[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 53 (Wednesday, April 2, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H2695-H2701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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, I rise tonight to talk about the issue of 
immigration and immigration reform and a specific aspect of that 
particular problem that we face here in the United States. I have, over 
the course of the last couple of weeks anyway, tried to enter into a 
dialogue here; perhaps it is more of a monologue, I suppose, at this 
time of night and in this particular setting, and the discussion that I 
have tried to focus on is one that I believe is of paramount, or should 
be at least, of paramount importance to the Members of this body. It is 
true that I am concerned about that particular issue and I intend to 
spend at least most of the evening tonight discussing this particular 
point, and I should say more particularly, more specifically, the issue 
of the drug importation into this country which is allowed by the 
porous nature of our border and the various hazards that that poses, 
because there are a wide range of problems that confront us because our 
borders are porous.
  We are going to explore these one at a time; we are going to take 
them in sections, I guess, if you will, and we are going to talk about, 
as I did last week, we are going to talk about the issue of national 
security and how that is affected by porous borders. We are going to 
talk this evening about the importation of illegal narcotics into the 
United States and how that threatens the country and how that 
phenomenon is made more, I guess prevalent, and it is, of course, much 
easier to import illegal narcotics into the United States because our 
borders are porous, and we are going to focus on that. And then we are 
going to talk about maybe in the next week or so, environmental 
degradation that comes as a result of millions of people crossing this 
border illegally and what they do to the land as they trespass upon it.
  But let me just for a moment or two reflect upon some of the things 
that have been said in the prior hour by members of the Black Caucus.
  Time and again we heard reference to the ``cuts'' that were part of 
the budget we passed, the Republicans introduced and passed in the 
House. And I am certainly not going to spend a lot of time talking 
about each of the issues, each of the different kinds of budget issues 
that were identified here, but I am going to talk for just a moment 
about one aspect of this, and that is, I think 13 or 14 times I heard 
the phrase ``cuts in funding for veterans.'' I am going to only focus 
on that to show my colleagues the difficulty of debating this kind of 
an issue and actually getting the facts out to the general public.
  Now, if anybody did in fact hear the last hour, Mr. Speaker, they 
would think certainly that there has been a cut in funding to veterans, 
and actually proposed, that is to say, by the Republican budget. A cut 
not just to veterans, but to a whole host of groups, the elderly, 
children, schools, you name it. So let me just focus on this one point, 
just on veterans, in order to put this thing in some sort of 
perspective for anyone who was actually listening to that discussion.
  Cuts in the budget to veterans. Cuts. Now, I am not sure exactly how 
Webster defines the word ``cut,'' but it has to do, I am sure, with a 
reduction from one level to another. I am just going to assume that. So 
if someone stands up in front of us and says there has been a cut 
proposed in the Republican budget for veterans, one assumes that the 
money that is being proposed to be spent for veterans benefits next 
year, 2004, is less than what is or what has been spent or will be 
spent in the 2003 fiscal year.
  So that we again can actually understand what is going on here, let 
me tell my colleagues what the figures are. These are undeniable, 
undebatable; they are in black and white; they are produced for the 
public consumption by the printing office when it prepares these 
budgets. So anyone can determine whether or not I am being truthful 
here when I tell my colleagues that the budget for veterans for the 
fiscal

[[Page H2696]]

year 2003 was about $57 billion. I believe $57.6 billion, to be a 
little more specific.
  Now let me tell my colleagues what the budget is for veterans for the 
year, in our budget, in the Republican budget for the fiscal year 2004. 
It is $61.6 billion.
  Now, let me think. Let me think. Mr. Speaker, $57.6 is this year; 
$61.6 is next year proposed; somehow or other, only in this place, only 
in this kind of debate can we say things like the Republican budget is 
proposing a cut. I do not know how they come to that conclusion. It may 
be because they established for themselves some mythical number that 
should be in the budget of $100 billion, and then say, do you realize 
the Republicans have cut the budget for seniors by $40 billion? Because 
I think they should get $100 billion, therefore the proposed budget of 
$61 billion is a cut from my figure. Now, maybe that is what they 
meant. It is, of course, irrelevant because nobody does math like that; 
or perhaps, I should say, nobody does anything but fuzzy math in that 
way.
  Or maybe it is a product of a school system. Maybe it is the fact 
that the schools are so bad, as was discussed in the last hour, that 
people simply cannot figure out, they cannot do the math and figure 57 
minus 61; let me think, that is about, oh, yes, that is $4 billion. 
That is an increase proposed for the next fiscal year. So I am going to 
go out and say that because I wanted $70 billion or $100 billion, there 
is less money available, or that the Republicans had cut the budget.
  Now, I am just pointing at that particular thing because it is really 
and truly an example of this entire debate. The president's budget, by 
the way, was a 4 percent increase, higher than inflation. It proposes a 
4 percent overall increase for all Federal spending. An increase, I-N-
C-R-E-A-S-E.

