and our actions.
  Now, this particular actor has every right to, of course, express his 
opinions, as does the postman, as does the waitress, as does any other 
citizen of this country. What is intriguing to me is the attention that 
we pay to that particular point of view by these people, who admittedly 
have no particular expertise that differentiates them from any of the 
people that I just mentioned in their walks of life: the waitress, the 
postman, the cab driver.
  As a matter of fact, I remember reading something a little bit ago 
about a cab driver here in Washington, D.C. when ex-President Clinton 
was addressing a group at Georgetown University right after 9-11. Mr. 
Clinton suggested in this particular speech that the reason the United 
States had suffered such a blow from these terrorists was because of 
the way we had treated Native Americans in the past and because of the 
history of slavery in the United States. That is why we essentially 
deserved what we got. This is from an ex-President.
  Now, it is understandable that the media would cover his 
interpretation of the events. He was, as a matter of fact, of course, 
an ex-President of the United States, emphasizing here, to my great 
relief, the prefix ``ex'' before the word ``President.''
  In Washington there was a cab driver, and by the way, this was 
reported in

[[Page H1389]]

the press, of course. I read this story about a gentleman getting into 
a cab. He saw on the front seat of the cab the newspaper, and it was 
turned to this particular article about the President's speech, about 
the ex-President's speech.
  The person getting into the cab said to the cab driver, I see you 
read about President Clinton's speech. The cab driver said, yes. He 
said, what did you think of it? The cab driver said, I thought it was 
baloney. He said, these people do not hate us for what we have 
done wrong; they hate us for what we do right.

  Now, I heard that, this particular little vignette, I heard it in a 
speech that was given not too long ago by the individual who was 
actually the person getting into the cab. I thought to myself at the 
time what an interesting and, I thought, profound observation. That was 
my opinion of that cab driver's observation. He said, you know, we do 
stuff right. We help people. We have such freedoms in the United 
States, freedom of speech and the press and freedom of religion, 
especially freedom of religion, and freedom of the sexes to vote and to 
share the rights afforded to all citizens; which is not, of course, the 
case with people in other parts of the world, people in other 
civilizations, who do not allow that kind of thing to exist in their 
societies.
  This cab driver was observing that our system was better and that we 
do it right. That is why they hate us. That is why we got attacked. I 
thought, what a very profound observation.
  Now, I will tell the Members that that little story, of course, 
appeared nowhere that I know of in the press, in the national media. 
Perhaps there was no reason for it to be reported, because, after all, 
this was a cab driver in Washington, D.C. What was his expertise? He 
talks to a lot of people, that is true, but not really a person that we 
would say, well, yes, gee, whiz, that is the guy we should listen to 
because of his great acumen, great experience, or whatever.
  Yet, interestingly, the press pays a great deal of attention to 
people in the media, people in the entertainment world, I should say, 
who come forward with their pronouncements about what is right in terms 
of our foreign policy and what is wrong, actors like Sean Penn and 
actress, although she does not want to be called an actress because 
that distinguishes a gender difference, actresses like Susan Sarandon, 
actors like George Clooney, and this guy, Mike Farrell. The closest he 
has come, I think, to being involved in any sort of conflict was his 
portraying a doctor on the TV series called ``M*A*S*H.''
  These people are given a lot of attention and great air time. People 
listen to them and say, gee, whiz, that is how they feel. I know I am 
intrigued by it, because of course they are all, without exception, 
everybody I mentioned, and far more than that in the entertainment 
industry, being extremely liberal, they are, of course, opposed to our 
actions in Iraq.
  Now, I do not remember any of them saying a thing about our going 
into Yugoslavia. I do not remember anybody condemning President 
Clinton, ex-President Clinton, for tossing missiles around when he felt 
it appropriate, and actually pursuing a war in Yugoslavia that was 
against a country that posed absolutely no threat to the United States 
whatsoever.
  No one ever suggested in their wildest dreams that Milosevic was a 
threat to the United States. He was a bad guy, no doubt, but what was 
his threat to the United States? Yet we in fact carried out a war 
against him. All of these people stayed silent, if I remember 
correctly. I do not remember them being quite so vocal, or vocal at all 
during that period of time.
  But this war against a madman in Iraq, against a person that I have 
never heard anyone, even these people, suggest is a reasonable 
individual with whom we can ``do business,'' these people rail against 
the United States and we pay attention. The media pays attention.
  But I suggest that they have absolutely no more cache on this issue 
than the cab driver here in Washington, D.C. I happen to, of course, 
agree with his interpretation, but I do not think I ever saw him on 
television talking about it. He has exactly the same, or in fact one 
might say, because of the many people that he sees during the course of 
the day, and here in Washington, D.C. he may be transporting people in 
various capacities that discuss world issues, so he may be more 
politically astute than anyone in Hollywood. Yet, of course, we will 
never be talking about him because he is not a national figure, and 
because he happens to actually take a different point of view than the 
liberal left-wing anti-American sentiment that is expressed by the 
folks I just mentioned who are actors and actresses, noble profession 
that it may be.
  Certainly, I am not capable, not qualified, to make any sort of 
comment that anyone would take seriously about their acting abilities, 
or about the movies in which they appear. I do not know. I must admit, 
I had to ask somebody in the Cloakroom for some of these names, because 
I remembered some of the movies, but I could not remember the names of 
the individuals.

