Congressional Record, Volume 151 Issue 12 (Tuesday, February 8, 2005)

[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H402-H407]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE BUDGET AND IMMIGRATION REFORM

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boustany). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo)
is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I address the House tonight in regard to
an issue that of course I have brought to the attention of my
colleagues many times in the past. I continue to offer my observations
about the issue of immigration and immigration reform.
I would, however, like to preface those remarks with some
observations dealing with the issue of the President's budget and the
general state of affairs of the Nation in terms of our deficit and the
health of the economy.
Certainly I do so as a result of listening to my colleagues and their
colleagues preceding them tonight attacking the budget for being so
sparse, I suppose. A $2.5 trillion budget, not meeting the expectations
of many of the Members who have come to the floor tonight, and hoping a
political advantage can be gained in their attempts to characterize
this thing as a disaster.
But the real disaster it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that
we have a budgeting system here and a budget in and of itself which is
out of control, record deficits even in light of the sparse and lean
budget that was presented by the President. It still has a $425 billion
figure attached to it in terms of a deficit. I imagine since it is in
the President's budget, he does not account for the supplemental that
he is going to request in a short time, $80-some billion, we are not
sure exactly how much, or the transition costs for Social Security. And
if we add those, the deficit would be dramatically higher.
So I have concerns myself about the budget. I have concerns not that
it is providing too little to run the government, but in some ways not
being accurate in ways it defines the problem or the solution because
the problem is horrendous. We have a budget that is a reflection of
course of the needs, wants, and desires of Members and their
constituents; and that is as the process, I suppose, should be. If we
recognize what that budget does in terms of what our role here is, and
after all of the rhetoric about the veterans who will not be receiving
health care and the children who will be dying because they do not
receive nourishment, all of these incredibly bombastic statements which
have been made by the folks on the other side of the aisle about this
budget, the fact is if you just do this, and I am not going to dwell on
it a long

[[Page H403]]

time because there is another issue I want to address, but it does make
one think about what the Founding Fathers would have thought about a
budget of this nature and how they would have tried to rationalize the
Federal Government spending the money it spends in all of the areas in
which it operates, and wondering about the extent to which any of these
things are required by the Constitution.
The Constitution actually is the blueprint for the Federal
Government, what it is we are supposed to do. The 10th amendment makes
it clear if the power is not given to us in that document, it rests
with the States and the people. Actually we can look far and wide. You
can scrutinize the Constitution with a microscope, and you will not
find any reference to education being a responsibility of the Federal
Government. It is not. It is not there. Yet 50 to $60 billion, I have
forgotten the exact number being proposed, but many billions of Federal
dollars being proposed for educational services, and that is not even
in the broader areas of higher education, just in K-12, and Health and
Human Services and highways, all of things that we do here which are
extraneous to our task. The task is to protect and defend. That is
really the role we have at the Federal level. States cannot raise
armies and provide for the general defense of the Nation and the common
defense; and so, therefore, the Federal Government must do that. That
is our role.
Every year we do more and more other things; and unfortunately we do
not spend as much time, energy, and resources on the things required of
us under the Constitution. So once you establish this incredibly
generous activity on the part of the Federal Government and Federal
taxpayers to fund all of the myriad of things in that budget,
agricultural subsidies, educational subsidies, highway subsidies,
Amtrak, I can go on and on, all of the things that are not our
responsibility but have become such as a result of the years of
indulgence, essentially. If you can just take all of that away and look
at what our primary responsibility is and how we should be funding
that, we could do it easily and we would have money left over for tax
cuts, but we are told that the world is coming to an end, civilization
is at an end, blood will run in the streets if we pass a budget of only
$2.5 trillion, with really close to a $500 billion deficit.
I know that many people in America look at the budget and say it is
rotten, how can they spend so much money, but do not care about the
thing that I care about the most. I support the President's efforts to
try and reduce the size of the budget. Unfortunately, it does not go
nearly far enough. We still have an increase in the budget of somewhere
around 8 percent as far as I can calculate it, and it is true that the
most significant increases are going to defense and homeland security,
which of course are appropriate. But we still do as far as I am
concerned far too much in other areas that are extraneous to our
constitutional responsibility.