                              {time}  2130

  No matter how many ways we try to construct this debate, it is 
impossible if we do the math to figure out or to come to the 
conclusion, I should say, that there is a ``cut.'' Yet people can say 
things like that over and over and over and hope that somebody actually 
believes it. It is amazing. What a country, as the comedian says, what 
a country.
  There is another aspect of that last debate that I wanted to bring 
up. It is a very, very controversial aspect. I certainly understand 
that what I am about to discuss here for a moment or two has that 
dimension, or that characteristic. It is controversial.
  I am concerned about the fact that in this body, and certainly 
throughout the country, we do things that are designed, maybe not 
purposely, but certainly have the effect of pulling America apart, 
pulling us apart and putting us into camps as individuals. This is one 
of the issues that we deal with when we talk about immigration reform, 
and the problems with massive immigration into this Nation that occur 
simultaneously with the development of this philosophy of 
multiculturalism.
  It is not just massive immigration into the United States that is 
problematic. We have, as a Nation, dealt with it over the last couple 
of hundred years. As a percentage of the population, it has risen; it 
has fallen. We have been able to deal with it. We would be able to deal 
with it even today, even though the numbers are far greater today. The 
massive immigration into this country exceeds, in just the numbers, 
anything we have ever witnessed before.
  But I am sure that we could handle it if we did not have to also deal 
with, internally, this issue of, I would call it, a pernicious 
multiculturalist philosophy. What that philosophy boils down to is 
something like this: that, you know, the United States as a whole, as a 
Nation, cannot really be defined. America cannot really be defined 
easily if we are talking about a group of people that are coming 
together in support of and in a complete understanding of and an 
allegiance to a certain set of ideals and goals, because of course we 
are not a country of people that can easily be identified any other 
way.
  We are not a people that you can look at and say, yes, he or she is 
an American. We do not know that, because we are people of different 
color and different religious perspective and cultural habits; and all 
the things other countries maybe have to hold them together we do not 
have in America.
  People say diversity is our strength. Of course, there are certain 
positive aspects of diversity; but there are certain times when 
diversity, driven to the extreme, becomes something other than a 
positive aspect of our society. It is when we become pulled apart as a 
Nation and divided up along ethnic lines, as opposed to along the lines 
that would divide any other sort of republic; that is to say, along the 
lines of ideas: ideas about how we should be governed, ideas about what 
it is to be an American, some communal thing.
  There can certainly be differences. Absolutely there are differences, 
as evidenced by the division in this House, right and left, 
conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat. Those are good. They 
are healthy differences to be discussed, to be debated, and for the 
Nation to work through. Those are healthy differences, and I applaud 
them.
  I wonder sometimes about those things that are designed, however, to 
divide us on other lines; not into camps based on ideas about how 
government should be formulated and how government should actually 
react to the citizens of this country and reflect their opinions. But 
we should in fact be divided on other lines: on racial lines, such as 
the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus.
  I respect every single person in this body. I respect people; and I 
certainly have great, great respect and love for my colleagues who 
serve here. I do believe that they are capable, competent individuals 
who have gained this seat in this body because of their individual 
abilities. They are, for the most part, I think, enormously competent 
people, and people who come to serve here for all the right reasons, 
because they want to do what they can to improve the quality of life 
for people who live in this country; but I hope it is for all the 
people who live in this country.
  I am concerned to a certain extent about the division even in this 
body into groups that are based on things other than ideas, and that 
are based on things like race. Certainly, I would be opposed to a white 
or Anglo caucus, and certainly the media would go crazy. Everybody 
would say, what kind of a thing is that? That is a racist concept. I 
would have to agree that such a caucus would be, I think by its very 
nature, racist, because I do not think that the problems that confront 
the United States are problems that are uniquely black, white, or 
Hispanic. I believe they are problems that confront us as human beings.

  I want to reiterate that I respect every single Member of this body, 
and certainly every member of the Black Caucus, every member of the 
Hispanic Caucus. But I do wonder about the kind of message that even 
the creation and existence of those caucuses, those two caucuses, what 
is the message that it sends, that we are as a Nation dividing up into 
these camps, and that it is appropriate to do so: white, black, 
Hispanic.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that is a dangerous thing. It is one of the 
reasons why I do, in fact, take the floor often to talk about the 
implications of massive immigration that are combined with this 
multiculturalist philosophy that permeates our society, a 
multiculturalist philosophy that says there is nothing unique about 
America, or if there is anything unique, it is maybe about how bad it 
is compared to other cultures and civilizations; that there is nothing 
special about America.
  It is the philosophy that we see in the textbooks of the children in 
our classrooms throughout this country that downplays American history, 
that downplays the role of Western Civilization in the development of 
world history, the positive aspects of Western Civilization, all of 
Western Civilization and the participants therein, be they black or 
brown or white or yellow.
  Western Civilization offers much to the world and has provided 
enormous opportunities. Certainly there are warts. Certainly there are 
aspects of Western Civilization that we can condemn or criticize. But 
overall, overall, I think it can be said and empirically proved that 
Western Civilization has contributed far more than it has taken away 
from human liberty.