                              {time}  2130

  And so if I were to go out and talk about what their movies were 
like, I mean I have that right to express my opinion and to either pay 
for the tickets or not, but I do not expect that the press would 
surround me and say, What do you think about the qualities of the 
movies these people make? Because, of course, it is of no consequence 
to the world what I think about their abilities. Why would it be of 
consequence to the world what they think about whether or not the 
United States should go to war? They are entitled to their opinion, 
absolutely, but why does anyone pay attention to it is the question I 
guess I raise.
  And it gets me to a point, you know, as I sat here listening to the 
discussion from the gentleman earlier about his resolution that I sort 
of recognize some of the fault of the United States in terms of the way 
they treated Japanese Americans or my ancestors, Italian Americans or 
German Americans who were, in fact, interred just like Japanese 
Americans were, and what a bad decision it was at the time. Certainly I 
will not argue that it was a good decision. But I remember I just 
started thinking to myself how interesting it would be if one were to 
run a resolution saying is it not great that the United States of 
America, this great republic, this great system, unique really in the 
world, is such a place in which the children of people who were 
interred can become Members of the Congress of the United States, and 
how wonderful it is that we can reflect upon our past and take the 
actions that are appropriate in terms of apologies and that sort of 
thing. But again, few, if any other country, would ever, ever think 
about that. And I wonder why we should not celebrate that aspect of 
America as much as we condemn and dwell upon the warts.
  But there is a philosophy in this land that has permeated our 
society, certainly permeated the media, the entertainment industry, the 
textbooks in our schools, the academic communities in the United 
States. It is sometimes referred to as multiculturalism, cultural 
relativism, and it has achieved a stature far, far higher than it 
deserves from my point of view. It does permeate American society and 
it is reflected by the kind of things that we see and hear all of the 
time, from people who are not just looking at the United States with 
some degree of objectivity and making determinations as to the good 
things we do as opposed to the bad things we do and what is good about 
America as opposed to what is bad.
  They only focus on what is bad not just on America, but about western 
civilization, of which we are, of course, the leader. And they dwell 
upon and they are obsessed with the problems, the mistakes, the 
inadequacies of western civilization and of American society in 
particular. And we teach our children that there is really nothing 
unique about America, that it is just one of those places people happen 
to be, nothing special. In fact, in fact, if it is different at all, it 
is different because of how bad it is, how ugly is its history: 
slavery, mistreatment of Native Americans, mistreatment of immigrant 
groups, all of which of course have some degree of truth, but pale in 
comparison to what we have given in this world, pale in comparison to 
the wonderful things western society, civilization, and America in 
particular have given to this world. Certainly the rule

[[Page H1390]]

