[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 31, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1779-H1783]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE CHALLENGING QUESTION OF JOBS LEAVING AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address 
the House.
  It is appropriate, I suppose, that we continue with the discussion we 
are having about jobs. It is an interesting one, it is a challenging 
one. It is certainly an issue that will be with us for quite some time, 
certainly during the next several months as we approach the election.
  We know that there is a great deal of anxiety in the Nation, there is 
a great deal of concern about the degree to which the exportation of 
jobs from the United States, the outsourcing, as it is referred to, has 
affected our economy, has affected the unemployment statistics and 
affected Americans in ways that are quite alarming sometimes.
  We wonder about exactly how it is that we can treat this issue. 
Number one, is it for real? The outsourcing of jobs has sometimes been 
described as a good thing from an economic standpoint. I heard my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about that and suggest 
that someone was being disingenuous in that description.
  Well, Madam Speaker, I do not know whether or not the outsourcing of 
jobs from the United States does in fact cause a net loss in jobs. I 
have a sneaky feeling it may. I am concerned about the possibility that 
it does.
  We recognize that there is a phenomena, a world economy that 
challenges us as never before in terms of trying to figure out how 
exactly to address the issue of jobs, how to protect them.
  In the past, and for the last actually 150 or so years, a lot of 
people have been wedded to the concept of free trade as described by 
various economists, from Ricardo and Adam Smith, and we adhere, most of 
us, to the concept that free trade is good in the long run and produces 
in fact a more viable economy. That has been the mantra many people 
have chanted.
  I do not hear, even from the other side, however, a resolution to 
this. I do not hear anybody saying, well, we should not have free 
trade, that we should establish some sort of economic barrier to free 
trade, we should establish tariffs.
  They can and do rail about the fact that we are maybe losing jobs in 
this new economy, in this new-world economy, and that it is, of course, 
therefore the President's fault. No one has in fact, that I know of, 
come up with a plan that would suggest a protectionist policy be 
implemented, that in fact we should begin to look at things like 
tariffs to protect American jobs. That is a hard case to make, and it 
is one alternative, of course, to the present course of free trade.
  We can begin to restrict America's trade policies. We can begin to 
erect barriers. We can begin to say to other countries that if they do 
not react in what we would call a fair way to our trade policies that 
we will in fact impose some sort of penalty, we will raise a tariff 
barrier.
  We can in fact even adopt policies, tax law, that would be designed 
to prevent companies from or punish companies for offshoring jobs, for 
moving jobs from the United States to other countries.

