[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 138 (Tuesday, December 7, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H11044-H11045]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE REFORM ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I wish all of my colleagues a 
safe and prosperous holiday season; a time to fellowship with our 
family members and friends; time for our spiritual reflection of our 
respective faiths; a time to wish for a better life for all of us.
  We finally finished, Mr. Speaker, a very long journey; and that 
journey started on that fateful day of 9/11. So many of us can 
remember.
  My recollection serves me well. It was a Tuesday morning. Some of us 
had already come to this Capitol, engaged in meetings, prepared to do 
the normal business of the House. Within a flicker of an eye, the 
buildings in New York were struck; the Pentagon had gone up, a portion 
of it in smoke; and in a field in Pennsylvania, a plane had nose dived, 
killing all.
  I repeat this because for some reason this intelligence debate took 
on a life of its own, maybe even caused confusion among the American 
public. But it did not cause confusion among those family members who 
had lost loved ones and those who lost their lives who are not here now 
to tell us their story.
  The real crux of the debacle and the tragedy of 9/11 was a failure on 
the part of this government. We failed in understanding the necessity 
of human intelligence. We failed in understanding the surge of 
terrorist acts around the world. It was not a Republican failure or a 
Democratic failure. It was a failure of government, and we failed the 
American people and those who lost their lives. That is why I was so 
baffled by the long, extended time it took for this body to pass the 9/
11 Commission report. Gratefully, after a long debate, we had a 9/11 
Commission, and even that was opposed.
  Democrats strongly supported this Commission, but after the report 
went through and the balance of the representation of the Commission, 
Democrats and Republicans, who meticulously listened to testimony after 
testimony, reviewed documents after documents, and came up with what I 
think was a fair response to the tragedy of 9/11, they gave us a road 
map upon which we could base our lack of understanding to make it 
better for the future.
  We are very fortunate, and I would not give this credit to any one 
party. We came together. We forged a Homeland Security Department. I 
have the honor of serving on the Select Committee on Homeland Security. 
We had hearing after hearing trying to explore where there were 
loopholes in the system so we could ensure safety for the American 
people. Lo and behold, a report came out, the eloquent statements, 
tear-jerking statements of family members who tore at our heartstrings 
about what they went through, the gap of time, the lack of information, 
the lack of coordination. It was glaring. We had failed.

[[Page H11045]]

  And the singular key of failure was the lack of human intelligence 
and coordinated intelligence of our intelligence agencies around 
America and around the world. The FBI could not tell that there was a 
memo on the desk of an FBI agent in Minneapolis that suggested that 
there were people who were learning to fly, learning to take off, but 
not learning to land. There were series of terrorists in Florida going 
to aviation schools, paying cash, and no data came in to a central 
place of intelligence to say something is wrong.
  While we got, if you will, bundled up and shackled with the question 
of immigration, and immigration provisions, which I happen to think and 
hope that we will come together in a bipartisan way in the 109th 
Congress and begin to put in place comprehensive immigration reform, 
had really nothing to do with the terrorists, because they came in on 
legal documents.
  We can fix how they came in. We can ensure that our consul offices 
are more equipped with human intelligence so that we know who not to 
let into our country. That was the crux of the problem, not the fact 
that they were illegal immigrants. They had legal documents. Not the 
fact that they could get a legal driver's license. They had legal 
documents. We know driver's licenses are taken care of by the States to 
a certain extent.
  As I hear the time ending, let me conclude, if we fix driver's 
license, we need to do it in an orderly fashion with the criteria and 
standards of documentation. But none of us are prepared to have a 
national ID card.
  This bill was long overdue. It fixed the singular problem. The 
singular problem is human intelligence. Immigration can be fixed in the 
next Congress, and I am grateful for the inclusion of my CASE Act on 
the alien smuggling. We now have enhanced penalties for those who will 
do the dastardly act of smuggling illegal immigrants into this country.
  This was a bill long overdue. I thank the families.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer my sincere gratitude and 
appreciation for everyone involved in finally bringing this important 
bill to the floor of the House and for putting aside the poison pill 
immigration provisions and moving forward with a bipartisan 
intelligence measure that will implement the 9/11 Commission's 
recommendations and make our country safer. While I applaud the 
leadership of the Committees of jurisdiction and the respective 
Conferees for their hard work in maintaining bipartisanship thus far, 
the simple fact is that the Conference report has not yet passed. The 
9/11 victim families have left Capitol Hill feeling appeased that the 
work has been done; therefore, it is critical that we not renege on 
what has been represented to them. The job isn't done until it is done.
  This Conference Report is sitting in our chambers and must be passed 
before we close for 2004.
  This week may be our last chance this year to consider and pass this 
overwhelmingly popular bipartisan measure. This sweeping bill includes 
the creation a national intelligence director to oversee the Central 
Intelligence Agency, a plan with which even our President agrees.
  Given the recent vulnerabilities that we have experienced in 
bioterrorism defense with the shortage of flu vaccinations and the 
recent discovery that 380 tons of explosive material in Iraq remains 
unaccounted for, it is more than critical for this body to pass the 
Intelligence Reform legislation now--while we have an opportunity. The 
families of the fallen victims are looking to us for leadership and 
responsible action.
  I believe very strongly that immigration does not equate with 
terrorism. Nevertheless, we continue to look to the enforcement of our 
immigration laws as a way to protect our country from terrorist 
attacks, and this did not begin with the terrorist attack on September 
11, 2001. Serious efforts in this regard were going on long before that 
happened. For instance, partly in response to the 1993 World Trade 
Center bombing, Congress strengthened the antiterrorism provisions in 
the Immigration and Nationality Act (the INA) and passed provisions 
that were expected to ramp up enforcement activities, notably in the 
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 
1996 (P.L. 104-208) and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty 
Act (P.L. 104-132).
  The INA gives the government broad authority to arrest and detain 
aliens in the United States who are suspected terrorists or who are 
suspected of supporting terrorist organizations, as well as aliens who 
have violated other provisions of immigration law. This was augmented 
by a mandatory detention provision that we added with the U.S. Patriot 
Act.
  More than 1,200 people reportedly were detained after September 11. 
Some experts support a broadening of the authority to arrest and detain 
aliens in the United States who are suspected terrorists or who are 
suspected of supporting terrorist organizations.
  I believe that current law will be adequate with minimal changes. I 
am concerned that further expansion may erode individual rights and 
that, as a result, innocent foreign nationals may be detained and 
deported.
  Unfortunately, H.R. 10, the House bill to implement the Commission's 
recommendations included a number of extraneous immigration provisions 
that dealt with immigration reform issues rather than with the need to 
secure our country against further terrorist attacks.
  For instance, it included court-stripping provisions to reduce access 
to federal court review from adverse decisions in immigration removal 
proceedings. It had a provision to take away the power of a Federal 
court judge to stay an alien appellant's removal pending the outcome of 
this appeal proceedings. It provided for greatly expanding the use of 
expedited removal proceedings, which would have enabled the government 
to remove thousands of undocumented aliens without hearings or due 
process of any kind. It even had a provision permitting the government 
to deport aliens to countries where they would be tortured--in direct 
violation of the Convention Against Torture.