of law, certainly the idea of the value of the individual, certainly 
the idea of the freedom of worship.
  But these things are never discussed as values. They are never taught 
to our children. Certainly in the last 20 or 30 years anyway, they are 
not taught to children as being values worthy of their allegiance. It 
is surprising to me sometimes that there are still those people, and 
thank God for it, who are willing to risk their lives for what so many 
of our forefathers gave theirs. And so it is this peculiar obsession 
that so many have with the negative side of America and of western 
civilization in general that propels them, I think, to the street; even 
to the point of taking the side of someone like Saddam Hussein who has 
exhibited the most, the same characteristics, the same traits and has 
committed the same atrocities as some of the greatest devils that have 
ever beset the world in human form, including Stalin and Hitler.
  But people are so wrapped up in this anti-American, anti-western 
civilization, multiculturalist concept that they can not bring 
themselves to think about the possibility that action, even to the 
point of taking violent action in the form of a war, may be necessary 
to rid this world of an evil so great that it threatens the very 
existence of our own society; because, of course, to many of those 
people, evil is not something that really exists in the world; that 
everything is relative and the other forms of government, the other 
systems of governments, are all equally good or equally bad, but 
certainly nothing is worth fighting for or risking one's life for.
  Now, the reason why I address that issue tonight is because it does 
play a role in what I think is another huge problem that we have face 
in this Nation. And that is the need for our society, for western 
civilization to be coherent in the way in which it identifies itself 
and the way in which it projects its philosophy to the rest of the 
world. Put simply, Mr. Speaker, Americans have to know who we are, what 
we are all about, what are the principles that hold us together, that 
binds us together, and dwell on those and think about those as opposed 
to dwelling upon and thinking of only those things that tear us apart 
as a Nation and, again, as a civilization.

  Because I do believe, Mr. Speaker, that it is a clash of civilization 
with which we are involved. I believe that western civilization is at 
risk. It is at risk from what we might call fundamentalist Islam, 
perhaps more appropriately, extremist elements in the Islamic 
community. And I believe that it is a war that is fought both with 
arms, with the force of arms in places like Afghanistan, in the 
Philippines and Iraq, but it is also fought with the force of ideas. 
And that to be successful in this battle we not only have to field the 
best Army which, of course, I believe we have, with the best equipment, 
which I believe we can provide them; we also have to field individuals 
capable of defending western civilization in an intellectual arena.
  It is a war of arms. It is a war of ideas. And our civilization is 
threatened. Our ability to actually be successful in this clash will be 
determined not just by the valor exhibited on the battlefield in 
Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else that we determine these brave 
young men and women need to be deployed, but our success will be 
determined by the way in which we project the ideas of western 
civilization and defend them. And we need to understand as a society, 
as a civilization, as a Nation, we need to understand who we are, what 
it is we are all about, where we want to go, what our history is, a 
common history. I think it is imperative for us to be successful.
  And that is why oftentimes I take the floor of the House, evenings 
like this, on special orders to exhort my colleagues to think about 
another aspect of this problem, and that is the degree to which massive 
immigration into the country combined with this philosophy of 
multiculturalism can be and, in my estimation, is a dangerous, 
dangerous phenomenon.
  Massive immigration into the country unchecked, massive immigration 
that is combined with this, that is combined with this philosophy I 
describe as multiculturalism does not help us develop a coherent 
society. It does not help us develop a strong intellectual base of 
support for the ideals of western civilization. It pulls people apart 
rather than pulls them together. We have a tendency to vulcanize our 
society rather than bring it together as one United States of America, 
both geographically and intellectually and emotionally.
  Immigration is a very, very significant problem. And it goes far 
beyond the issues of jobs that may be being taken by people from 
outside the country, although that is a significant issue. And believe 
me, if your job has been taken by someone from another country, then it 
is the most important issue to you. And I understand that. But the 
problems that arise as a result of this kind of massive immigration 
combined with this bizarre and rabid multiculturalism that pervades our 
society are such that I think that they actually pose a great and 
significant threat to the United States of America and, in fact, to 
western civilization.
  I think that the need is great for at least the debate of this topic. 
It is a topic that we eschewed, that we have avoided, that we have 
attempted to move aside because it is uncomfortable. That is true. The 
debate over immigration and its effect on our country at this point in 
its history needs to be undertaken, but is very, very uncomfortable for 
many Members of this body and certainly many people throughout the 
country. But I believe with all of my heart that debate needs to be 
undertaken.
  There are these more esoteric aspects of it that I have tried to 
address here, and then there are some very practical and very dramatic 
effects of massive immigration that need to be explored also.
  Mr. Speaker, last week a couple of the Members of this body and 
several members of the Arizona State legislature accompanied me on a 
trip I took down to Cochise County, Arizona, which is on the border, of 
course, of Mexico, to observe firsthand what was happening there and to 
try to bring back to the people that serve in this body and to the rest 
of the United States a picture, perhaps a little bit different than the 
picture of illegal immigration that is portrayed by the local media in 
the various cities and States of the people of the people here in the 
Congress of the United States.