                              {time}  2215

  Those are policy options. Now, would they stop the offshoring of 
jobs? Would people then say, okay, because I have to pay an extra tax 
for doing that, I will not adopt this particular procedure? Well, I do 
not know. In some cases, it may work; in other cases, it may not.
  Because, in reality, the competitive world in which we live is one 
that does not care whether or not jobs are lost in any particular 
country. It does not matter. The economy does not have a conscience. 
The world economy does not look at a net loss of jobs in country A and 
a net increase in jobs in country B and say, there is something immoral 
about that. It just says, that is the way it has to work.
  This is difficult for any Member of Congress, for any Member, any 
elected person in the United States to have to deal with, because our 
natural tendency is to say, here is what we will do to solve that 
problem. We will stop this. We will not allow jobs to be exported from 
the United States. We will do things that absolutely ensure that we 
will always have a very high standard of living and that our jobs will 
be protected. That is what we would like to do. But, of course, the 
problem is how to do that.
  I assure my colleagues, nothing we heard tonight from the other side 
is a solution. Nothing. It is simply a series of complaints; and it is 
demagoguery to stand up on this floor or anywhere else and simply rail 
against the ``loss of jobs'' unless one is willing to come forward and 
say, here is what we will do to stop that. We will begin to impose 
protectionist measures. We will say to other countries that we will not 
allow your goods into our country because you are subsidizing them in 
your country, and it is unfair. We will punish corporations for sending 
jobs offshore.
  Now, we can do that, we can say that, and we can even actually pass 
laws to accomplish those goals. But will they stop this phenomenon? Can 
we do anything to reverse what appears to be an inevitable change in 
the economic status of America and of America's workers?
  I do not come to this floor to tell my colleagues that I have an 
economic model we can impose that I know will achieve the goal of 
keeping jobs in America and keeping our standard of living high. But I 
do have a suggestion that I believe we can look to and that all of us 
should be able to say, this may work. It is both logical and it is, in 
fact, the responsible thing to do.
  But we will never hear, Madam Speaker, we will never hear our 
opponents, ever, suggest what I am going to suggest as a way of 
protecting American jobs, because their purpose is not to protect 
American jobs. Their purpose is to make political points. Their purpose 
is to make Americans, who are fearful of their own jobs and those who 
have lost jobs, vote for them, as opposed to the President or 
Republicans, just out of the fear. But there is never a solution that 
they propose, and certainly not the one that I am going to suggest 
tonight.
  Madam Speaker, in this country today there are between 13 million and 
15 million people who are here illegally. That is to say, they have 
come across the border of the United States without our permission. For 
the most part, they have come for the purpose of taking jobs. We hear 
this all the time, even from people on our side of the aisle, that the 
people who are coming here illegally are coming here simply to take the 
jobs that no one else will take.
  Well, I do not know how it is in the districts of my colleagues or 
anywhere else in the country, but I will tell my colleagues that in my 
district there are many people who are out of work and who are looking 
for any job. They will take a job in the high-tech sector from which 
they were fired because someone came in to work for less money, or 
their job was outsourced, or they will take a job, many people, who do 
not have the kinds of skills that would allow them to even think about 
a job in the high-tech industry, they will take a job as roofers or as 
drywall hangers or as bricklayers or as, yes, even, believe it or not, 
people who would clean our houses or cut our lawns. They are people who 
are in desperate need of a job.
  But we are importing millions of people to take those jobs. Why? 
Because they will take them for less money

[[Page H1780]]

