[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 9, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8068-H8071]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION POLICY

  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 as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, although there are some signs that the 
Federal government is beginning to show some attention to, and there 
are some signs of progress actually in our efforts to reform the 
immigration system and to, in fact, increase the degree of security 
that we have on our borders after 9-11 and, I should say that these are 
very small steps, but they are steps that have been taken, and we 
should recognize them. The fact is that we are in the process of 
improving the technology that we can use to make sure that the people 
coming into the country as visitors are who they say they are. There is 
both software and hardware that have to be in place now, but at least 
we are moving in that direction. Recently I found that we are building 
some barriers on the southern border, especially in and around the 
Douglas, Arizona area. Hopefully, these barriers will be there to 
protect the national parks from being inundated as they have been for 
some time now by hundreds of thousands of people crossing that border, 
and coming into the United States illegally.
  There was a terrorism conference not too long ago in, I believe it 
was in El Paso, Texas, and several members of the administration 
actually recognized, actually stated, that there were problems with our 
immigration policy, especially as they reflected upon the security 
implications of this country after 9-11. That in and of itself is a 
very good sign, a very good sign. Somebody is at least willing to talk 
about the security of our borders. I think, in fact, the phrase used at 
the security conference down in Texas and the phrase used by a 
representative of the administration was that the borders are ``our 
first lines of defense.'' Now, of course, we have stated that on many, 
many occasions. Those of us who are concerned about this issue have 
used those same words now for several years. But it is indeed 
heartening that we are hearing them being repeated now by members of 
the administration.
  Recently I had an opportunity to visit the southern border. I went 
down during our August recess, I went down to Brownsville, Texas and 
spent some time down there looking at our border operation, actually 
going out on patrol with members of the Border Patrol. We went down the 
Rio Grande River in the evening and watched as we implemented Operation 
Gatekeeper and other similar types of endeavors that are designed to 
tighten up border security on the southern border. And I must tell my 
colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I was encouraged by what I saw. I saw a lot of 
dedicated people working very, very hard to make sure that the borders 
of this country are maintained, defended, and enforced. I had the great 
opportunity to speak to maybe 100 or so Border Patrol agents who were 
about ready to go out on muster, ride after muster, I should say, and 
wished them well and encouraged them in their efforts and, to a person, 
they encouraged me to continue the efforts here in the House of 
Representatives to encourage my colleagues to pay attention to this 
issue, to become involved regardless of how unpleasant we may find it 
to be when we get involved in this issue.
  There are a lot of people, of course, who shy away from it because of 
the political ramifications that they fear. But there are ramifications 
to the country that are far more severe and far more serious than the 
political ramifications to someone's career here in this House.
  So I was encouraged, and I have been encouraged by a few things I 
have seen. Now, we are a long, long way from saying that things are 
good and that the

[[Page H8069]]

momentum has shifted away from open borders, away from a position that 
essentially is everybody who can get here can get in. I should say that 
we are a long way from touchdown. There are a lot of things that need 
to happen at the Federal level. But what is now becoming even more 
disconcerting, what is now becoming a focal point and should be a focal 
point for a lot of our attention here in this House, is the situation 
that is developing throughout the States and in some localities 
throughout the country.
  There is a publication that has been put out recently by the 
Federation for American Immigration Reform called the State of 
Insecurity, how State and local immigration policies are undermining 
homeland security, and I will be quoting from it liberally this 
evening, because I think it needs to be brought to the attention of our 
colleagues and to the Nation.
  What we are seeing is that even though the Federal Government is 
inching forward toward trying to reform the immigration process in this 
country, and toward trying to gain a certain slight degree of security 
on our borders, we are watching States and localities go in just the 
opposite direction.
  And there are, of course, certain well-known and well-documented 
stories and situations that we have heard about recently that I will be 
talking about in just a minute or two. But I will reflect upon these 
things and what is happening at the State level, and first we should 
talk about these things called sanctuary policies.
  Sanctuary is a term that has been now applied to cities throughout 
the country that have adopted certain regulations and passed certain 
ordinances, all of which were designed to essentially protect the 
immigrant, the illegal immigrant population of their city or 
surrounding areas. This is happening, and there were cities that have 
done this in the past, College Park, Maryland and a couple of others on 
the eastern coast who call themselves sanctuary cities and actually 
passed legislation prohibiting their local police and law enforcement 
agencies from helping INS enforce the law. They have gone farther than 
that. Some cities have actually gone to the point of saying that if you 
are simply a resident of the city, you can vote in municipal elections.
  Now, being a resident of the city, that is all that is required in 
some of these sanctuary cities. All you have to do is show that you 
have a utility bill, for instance, proving your residence and you will 
be able to vote. That is part of the problem, certainly, these cities 
that are doing things like this. New York City had something like this 
on the books for some time. They passed it back in 1989. Actually, it 
was a mayoral decree and it was specifically designed to obstruct 
Federal immigration law enforcement.
  Now, it is amazing that even after 9-11 and New York City being 
Ground Zero essentially for the terrorists, there was still a 
reluctance on the part of the city to repeal that particular order. It 
got to the point where eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to 
overturn an appeals court ruling against the city's noncooperation 
policy that Mayor Bloomberg reluctantly rescinded the policy. However, 
a bill was submitted to the city council in New York in July of 2003 
which seeks to resurrect the sanctuary policy by providing a provision 
banning city employees from reporting illegal aliens to local police 
and Federal authorities.
  This comes at a time when we even know that several of the hijackers, 
several of the terrorists, the 9-11 terrorists were, at one time, in 
fact, stopped for, it turned out to be, motor vehicle violations, 
traffic violations, and because there was no database against which 
they could be checked, because some of these people were actually on 
terrorist watch lists; but because there was no cooperation, we were 
unable to detain these people, even though some of them actually, as I 
say, were on a terrorist watch list, but nobody knew about it when they 
stopped them. The police in the local area stopped them for running a 
red light or whatever it was for, but did not know that they were also 
on a terrorist watch list.