                              {time}  2145

  I know that in my own city, Denver, Colorado, the media enjoys the 
presentation of the concept of or the reality I should say of illegal 
immigration. It always presents the picture of illegal immigration as 
one of a very benign sort of concept and that the people here, those 
people who are identified as illegal immigrants into this country are 
just folks looking for a job and willing to do a job that ``other 
Americans will not do,'' and that they are, generally speaking, 
beneficial to the country from the standpoint of our economy and from 
just the standpoint of the type of individuals that make up the Nation.
  That is the picture of illegal immigration that is portrayed by the 
media in many of our districts; but if we go to the border, almost any 
point of the border, southern or northern border, of the United States, 
we will find a completely different picture, one that is hardly ever 
portrayed in the press. We will find a very ugly picture, a picture of 
violence, a picture of criminal activity revolving around the 
importation of illegal narcotics, a picture of threat to the national 
security of the United States as a result of having porous borders 
across which people are coming, some of them with the intent to do 
great harm.
  That is a different picture entirely and one, as I say, we hardly 
ever see; but it is absolutely as real as the one that is presented in 
the local media of many of the newspapers and television stations and 
radio stations of the folks of the hometown of the folks who actually 
serve in this body; and so I wanted to go there and show people a 
different picture, another picture that I think they should see.
  We went to the Coronado National Forest for the first day, and we 
looked at the environmental degradation in that forest, brought about 
by the fact that thousands and thousands and thousands of people coming 
into the country illegally every single week come across that national 
forest and do enormous damage to it from an environmental standpoint. 
They drive across in vehicles creating roads,

[[Page H1391]]

``roads,'' of course, where there should not be roads. They walk 
across, and the impact of thousands and thousands and thousands of feet 
on pathways that are created does enormous damage to the environment, 
very pristine environment, a very delicate environment in the southwest 
part of the United States, a desert environment.
  They start warming fires. These people, undocumented illegal 
immigrants, start warming fires in the night, walk away from them in 
the morning; and they, of course, during this draught are devastating. 
When I was there last, when I was in the Coronado National Forest 
little over a year ago, I left on a Sunday morning. By the time I 
returned back to Denver, Colorado, a fire that had started that morning 
by an illegal alien had consumed 35,000 acres of the Coronado.
  The trash that is distributed throughout the forest is enormous, are 
enormous, monumental. It is hundreds of thousands of pounds of trash 
discarded by the people coming through there, so much so that one would 
think that the Coronado National Forest should be renamed the Coronado 
National Dump because that is what it looks like. Yet, of course, and 
interestingly we have never seen or ever heard the Sierra Club or any 
other environmental organization in America take issue with this 
problem.
  One can talk to the forest supervisor. One can talk to anybody who 
works there, the parks people, the forest service people, and they will 
tell my colleagues what is happening to that forest as a result of 
porous borders, as a result of people being shoved out of Mexico by 
their own government, across the borders by the thousands and into the 
United States.
  We went the next day to Organ Pipe Cactus National Park, just 
adjacent to the Coronado, also a scene of environmental degradation 
that is truly disturbing. All of the same problems of the Coronado but 
it is also the site of the death of a park ranger by the name of Chris 
Eggle, E-G-G-L-E, Chris Eggle, 28 years old, killed by two Mexicans 
coming across the border escaping from the crimes they have committed 
in Mexico, several other murders that they had just committed in 
relationship to some sort of drug deal, drug situation.
  Chris was ambushed by them and killed. His life ended at 28 years old 
in Organ Pipe Cactus National Park, and we went there to that site with 
his father, Robert Eggle. Mr. Eggle has relived this event now three or 
four times. He has gone down to the national park to see where his son 
was killed and to relive that event, and he does so because he believes 
that his son's death cannot be forgotten nor should it be in vain, and 
it should not in either case. It should not be forgotten, and it 
certainly should not be in vain.
  He talks about the need to secure our own borders. He talks about the 
need to prepare and train the people who have to deal with the invasion 
that is occurring on our southern border so that the next person 
confronting someone coming across the border armed with AK-47s will be 
a little more able to defend themselves than poor Chris was.