than the previous person was willing to take. It is a constant series 
of someone undercutting the person who was there for their job.
  Now, this importation of cheap labor has an effect on our economy. 
And, yes, it is true that some commodities are less expensive and that 
we can probably get our lawns cut, our laundry done, our houses 
cleaned, and any one of a variety of other things for less money 
because there are so many people here who are willing to work for very 
little, and they have displaced the person who was doing that job for a 
little more. So to that extent it benefits a certain segment of our 
society. In the long run, however, I think it is a detriment to all of 
us.
  So if we really wanted to address the issue of jobs, why would we not 
say that one way to do it is to, in fact, limit the number of people 
who are coming into this country illegally, why would we not say that 
we are going to defend our borders, stop the importation of cheap labor 
illegally into this country and even reverse the flow by levying fines 
against people, which is the law, of course. The law today allows us to 
levy fines against people who have hired people who are here illegally. 
And if we do that, we will, in fact, be able to reverse this flow.
  People who are here illegally, if they are not able to obtain jobs 
and the social service benefits that we so liberally provide, they will 
return to their country of origin. We do not have to ``round them up in 
cattle cars'' and send them out or anything of that nature. These are 
the pictures that our opponents try to portray all the time of this 
horrendous experience. But, in fact, we could simply enforce the law 
and secure the border and achieve the goal of reducing the number of 
people who are here illegally.
  But those people who do not go home under those conditions should, in 
fact, be deported, because that is the law. We may not like the law. 
There are a number of people on the other side who, of course, despise 
the law, but it is the law, and it is something that we must deal with. 
We can try to ignore it. We can try to pretend these laws do not exist. 
We can try to pretend the laws about immigration are nothing more than 
the selections on a Chinese restaurant menu: We will take one order of 
this, two orders of that, no rice, and be particular about which laws 
we will, in fact, enforce and which laws we will not. But that is not 
the way our society is built.
  Madam Speaker, we are supposed to be a nation based on the rule of 
law and the respect for the law; and the law says if you are here 
illegally, you should be deported. The law says that if you hire 
someone who is here illegally, you should be fined; and if you continue 
to do it, you could actually go to jail. That is the law. In this body 
where we make law, this is supposed to be the place where we have the 
ultimate respect for the law.
  Yet the members of the other side and even members of our own party 
would rather ignore the law, would rather suggest it does not exist and 
that we will look the other way. Because, on the one side, they are 
concerned about the votes that they would be losing if we stopped the 
flow of immigration, both legal and illegal, or reduced it; and on our 
side, oftentimes because we are fearful that we will stop the flow of 
cheap labor. In any case, the borders remain porous, and the numbers 
begin to overwhelm us.
  Let me point out something that I find absolutely incredible. First 
of all, let me say, Madam Speaker, that when I go down and visit the 
border and talk to our Border Patrol people, which I do often on both 
the southern and northern borders, one of the things I hear most often 
is an admonition from them, and it goes something like this: 
Congressman, when you go back up there, please, please tell your 
colleagues, do not talk about, do not ever mention the word ``amnesty'' 
for the people who are here illegally. Because they say every time that 
happens up there, meaning here, the flood we are trying to stop on the 
border becomes a tidal wave, naturally, of people who are coming to 
obtain this ``amnesty.'' If they can sneak in under the radar screen, 
if they can sneak in in time, they will get an amnesty. That is what 
they think. So the numbers become overwhelming.
  Let me tell my colleagues what has happened in one sector, one 
portion of our border, the Tucson sector, which, of course, as my 
colleagues know, is just one spot along a 5,000-mile border, north and 
south. Since October 1 of last year, which is the beginning of our 
fiscal year, to date, about 6 months, the number of people interdicted, 
the number of people stopped at the Tucson sector in the last 6 months 
has reached 211,450. That was as of a few days ago. They are stopping 
about 3,000 or 4,000 a night. Almost a quarter of a million people by 
now in 6 months have been stopped at the Tucson sector, on the Tucson 
sector of the border.
  Madam Speaker, for every single person that comes into this country, 
I mean every single person that we stop at the border, 2 or 3, 5 or 10, 
we do not know for sure how many, but certainly a minimum of let us say 
2, for every one we get, 2 get by us, minimum. It is probably far more 
than that, but a minimum of 2. That means that in the last 6 months, a 
half a million people have entered this country illegally just in the 
Tucson sector, and successfully entered the country. Madam Speaker, a 
half a million people in 6 months in one sector. This is, by the way, a 
46 percent increase from this time last year.
  In the month of March, apprehensions, with at this point 3 days still 
remaining, are 62,946, the month of March. That is up 34,100 from last 
year, an increase of 85 percent. Madam Speaker, 3,067 when this report 
was done, which was 3 days ago, 3,067 were caught yesterday, according 
to the Border Patrol. By the way, April and May are typically the peak 
months ahead of a hot summer. Madam Speaker, a half a million people 
came into this country illegally in 6 months in one sector.
  Where do they go? Now if, in fact, they are just coming for the jobs 
Americans will not take, which is what we hear all the time, right? 
What are the 500,000 jobs those people are going to take when they get 
here that are just waiting out there? Right? Because, of course, that 
is what we are told is the case, that there are millions and millions 
of jobs going begging. Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues, in my 
colleagues' districts, are there thousands and thousands of jobs we 
cannot fill? I tell my colleagues it is not the case in my district.

