[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 34 (Tuesday, March 4, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1507-H1512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      HALTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). 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, it will be interesting as times goes by 
and as we begin the debate on the budget, which will come up in a 
relatively short order, it will be very interesting to hear our friends 
on the other side who have spoken so long and eloquently tonight about 
the issue of prescription drugs and the problem with the President's 
plan. It will be interesting to hear how they address the problem with 
the budget. My guess is, it is just a guess, of course, when the budget 
is presented, it will be attacked by our friends on the other side of 
the aisle for being too high and having too much of a deficit attached 
to it.
  I ask, I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if it would not be appropriate for all 
of us to think about the fact that the plan that is being put forward 
by the other side is one that would, oh, say a trillion dollars I think 
is the last we have seen that would attach to it in terms of cost. And 
my guess is again we will not hear much about that when we discuss the 
budget.
  At any rate, tonight I do want to talk more about a different issue 
than the budget. I want to talk about, of course, the issue of national 
security and the issue of immigration and how the two actually connect 
to each other.
  A great deal of debate is ongoing in the country about the activities 
that the United States will be involved with in a relatively short time 
perhaps in Iraq, whether or not we should be and whether or not the 
President is right to, in fact, address this issue in the way that he 
is choosing to do so. And that debate is appropriate and it is healthy 
in our Republic. Some aspects of it are healthy. But the one thing that 
I seldom hear being discussed by anyone, frankly, on either side of the 
issue of the United States involvement in Iraq is the actual threat 
that is posed by the action that we will take in that part of the 
world, the threat to our homeland, the threat to American citizens here 
in the United States. And the threat is real.
  No one, for instance, believes that our armies will be defeated in 
Iraq. No one thinks that we will fail in the desert of Iraq. Saddam 
Hussein does not think that we will fail there. No one believes that 
that is where the final victory in this huge endeavor we are involved 
with will be won. It is very possible, it is even predictable, I think, 
that various aspects of this battle against terrorism will be fought in 
a variety of places around the world, and we will experience casualties 
in places other than the desert of Iraq.

[[Page H1508]]

And those casualties may very well be here in the continental United 
States.
  We know that Saddam Hussein and others have called for a greater 
level of terrorist activities be committed against American interests 
should we commence hostility in Iraq. And we know that that may very 
well be the commencement of hostility, that is, may very well be a 
catalyzing agent that will bring together many of the disparate forces 
in that part of the world in what is often referred to as a jihad 
against the United States, and we must be prepared for it. And we have 
heard how FEMA has put out various pieces of information and on the 
FEMA Web site people can go to it and figure out how to protect their 
homes and figure out what to do if they are at their business and 
something happens, some sorts of attacks occur, biological, chemical or 
nuclear. And we are preparing the Nation for this eventuality. We talk 
about it a great deal, and we should because it is a true possibility. 
It is, in fact, a probability.
  Now, we know that and we talk about that on the floor of the House, 
and we encourage Americans to be vigilant, and we ask them to take 
measures to protect themselves against these kinds of terrorist 
activities which we anticipate in the United States of America on our 
ground. It is amazing to me then that there is such a silence, almost 
one would say a deaf silence, emanating out of this body, out of the 
administration, certainly out of any sort of aspect of the media by and 
large, I guess I should say, some aspect of the media. Do pay attention 
to what I am going to say and suggest that it is, in fact, something 
Americans should be made aware of.
  But we hear very little discussion about the fact that our borders 
are porous and across them come people not just looking for a job, 
although many and in fact most do come that way and for that purpose. 
But many others come looking to do us great damage. And we talk about, 
we do pay lip service to things like the creation of the Homeland 
Defense agency and the reconfiguration of the INS and the Border Patrol 
within that umbrella agency we are calling Homeland Defense; and that I 
suppose is supposed to salve the concerns, that is supposed to make us 
all feel better and more secure: the fact that we are arranging the 
deck chairs, and that new boxes are being constructed with new names in 
them to oversee agencies with really important-sounding titles, all 
dealing with homeland security.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I just came back from a trip to the border, to the 
southern border; and I will tell you and I will tell anyone who will 
listen that our borders are not secure, that our homeland is not 
secure, even though we have an agency for that purpose. It is not 
secure. It is incredibly vulnerable. People still by the thousands come 
across those borders at their will. Again, most I am sure are doing 
nothing more than looking for the kind of life, a better life that our, 
perhaps your grandparents, certainly mine, came here for. They are 
coming illegally; and, therefore, they should not be given any sort of 
sustenance here. We should not encourage that. We should not reward 
that kind of activity. And I do hope that we will begin to understand 
that you cannot create a sieve on the border that allows only those 
people who are looking for a better life to come through it illegally, 
while simultaneously stopping those people who are coming here to kill 
us. I do not know how to construct such a sieve. I do not believe 
anyone does.

