[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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