  One of these provisions was particularly misguided, H.R. 10 included 
a provision, which specified what documents States were to be permitted 
to accept as identification in connection with driver's license 
applications. In cases of an alien seeking to identify himself with a 
foreign document, the only acceptable foreign document would be a 
passport. This was alleged to be a security measure to prevent 
terrorists from obtaining driver's licenses. The absurdity of this 
measure can be seen in the fact that all nineteen of the 9/11 hijackers 
had passports. If this provision had been in effect at that time, it 
would not have prevented any of the 9/11 hijackers from obtaining a 
driver's license.
  The extraneous provisions troubled the 9/11 Commissioners to the 
point where they wrote letters to the Congress encouraging us to put 
these contentious issues aside so that we could move forward with the 
serious business of implementing their recommendations.
  I am pleased that bipartisanship and a sense of responsibility 
prevailed in the end as far as the joint conference is concerned. The 
extraneous provisions I just mentioned have been removed from the bill.
  The Conference Report strikes a provision attempting to prevent the 
use of Matricula Consular cards in the United States; harsh new 
evidentiary standards for asylum relief; and a new criminal provision 
making it a felony (punishable of up to 5 years' imprisonment) for 
making false claims to U.S. citizenship.
  None of these provisions had anything to do with protecting this 
nation against potential terrorist attacks. These provisions would not 
have implemented any of the recommendations of the September 11 
Commission or protect us against a terrorist attack.
  I am pleased also that provisions from my Commercial Alien Smuggling 
Act (the CASE Act) were included in this bill. These provisions would 
permit a judge to increase a criminal sentence by up to 10 years in 
smuggling cases in which the offense was part of an ongoing commercial 
organization or enterprise; aliens were transported in groups of 10 or 
more; and the aliens were transported in a manner that endangered their 
lives or the aliens presented a life-threatening health risk to people 
in the United States. I am confident that this will go a long way 
towards deterring commercial smuggling operations that are recklessly 
killing desperate immigrants who come to our country to establish a 
better life for themselves and their families.
  The final product is worthy of the outstanding effort that the 
commission put into analyzing the horrific events of September 11, 
2001. While I recognize that it does not fully implement the 
recommendations of the Commission in every respect, it is a major 
effort to move forward with the essential elements of the Commission's 
recommendations. We must consider and pass this legislation now!

                          ____________________