                              {time}  2200

  Yet that is exactly what we are trying to do today. We are trying our 
best, and the government really should be given credit, certainly the 
administration, for the diligence that they have exhibited heretofore, 
that we have been able to see actually, perhaps stop certain activities 
and events from occurring, and we should praise the efforts of our 
various intelligence gathering services and parts of the homeland 
security agency, because there are things that I am sure could have 
happened to the United States, very bad things that have been stopped 
by their diligence, and I commend them for it.
  Their job is overwhelming. It is made immensely more difficult 
because the borders are porous. We have embarked upon this interesting 
strategy that says we are going to try to find the people who have 
gotten into the United States and are here trying to do what they were 
sent to do, the literally thousands that we have been told are here in 
these sleeper cells, just awaiting orders to execute some act of 
terrorism against the United States, and we apply a great deal of our 
resources to that end, to trying to find them once they are here and 
stop them from doing what it is they are going to do.
  We do not do what is, I think, most logical thing, the thing that our 
constituents ask us to do every time I think almost any of us go home 
and have a town meeting. Somebody usually, certainly in my town 
meetings, will bring up the issue of border security and ask why we are 
not trying to stop them at the borders, why we do not try to stop the 
people from coming into the United States and doing bad things, why is 
it that we are concentrating on trying to do something about the ones 
that are here now, and here is the answer. It is an ugly answer, but it 
is the answer.
  The answer, Mr. Speaker, is that if we were to actually do what is 
necessary to prevent people from coming into this country to create 
havoc and to commit acts of terrorism, we would essentially end illegal 
immigration, and therefore, we will not do that. We will not secure the 
border. We will not defend American lives or property because it would 
end illegal immigration, and Mr. Speaker, there are many people in this 
body, there are people throughout the government that recognize the 
political peril that might develop as a result of doing what I suggest.
  There are large segments of the American population who could be 
offended by us securing our own borders. I do not understand how that 
could be. I do not understand how any American, any American regardless 
of the hyphen, what word we put before the hyphen, I do not understand 
how any American could say please do not defend our borders because if 
you do, fewer of my countrymen would be able to come in. Because if you 
feel that way, then that it is your countrymen that we are keeping out, 
then you are not an American, of course. You are connected, at least 
mentally, to another country. Politically, emotionally, linguistically, 
whatever, you are connected to another country and your concerns about 
our borders should not be taken into consideration.
  Anyone who believes themselves to be an American, it seems to me, 
would be willing to say, and in fact, they do in huge number, please 
protect the border, please stop people from coming into this country to 
do us great harm because it may be me, it may be my family that is the 
casualty and the casualties of the next terrorist activity, and because 
they have some sort of connection to our country, to the United States 
of America, because they want to see us survive, and they recognize 
that the world in which we live today is the world that does not, in 
fact, exist easily with things like open borders.
  The world in which we live, the kind of world we have lived in this 
United States for a couple of hundred years where we felt so secure 
from the problems of other countries, the oceans protected us and that 
we could defend ourselves by sending armies to other countries, that 
world is gone. It no longer really exists.
  Our Nation is at risk because our borders are porous, and no matter 
how many times somebody stands on the floor of this House or in front 
of the cameras at press briefings and says something like we are doing 
everything possible to defend the people of this country, no matter how 
many times they say it, it simply is not true. It is not true.
  I can tell my colleagues that anyone who lives on the border, 
northern or southern, will tell you that the border is porous and 
across that border is coming thousands, thousands of people over the 
course of a year, millions of people, and that they will also tell you, 
by the way, Mr. Speaker, that their lives are being essentially 
destroyed, that their way of life is being destroyed, that their 
ranches and farms and homes along that border are being destroyed, 
literally and figuratively, destroyed.
  We spoke to rancher after rancher in Cochise County on the border 
with

[[Page H1509]]

Mexico, and they talked about having lived there for generations and 
how something different was happening in the last 4 or 5 years where 
they have always had the issue of, in the past, illegal immigrants 
coming across their border or that border and on to their land, and it 
is a few here and there, and they would give them food. They would give 
them jobs many times frankly, and these people would either move on or 
move back to Mexico at certain points in time, and it really was not 
much of a problem frankly.