[[Page H2697]]

  We should extol that virtue, especially, especially when Western 
Civilization is in fact under attack, which I believe it to be. Western 
Civilization is confronted by many rivals, and we are seeing some of 
those battles being played out, I must tell the Members, right now, I 
think, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in other places in the world. Because, 
yes, I think part of what we are facing is a clash of civilizations. I 
believe Western Civilization and the values thereof are being 
confronted by other values.
  Perhaps we can, for our purpose here for just a moment, describe 
those other values or those other concepts as fundamentalist, or 
radical Islam. I believe that Islamists, radical Islamists, are in fact 
threatening Western Civilization, confronting Western Civilization. I 
believe that what is happening even today in Iraq is a reflection of 
that conflict.
  I know that what I am saying here tonight is controversial. It is 
certainly not politically correct. It will tend to make people respond 
with the usual epithets of ``ethnocentrism'' and ``racism.'' Those are 
the words that are usually used to describe a person who feels as 
though Western Civilization does have a significant role to play in the 
development of mankind, and intrinsically has a great positive benefit; 
but I believe it does. I believe it can be proven.
  I believe there is nothing to be ashamed of in this, as being a sort 
of representative of Western Civilization; or a participant in, a 
member of, however we want to put it. There is nothing to be ashamed 
of, and I think there are many things to be proud of.
  I am proud, but I do worry about all of those things that are part of 
this multiculturalist philosophy that tend to tear us apart and make 
us, therefore, less able to actually confront an opponent; in this 
case, fundamentalist Islam.
  Islam, I should say, is not a monolithic entity. It is made up of 
over 1 billion people who have different opinions and attitudes and 
ideas, so I do not want to suggest that everyone who is of the Muslim 
faith is a foe of Western Civilization. But I will tell the Members 
that the fight we fight in Iraq and that we will be fighting after the 
war in Iraq ends and after Saddam Hussein is deposed, that war, it will 
go on; and it is a war that I think can be characterized accurately as 
a clash of civilizations.
  So we have to know who we are, Mr. Speaker. We have to know exactly 
what it is that we as Americans and that we as representatives and 
leaders of Western Civilization are all about, whether the ideas and 
ideals of Western Civilization matter, whether or not they are worthy 
of the battle and of our defense.
  I think they are. I do not mean for a second to suggest that people 
who come to the floor and who argue for their particular point of view, 
certainly because it differs from mine, are not as committed to this 
Nation and to its future as I am. I just would want to bring to the 
attention of the body this fear, this problem, this one aspect of that 
debate.
  When it strays from a debate over ideas and into a debate that 
divides us up on racial or ethnic lines, this is, I think, problematic, 
to say the least. It is something that we need to talk about, to 
discuss in candor and without vitriol. It is something that we must not 
be afraid to talk about, even though, I admit, it is controversial.
  Certainly there are a lot of people who will be on edge when we begin 
to discuss this thing, but perhaps that is not a bad thing. Putting 
Americans on edge when confronting these kinds of questions is perhaps 
not the worst thing in the world; and it is, perhaps, absolutely 
necessary.
  We have to think about this: What does, in fact, tie us together? 
What makes us come together as Americans? Can we actually define what 
that means, American? Can we leave out any reference to the color of 
our skin or to our ethnicity in that definition? Can we, to paraphrase 
someone else, can we forget about the color of our skin and concentrate 
on the nature of our character?
  That would be the ultimate goal, and that would be the most positive 
development and the most positive aspect of any debate over what is 
America, what is the definition of America, or Americanism.