  Then we went the next day to a ranch house, a ranch owned by the 
Kuykendall family, B.J. and Tom Kuykendall, wonderful people who have 
lived there for generations, and they brought their neighbors in from 
all over the county, people who had also lived there for generations 
and who for generations had dealt with the issue of some degree of 
illegal immigration, peopling coming across the border periodically. 
They would seek them out for food. These ranchers would give them food, 
would sometimes give them jobs; but it was never an issue, never a 
problem, no big deal.
  In the last 4 or 5 years something has changed they say. It has 
become not just an annoyance; it has become a threat to their very 
existence. Their ranches are being destroyed. Their cattle are being 
killed. Their homes are being broken into. Their families are being 
intimidated. Their entire way of life is being threatened, and they 
ask, where is my government? Who is here to protect us? What is 
happening to our life?
  Thousands of people we have on videotape, thousands of people 
crossing those borders, tearing down the fences, breaking the water 
wells, destroying the property, bringing with them tons of trash, 
depositing human waste in amounts that are certainly dangerous in terms 
of the health issues that they represent, bringing with them diseases 
that we cannot even treat, we do not have means to treat. We do not 
have the antibiotics to treat some of the most virulent forms of 
tuberculosis and something called Shakas disease, all these things 
being brought across by people into the United States.
  We are witnessing an invasion. It is an invasion that is being 
prompted by the Mexican Government to satisfy some of their needs, as 
was told to me by a Mexican official by the name of Juan Hernandez who 
was the head of something called the Ministry for Mexicans Living in 
the United States. And I asked him what is the purpose of such a 
ministry. It was just created about a year and a half ago, and there 
were two other Congressmen with me, two other Members of the House who 
were with me, in Mexico when we visited him.
  By the way, Mr. Hernandez is a very, very sophisticated gentleman, 
very urbane, very competent and articulate and a dual citizen of the 
United States and Mexico and interestingly serves or served on the 
cabinet of Vicente Fox, an American citizen serving in Mexico on the 
cabinet of the Mexican President, an interesting situation. He said, 
the purpose of my agency is to increase the flow of people into the 
United States, of Mexican nationals into the United States. I said what 
do you want to do that for, knowing in my heart of course exactly why.
  Because he had been so forthcoming, so candid, I thought this is 
great. I have hardly ever heard anybody be so candid about the designs 
of the Mexican Government vis-a-vis immigration policy; and he said the 
reason is simple, the more people we have in the United States, the 
more possibilities there are for us to influence your policy vis-a-vis 
Mexico, and he said there is the issue of remittances.
  ``Remittances,'' for those Members who do not know, Mr. Speaker, is 
just a term that applies to the money that is sent back home to Mexico 
from people living outside of Mexico, working outside of Mexico, and it 
actually amounts to a huge amount of money. Some 30-some percent of the 
Mexican GDP is a result of these remittances. Mexico has also 
experienced an enormous population growth, almost doubling in 25 years; 
and they have a stagnant economy because they are stuck with a 
socialistic economy which is combined with a completely corrupt system 
from the cop on the beat to the highest levels of government, and that 
combination makes for a lousy economy, and always will, regardless of 
NAFTA or free trade arrangements of any kind. Because of that, of 
course, they need to get some of those people out of there because they 
are very young, they are unemployed. That is a destabilizing factor and 
why not send them north.
  We, on the other hand, have chosen to accept this policy on the part 
of our southern neighbor and ``friend,'' that ``friend'' by the way who 
is threatening a ``no'' vote in the security council against the 
resolution that we are presenting to bring Saddam Hussein to bay. They 
are threatening a ``no'' vote until we agree to some sort of attempt to 
provide amnesty for all the Mexican nationals living in the United 
States illegally. That is their quid pro quo. That is what they want.
  These are our friends in the south. Now whether they are going to 
stick, whether we are going to be able to get them to vote ``yes'' or 
not soon in the security council remains to be seen, but this is what 
they are presenting to us as being their demands, like Turkey asking 
for several billion dollars for the right to provide American troops 
some air space and flyover opportunities.
  He said that, and he went on to say, Mr. Speaker, another fascinating 
thing as far as I was concerned, an immensely incredible statement. He 
said it is not two countries we are talking about. It is just a region. 
It is not two countries he said. It is just a region. That may be his 
true opinion. It is the opinion I think of some of the colleagues with 
whom I serve here, that the borders are really not significant. They 
are not of importance, they are anachronisms, and that they should be