So when we hear folks on the other side of the aisle argue and
harangue about these cuts, it is important to remember that for the
last several years, certainly the last year I was on the Budget
Committee, we waited in vain to ever see a budget from the other side.
It is true that the minority has the responsibility of being the sort
of watchdog of the majority. That is fine.
But one of the things we would expect is if they say here is what is
wrong with the President's budget, here is what is wrong with the
budget that the Congress has produced because it will be produced
primarily by the majority party, but if history is any judge, we will
not see a minority budget. They will not provide a plan because if they
do, they would have to do one of two things: they would have to cut
spending or raise taxes. That is it. That is it. And neither of those
two things are they too crazy about doing.
They would argue that we should not continue the tax cuts or make the
tax cuts permanent. But, frankly, even if you follow their suggestion
and allow tax rates to go back up to levels they were prior to the
President's tax cuts, it would do little to actually change the entire
picture. They would have to do substantially more. They would have to
cut spending or increase taxes. That is it. If you increase taxes, of
course, you begin to take a toll on the economy. Although initially
there will be an increase in revenue, you eventually get to the point
where taxes begin to reduce the number of jobs, the economy becomes
much more stagnant, and therefore revenues begin to drop.
So they are in a dilemma. They are in a dilemma. Therefore, the only
thing they can do is say these tax cuts are no good. These tax cuts are
terrible. So where would they cut then? If you have a $425 billion to
$500 billion deficit, where will you cut? They will not show that
because the cutting job is tough. The President is to be commended for
laying out a budget that does include significant cuts, not nearly
enough. And by the way, no one thinks for a moment they will survive
this place. Even the administration does not think that. Some of these
things they put in knowing they will be replaced by Congress, but they
can take the high road by offering the cuts.
Nonetheless, the cuts will not survive. We will increase the budget
more than even the 8 percent that the President has planned, the
deficit will increase, and all because we are afraid of angering these
constituencies that feel they are entitled to some part of this.
In the entire debate that is the thing that most rankles me, the idea
that all of these people receiving this largess and the share of
someone else's labor, we are transferring wealth from one person to
another through our tax system, everyone on the receiving end thinks it
is okay, they are entitled to it.
Mr. Speaker, it is a fascinating thing. In that roughly $2.5 trillion
budget which has been put forward, the greatest amount, certainly
somewhere near 80 percent of that budget, is in fact wrapped up in
these entitlement programs. That word implies an inability on the part
of Congress or anybody else to do anything about it. That is like it is
there, it was handed down by God that these programs be in existence,
and we cannot do anything about it. That is Social Security, Medicare,
some veterans programs. That is where all of the money is. We could
eliminate all of the discretionary spending in the budget, the
Department of Defense, for instance, Department of Health and Human
Services, we could eliminate the entire discretionary budget and still
only save $750 to $800 billion of that roughly $2.5 trillion budget.
That would take care of the deficit, but we could end every program
except Social Security, Medicare, and some veterans benefits. That is
not going to happen, and we all know that, unless we actually address
the issue of Social Security.
Now, the President has offered that proposal also, which of course
the other side of the aisle demagogues the heck out of, and suggests if
the President's plan were to pass, that old age pensioners, the Social
Security recipients, would essentially be dead in their home within a
short time, all having starved to death as a result of having their
Social Security benefits cut by this heartless President. Of course
these things are untrue. No one is suggesting a cut for the people
presently on Social Security. That is not part of anybody's plan. Yet
that is the way they present it. That is the demagoging that goes on on
these issues. Again, it is the idea of entitlement.
Mr. Speaker, let me say as clearly as I can that as far as I am
concerned, the only thing to which I am entitled as an American is
liberty.

{time} 2300

That is it. That is what I want from my government. That is what I
deserve. That is what the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence speak to. That is what I am entitled to, liberty. I am not
entitled to a pension. I am not entitled to having my child educated at
government expense. I am not even entitled to the Federal Government
building any highways in my district. I am not entitled to any
particular benefit to help me take care of my wife, who may be
pregnant, and to provide for prenatal care.
I mean, all these things are good. I am not in any way suggesting
that they are not good for society and that people banding together
would not provide them for themselves. But I am just suggesting that
nobody is entitled to these things, nobody, no American. I am not, and
I do not think anyone is.