                              {time}  2215

  When you recognize that this kind of problem exists, when there is no 
communication among law enforcement agencies, when you also understand 
that there are national security implications to these sanctuary laws, 
there are implications certainly to laws which say that local police 
will not help enforce immigration policies, will not cooperate with the 
Federal Government.
  Here in Washington, D.C., another ground zero, Police Chief Ramsey 
took pains to reassure the Latino Lawyers Association that the police 
were not backing away from a 1984 executive order that prohibits D.C. 
government employees from getting involved in immigration matters. 
Washington, D.C. is another sanctuary city. We actually have passed 
laws, Federal laws. In 1996 a provision was added to an appropriations 
bill which specifically dealt with this and said that no city or State 
would be allowed to impede the flow of information to the INS or 
restrict the flow of information from the INS. That is a law on the 
books today. Of course, there is no enforcement mechanism and, as a 
result, cities ignore it. Cities all over this country simply thumb 
their nose at the law because they know that there is nothing that the 
Federal Government can, under the present statutes, do about it.
  You may recall, Mr. Speaker, that I introduced an amendment to an 
appropriations bill, to the appropriations bill that we were passing 
for Homeland Security and another one later for the Department of 
Justice. Both of my amendments were designed to put some teeth into the 
law that is already on the books and say that if you violate the law 
that we already have on the books, if a city does that, if it stops the 
flow of information to the INS or restricts the flow of information 
from the INS to their local police officers, that they could not apply 
for Homeland Security grants or grants from the Department of Justice. 
We got about 120 votes for that for those two amendments.
  And there was a lot of hand-wringing and consternation expressed by 
Members of the body over the fact that we were talking about this, and 
we should probably not be because it is like many immigration issues, 
and who wants to talk about an immigration issue when we know that 
there is all this great amount of emotion tied up in the discussion 
itself. So the amendment went down. But it is amazing to me that we do 
have, in fact, laws on the books which we choose in this body not to 
enforce.
  I am sure that many people went home and said, well, I voted for the 
law that says they cannot do that. I voted for the law that says you 
cannot stop that kind of information, but they did not want to do 
anything that would actually make that law be able to be enforced.
  Next we come to the issue of driver's licenses or as they are 
referred to, ``the keys to the kingdom.'' Two years after 19 people 
used State-issued driver's licenses to board four airplanes and turn 
them into weapons of mass destruction, it is still possible in many 
States for anyone to acquire these documents, regardless of immigration 
status. Even though Virginia, New Jersey, and Florida have tightened up 
on it a little bit since 9-11, many other States still have very lax 
laws regarding who can obtain a driver's license from their State.
  In the absence of a uniform Federal document, State-issued driver's 
licenses serve the function of providing identity. In addition to 
granting permission to operate a motor vehicle, the licenses are used 
for banking, for check cashing, for boarding airplanes, for 
demonstrating proof of employment eligibility, and many other purposes. 
They are also accepted by immigration inspectors for letting U.S. 
travelers return to this country after traveling to Canada, Mexico or a 
Caribbean destination that does not require a U.S. passport for entry. 
Thus, it is crucial that States recognize the vital national security 
role that these documents have come to play. Hence we call them, as I 
say, ``the keys to the kingdom.''
  If there was any question about this, the 9-11 attacks should have 
put it to rest. All 19 of the 9-11 terrorists possessed one or more of 
State driver's licenses which they used to blend in, rent apartments, 
open bank accounts, and ultimately to board airplanes that they 
intended to crash. Yet, not only are driver's licenses still available 
to illegal aliens in some States, several

[[Page H8070]]