                              {time}  2145

  It is worthy, I think, of our allegiance, but we have to tell our 
children about it. I hope that the President of the United States and 
leaders of this country, elected leaders and cultural leaders and 
people in the pulpits of the country, I hope all of them will think 
about the importance of advancing this concept of America as one 
Nation, as an ideal, an ideal that has many components and one of the 
wonderful aspects thereof is the ability to debate those ideas in a 
forum like this.
  So I hope that I will be given some leeway by those who are listening 
in terms as they get very on edge, I guess I should say, about what I 
am saying here tonight. Let me suggest that it is important for us to 
discuss these topics in a way that I think would make us all better 
people and better Americans.
  So with that let me go to the point or to the discussion now of the 
issue of immigration specifically, and even narrow it down to a greater 
extent to the problem we face as a Nation of porous borders and the 
amount of very dangerous things that come across those borders. And so 
tonight for the rest of the evening I am going to talk about just one 
aspect of porous borders and the problem with lax immigration laws, and 
that is what happens to the United States and in the United States as a 
result of those porous borders, and specifically as a result of the 
drugs that come across those borders.
  First, I am going to take a look at the Canadian border. Now, it is 
an interesting thing that although marijuana is by far the drug that is 
trafficked across that border more than anything else, there is one 
little thing that is happening up there that is worthy of our 
attention. That is the amount of a different kind of narcotic, in this 
case methamphetamines, that are coming across the border.
  This is a series of pictures of meth labs that we have uncovered on 
our border, on our northern border, and what we are finding is that 
there is an enormous amount of methamphetamine traffic from Canada to 
the United States. Due to the lack of legal control measures in Canada, 
both Canadian- and American-based drug traffickers are able to purchase 
chemical products used in making methamphetamines openly from 
legitimate distributors. So they buy the component parts of 
methamphetamine in Canada. They ship them into the United States. They 
are cooked. They are brought together in meth labs like this that we 
see all over the northern border States and some, as a matter of fact, 
down in the Southwest, but primarily again up in Canada. The drugs are 
put together in these meth labs and then transported farther inland in 
the United States, sold, and the money goes back to the drug cartels in 
Canada.
  Now, here is one little interesting aspect of this whole thing that I 
think relatively few people may be aware of; that in Calgary, Canada, 
we now see a relatively large community of Muslims, about 25,000 in 
Calgary. There are about maybe 100,000 in Vancouver, and I am not sure, 
estimates are about a quarter of a million or so in Canada generally. 
But the 25,000 Muslims that are in Canada can be identified as the 
primary source of that drug trafficking activity into the United 
States.
  I was on the northern border not too long ago. I was a guest of the 
Forest Service and the Border Patrol. They were telling me about this 
particular phenomenon. They were telling me about the group in Calgary, 
Canada, about how they transport the methamphetamine components into 
the United States, about how those components are put together in these 
meth labs, and how then the money goes back to the Muslim group inside 
Canada, and then that money is used to support terrorist activities and 
terrorist organizations all over the world. I confirmed this, when I 
got back, with Asa Hutchinson who is, I guess we can call him our drug 
czar, but a Member whom I served with some time ago and a Member for 
whom I have the greatest respect. And it is true. What I just told you 
is true. There is this group in Canada, primarily Muslims, who are the 
source of this methamphetamine trade into the United States.
  Now, not only, of course, do we know the damage that this particular 
drug

[[Page H2698]]

does in the United States to our children and to adults, there is also 
an environmental component of this, and we will talk about that more at 
a different time, the environmental degradation of the land as a result 
of illegal immigration and of porous borders, but specifically with 
regard to this particular problem, the methamphetamine and the labs 
that are operating all over the northern part of the United States, 
that environmental degradation is caused by dumping of toxic by-
products resulting from this methamphetamine production, and it is a 
very scary thing. It is a very costly thing.
  On average, 5 or 6 pounds of toxic waste are produced for every pound 
of methamphetamine produced. It costs us about 3- or $4,000 every time 
we go into these areas and clean up these meth labs that are left 
around. They will dispose of much of these chemicals, by the way, in 
caves, in abandoned mines and that sort of thing. And the problem is, 
of course, people come across it, kids, hikers, whatever, will go in 
there, animals; the danger is great. These toxic chemicals are very, 
very dangerous, and very lethal.