  Something, they keep saying, has happened in the last 4 or 5 years, 
something very odd and very disconcerting, and what they say is that it 
is not just one or two people coming across. It is, in fact, hordes of 
people, thousands of people coming across the border, destroying the 
fences, depositing litter throughout the land and in areas that were 
heretofore pristine in nature. They are now essentially the local 
landfill, but there is no EPA to govern the problem and to constrict 
the use of this particular land.
  People will come to what are called pick-up sites, Mr. Speaker, and 
they are all over the land in this area. There are places where people 
will cross into the United States illegally, continue on foot to a 
particular spot inside the United States where there is a road, and 
they will congregate there, sometimes in the hundreds. Over a period of 
time, maybe thousands will congregate in this particular area, waiting 
for their truck, semis, various other forms of transportation to get 
there, pick them up and take them into the interior of the United 
States.
  The land becomes essentially destroyed where these sites are. There 
is so much trash that a person literally has to be careful as they walk 
through there because of what they might step on or what they might 
touch. I mean thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of 
water bottles and trash and plastic bags because people are told they 
must discard everything. They must discard their backpacks, jackets, 
coats, shirts, whatever, get into these whatever kind of transportation 
is made available to them with as little as possible because they need 
more room. So they do not let them take in anything that they are 
carrying and they have to just simply drop it at that point.
  The land is devastated. If this happened anywhere else in the United 
States, the Sierra Club would be going crazy. We would be hearing from 
them on the floor of this House every single day. Somebody would be 
getting sued. I guarantee my colleagues that. The cameras from ABC, NBC 
and CBS would be there every night saying, look what these people are 
doing to our land; they are destroying this property.
  Yet, I really have not seen that kind of exposure of this particular 
problem. I have certainly not heard the Sierra Club or any of the 
environmentalist organizations out there in the United States condemn 
this activity and try to do something about it and suggest that maybe 
the government ought to take some action.
  The trash that is deposited is not only unsightly and becoming 
something that becomes very dangerous at certain points in time, but it 
is also, of course, something that these ranchers have to put up with, 
and it becomes an economic liability for them because cattle eat the 
trash. They try to consume the plastic, and of course, it will kill 
them in a short period of time.
  The human feces that is deposited in this area, oftentimes a 
rainstorm will occur in that, especially in that part of the country it 
occurs quickly. These arroyos fill up. The human waste is washed down. 
It gets into the water supply for cattle and eventually for human 
beings. It is a very dangerous situation, very ugly situation.
  I talked to ranchers who spend most of their day trying to repair 
their fences instead of actually conducting the ranching operations 
that are necessary to keep them afloat. Many of these ranchers are in 
bankruptcy.
  Then, of course, there are the even more dangerous aspects of this, 
because the people coming across the border, many of them are carrying 
drugs, illegal narcotics into the United States. They come with 
backpacks, 60 to 80 pounds on their back. Sometimes they come guarded 
by people carrying M-16s or various other automatic weapons. They come 
across the land in, again, droves, thousands. We have pictures of them.
  These are very dangerous people. These are people who do not simply 
drop everything and run when they are confronted by either a rancher or 
a border patrol. They will want to many times shoot it out with them, 
and they have done so.
  Even some of the people who are not necessarily directly connected to 
the drug trafficking have become very indifferent in their nature, very 
aggressive, very antagonistic to the ranchers in the area, have 
threatened them physically, have assaulted them, have broken into their 
homes, their barns, the buildings on their ranches, have vandalized the 
wells, have threatened the family members. Person after person we speak 
to is armed. Children go to school armed, 13- and 14-year-old kids. 
Their parents are afraid to send them that far alone or unarmed.