                              {time}  2230

  I do not know of a district where want ads are going without 
response. Nobody wants the job. Thousands and thousands. 500,000 in the 
last 6 months. Where are they going? Where are they working? Are they, 
in fact, just taking jobs Americans do not want? Or are they, in fact, 
displacing American and/or immigrant labor who came here before them 
and doing so because they will work for less?
  The President said in his speech that he wants to match every willing 
worker with every willing employer. But I ask the President to please 
think about that statement. I ask him to determine whether or not he 
really means that, matching every willing worker with every willing 
employer.
  Well, I would suggest that there are billions of willing workers all 
over the world looking for the opportunity to come here and, in fact, 
undercut someone, underbid someone who is presently here for their job. 
Do we really believe that? If so, why do we even have immigration 
policy? If, in fact, our purpose is to simply let markets determine the 
flow of goods, services, and labor, why do we have immigration 
policies? Why do we say here is how many people can come into this 
country legally? Why do we not just say the border is meaningless, but 
if you get here, however you get here, you are here. You are a 
resident. You can apply for any job, you can obtain any benefit, you 
can even vote.
  What is the purpose of a border if we are really and truly going to 
say whatever person is willing to work should be matched with any 
person willing to employ them? At that point in time it truly is a 
world economy, is it not? What sense does a border make under those 
conditions?
  Why should we impose any restrictions? Why should we hand out visas? 
Because it does not matter, you see. If people are coming here to work 
and there are employers willing to hire them and they are willing to 
work for even less than that employer is paying at the present time, 
why should we

[[Page H1781]]

interfere? It is just markets. It is just the way of the market and the 
world economy.
  Well, Madam Speaker, I do not know whether we can begin to control 
the flow of jobs offshore, being exported offshore. I do not know 
because technology today, of course, makes it incredibly difficult to 
control the flow of work to worker. And you can push, you can move work 
to worker anywhere in the world because of technology. It is true.
  I do not know whether there is any law we can pass, which is one 
reason our friends on the other side do not suggest them, because they 
do not know either; and they are petrified to say something like we 
will actually impose a tariff. They will not say it because they are 
afraid of the ramifications of it also. So they simply scream about 
jobs.
  Well, whining and screaming and complaining will not change a thing. 
It may get more of them elected, it may get more people to vote against 
the President and against Republicans, that is their purpose, that is 
all they care about. But it will not change the job situation in this 
country. But I suggest that everyone in this body, and the President 
could do something tomorrow to improve the jobs situation in our 
country without imposing a tariff, without taking one protectionist 
step, but they could begin to enforce the law, the law that is 
presently on the books that says you cannot hire people who are here 
illegally, the law that says you cannot come into the country 
illegally. That is all we need to do to improve the job situation in 
America dramatically.
  Because, Madam Speaker, it is not just, by the way, people coming 
here to do menial jobs who are sneaking into the country. There are 
people paying thousands and thousands of dollars to be snuck into the 
country. They are not coming in, by the way, to work in the local 7-
Eleven or in somebody's vineyard. They are coming in for other 
purposes. Some of them very nefarious purposes, some of them paying 
thousands of dollars to be here.
  In fact, Madam Speaker, some Middle Eastern clients will pay $50,000 
to be smuggled into the United States. As I say, they are not coming 
here to take a menial job. They are coming here for something else 
entirely. And I am fearful to think about what it is and how many are 
here and how many are coming here illegally, across those porous 
borders, alongside and in between and hidden among thousands of people 
who are coming just to take the jobs no American will take.
  I dare us, I dare the President of the United States, I dare the 
Congress of the United States to test that theory. Just test it and see 
whether or not there really are all these jobs Americans will not take. 
Just test it. Let us see. And you know what? If we reduce the supply of 
cheap labor, yes, it is possible we will have to pay a little more for 
certain goods and services.
  But, Madam Speaker, I am willing to take that chance. And I am 
willing to pay that price. Because porous borders are dangerous. They 
are dangerous to this country, they are dangerous to our economy, 
certainly, and they are dangerous, they are a danger for our survival. 
We must, in fact, do something to achieve some degree of security and 
control over our borders. It is imperative. It is the thing that 
distinguishes a country to be able to determine who comes and who goes 
and for what purpose and for how long.
  And there is nothing racial about it; there is no ethnic issues, all 
the stuff that our opponents want to throw on this heap. You know all 
the epithets that they want to throw out. All the names that they want 
to call people who simply ask for secure borders will not stop 
certainly me, and I hope others, from raising the concern, from 
suggesting that it is imperative that our country secure its borders 
and uphold its laws.
  If, in fact, we do not believe that there is a purpose; if, in fact, 
there is something wrong with our immigration policy; if we do not 
think there is a reason for us to actually have borders, have INS 
agents, have Border Patrol, then let us repeal them, repeal those laws. 
There is no purpose, is there, for them if we intend to ignore them?
  There is a fascinating thing, Madam Speaker, there is a law on the 
books, we passed it in 1994 or 1996, I am not sure which, but it was a 
law that said this: That if any state or locality passes laws to 
restrict the ability of the State from obtaining--from the INS 
obtaining information, if you restrict the flow of information to or 
bar the flow of information from the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service, it is against the law. It says that is a violation of Federal 
law. Now, that is what we said. That is the law we passed. 
Unfortunately, we put absolutely no sort of penalty behind it.