  In addition to the chemical and other kinds of threats to health and 
safety of officers in dismantling these laboratories, these sites often 
contain additional dangers such as blasting caps, dynamite, explosive 
booby traps, grenades, pipe bombs, and plastic explosives of a variety 
of kinds.
  The Canadian border sometimes, well, we just are sometimes astounded 
by it. We cannot believe this is happening up there. We do not pay a 
lot of attention to it. The media does not pay a lot of attention to 
the porous nature of that particular border. But while I mentioned 
earlier that I was up there along the Canadian border, this was not too 
far from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, an incredibly beautiful part of the 
North American continent. And I went to the border to observe an 
exercise being conducted by 100 marines who had been sent up there to 
see what kind of technology we could employ along with the military to 
try to control just one section of the border there, just one little 
tiny, maybe 100 miles of border.
  And while we were there, we were using by the way, I say ``we,'' I 
was really just an observer. But the marines were using three drones, 
unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the skies over that border to 
identify people coming across that border. And by the way, this is the 
most rugged territory you have ever seen in your life. And there are no 
roads, and people coming across that border are usually coming because 
they would not be welcomed at the port of entry. And sure enough, while 
we were there, one evening a drone that was being operated, it was 
about 2 o'clock in the morning, it was being operated by this young 
marine, and it pops up on the monitor, on the screen there, some sort 
of activity on that border. And they closed in on it and found, I think 
it was four people coming across on ATVs, All Terrain Vehicles, 
carrying 4- or 500 pounds of narcotics on the back of these ATVs. And 
they were able to be interdict because we were using the military in 
conjunction with the Border Patrol and in conjunction with the Forest 
Service to apply technology and human resources to try to see whether 
or not we could actually control the border. Actually it worked.
  We also, I was not there at the time, that same exercise was 
responsible for interdicting, as I understand it, a light plane that 
was carrying a lot of drugs. And planes are often used, of course, for 
the transportation of narcotics across that border. Oftentimes drugs 
are smuggled across the Canadian border commingled with legitimate 
cargo in commercial vehicles. For example, in February of 2001 a bus 
driver from British Columbia was arrested for transporting 135 kilos of 
Canadian-produced marijuana into Washington State aboard a tour bus. 
Marijuana was secreted inside garbage bags located in the spare tire 
compartment of the bus.
  The Coast Guard seized 240 pounds of marijuana from a Canadian 
military vehicle that crossed the border from British Columbia in the 
Blaine port of entry.
  Canadian Customs in Montreal discovered 350 kilos of cocaine 
concealed in pallets loaded with a shipment of coffee. The shipment 
which originated in Brazil was transported by vessel to the United 
States through the port of Philadelphia, then transported by tractor-
trailer to Canada through the St-Bernard-de-Locolle port of entry on 
the northern end of Interstate 87.
  The Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that drug 
smugglers along the northwestern corridor of the United States have 
been increasingly exploiting the open skies policy between the United 
States and Canada. Due to this agreement, law enforcement reports 
contain several examples of drug smuggling by aircraft from Canada to 
the United States. It occurs in a number of locations, including from 
British Columbia to Washington State, from the Vancouver area across 
the Idaho and Montana borders, across Lake Erie into Pennsylvania, and 
from Quebec to Maine.
  In January 2001, law enforcement authorities in the Western United 
States arrested 13 members of a smuggling group that regularly 
transported and air-dropped a potent type of Canadian marijuana into 
Washington State via fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter. There is even 
intelligence that suggests four trafficking groups transporting 
Canadian-produced marijuana into Pennsylvania using small aircraft and 
a corporate jet.
  As with the southern border, we are seeing a higher degree of 
technology being employed and of sophistication being employed by the 
people smuggling drugs across that northern border. Intelligence 
reports indicate that drug smugglers are increasingly using night 
vision optics, global positioning systems in order to navigate in 
remote areas.
  Furthermore, again, not unique to just the northern border, but what 
we see is smugglers increasingly are carrying weapons to protect their 
cargo. This is of course a threat to any law enforcement officer that 
may approach them. You have to remember that most often they are being 
approached by Forest Service personnel, Park Rangers and other, who are 
really not being trained for this kind of thing. They are not really 
able to be the first line of defense against drug traffickers, 
narcotics smugglers into the United States. Their job has been mostly 
dealing with people who are violating some camping regulation or 
whatever. But they are not really all that prepared to deal with this 
enormous amount now of smuggling that is going on on our borders.
  Now, the northern border, as I say, it has unique problems that we 
have to confront. Incredibly difficult terrain, a government in Canada 
that takes sort of a blind eye towards the issue of smuggling and 
narcotics in general. We have actually had, we have actually had Royal 
Canadian Police call our folks on our side of the border, both Forest 
Service personnel and Border Patrol people and say, look, we are 
chasing a load of drug smugglers into the United States. But we are 
going to let them go. We are not going to actually interdict them. We 
are just going to keep chasing them because we know if we stop them, 
they are going to be let loose by our government because our government 
does not care about drugs, especially when they are going into the 
United States. So they actually warn us so that we can interdict them 
as they get across the border and hopefully they will be charged, sent 
to prison, and pay for the crime. But the Canadian police know that 
their government will not do it, so they call us and ask us to help 
them.
  Those are some of the unique problems on the Canadian border. Those 
are some of the problems we incur because our friends, the Canadians, 
are not so friendly when it comes to these border-related issues.

                              {time}  2200

  Canadian borders are themselves porous. People can come in and do 
often come into Canada, claiming refugee status. That is all they have 
to do, and at that point, they are admitted into Canada, and they are 
allowed, of course, to actually traverse Canada.
  I have often joked, but it is not really much of a joke that Osama 
bin Laden could land. I am surprised in a way that one of the countries 
that are not offering some sort of refuge to Saddam Hussein, I am 
surprised it is not Canada or Mexico because frankly their immigration 
policies would indicate that they would be wide open to it. I said that 
it was not really a joke, but I have suggested that Osama bin Laden 
could shave off his beard, come into Canada, call himself Omar the Tent 
Maker or anybody else, not have to produce any document of 
identification, just claim refugee status. He