[[Page H404]]

So I wish we could stop using the word ``entitlement.'' I wish we could
begin thinking about what are the things that we are actually
responsible for as the Federal Government. That is what I would like to
fund. What does the Constitution tell me is my role? What does it lay
out as my role, and what am I supposed to do as a Member of this body
to fulfill that role through the appropriations process.
And believe me, we could get out of here in about a month if we just
concentrated on something like that. We would be done. Start in January
and be done by March because the role is relatively limited. All the
rest of this stuff is extraneous and is not an entitlement. No one, I
repeat, no one is entitled to sharing the wealth of anyone else.
Anyway, I know these observations certainly will not carry the day.
At the end of the debate on the budget bill, we will not have reduced
expenditures. Most of the programs that the President has proposed
being cut will not be cut; they will be plussed up. Some will get cut,
I hope, and it is a start, and I am sure that the President saw it that
way too when he sent us the budget. Personally, I am sure, although I
have not had a chance to go through every single one, there are still
greater cuts we could achieve, and I plan to be offering amendments
throughout the process to try to achieve them.
But I do hope we will just always consider the fact that this idea of
entitlements is a relatively new concept to this government, to the
people of this country, and I wish that we could think about it again.
I wish that we could devise a plan and devise a set of spending
priorities that were not based on anything called entitlements but just
simply what our responsibility is as a Congress, although I recognize
that that day is perhaps not only a long way off but maybe nothing I
will ever see in my lifetime, but nonetheless we will have to hope for
the possibility.
And in hoping for possibility, I must say that this brings me to the
other topic that I wanted to address tonight, and that is the issue of
immigration and immigration reform. And as I have done many times on
the floor of this House, I have brought to the attention of my
colleagues, Mr. Speaker, the concerns I have had about the situation we
face in the United States as a result of massive immigration across our
borders, both legal and illegal. The numbers are astounding, and
sometimes I am even taken aback at them. We are now interdicting at our
borders about a million and quarter people a year. Three to five people
get by the border guards for every person that they actually do
interdict. So we do not know for sure. Maybe upwards of 5 or more
million people coming into the country every year illegally. That
amounts to, let us see, a lot of people every single day certainly,
20,000 maybe, 15 to 20,000 people every day if we are going to the
highest number that is possible coming in under those circumstances.
These are astronomical numbers, and they are things that are
certainly disconcerting just on the numbers' side of things, what
happens to us as a result of this massive increase in the population.
An organization called Numbers USA has done excellent work on this, and
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that Members go to their Web site if they are
interested in this kind of thing, at NumbersUSA.com, and look at what
they project to be the population of the country by mid-century if we
do nothing to curb immigration because almost all of the population
growth in the Nation at the present time is a result of immigration,
both legal and illegal; and the numbers do have consequences.
The numbers of people coming in have consequences on a lot of things.
Our health care system certainly is one. Our educational system is
certainly another. The fact is that we are providing services for
millions upon millions of people who are working here illegally or not
working. Regardless, they are here, and some are here of course
legally, but we end up spending far more in the provision of services
than we ever are able to obtain from these folks in terms of the taxes
that they pay. So there are implications on the numbers' side of
things.
The environment. We hear people talking about the concerns of the
environment, but those concerns are fairly narrow when we talk to them
about the impact of immigration. We have a bill, Mr. Speaker, I will be
introducing very soon that will require the EPA to do an impact study
on immigration. What is the impact? What is the result of massive
immigration into the country on our resources and on the country as a
whole? I would love to see something like that. Of course, I hasten to
add it probably will never pass because no one really wants to see
that. But I would like an environmental impact study done on the
immigration. What is the environmental impact of this phenomenon? And I
assure Members that they will find it is significant.
The Speaker probably knows the situation on the border. I have been
down to the border of the United States and Mexico many times, up to
the northern border with Canada many times, and what we see is really
fascinating and certainly a depressing view of the landscape,
especially on the southern border where people have come through by the
hundreds of thousands, in fact, of course, by the millions; and as a
result of just the human traffic, the actual foot paths that are
created through desert, the roads that people create as a result of
driving their vehicles just off of the highway and through the deserts
sneaking into this country.
The amount of trash that is deposited all along that border, the
pickup sites where literally thousands of illegal aliens will gather
after they have walked across the border and will gather to be picked
up by vehicles and taken on into the interior of the country. And these
sites I have seen have turned into simply huge dumps, refuse dumps,
with papers strewn everywhere and clothing and human feces and diapers
and syringes and plastic bags by the thousands and thousands and
hundreds of thousands of other things littering the place in just like
maybe a 20- or 30-acre parcel of land.
Of course, the cattle eat some of the plastic. The cattle die. The
human feces gets washed into the water system in the few times it does
rain, but when it rains it washes this stuff away. The land becomes
polluted by the human traffic moving across. But, of course, we hear
nothing from our friends in the Sierra Club about the environmental
degradation to the land caused by literally millions of people coming
across it unhindered. And then of course just, again, the numbers, the
impact on the quality of life in cities all over this country by the
massive number.
We just got a report not too long ago from the Transportation
Department about the fact that 70 or 80 percent of all the traffic
congestion we have in this country is a result of, of course,
immigration. The numbers just tell the tale. And so when people are
waiting in a traffic jam wherever they are throughout the country, just
think about the fact that that traffic jam they are waiting in, the
smog that is being produced, the time being lost is a result of the
fact that we cannot catch up, we have not been able to catch up with
the numbers.