  And so, of course, States and cities routinely violate this law, 
passing what we call sanctuary city laws, telling their police 
departments, for instance, that they should not report when they 
actually arrest someone who is here illegally. They should not report 
that to the Federal Government.
  Time and time again, by the way, we have situations where folks who 
are here illegally, commit a crime, they are caught, there is an 
adjudication, they sometimes are sentenced; but no one ever tells the 
INS, so, of course, the INS does not come and deport them, which is 
what they are supposed to do because they do not know they are there. 
And this person walks out on the street and commits another heinous 
crime. Time and time again this has happened.
  There are literally thousands of cases where people who are here 
illegally and who should have been deported because they have committed 
a crime, but they were not deported because that crime was never, ever 
reported to the INS. And we have said that that is against the Federal 
law.
  I tried to add a penalty to that in the last session of Congress and 
I was unsuccessful. I tried to say that no one could apply, no State or 
city, could apply for funds under the Homeland Security Act or when we 
were also passing the Justice appropriation, nobody could get funds, 
nobody could get grants if they had passed these sanctuary laws. I 
think we got about 120 votes.
  Now, that is incredible to me. Here is a body that passed a law and 
said it was illegal to do something, but when we tried to apply a 
penalty to it, we could not get a majority of the members to agree to 
it. This is a travesty, Madam Speaker. This is a travesty. And it truly 
is something that we as a Nation have to think about in terms of 
calling ourselves, if we want to go around the world and talk about the 
fact that we are a Nation that reveres the rule of law. And, yet, we 
refuse to actually enforce our own.
  And so I say to my colleagues, I have told the President that if he 
does not believe in borders and if he does not believe in immigration 
law, then let us repeal them. It would be better to do so than to 
pretend as though we have them but only be selective in the way we 
enforce them.
  Now, I am a ``no'' vote, by the way. I believe that immigration laws 
are important, I believe borders are important, but if I am in the 
minority in that, so be it. That is the way our government is supposed 
to work. But I want a full-fledged debate, and I want our colleagues to 
have to stand up on the floor and take a vote.
  And I want the President of the United States to take a position on 
whether or not borders matter. Because if they do, then there are 
decisions that you have to make. If borders matter, then you have to 
defend them. You have to secure them. If they are of no consequence, 
then simply take down the barriers, take down the ports of entry, 
abolish the Border Patrol, abolish the INS, because there is no purpose 
for them. They are a very expensive sort of luxury to have to pretend 
that we have an immigration policy which we do not have the slightest 
intention of actually enforcing.
  There are enormous implications to porous borders. There are 
political implications, there are cultural, there are economic, there 
are social, and there are national security implications. Besides that, 
there is another aspect to this: massive immigration into this country, 
into any country, actually, when that immigration meshes with, combines 
with a sort of, what I call a radical multi-culturalism, a philosophy 
that permeates the society, a philosophy that tells our children and 
immigrants that there is nothing of value in our country, nothing to 
hold on to, no heritage worth someone's allegiance, when we tell our 
own children in schools that there is no reason for

[[Page H1782]]

them to have any attachment to Western Civilization or to the American 
experience; and we tell immigrants the same thing that they should keep 
their language, that we will actually teach them in the language that 
they have when they come here, teach their children in that language 
other than English, when we encourage them to stay separate, when we 
encourage them to actually keep their political allegiances to the 
country of origin. This becomes extremely problematic, and it goes even 
beyond the other issues of economy, of jobs, health care issues, social 
issues.