[[Page H2699]]

would be allowed to go into Canada, and of course, because our borders 
are porous and because we refuse to actually do anything to control 
those borders, he could come into the United States; and of course, 
people do by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands, yes, by the 
millions.
  We are focusing tonight on just the drug importation problem. It is a 
serious one, but it is certainly not the only problem that results from 
porous borders.
  Now we are going to move to the southern border. Magnify everything I 
just told about that northern border by 50 times, and this is the 
problem we have on the southern border. The problem there is we not 
only have a government that looks the other way when it comes to drug 
smuggling activities, we have a government, a large portion of which is 
involved with the drug smuggling activity.
  Mexican drug lords, backed by corrupt Mexican military officials and 
police officers, will move tons of marijuana, cocaine and heroin this 
year over rugged desert trails to accomplices in Phoenix and Tucson for 
shipment to willing buyers throughout the United States as per an 
article printed not too long ago in the Washington Times by Jerry 
Seper.
  He goes on, ``Most of the smuggling routes pass through the Tohono 
O'odham Nation, a sprawling Indian reservation, where undermanned and 
outgunned tribal police will confiscate more than 100,000 pounds of 
illicit drugs this year, about 300 pounds a day.'' I am going to talk 
more about the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation in just a moment or 
two, but believe me, the problem is not just there, that 71-mile chunk 
of the border.
  The people coming across that border, according to Detective Sergeant 
Kray says, again, they have become very, very sophisticated. They have 
two way radios, night vision gear, body armor, and carry automatic 
weapons. They put people on the hills to act as lookouts and use 
portable solar panels to power their communications equipment. They 
have powerful four wheel drive vehicles that are under orders not to 
stop, to shoot their way through if they have to.
  This is an example of that sophistication, of that level of danger, I 
should say, that is developing on those borders. Oftentimes we have 
seen probably on television when the police are in a chase, the police 
in the United States are chasing someone, they will put out spikes and 
try to stop the car and blow up the tires. The drug traffickers are 
doing exactly the same thing, but only to us. When they are being 
chased, they throw out these spikes here behind them so as to puncture 
and disable the tires of the border patrol or law enforcement agents 
that are coming after them.
  They will also put across the road these barriers. They will cut down 
trees. They will place rocks across the border to stop people, carjack 
them, take their vehicles, use them for drug transportation and then 
abandon them; and we can go across the Southwest, we can fly over the 
desert areas in Arizona and Mexico, and we will see cars, literally 
hundreds and hundreds of abandoned cars all over the desert.
  These cars are oftentimes stolen from Americans, stolen from people 
who are just traveling in the area. As I say, they are carjacked. 
People are sometimes hurt in the process, sometimes killed. Their cars 
are taken, used in the drug transportation and then abandoned.
  This article goes on to say that the smugglers, according to U.S. law 
enforcement authorities, often are protected by heavily armed Mexican 
military troops and police, who have paid handsomely for the privilege 
of escorting the drug traffickers and their illicit shipments across 
the border and into the United States. The drug lords are expected to 
spend more than $500 million this year in bribes and payoffs to a cadre 
of Mexican military generals and police officers to ensure that the 
illicit drugs reach their destination. Mexican smugglers will account 
for 80 percent, 80 percent of the cocaine and nearly half the heroin 
that reaches the streets of America this year.
  Law enforcement authorities all along the U.S.-Mexico border are 
concerned about the involvement of Mexican military troops and police 
in the alien and drug smuggling business.
  Another visual portrayal of that, 2001 Mexican military police 
incursions into the United States. Hear what I am saying. Mexican 
military and Mexican Federal police have come into the United States 
along these points. The blue arrows indicate the Mexican military, the 
red the Mexican police. The yellow are the ports of entry.
  ``Several officials said in interviews that Mexican police agencies 
along the border have been `totally corrupted' by drug smugglers and 
that the corruption included a number of key Mexican generals and other 
commanders.
  ``Violence along the border, fueled by the drug trade, has spiralled 
out of control.''
  Corruption among Mexican police is so extensive that, they said, some 
U.S. law enforcement agencies refuse to work with their Mexican 
counterparts. Mexican police officials have been tied not only to alien 
and drug smuggling, but also to numerous incidents of extortion, 
bribery, assault, kidnapping and murder along the border.
  ``Border patrol agents in Douglas, Arizona, were pulled from their 
duty stations after police in Aqua Prieta, Mexico, tipped U.S. 
authorities of a pending drug shipment. Supervisors were fearful of 
putting their agents in the middle of a shootout between rival drug 
gangs, each supported by competing Aqua Prieta police.''
  This is absolutely incredible in a way, if we think about it. Members 
of a foreign military, members of a foreign government's military 
establishment and police establishment routinely cross our border for 
the purpose of aiding and abetting a drug trafficking cartel, actually 
several cartels.
  We have had over 200 of these incursions since about 1997. I have 
written the President of Mexico. I have written the Secretary of State 
of the United States. I have asked our administration what do they 
intend to do about this. What they say periodically is we intend to 
bring it up at the highest levels of government. We know what that 
means. Let us define that down to regular speak, okay. Nothing, that is 
what we intend to do, nothing.
  Because, of course, these issues, if understood by the American 
public, Mr. Speaker, would certainly arouse some degree of ire, and 
they would probably result in people suggesting to their congressional 
representatives, let us say, that something should be done about the 
border, that, in fact, if the Mexican Government can put troops on the 
border for the purposes of helping the narcotics traffickers into the 
United States, that certainly the United States could put American 
troops on our border for the purpose of protecting our own sovereign 
Nation, if it is sovereign anymore.
  We have had instances where Mexican military and/or Mexican police 
have fired on and injured people in the United States, specifically our 
border patrol agents. A recent documented Mexican military incursion on 
May 17 of last year when a border patrol agent was fired on by three 
Mexican soldiers in a military HUMVEE near now what is known as the San 
Miguel Gate on the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation, I mentioned it 
earlier, about 30 miles northwest of Nogales. The gunfire, which 
erupted shortly after 8:30 p.m., shattered the rear window of the U.S. 
agents' four-wheel-drive vehicle.
  An unnamed agent, after spotting the soldiers, sought to avoid a 
confrontation, according to U.S. authorities, and had turned his 
clearly marked green and white border patrol vehicle away from the 
HUMVEE when it was hit by gunfire. Mexican soldiers were armed with 
assault rifles. One bullet was deflected by the vehicle's prisoner 
partition located directly behind the agent's seat, and knocked out the 
right rear window. The agent involved had been on the job for about a 
year, authorities said. I actually interviewed this fellow when I went 
down and visited the border some weeks later.
  Earlier that day, in the same area, border patrol agents had 
confiscated 2,200 pounds of drugs from a vehicle that had crossed into 
the United States, although a second vehicle escaped back into Mexico. 
I am sorry I am getting ahead of myself here because we get into some 
other very dangerous situations along that border.
  Let me move ahead here. Let me talk a little bit about those cartels 
that I mentioned, the cartels in Mexico that actually control most of 
the drug