States are loosening restrictions on obtaining driver's licenses, and 
even explicitly spelling out that they will permit illegal aliens to 
receive them.
  Of course, on Friday last, at 6 o'clock Pacific Standard Time, the 
Governor of the State of California signed a bill allowing illegal 
residents of California, illegal aliens who reside in California, and 
there are three to four million right now, allowing them to have 
driver's licenses. He did so on Friday late in the day, and the 
original notice of the fact that he was going to do this, a press 
advisory went out only to the Spanish-speaking media. Apparently, he 
wanted to avoid having to confront this from the standpoint of what the 
rest of the States would have to say about it in the hopes that he 
would be able to encourage and obtain votes to essentially stop the 
recall in California and to support him in his effort to stay in 
office.

  Now, these are things, these are actions that are being taken by 
States that I believe should not go uncontested.
  Mr. Speaker, I am essentially a States' rights person. I believe the 
States have great sovereignty. I have fought for it for all of my 
career in politics. I believe the Federal Government often usurps a lot 
of States' rights, and I would not in any way support that kind of 
arbitrary activity on the part of the Federal Government. But the 
actions taken by these States, and some of these cities, in allowing 
illegal immigrants the access to documents that then allow them into 
our society and allow them to do things that, if they have the intent 
to do harm to the United States, can certainly make it easy.
  And, therefore, this is not just a States' issue. This is a Federal 
issue. We should be concerned about this at our level here. We should 
take some action to try to assure that in the absence of any sort of 
Federal identification process, that the next best thing, which is the 
driver's license, a State driver's license is, number one, a valid 
document and, number two, is not a document that can be given to people 
who are residing here illegally.
  Now, there are not a lot of ways that the Federal Government can 
force States to do this. Because if we could pass a law saying States 
should not do it, as we have seen with the 1996 bill, States and 
localities will do it if there is no penalty. So we have to look at the 
penalty side of things. The penalty side of things almost always comes 
down to money.
  So I have introduced today a bill that will begin restricting the 
availability of funds, of Federal highway funds to States that, in 
fact, allow illegal aliens in their State to obtain drivers' licenses. 
I will also be looking at other ways of dealing with this, maybe trying 
to restrict grants under the Homeland Security Act. There are a couple 
of other things we can do, but, again, it usually turns to the use of 
funds to get States to do the right thing.
  This all, this whole issue of the drivers' licenses is coming on the 
heels of another sort of peculiar document that is being accepted by a 
lot of States in the Nation and local governments and some private 
corporations and private banking institutions. It is something called 
the matricula consular. It is a foreign government's ID that they give 
to their nationals who reside outside of countries of their own. The 
matricula consular is the card that the Mexican Government distributes 
to its nationals living in the United States and other countries. Of 
course, they have the absolute right to do that. No one is suggesting 
that a country does not have the right to hand out whatever kind of 
identification they want to their nationals. But what they have done, 
beyond that, is to begin a process of lobbying State and local 
governments in the United States to get them to accept the card. And 
they have gone, as I say, to the banking industry and other private 
entities to get them to do the same thing, and many banks have done it. 
Many banks have agreed to accept the matricula ID as a form of 
identification when somebody opens up a bank account.
  Now, we have an enormous amount of problems with identity theft. We 
have an enormous amount of problems with people who use the banks to 
launder money, to launder drug money, to do a whole bunch of things, 
and trying to keep track of them is difficult. When you now allow 
people to obtain a card, which is by the way easily obtained, there are 
actually, Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting little aspect of this, 
but there are machines in Los Angeles and Chicago, machines similar to 
ATM's, I think most of them are by Mexican Consulates, but you can go 
up to this machine, you punch in some information and it will produce 
for you your Mexican birth certificate, which you then bring to the 
consulate and they will give you your matricula consular which you then 
take and, once again, start the process of entering into American 
society.
  It is all too easy for people to do this. And for people to do this, 
especially people who have ill intent, people who have designs, people 
who have the desire to do very bad things to the United States. People 
who have the desire to change their own identity. Felons who are here, 
even American citizens who are felons can use this process and have, in 
fact, used this process to change their own identity and make them, 
when they get stopped by the police and the police are told by their 
city council that they have to accept the matricula consular as a 
legitimate form of ID, this person is, of course, allowed to go free.
  We have arrested people coming into the country illegally. We have 
arrested them and on their person found many matricula consular cards. 
Recently we found an Iranian coming in with a Mexican matricula 
consular card. These are easily obtained. People are actually going 
around door-to-door and selling them in Los Angeles. The Mexican 
Consulates are distributing them through vans that they send out in the 
streets of Chicago and other places. They are in no way, these cards 
are in no way valid forms of ID and should never be thought of as such, 
and the Government of the United States and certain departments, the 
Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, have said 
the same thing. They have said you cannot and should not use these 
things. They have told the Federal Government that we should not do it. 
We are still wrestling with the Department of State and the Department 
of the Treasury who are not so sure about this thing. But the 
departments who have been charged with the security of this Nation are 
sure that these are not valid documents and should not be used by any 
government agencies, by any State or local agency and certainly should 
not be used by banks for the purposes of identifying people who are 
opening up accounts.
  In California, the bill that was just signed by the Governor says 
that one of the things that you can use to get your driver's license in 
California, because up to this point in time California required that 
you have a Social Security number to get a driver's license. Well, 
although not perfect, it was a fairly good way to make sure that the 
people you are talking to are the people that they say they are and 
that they are here legally. Not always, but for the most part that is 
one form of identification that helps us make that determination.