  Ranchers have to keep shotguns or other firearms by their door, and 
as one rancher said to me, nobody should have to live like this. We 
have lived here for generations. Nobody ever locked their doors. Nobody 
ever locked their cars. This was the idyllic and picturesque rural life 
that most people thought existed in this country.
  Everything has changed on the border. The government of Mexico has 
decided to move as many people into the United States as possible, as I 
was told by Juan Hernandez, who was the head of something called the 
Ministry for Mexicans Living in the United States, a newly-created 
ministry in Mexico. He was at that time the minister, and when I asked 
him the purpose of such an agency, I had never heard of such an agency 
before, he said, well, no, it is new, and I am the first minister, and 
the purpose is essentially to increase the flow of people into the 
United States from Mexico. I said, why do you want to do that? And he 
said there are several reasons.
  He was very, very candid. I must tell my colleagues I was astounded 
by how candid he was when he said, well, the reason why we are trying 
to get as many people into the United States as possible is so that 
eventually we will be able to affect American policy vis-a-vis Mexico 
just by the number of people who exist there. He said, of course, these 
people send money home to Mexico. It is called remittance and it 
accounts for almost 30 percent of their GDP. It is a very important 
function. It is a very important part of the Mexican government and the 
Mexican economy.
  It also serves another purpose, although he did not claim this, but 
it is certainly accurate to say that because of Mexico's enormous 
growth rate in the last 25 years, having doubled their population, they 
are now, and because they are still looking, they still have an economy 
is that is anything but robust. They have a huge unemployment problem 
and they have lots and lots of very young people who are unemployed, 
and as certainly we know, what that means throughout anywhere, any 
country, it means instability.

                              {time}  2215

  And so they want to move these people out of Mexico and into the 
United States.
  Some people would even suggest that there are other reasons, that 
term ``reconquista'' is more than just an idle phrase; that people 
actually believe that they can reconquer that part of the United 
States, the southern part of the United States, by simply moving people 
into it. Well, there are many reasons why we are seeing this enormous 
number of people coming across the border, and Mexico may very well 
have their reasons for encouraging the flow into the United States. But 
we have absolutely no reason to accept this state of affairs except for 
the fact that we fear the politics. We fear the political reaction to 
any action we take to secure the border, both northern and southern.
  Well, that is simply not good enough for me, Mr. Speaker. That is not 
a good enough reason for us to abandon our borders. Because it is 
imperative, I think, for any nation, in order to call itself a nation, 
to be able to control its own borders; and we do not do that. We do not 
wish to do that, and we suffer the consequences: increased costs for 
American citizens.
  There is always this debate as to whether or not massive immigration 
of

[[Page H1510]]

