[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H355]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  BORDER SECURITY IS HOMELAND SECURITY

  (Mr. DeLAY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, border security is homeland security. It is 
odd we even need reminding about that fact especially after 9/11. But 
just as homeland security is national security, so border security is 
homeland security. It is really simple, Mr. Speaker. There are violent 
men who wish to commit atrocities against innocent Americans; and most 
of them, not all, but most of them come from outside the United States. 
The 19 men who hijacked commercial passenger planes on September 11, 
2001, to fly them into American buildings to perpetrate mass murder 
exploited our porous borders and ultimately succeeded in their mission 
of evil.
  Since that time, we have made numerous reforms to numerous programs 
and agencies and systems to prevent such exploitation and such 
treachery from ever again bloodying our soil.
  But, Mr. Speaker, the job is not done. The job is not near done. The 
holes that remain in our border security systems are not small; they 
are gaping. And they are glaring to our terrorist enemies. They are 
coming for us, Mr. Speaker, and politics will not stop them. What will?
  Last year, Congress asked the bipartisan 9/11 Commission that very 
question, and here is what they said in their report: ``The Federal 
Government,'' the report reads, on page 390, ``should set standards for 
the issuances of birth certificates and sources of identification such 
as driver's licenses.''
  Fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of 
theft. The Federal Government should restrict terrorists' freedom of 
movement because without it, we learn on page 65, ``terrorists cannot 
plan, conduct surveillance, hold meetings, train for their mission, or 
execute an attack.
  ``Today more than 9 million people are in the United States outside 
the legal immigration system,'' we read on page 390.
  ``Once in the United States,'' the commission says on page 49, 
``terrorists tried to get legal immigration status that would permit 
them to stay here, primarily by committing serial, or repeated, 
immigration fraud by claiming political asylum. Immigration cases 
against suspected terrorists are often mired for years in bureaucratic 
struggles over alien rights and the adequacy of evidence.
  ``There is also evidence,'' we learn on page 64, ``that terrorists 
used human smugglers to sneak across borders.''
  In other words, Mr. Speaker, there are gaping holes in our border 
security system that, 3 years after 9/11, still remain untouched by any 
reform. This week, the House will finally consider the kind of reforms 
our border security system desperately needs, reforms called for in the 
9/11 Commission's report, reforms American families demand and deserve.
  Border security is homeland security, and this week we will begin the 
process of saying so in the law.

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