                              {time}  2245

  This goes to really the core of our society and whether we are going 
to be able to remain a Nation at all.
  And this is happening, this cult of multiculturalism, it certainly 
does permeate our society. We see signs of it all over the place. As an 
example: at Los Angeles Roosevelt High School, an 11th grade teacher 
told a nationally syndicated radio program that she dislikes the 
textbooks she has been told to use and the State's mandated dated 
history curriculum because they ignore students of Mexican ancestry. 
She says because the students do not see themselves in the curriculum, 
she has chosen to ``modify that curriculum by replacing it with 
activities like mural walks.'' Mural walks. These are intended to open 
the eyes of the students to their indigenous culture.
  When on one of these walks they were confronted by one of the 
individuals who had made one of these painted murals, they became the 
teacher and went on to tell the children that their education is one 
big lie after another and that they essentially have no reason to be 
connected to the American experience and they should, in fact, hate it.
  Now, this is one tiny example that is magnified 100,000 times around 
the Nation in a million ways.
  In a textbook called ``Across the Century,'' which is used for 7th 
grade history, the book defines the word jihad as ``to do one's best to 
resist temptation and overcome evil.''
  In 2002, the ``New Guidelines For Teaching History'' in the New 
Jersey public schools failed to mention America's Founding Fathers, the 
Pilgrims, or the Mayflower.
  In a Prentice Hall textbook used by students in West Palm Beach, 
titled ``A World in Conflict,'' the first five pages of the World War 
II chapter cover such topics as women in the Armed Forces, racial 
segregation and the war, Black Americans and the home front, Japanese 
Americans being interned, and women and the war effort. Now, Madam 
Speaker, some 292,000 Americans died in that war, almost all of them 
white; but in the school text white male soldiers are represented far 
less in photos and words than all others.
  A Washington State teacher substituted the word Christmas with the 
word winter in a carol to be sung in a school program so as not to 
appear to be favoring one faith over another.
  In a school district in New Mexico, the introduction to a textbook 
called ``500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures'' states this book 
was written in response to the bicentennial celebration of the 1776 
American Revolution. Not a bad idea. This is an interesting thing. But 
it was written ``in response to the bicentennial celebration of the 
1776 American Revolution and its lies.'' That is what the book was 
written for. Its stated purpose is to celebrate ``our resistance to 
being colonized and absorbed by racist empire builders.'' The book 
describes defenders of the Alamo as slave owners, land speculators, and 
Indian killers. Davey Crockett is described as a cannibal. The 1847 war 
on Mexico is described as an unprovoked U.S. invasion. The chapter 
headings include, Death to the Invader, U.S. Conquest and Betrayal, We 
Are Now a U.S. Colony, In Occupied America, and They Stole the Land. 
This is a textbook used in New Mexico.
  There are literally hundreds of examples that I could give of this 
cult of multiculturalism, this attempt to make children sensitive to 
other cultures by degrading our own. This is the concept that we live 
in this world where I am okay, you are okay cultures and civilizations; 
that everyone is the same as everyone else and that all things are 
relative. We cannot condemn or look down upon or criticize any other 
nation, culture, or civilization.
  Well, this has seeped into the fabric of our society to the point 
where about a month ago I went to a high school in my district. It was 
recently built and in one of the wealthiest counties in America. It was 
a beautiful school, with all the finest trappings, and bright-eyed 
bushy-tailed kids who certainly were competent in skills in a variety 
of areas. They came in to talk to me. We had about 200 of them. And at 
the end of the conversation, they sent up several questions. One of 
them was, What do you think is the most serious problem we face as a 
Nation?
  I said, Well, before I answer that question, I am going to ask you a 
question. Remember, 200 high school students. I said, How many of you 
believe that you live in the greatest country on Earth? Take a guess, 
Madam Speaker, as to how many raised their hand. Out of 200 students, 
and the question was, Do you believe you live in the greatest country 
on Earth, about two dozen said yes. About two dozen actually raised 
their hands.
  Now, I found this incredible. And what I said was, I can answer your 
question now about what I think is the greatest problem. And this is 
it, the fact that 175 of you or so could not answer this question in 
the affirmative.
  And many of them, Madam Speaker, I do not think for a moment were 
saying I hate America. Most of them simply could not feel comfortable 
about raising their hand because they may have been asked to actually 
defend the proposition, and that is what made them uncomfortable. I 
taught for many years, and I could see that look in their eyes: if I 
raise my hand, you might call on me, and I do not know if I can 
actually defend that proposition, that America is the greatest. What if 
you ask me to prove it? What if you ask me why I believe that it is? So 
it is best I just do not even raise my hand.
  And it is because, Madam Speaker, that they have been taught that 
they should not dare suggest that this is something good, individually 
significant, and in fact the best. What would people think if you said 
you lived in the best country in the world? How would they react? How 
would I defend it? This is the product of this multiculturalist 
phenomenon.
  And when you combine it with massive immigration into the country, of 
people who are not coming here necessarily to become American but 
simply to get the job no one else would get, and you tell them this 
same stuff, that there is nothing unique, nothing good, nothing of 
value, then we are creating a Balkanized society that will not know the 
answer to the question of who are we.
  Who are we, is a great question. What is our purpose? What is the 
thing that we should all be gathering around? Are there any ideas or 
ideals that all of us, regardless of whether we are from Azerbaijan or 
Zimbabwe, whoever we are, when we come here to the United States, is 
there nothing at all that we should establish as being the primary 
thing people should adhere to; some ideas that are of value and that 
separate us from all the rest of the world; things like the concept of 
the rule of law; all of those things that are identified in the Bill of 
Rights, especially in the first amendment?
  Those are uniquely Western ideas. This Nation, as opposed to all 
other nations, was founded on ideas. No other nation has that claim. In 
that respect, we are unique and wonderful. But we are also vulnerable. 
I mean, it is in fact ideas that we need to hold us together. It is not 
ethnicity. We do not all look the same and have the same background. We 
did not come here speaking the same languages or even worshipping the 
same God. So what other nations have to hold them together, the culture 
that they share in common, we do not have.
  All we have, Madam Speaker, is ideas that made this country, and they 
are articulated in the Constitution and especially in the Bill of 
Rights. And it is imperative we tell our children in high school about 
them and that we transmit those values and ideas and ideals to them. It 
is imperative that we ask, in fact demand from people who are coming in 
to this country, that they also adhere to them.
  That is not too much to ask. We are not asking people to change their 
religion. We are not asking them to