legal and illegal workers, low-paid, low-skilled workers into the 
United States is a benefit to the country. Well, I will tell you to 
whom it is a benefit. It is a benefit to those who hire low-skilled, 
low-wage workers and pay them very little. Those folks do, in fact, get 
a profit from this migration activity and from the fact that our 
borders are porous, and they can therefore hire people who are 
desperate. That is profitable for them, but it is costly for the United 
States.
  Many very reputable studies have been conducted that are designed to 
identify the actual costs. A lady at Vanderbilt University, a very 
well-respected economist, has stated often that the result of massive 
immigration into the United States of low-skilled, low-wage people 
creates profits for some, but costs for the many. And there is 
absolutely no way that the United States benefits in the aggregate from 
having millions of people here for whom housing is necessary, schooling 
is necessary, hospitals are necessary, and prisons are necessary.
  Twenty-five percent of the prison population in Federal prisons is 
made up of people who are noncitizens in this country. It varies from 
State to State as to how many noncitizens end up in State facilities or 
in local lockups, but it is a significant number. And these are very 
expensive costs. And they are not paid back by the ``taxes that are 
paid by the people coming in.'' First of all, even if they were paying 
taxes, of course, we would recognize these are low-skilled, low-wage 
people.
  At one of these pickup sites I mentioned before, Mr. Speaker, that we 
were going through a couple of weeks ago on the border, we saw some 
paper, well, there was paper and stuff everywhere; and I happened to 
look down and there was a 1040, a Federal income tax form that someone 
had filed, and it was deposited in the rest of this trash heap in this 
pickup site. I picked it up and we were looking at it and it was a Mr. 
Delgado. And Mr. Delgado had filed taxes, a tax form for the previous 
year, in which he claimed, and I cannot remember now because I do not 
have it with me, but I think it was $8,000 or $9,000 in income that he 
had paid $1,100 or $1,200 in taxes. But of course he also claimed 
$2,400 in unearned income tax credit. So he got a refund, of course, of 
almost double what he paid.
  And this is not unusual. It is costing us not just the money that 
every city and State and the Federal Government has to put out for all 
the services and the infrastructure, but it costs us in terms of the 
tax claims that are made by the people who come in here and work often 
illegally. And my colleagues know as well as I do how this happens. Tax 
ID numbers are assigned. The IRS could not care less whether a person 
is legal or illegal. They will assign a tax ID number, and that is 
really all one needs to then make a claim for an income tax credit.
  So there is that one side of the immigration issue. There is this 
economic dilemma that we face and certainly an economic hardship that 
is placed on Americans to support massive immigration into this 
country. Then there is this other side, there is this thing we call the 
national security implications of massive immigration.
  And before I go to that, Mr. Speaker, I do want to talk about 
something else that is occurring. We are about to perhaps embark upon 
some action in the Middle East, and we are looking for friends around 
the world. We are very interested in getting countries in the Middle 
East to help us out. We have heard a lot about Turkey and the fact that 
we had offered them, well estimates go from $12 billion to $30 billion 
in aid, essentially a bribe, to have them allow us to station troops 
there. Their parliament recently turned down that request from the 
United States to station troops there, so this has caused a lot of 
consternation.

  But they are not the only government that is trying to hold the 
United States up in order for them to agree to allow us to do what we 
think we need to do for our national interest and for the interest of, 
in fact, the civilized world. Our friends to the south have been 
negotiating with the United States, because of course we need their 
vote on the Security Council in this resolution that is coming up. It 
is widely reported that some bargaining has been going on between the 
administration and Vincente Fox's government. The issue is, well, what 
is in it for us, is the way I think it has been put. What is in it for 
Mexico? What are we willing to give them to get their vote on the 
Security Council?
  This is the same government, Mr. Speaker, the same country whose 
president came here and addressed a joint session and talked about the 
need for trust. He used that word over and over and over again, I 
remember. We have to trust each other. We have to trust Mexico 
especially, he said. Well, in that vein, then, he is suggesting that 
some quid pro quo is necessary for them to support our resolution, or 
the British resolution in the Security Council; and what they are 
asking for is another push for amnesty for all the people living here 
illegally, all the people from Mexico living here illegally.
  I do not know, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what arrangements have been 
made to get their vote; but I would suggest that this is not the action 
of a friend, of a nation that we are supposed to be able to trust. And 
I also assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I will certainly do everything in 
my power to stop any effort to provide amnesty for anyone here 
illegally, Mexicans or anyone else. It is the worst kind of public 
policy.
  Just before I came on the floor, I was talking to someone who was 
telling me about the fact that he is engaged, and he is trying to get 
the person to whom he is engaged here in the United States. It is a 
lengthy and difficult process, and he is of course doing it the right 
way. It is going to cost money. It is certainly going to cost a lot of 
time, and it is a big inconvenience. And I wonder what we would tell 
him and anyone else who is actually trying to do it the right way if we 
were to in fact then grant amnesty to the, what, 10 to 13 million 
people here who have done it the wrong way. What message does that send 
to all of the law-abiding citizens of this country and/or law-abiding 
prospective citizens to this country? It tells them they were suckers; 
and that is it, that they should have simply snuck in.
  Why would someone not just sneak in? Why would anyone go through the 
hassle? And by the way, when we go down to the border, the border 
patrol will say every time, please do not even mention amnesty. Because 
every time we say amnesty up here, this flood they are trying to deal 
with turns into a tidal wave. It is terrible public policy, Mr. 
Speaker, and I will do anything I can to try to stop it.
  Again, I do not know what arrangements have been made. I know it has 
been widely reported that this is the kind of thing that is going on. 
The fact that the borders are porous is more than just an obstacle to 
those of us who want to adhere to the rule of law and encourage people 
to come into this country legally, to enhance the idea of national 
sovereignty. It is more than just a little obstacle along those lines. 
It is also a very severe and significant threat to the existence of the 
United States of America.
  Across these borders come people, as I have said before, with ill 
intent, and they can come across at their will. And many people are 
coming from areas of the world that are certainly known to spawn the 
terrorists about whom we are so greatly concerned. In fact, on the 
border they also have a term for that. They always refer to these 
people coming across, this new phenomena, by saying there are so many 
OTMs. That simply means ``other than Mexicans,'' coming across the 
southern border.
  But it is not unique to the southern border. I guarantee it is 
happening on our northern border also. Many people are being reported, 
hundreds, sometimes more, who are actually coming from countries in the 
Middle East. And what we are noticing recently is quite a number of 
people coming up through Brazil in what is something called the tri-
border region in South America. This is an interesting phenomenon, Mr. 
Speaker. A very interesting phenomenon, because it is something we hear 
very little about.
  In a paper, from which I am going to quote here, it is called ``Tres 
Fronteras,'' which means ``three borders,'' and that is why I say we 
refer to it now mostly as the tri-border area. It is Paraguay, 
Argentina, and Brazil in South America. It was submitted by Lawrence J. 
Martines, a member of the IACSP, the Association of Former Intelligence 
Officers, and a variety of other organizations. It is entitled ``The 
Nexus of Islamic Terrorism in Latin America.''