{time} 2310

The numbers overwhelm us. They are far greater in terms of the actual
numbers of people coming into this country than ever before in the
Nation's history and we just cannot keep up. That is the one aspect of
it, the environment.
Then there is, of course, the issue of our economy and what kind of
expenses we incur, what kind of expenses are incurred by the citizens
of this country who are paying the infrastructure costs to support
massive immigration, both legal and illegal. It is enormous. It is
enormous.
We hear all the time about hospitals on the verge of closing. Some
have actually closed, some have actually closed certain of their
departments, neonatal, as a result of having hundreds of thousands of
people coming who are unable to pay, but coming across the border
oftentimes just to have children in the United States in those border
hospitals. They are inundated. And it does not stop there. It goes
throughout the country.
I returned recently from Idaho. I gave an award, there is a political
action committee with which I am affiliated, actually I was a founder
and do certainly support in many ways their actions, but have no formal
tie with it anymore. But that was a different award.

[[Page H405]]

I gave an award up in Idaho, the Eggles Award. This is an award that
we established a couple of years ago to memorialize and honor a
gentleman by the name of Chris Eggles, who was a young individual who
worked for the Park Service down in Arizona, Organ Pipe Cactus National
Park, and he was killed. He was killed by illegal aliens as they came
into the country, escaping from Mexico where they had committed four
murders just a short time before that. He gave his life in service to
the country.
We wanted to have something that recognized that, and we created the
Chris Eggles Award. We give it to public officials every year who we
think are doing an outstanding job in trying to actually deal with the
issue of immigration reform.
It was in that context that I was in Idaho. I traveled up there just
a short time ago to give this award to a gentleman by the name of
Robert Vasquez. Mr. Vasquez is a county commissioner in a county just
north of Boise, Idaho.
Mr. Vasquez in this small county in central Idaho is inundated with
illegal aliens. His county eventually came to the conclusion that they
had to draw some attention to the fact that they were incurring all
kinds of costs, especially for health care and incarceration, of
illegal aliens, so Mr. Vasquez sent a bill to the Mexican government
for $2 million asking them to help pay for the costs of incarcerating
Mexican aliens who were in this country illegally and in his county in
Idaho. This is not a State that you would think would be ``affected''
by illegal immigration, but every State is affected, every State.
He recently, by the way, asked the Governor of the State of Idaho to
declare his county a disaster area because of what has happened because
of the impact that illegal immigration has had on his small county.
I just got back from a little place called New Ipswich, New
Hampshire, and that is where I was when we gave the award that I was
discussing earlier. This is an award given by an organization called
Team America. It is likewise given to public officials who have done an
outstanding job in trying to deal with and cope with this issue of
massive illegal immigration into the country.
We gave the award to the police chief in New Ipswich, Chief
Chamberlain. This town of New Ipswich has 5,000 people, in New
Hampshire, mind you. He confronted, stopped a van in his little town,
which had 10 illegal immigrants in the van. He called the Immigration
and Customs Enforcement and they would not come out. They told him,
``Oh, well, ten, let them go. Forget about it.'' He said, ``No, they
are here illegally, and I don't want them in my community. You should
come and get them.''
They simply kept telling him, ``No, never mind, it is not a big
enough deal.'' So he took a picture of these folks sitting in custody
while he held them in custody, and took another picture as he let them
go. He sent both of these pictures out. He said here is what I did. I
tried to detain them. Here is what happened when I talked to the
immigration and customs officials. They walk away. They were here
illegally. Everybody knows it. He knows it, they know it, the
government knows it, and they let them walk.
This created quite a stir all over the country. It got a lot of
attention, a lot of press attention to this.
A short time thereafter, here is another group of illegal aliens in
his community, New Ipswich, New Hampshire, mind you, right? He gathers
them all up, calls the immigration patrol and enforcement. They are out
there in like 20 minutes. They gather them up, they send them all up.
They do not like the publicity that accrued as a result of their
