[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 107 (Friday, July 18, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H7162-H7163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE CLEAR ACT OF 2003

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid to say that it has happened and 
happened again. A week ago, I rose to tell my colleagues the case of a 
brutal crime committed by criminal illegal aliens in New York. This 
time it happened near a small town in southern Illinois.
  Mr. Speaker, near Cobden, Illinois, in the congressional district of 
my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello), three men, 
two of them illegal aliens, sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl and a 
15-year-old girl.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, there are 400,000 individuals who have received 
their final deportation orders; 400,000. That means they have been 
apprehended, they have been told to depart, and they have been released 
and are somewhere in America. They cannot be found within our borders. 
Of those 400,000, 20 percent, 80,000, of them have criminal 
convictions; and I am not talking about running a stop sign. They have 
been in the hands of our law enforcement and have slipped away. Mr. 
Speaker, I only pray that I am not reporting one of their crimes 
standing here next week.
  Mr. Speaker, not only are the residents of this country continually 
falling victim to these brutal crimes of criminal illegal aliens, we 
are also paying for them out of our own pockets. Criminal aliens put an 
incredible strain on America's law enforcement and criminal justice 
resources every day. Taxpayers are footing the bill for the 
imprisonment of Mazimiliano Silerio Esparza, a 33-year-old criminal 
alien who brutally raped two nuns, killing one in Oregon. He copped a 
plea agreement to avoid execution and taxpayers in Oregon now will be 
paying for his life imprisonment.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why we introduced the CLEAR Act, the Clear Law 
Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act, last Wednesday, to give our 
local police the authority that they need to detain criminal illegal 
aliens. I would like to review quickly just a few of the highlights 
tonight, and we will do it night after night until this becomes clear.
  First and foremost, we are going to make it very clear in our law in 
what it says in regards to the 700,000 local law enforcement officials 
around the country. They have the inherent authority to enforce 
immigration laws, period. But it is confusing. We are going to 
straighten that out so no one will be confused. This is the only major 
set of Federal laws that local law enforcement are not actively helping 
to enforce. That is only the first page of a 22-page bill. The rest of 
the bill provides resources and tools for our local law enforcement 
people to actually get the job done.
  Mr. Speaker, the CLEAR Act will add a new category to the National 
Crime and Information Center database so that police across the Nation 
can access the information simply from their patrol cars. Also, Mr. 
Speaker, once and for all, we are going to make sure that these violent 
criminal aliens are in the hands of law enforcement and will be 
deported from this country the day they complete their jail time. We 
are going to do this by mandating the expansion of the Institutional 
Removal Program, and one night next week we will talk about that.
  But, Mr. Speaker, in the meantime, I encourage my colleagues to take 
a really close look at this landmark legislation and let us help each 
other put an end to these tragic events that have plagued our country. 
We cannot do it with 2,000 INS agents. That simply is not in the 
ability or within the realm of possibility to get these criminals. Some 
of them who have crossed this border may well be terrorists; 2,000 
Federal agents cannot do it. We have to call on the 700,000 local law 
enforcement agencies to come together and help the Federal Government 
lock up and then deport these 80,000 violent criminal illegal aliens. I 
am not sure, and neither is this government, exactly how many of those 
400,000 that have slipped across our border, how many of those may be 
terrorists. Do we not want to know? Is that not what part of homeland 
security is all about? And my colleagues are telling me we are going to 
protect this homeland from people who slip across our border with 2,000 
Federal agents? It cannot be done, Mr. Speaker.

[[Page H7163]]

  We have to get serious if we want to protect this Nation's 
infrastructure.

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