[[Page H1511]]

  It starts off: ``Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay once held the title of the 
contraband capital of South America. A seedy border town surrounded by 
jungle, where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. 
Millions of dollars in drugs have passed through Ciudad Del Este down 
the Parana River to the Rio de la Plata and eventually reaching the 
Atlantic seaboard. Upriver came illegal booze, jewelry, and black-
market cigarettes. The narcotrafficantes and all-purpose smugglers 
fueled the economy of the region. According to a U.S. State Department 
document, thanks to Ciudad Del Este, impoverished Paraguay had both a 
higher consumption of whiskey than Scotland and a record supply of 
foreign cigarettes and jewelry.

                              {time}  2230

  ``In the mid-1980s, a demographic shift began in South America,'' and 
this is the part that is quite interesting and something hardly anyone 
talks about. ``Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and Southwest 
Asia began flooding into the region, including the Tres Fronteras. By 
2001 the Muslim population south of the Panama Canal had skyrocketed to 
an estimated 6 million. Over a million currently live in Brazil, while 
Argentina plays host to 700,000. Much of the remainder live in 
Paraguay, Chile, Peru and Bolivia. In Ciudad Del Este, over 23,000 
Muslims, mostly Lebanese, Syrians and Iranians, now control the 
economic and political life of the area which extends across the border 
to the city of Foz do Iguacu on the Brazilian side of Parana.
  ``Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United 
States, and under major prodding from the CIA, police officers from the 
three adjoining nations swept into the area to scour for evidence that 
the tri-border region may have evolved into a haven for Islamic 
extremists. Paraguayan police rounded up numerous Arab immigrants and 
Paraguayan citizens who they claimed to have links to international 
terror groups. Among those arrested was Alejandro Weiss, the former 
Paraguayan consul to the United States of America. It was discovered 
that consul Weiss had sold over 300 passports, visas and cargo shipment 
authorizations at $8,000 a piece. These documents went to Lebanese, 
Syrian and Egyptian citizens suspected of terrorist connections. These 
individuals and their cargoes have since melted into the rapidly 
growing Arab community within the tri-border region.
  Skipping to the end, On November 21, Otto Reich, the Assistant 
Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere made the following 
statement. ``We have information that there are numerous people helping 
the Hizballah organization in the tri-border area. This includes 
financially helping terrorist groups in the Middle East.''
  ``Footnote: When taking a hard look at Islamic extremists in Latin 
America, one should not ignore Mexico. Within the last year, a former 
Mexican immigration official in Ciudad Juarez was imprisoned because of 
his involvement in smuggling hundreds of Iraqis and Palestinians into 
the United States of America since 1996. These Arabs apparently 
traveled up the land bridge from South America. Further, within the 
same time frame, Matamoros police arrested a migrant smuggler accused 
of sneaking numerous Pakistanis into the southwestern United States.
  ``One must conclude from all this Islamic extremist activity south of 
border that we must increase vigilance at our back door. The threat is 
clearly aimed at our homeland via the geography of our hemispheric 
neighbors. Continued sneaking of terrorists into America through our 
porous southern flank is a given, unless there is a major military or 
law enforcement presence implemented there in the very near future.''
  While we were down there and in other briefings I have had from 
Border Patrol agents and from the INS, they will show you the number of 
people that they have arrested, and they identify them by country of 
origin. Over the last year and a half, it is fascinating to see what is 
happening, because there is the typical number from Mexico, and then 
they go through all of the other countries from which we are grabbing 
people that are coming into the country illegally.
  In the last year and a half it was weird because Brazil just went off 
the charts. What is the idea there? What is happening is this. Brazil 
and the tri-border area is home to this group of Islamic extremists, 
they provide the transportation network that brings these people up 
through Mexico and into the United States. They come from all over the 
Middle East, they come through that tri-border area. They are 
culturated to a certain extent, and then moved into the United States. 
We have gotten all of these people with these Brazilian passports. It 
is a very odd thing.