[[Page H1783]]

change their cultural identity. We are asking them to rally around a 
set of ideas. We should be asking, and we used to ask that. We asked it 
of my grandparents. But we do not ask it any more. In fact, we attempt 
to stop it. There is this hatred. It is almost a death wish for the 
country, in a way, that continues to push us in this direction, this 
radical multiculturalist path.
  There are certain ideas that supercede others, and I suggest that 
diversity is not one of them. I mean, the one thing that we supposedly 
all have in common should not be our love of diversity. There are other 
things that are more important. There are ideas that are more 
important, and we should teach our children about them, and we should 
teach immigrants to respect and adhere to them. We do not do this, I 
think, to our peril.
  So when I talk about the issue of immigration and immigration reform, 
it is not simply because I am concerned about jobs, which of course I 
am, and I believe it is a significant factor and something we should 
talk about when we talk about jobs. It is not just because I am 
concerned about the impact on our economy in terms of the health care 
costs and social service benefits that massive immigration imposes on 
us, although I am concerned about that. And it is certainly a concern 
about the costs we have to incarcerate. Twenty-five percent of the 
population of our Federal prisons, 25 percent, are people who are 
noncitizens of the United States. These are huge costs we incur.
  Cheap labor is not cheap. Or I should say it is only cheap to the 
employer. It is not cheap to the rest of us. It costs a fortune. And 
those things we should talk about. But those things are not even the 
most dangerous aspects of massive immigration, both legal and illegal, 
until it combines with this cult of multiculturalism. That is the 
dangerous thing.
  And this is a tough subject. It is very difficult sometimes, I know, 
to make this case because its requires us to really think about this in 
depth. You can make bumper stickers out of a chunk of this discussion, 
but you really have a hard time conveying this in a 30-second 
commercial. It is so much easier to use slogans and demagoguery, as our 
opponents are so able to do and so wont to do.
  I do hope that we will think about this. I introduced a resolution a 
couple of weeks ago; and it simply states that all people, all children 
graduating from our schools, it is a sense of the Congress, should be 
able to articulate an appreciation for Western Civilization. What is so 
tough about that? And yet I do not know whether we are even going to 
get it on the floor of this House for fear someone will be offended by 
the discussion of whether or not our children should be able to 
articulate an appreciation of Western Civilization.
  Now, you may say, well, who could be against that? How could anybody 
be against it? Why should we not be able to do that? Well, because, of 
course, we may be offending someone else.