[[Page H1392]]

erased for the purposes of allowing for the free flow of goods and 
services and people. It is a libertarian point of view that is 
expressed on this floor and by several Members of this body.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to engender that debate with those folks. I do 
not want them just talking about it in the halls or with me 
individually. I want that debate here on this floor in front of the 
American people. I want to know whether this government, whether this 
government believes that, in fact, borders are necessary or not. I want 
to know the opinion of this government because I think I know the 
opinion of the people of this country, but I may be wrong. I may be in 
the minority. Maybe it will turn out that, in fact, borders are 
determined to be by a majority of the people in this body and the 
President of the United States, they are determined to be irrelevant 
and that we should allow for the, again, free flow of people, goods, 
and services.
  If that is a decision that is reached through the process that we 
have established for making policy in this country, so be it. I am a 
``no'' vote, but so be it.

                              {time}  2200

  What I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, that what is 
happening is that that is the direction we are moving. That is the de 
facto sort of arrangement we are going to achieve, an open borders 
policy. But it will never be as a result of a debate or a particular 
piece of legislation where people have to vote yes or no. It will 
always be done in an incremental fashion. And the people in Cochese 
County will suffer the consequences. Their lives will be ruined. Their 
ranches will be destroyed.
  But they will just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the 
sacrifice that this country will make as a result of our commitment to 
open borders. Because, of course, the people coming across those 
borders are not just people who are strewing trash all over the land, 
breaking fences, poisoning wells, breaking the pipes on wells and 
allowing all the water to drain out, invading ranch houses, threatening 
and in fact assaulting ranchers, pulling up these rock barriers on the 
highway to stop the cars to then carjack the people. It will not be 
just those people coming across to do ``jobs no one else will do.''
  And, by the way, along those lines, about a month ago in the Rocky 
Mountain News in Denver, a Denver newspaper, there was a very large 
article about a restaurant, a Mexican restaurant that I have been to 
several times, called Luna Restaurant. It is in my old stomping grounds 
in north Denver, and I know it well. There was an article, a strange 
article, because it was talking about the fact that this restaurant put 
an ad in the paper for a waiter, a $3-an-hour waiter position. Three 
dollars an hour. Of course, with tips, you get more. That first day 
that the ad went in the paper there were 600 applicants for the job. 
One day, 600 applicants.
  Now, do you believe, Mr. Speaker, that every one of those 600 
applicants were illegal immigrants wanting to do a job that no American 
would do? I do not think so. I think there were plenty of American 
citizens looking for that job. But nonetheless, nonetheless this is 
what we hear all the time; that that is the only thing we have going 
on; that these are just people coming to do jobs that no American will 
do and, therefore, we should not be concerned about what is happening 
on the border, and we should not be concerned by the Kuykendalls or the 
Barnetts, or any of the other people who have lived there for 
generations and who are trying to sustain themselves on that border. We 
should not be concerned about them. We are going to sacrifice them for 
cheap labor for the Republicans and for potential votes for the 
Democrats.
  That is why we refuse to secure our borders. It is a political 
decision of this body to not secure the borders because of the fact 
that it will harm what we believe to be a political base, a power base 
that we either want to get or that we have at the present time, and all 
the time these people are coming across those borders, yes, mostly with 
no ill intent, most with the same purpose of my grandparents and 
perhaps yours, who came to seek a better life. But across those porous 
borders also come other people, people with much more dangerous 
motives. And you see, Mr. Speaker, we have not figured out a way to 
create a sieve on the border that effectively siphons out those people 
who are coming across with no ill intent and keeps out those who have 
other purposes in mind. We do not know how to do that.
  So, therefore, the border is open and we are fearful of closing it. 
Because if you close the border, if you seal your borders and only 
allow people to come in legally, then you stop the flow of illegal 
immigration. And the country of Mexico becomes disturbed by that, 
because now they have to deal with the problem of unemployment, the 
problem of their own sinking economy, and the fact that the United 
States Government may not be quite as sympathetic to their particular 
concerns. So they do not like the idea of closing those borders and 
they, in fact, make demands upon the United States to keep those 
borders open and let their people come through. They even provide buses 
for them, observed on our side of the border through binoculars; buses 
that come up to the border and unload people who walk across into the 
United States. These buses are part of a governmental project, a 
governmental agency.