  But the point I am making is this: The folks that are coming into 
this country are not just looking for a job cutting your lawn or 
replacing your roof. Some of them, many of them, are coming to replace 
you, your very existence. They are coming across porous borders, and 
the only way that it can ever be dealt with is, I reiterate, to provide 
a major military or law enforcement presence on that border, northern 
and southern. It means the commitment of our military assets to a task 
that one would think would be the most logical task, the first task, to 
protect the homeland. Homeland defense.
  There are 37,000 American troops on the border between North and 
South Korea. South Koreans tell us that they do not want them. There 
are demonstrations all of the time against American troops there. Mr. 
Speaker, I would certainly look long and hard at any proposal to bring 
those troops back home and put them on the border where I know they are 
wanted, and that is our border between Mexico and the United States and 
Mexico and Canada.
  There are Muslim groups in Canada. When we were on the northern 
border, we were told about a Muslim group in Calgary, Canada. Odd as 
that might sound, that is what we were told by the Forest Service 
officials that were playing host to our group. And the reason they 
identified this group was this group was responsible, perhaps not all 
25,000, but the Muslim population in Calgary that was responsible for 
the transportation of the narcotics of the drugs into the United 
States. They put them together here to make methamphetamines. And then 
the money that was garnered from this illegal trafficking in narcotics 
went back to this group in Calgary, Canada, and was then used to 
support terrorist organizations all over the world.
  We were told that there is something like 100,000 Muslims in other 
major cities in Canada, including Vancouver. Again, an odd thing. 
Muslims in Canada and Brazil, yes, it is happening. It is documented. 
It is pretty peculiar, I agree, but it is a fact of life. It is not a 
fact that we want too much exposure on however because if most people 
in the United States understood this, knew this, there would be a call 
to do something about it, and their government would supposedly respond 
to that. I do not know that they would do it, but I know there would be 
a call to do it.
  Mr. Speaker, I have never seen a greater divide between what the 
people of this country want and what this government is willing to give 
them than in this area of immigration reform. The people want it. We 
are not willing to give it. Why? Because of the politics of the issue.
  What do we do instead? We not only open the borders and keep them 
open, but we encourage even more people to come across. States are now 
providing various amenities, benefits to people to come here and live 
illegally. The Mexican consul in the United States is going around 
lobbying cities and States to get them to accept the matricular 
consular. It is a card handed out to Mexican nationals. They have every 
right to do that, but then the Mexican consul has gone out and asked 
cities and States to accept these cards as an ID for the provision of 
benefits and services, and many cities and States have agreed to do 
that.
  That means that we are running a variety of immigration systems in 
this country. The Federal Government is saying here is what we give 
you. It is called a green card when you come into the United States 
legally, or a visa. And a city is saying I do not care about that, I 
will take this card given by the Mexican consul.