                              {time}  2230

  Twice before, bills of the same nature were passed by the legislature 
in California; and twice they were vetoed by the same Governor, with 
this reasoning. He said there were not enough security measures in the 
bill so as to make sure that they could avoid the problem of 
misidentifying people who are then obtaining drivers' licenses and 
getting them fraudulently.
  The bill that he recently signed had that in there for a little bit, 
had some security provisions in there; but they were all stripped out 
because of the pressure from the immigration lobby, and so the bill he 
got simply says this, that in order to get a driver's license in 
California, you can use your Social Security number, or a variety of 
other things including the matricula consular. You can now obtain a 
driver's license in California by getting a card from the Mexican 
consulate that says you are who you say you are.
  By the way, Mexico is not the only government that does this. It has 
become very successful. This is a way of getting around the fact that 
we have not given amnesty to illegal aliens in the United States, and 
so the other countries are now naturally following suit. We have got 
several countries, mostly Latin American, South and

[[Page H8071]]

Central American countries that are also handing out matricula consular 
and using them for exactly the same purpose.
  Not too long ago, we got, I believe it was the embassy in Managua if 
I am not mistaken, sent a memo to the Secretary of State and said, by 
the way, the government here is looking at how to implement a matricula 
consular, and we want to sort of help them out; and they were looking 
for a guidance from the Secretary of State here as to how they should 
help them because in that particular country, country that they were in 
and was going to give this matricula, the way that someone proves their 
identity is to have two other people swear that is who he says he is. I 
am Joe Blow and you get people to say, yeah, that is right, that is 
proof of identity; and, therefore, you can get a matricula consular. In 
California, you can then use that card to get your driver's license, 
and from a driver's license we know what happens. From a driver's 
license, I mean, this is the passport into American society.
  So in all of our efforts to try and actually do something about the 
porous borders that we have, do something about the fact that there are 
enormous national security issues revolving around the fact that we 
have people coming across our borders without our permission and we do 
not know who they are, even though we are trying to do something about 
that, these little steps I mentioned earlier on, we are seeing States 
like California and others do just the opposite, making it 10 times 
more difficult for the Department of Justice, for the Department of 
Homeland Security to do their job; and what they are really doing, Mr. 
Speaker, is running their own immigration systems.
  What we have got here is a situation where it is not just the Federal 
Government determining the policy of who comes in and for how long and 
for what purpose and exactly who they are, but now every State in the 
Nation is developing their own immigration policy or certainly could 
follow the lead of the States that are doing it, and cities throughout 
the Nation are doing the same thing. They are adopting immigration 
policies. How many are we going to have? How many are going to be 
enforced? It makes a sham of the entire immigration system, or perhaps 
I should say lack thereof.
  There are, I think, Mr. Speaker, obvious implications to lax border 
enforcement and confused immigration policy. After 9/11, we should be 
enormously concerned about it. Even those people who have been 
reluctant to support immigration reform in the past should be willing 
to support the national security agenda that includes a tightening up 
of immigration policy.
  So I really hope and believe that it is the responsibility of this 
Congress to take some action, to help really pull back, if you will, 
the immigration policy decisions into this body and into where they 
belong and restrict States and local governments from setting their own 
immigration policies and their own course. That is probably next if 
this kind of thing goes on.
  Tomorrow and the next day, of course, there will be many things here 
around the Nation's capital to mark the second anniversary of the 9/11 
tragedy; and along those lines, we will be having a press conference at 
11 o'clock here on the Capitol grounds, and it will be primarily to 
look at the fact that 9/11 and the tragedy of 9/11 did have some 
immigration-related issues that we should look at; and there is a 
gentleman by the name of Peter Gadiel who is head of a group of 
survivors of 9/11, people who lost family members in the tragedy in New 
York City, who will be speaking and who will be talking about the 
danger our porous borders creates, especially in terms of our ability 
to try and maintain some level of national security. So, Mr. Speaker, I 
hope that there will be a good attendance there and also that we will 
get some national attention drawn to this issue because I think it 
certainly does merit that kind of attention.

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