  We do nothing about it because we are fearful of the response. We do 
not like the possibility that the political ramifications in the United 
States to either party might be detrimental. So we put this Nation at 
risk, we put our very lives at risk, and we damage not only our 
national security apparatus and we place upon those agencies given the 
responsibility for internal security issues, finding out who is here to 
do us harm, we place upon them enormous burdens of trying to identify 
people in a sea of people who are here as immigrants. This is not good 
for the United States.
  Beyond that, I go back to the original part of my discussion here 
this evening. It does something to us, Mr. Speaker, in our inability to 
create a society that has a singleness of purpose and an understanding 
of exactly who and what we are. I had the opportunity to have lunch not 
too long ago with a Catholic bishop in Denver by the name of Bishop 
Gomez, a very fine gentleman who happens to disagree with me entirely 
on this issue. And he said to me at lunch, Congressman, I do not know 
why you get so exercised about this. He said, you know, for the most 
part, these people coming here from Mexico today, they do not want to 
be Americans. They do not want to be Americans. He was thinking that 
would alleviate my concerns. I said, well, of course, Bishop, that is 
the problem.
  The other thing is, the agency I mentioned earlier, the Ministry for 
Mexicans Living in the United States, the other thing that was stated 
by Mr. Hernandez in that very candid conversation that we had was that 
part of his responsibility was to work with the Mexican nationals who 
had come to the United States to make sure that they retained, as he 
said, a connection to Mexico, a political, cultural, linguistic 
connection to Mexico. Because they want them, he said, to continue to 
have that loyalty to Mexico. Otherwise, pretty soon they are not 
sending home the kind of money that they are today, and also they are 
not agitating for any sort of change in American policy to Mexico if 
they essentially go native. That is really what he was concerned about, 
that the Mexicans would come here and essentially become part of the 
American mainstream, integrate into the American culture, become 
Americans.
  But as Bishop Gomez says, that is not their intent. That is not their 
desire. They are here to get a job, make some money, send it back, 
perhaps go home later. Well, you see, many people could have come here 
over the centuries for that same purpose, without any strong desire to 
become American, but in fact this country forced them into it. There 
was no such thing as a multiculturalist philosophy that permeated 
American culture. We did not allow for people to remain segregated for 
all that long. We required, in order for them to, as my grandfather had 
to do, in order to achieve anything in this country, he had to do a 
couple of things. One was to learn English. And my grandfather, and 
perhaps yours, and certainly most people that I know, their 
grandparents came here with a strong desire to separate themselves

[[Page H1393]]

from the past and from the countries from which they came. No desire to 
hang on to that. A desire to become American.
  And there were obstacles put up sometimes in this country. You know, 
we were antagonistic to immigrants many times. But over the course of 
time, and with a strong desire to integrate, what we saw was this 
infusion of people into the American mainstream that made us a great 
Nation. Diversity, in fact, can be a good thing. But unity is also a 
good thing. E pluribus unum, out of many, one. Not out of many, many, 
which is today's concept, today's admonition.
  So I think this issue of immigration has many implications, far far 
greater than, as I say, are discussed most of the time with regard to 
issues like jobs and other things. This will determine, Mr. Speaker, I 
believe, not just what kind of country we will be, that is divided or 
united, but this issue will determine whether we will be a country at 
all; whether we will be a Nation at all. That is why it is worthy of 
our debate on this floor and in this House.
  We are challenged by a variety of things in this world, and our 
ability to succeed will be based almost entirely upon our ability to 
defend, understand and, therefore, defend the principles of western 
civilization. And I think it is something worth thinking about. And as 
I say, Mr. Speaker, I may be wrong. I may be totally wrong; completely, 
100 percent, wrong. I want the debate, however. Is that too much to 
ask, I wonder? And let us determine the course of our Nation. Let it 
not happen in a way that does not allow for the intelligent analysis of 
the events and their implications. Let us think about who we are, what 
we are, where we are going, and what we have to do to get there.
  We can certainly allow people into this country from all over the 
world, from Mexico and Africa and Asia and Europe. We can allow them 
from all over the world, but we have to determine how this will happen 
and it has to be a process that we determine to be governed by the rule 
of law. How you come into this country should be a factor of the laws 
that we pass in this body, and that is all I ask. That is the plea I 
make tonight. It is for the United States, it is for Western 
Civilization, and for the threats that I see that are aligned and 
arrayed against it.

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