[[Page H1512]]

  Mr. Speaker, I wonder if an American consul official would go to a 
State official in Mexico or Canada and say would you please help me 
help people that are here illegally violate the Federal law, would you 
please help us. Well, there would be an international incident. The 
governments of Mexico and Canada would file a protest saying what are 
your consuls doing in my country trying to get people to break the law. 
That is exactly what is happening in America. Yet we have taken no 
action against it.

                              {time}  2245

  We have not even filed a protest. In fact, we do not want this to be 
known. It is happening in State after State. Colorado, my State, to its 
great credit, has passed through the House and through at least one 
committee in the Senate a bill to ban any acceptance of the matricular 
consular by the State and any local entity in Colorado. I hope States 
throughout the United States take this example and move forward 
quickly. I have introduced legislation to stop the Federal Government 
from doing this. Why would there even be opposition to this? Why would 
we be saying that we would accept for identification purposes anything 
but a U.S. or State government issued document? But we are doing it to 
accommodate illegal immigrants into this country because, Mr. Speaker, 
that is the only people that in fact need this card. The only people 
who need a card for identification purposes are people who are here 
illegally. Otherwise, you have something from our government. It is 
called, as I say, a green card or a visa. But if you are here 
illegally, you do not have that so you need this other card, and we are 
accommodating that. States and cities are doing it. Even the Federal 
Government is abetting it because we have not spoken out against it. We 
have not demanded that the Mexican consul stop this activity.
  The State House in Washington last week, I think, passed a bill 
giving instate tuition. If Washington goes ahead, they will join 
several other States, Utah, Texas, California, I cannot remember, I 
think there is another State, that have done that. I wonder if they 
recognize, and, by the way, this is something I hope that they hear, 
Mr. Speaker, that in 1996 this Congress passed a law saying that if any 
State does that, if they give instate tuition to illegal residents in 
this country, then they have to give that same rate to everybody who 
applies, all outstate applicants have to be given the rate that they 
give to an illegal alien applying. So that will end outstate tuition 
for anybody wanting to go to Utah, California, Texas and Washington, 
anybody in the United States who chooses to leave their State and apply 
to any of these States for college; and if they are told that their 
costs are going to be much higher than the State resident, they could 
sue. I would certainly encourage them to do so because, of course, this 
is an activity that is designed to thwart the will of the Congress and 
the Nation.
  How many immigration systems are we going to run in this country? And 
they are given driver's licenses and they are out lobbying for this. 
And everybody will say, But these people are just coming for jobs. Come 
on. It is good for the country. No, Mr. Speaker, there are major, 
negative implications to massive illegal immigration. Where are the 
ears to hear this? Why have we not as a body risen up and reflected the 
will of our constituents and demanded that these governments stop 
trying to infiltrate into the United States, stop trying to send their 
people in here illegally? There is a process to come into the United 
States legally. It is not the act of a friendly nation to encourage 
people to come across our borders illegally.
  Michelle Malkin, I cannot say enough about her as an author and 
observer of the political scene, has written a book called ``Invasion'' 
to describe this phenomenon, and it is an invasion. It is the accurate 
word to describe what is happening to us. In order to stop it, we need 
to put our military on our borders to defend our Nation against this 
invasion. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, how we can look our constituents 
in the eye, any of us, when we go home if we have not done everything 
possible to defend the country. That includes using the military assets 
of this country for that purpose.
  We do not have to place people arm in arm across the border. 
Technology now allows us to, in fact, monitor large tracts of land, be 
able to address the issue when it occurs, someone crossing a border; we 
have sensors that can identify a person as opposed to a deer or an 
animal coming across. We have drones, unmanned aerial vehicles we can 
use on our borders. I have seen it work. We tried it on the northern 
border for a 2-week stint, 100 Marines using three drones and two radar 
stations controlling 100 miles of border in some of the most rugged 
areas of the country. We can do it. It is not an issue of resources. 
People will say, it just costs too much. A Member of the other body 
indicated, and he is from Arizona, that we could not put troops on our 
borders because we are about to go to war. I would suggest that there 
is a problem there, because we are at war in a way, in his own State, I 
should say. Therefore, those troops could be, I think, appropriately 
used there.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that I know is uncomfortable for many 
to deal with; but it is nonetheless a real issue, something that needs 
to be dealt with by this body and by the American people. I appreciate 
the time that has been given me this evening to bring it to the 
attention of this body.

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