[[Page H2700]]

smuggling into the United States, five main cartels: the Arellano-Felix 
organization, the Vincente Carrillo-Fuentes organization, the Armando 
Valencia organization, the Miguel Caro-Quintero organization, and the 
Osiel Cardenas-Guillen organization. They are responsible for the 
majority of the cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, and 
precursor chemicals entering the United States.
  In April 2000, an investigation revealed that Mexican marijuana 
organizations were working in conjunction with Jamaican traffickers in 
the United States. A large-scale Jamaican marijuana trafficking 
smuggling group had numerous distribution sales throughout the United 
States and a primary marijuana source supply Mexico-based traffickers 
with ties to Mexico and to these different organizations.
  We have uncovered tunnels. There is no two ways about it. These 
organizations are very creative and industrious. We have identified a 
whole series of tunnels that were dug across the border near Nogales 
and other cities along our border with Mexico through which both people 
and drugs were smuggled.
  Let me talk a moment or two about the Tohono O'odham Indian 
Reservation in Arizona because this is a microcosm of the problem we 
are facing. I just want my colleagues to think about it. What I am 
going to tell my colleagues here is just one little part. It shares 
just a 71-mile-long border with Mexico; and of course, our border with 
Mexico is close to 4,000 miles, so extrapolate this any way you want 
to.
  ``They're being overrun by illegal aliens. They're being overrun by 
drug smugglers. And they're caught in a war zone,'' says Judge Pogo 
Overmeyer of the Tohono Indian Nation courts.
  Homes burglarized by illegals, deadly car wrecks caused by reckless 
smugglers, drug runners brandishing weapons as they demand help from 
the local people, this is daily fair on the reservation. Overmeyer said 
that she noted that Tohono O'odham police reported seizing 33,000 
pounds of marijuana during the first 4 months of the year. During the 
same period, the police located 1,877 vehicles that smugglers had 
abandoned on the reservation.
  One of the busiest smuggling routes through the reservation begins 
about 25 miles to the West where taxis finish a 15-minute run from the 
Mexican town of Sonoyta by depositing passengers at a flimsy border 
fence.
  This is a little publication put out by the Tohono O'odham Indian 
Nation. Four separate land areas comprise 2.86 million acres, three 
counties, 75 miles, I said 71, 75 miles contiguous with Mexico, nine 
villages in Mexico.
  Narcotics seized in 2002, 65,000 pounds. Illegal immigrant traffic, 
over 1,500 a day, 1,500 a day coming through there. Towing vehicles out 
of there, 30 to 40 a day. Refuse, trash, every immigrant leaves behind 
over 8 pounds a day, equal to 6 tons per year.