                              {time}  2300

  We are not saying that anybody should condemn any other civilization, 
should criticize any other civilization. We are just saying they should 
be able to articulate an appreciation of western civilization, which is 
what started this. I do not care again if you are here from Azerbaijan 
or Zimbabwe. Anybody coming here should eventually be able to 
articulate that appreciation. It is important because it does in fact 
establish a canon, a set of ideas, around which we should all gather.
  I have introduced that resolution. I have also asked other State 
legislators all over the country to do the same thing. I think to date 
we have 15 or 20 State legislators who have agreed to do so in their 
individual States. I have several hundred people who have gone to our 
Web site, www.house.gov/tancredo, and gone to Our Heritage Our Hope 
page and there they can sign up, they can take a resolution, I have got 
a model resolution that they can take to their school board and have 
them pass it saying that their children will be able to articulate 
this.
  I hope people will do that. I hope people will actually go to our Web 
site, take that resolution, go to their school board and ask them to 
adopt it. If nothing else but to hear the debate that will ensue. If 
nothing else but to hear somebody say, oh, no, we could not, absolutely 
could not ask a student or demand that of our students, that they be 
able to articulate an appreciation for western civilization. Would that 
not be an interesting debate? I hope they will do it.
  Once again, it is www.house.gov/tancredo, go to Our Heritage Our 
Hope.
  I hope they do it, Madam Speaker; and I hope all over this country we 
will begin this debate as to whether or not this is an important 
requirement and whether it is meaningful and whether our children and 
the people who come into this country should be able to rally around a 
set of ideas that separate us from all other places.
  Because, Madam Speaker, I have absolutely no doubt about it, this is 
the greatest nation on the face of the earth. There is plenty of 
empirical evidence to prove it. Because when the gates are opened all 
over the world, which way and where do people go? You just do not see 
that many fleeing from the West to say, Pakistan or Zimbabwe or 
anywhere else, but you see millions flowing here.
  People do speak and vote with their feet; and to the extent that they 
can get here, they will come, or to western Europe, because it offers 
something that they do not have. It offers hope. I do not blame them 
for trying to come. It is the hope and desire I think of most people to 
certainly improve the quality of their life economically.
  But all I am saying is that, when you get here, there is more to 
being an American than just getting a job. At least there should be. It 
should mean more than that. Or else we are just a place of residence, 
that is all, not citizens. We are just a place of residence, people who 
reside here, not people who have an affinity for the ideas and ideals 
that made America what it is. This is my fear. It is one that is 
sometimes difficult to encapsulate, even in an hour-long speech, 
although I appreciate the ability that the House provides for us to 
come here on the floor and opine like this.
  It is I think a very serious issue, and I hope and I pray that we 
will as a Nation begin to grapple with it and that even in this House 
we will begin to debate what it means to be an American and what we 
have to do in terms of our own domestic policy and our immigration 
policy to enhance that concept. It will determine not just what kind of 
a nation we are in the future that is balkanized, united or divided, it 
will determine whether we are a nation at all, and that is why we 
absolutely must enter into this debate.

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