                              {time}  2215

  In just December of 2002, the Indian Nation, and this is a very small 
contingent of police on that reservation, they alone took in 5,400 
illegals. They have spent millions and millions, $6.5 to $7 million, in 
treating illegals that are getting sick on the transportation, 85 cases 
of death, exposure, drug smuggling, other death investigations, 
homicides, vehicle towing, immigrant interaction cases and Sells Indian 
Hospital. Sells is the little community there that has a hospital. 
Treatment of illegal immigrants, over 50 cases a month, summertime over 
$500,000.
  And these are not just Mexican nationals, they say. In 2002, over 200 
undocumented immigrants were apprehended in the Nation that were not 
Mexican nationals. On August 6, the Tohono O'odham Police Department 
drug enforcement officers found a plane ticket stub dated August 21, 
2001, a plane ticket paid for Yousif Abdelkaber, paid for in cash.
  Mexican military incursions into the Indian reservation in March 
1999, April 2000, January 6, May 17, February 7. All this on this 
little Indian nation. They are overrun. Their entire life has been 
destroyed. Their children are being taken into these cartels, sometimes 
forcibly, but oftentimes of course just led into it for the money. I 
saw 5-year-old children on this Indian reservation who were walking 
around stoned. These parents are going crazy. They do not know what to 
do. They cannot deal with the fact that they are being invaded 
essentially.
  But let me tell you, they are just one part of that border problem. 
It is just a microcosm. We can identify it, we can quantify it, because 
it happens to be an Indian nation and they have their own organization. 
They have their own police department and they keep numbers and track 
of it, so we can do that there.
  But let us talk about the Tucson area, where in the month of November 
of last year they accounted for 100,000 people. They stopped about 
23,000, but 100,000 people came through there illegally. This is a 
picture of the plane flights coming out of Mexico. I do not know if 
this can be seen, but there are literally hundreds, thousands, of plane 
flights just in the last year.
  In the green, these are all over the area here; these are fades, 
where we catch them on radar then they duck under and we do not see it. 
The blue are low flyers. The red are called short landings. Now, what 
these red are, that means we catch them, they land in the United 
States, and we see them back on the radar going back out in 15 to 20 
minutes. These are all drug related, coming into the United States. 
Okay?
  How about this? How about this? Talk about the creative and inventive 
nature of the drug cartels down there. They stole a vehicle, an SUV, 
and they painted it with Border Patrol logos. They found and were able 
to obtain government plates for this thing. They used it to transport 
drugs into the United States. They packed it full of marijuana, but we 
caught it. That was pretty smart, right, decking out a vehicle to look 
like a Border Patrol vehicle, and then using it to smuggle drugs in? 
But they are pretty stupid at the same time, because they are smuggling 
the drugs through at about 2 a.m. in the morning with their lights off, 
so we caught them.
  This is the kind of thing that goes on and on, on that border. And 
here is what it ends up. We have a Park Service that is also under 
siege. We have a situation where 40 percent of our border on the 
southern border and 10 percent of the northern border are national 
parks. They were being inundated. They are being trashed. The drug 
traffickers are coming through. Sometimes there are caravans of people 
walking through; a guy with an M-16 on the front end, a whole bunch of 
people carrying 60 pounds of drugs in backpacks on their backs, and a 
guy with an M-16 on the back. Meantime, here is mom and dad in a 
Winnebago down in the Coronado or the Cactus Pipes National Park, and 
they are camped out, and all of a sudden they look out their camper 
window and see a whole bunch of people coming through with guns and 
drugs.
  This is happening, and people are getting killed in these parks. The 
parks are being destroyed by these drug traffickers who could not care 
less about the land. They leave trash, they set the place on fire. When 
we were down there in the Coronado, a fire had been started by an 
illegal alien who had started the fire at night to keep warm, and then 
walked away from it. By the time I got back to Denver, 35,000 acres had 
been burned to the ground. This is what is happening on our southern 
border, yet we do not have much of an intention to do anything about 
it. And on the northern border, of course, this is what is happening to 
us.
  And let me say this. This is a face I wanted all of my colleagues to 
remember. I want all of America to remember this face, Mr. Speaker, 
because this is the face of a gentleman by the name of Kris Eggle, who 
at the young age of 28, last August, was killed by drug traffickers.
  A drug bust went down near the border. We got about 400 pounds of 
drugs that we confiscated. That drug load was not actually completed, 
because the guys that were responsible for it lost the load. We got it. 
The cartel sent somebody to take care of them. They killed four of them 
in Mexico, who were escaping across the border, and they ran into Kris 
Eggle, who was doing his job as a park ranger. He confronted them and 
they killed him.
  I visited the spot where he died. I visited it with his father, who 
had been there four times to commemorate his son's death and to relive 
that experience. It is a difficult thing to do for anybody, but he did 
it because he does not want this death to go in vain, and I do not 
either.

[[Page H2701]]

  These borders are porous. We refuse to protect them and we send 
people like Kris Eggle down there and we do it at their peril. This is 
a shame, Mr. Speaker; a shame that we do not defend these borders and 
defend the people we send into harm's way there. It is a war zone also.

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