unwillingness to do their job the first time around.
These things are happening everywhere throughout the Nation. In
Colorado, and this is one of the most horrible things, and, again,
unfortunately, incidents like the one I am going to describe to you are
happening all over the country, because we hear from people by the
hundreds, by the thousands, who have been victimized by people here
illegally.
In Colorado a short time ago there was an accident caused by an
illegal alien. The person in the other vehicle was killed. As it turns
out, this illegal alien had had had many confrontations with the law,
had been picked up several times, but never had been reported to
immigration control. Never. As a result, of course, he was allowed to
stay in the country.
If you get convicted of a crime in the United States, you are
supposed to be deported immediately. But he was never reported to them
because Denver, among other reasons, but Denver, where we believe he
was picked up, has this ``sanctuary city'' policy, where they will not
report anything to the Federal Government about people who are in the
community illegally.
As a result, we have had many instances where illegal aliens were in
fact arrested for some sort of crime, are either out on bail, served
some time, again are out on the street, never having that violation
ever reported to immigration control and enforcement, and, therefore,
of course, still are able to perform other crimes, to do other crimes,
which happens all too often, again in this case in Colorado, or he is
alleged to have done this, I should say. Anyway, we get calls like this
all the time.
There was a sheriff, a deputy sheriff in California, Deputy Sheriff
March, pulled over a guy, walked up to the car, the guy in the car
shoots the deputy sheriff in the stomach. As he goes down, the guy gets
out of the car, puts two more bullets in his head.
We know exactly who this person is that did this. He is back in
Mexico now. He will not be extradited by the Mexican government to the
United States because he faces the death penalty and/or life
imprisonment, which the Mexican government now calls cruel and unusual
punishment. But that is only one side of the story, because there are
over 1,000 people now just from California, over 1,000 murder warrants
out for people in California alone who have fled to Mexico to avoid
extradition to the United States.
The saddest part about this is a dead officer, but the most
infuriating part about this is that this guy had been picked up twice
before, or three times, I cannot remember now, and it was for very
serious crimes. I think one was attempted murder. He should not have
been, of course, in the United States. He had actually been asked to
leave the country. I do not remember if they forced him out, I think
they did. He then, of course, came back, because there is no security
at the border. He should not have been in the country.
Approximately 25 percent of those who are presently incarcerated in
our Federal prisons, 25 percent of the people presently incarcerated in
our Federal prisons are non-citizens. We do not know the exact numbers
for the States, but I think in many States it is very similar to that.
If the Federal Government were doing its job, of course, these people
would not be in the United States. They could not have come here
illegally. If they did come here illegally and did something wrong, we
would have either put them in prison for a longer time, or, of course,
deported them.

{time} 2320

But we do not. We do not pay much attention to it because, of course,
there are a lot of pressures that try to push us away from actually
enforcing the law in this country.
These pressures come from a variety of places. They come from
political parties like the Democratic Party that sees massive
immigration as a source of voters. They come from the Republican Party
who sees massive immigration, both legal and illegal, as a source of
cheap labor. We get pressures from a lot of folks here on the Hill to
not look carefully at the issue of immigration and immigration reform.
There will be a battle in this House tomorrow, on the Floor of this
House tomorrow, over a bill that is designed to do a couple of things
that desperately need to be done. It is referred to as the
Sensenbrenner bill. I certainly hope that it will pass, and I think
that it will, but the opposition will be vocal and we will see whether
we can get through the whole process.
This is simply to say that there should be a standard applied for
giving driver's licenses to people, and if States want to give driver's
licenses to people who are in this country illegally, that is fine, we
cannot stop them, but we can say that they will not

[[Page H406]]

be valid for any Federal purpose like getting on an airplane,
interstate travel, commerce, or going into Federal buildings or
applying for any sort of benefit that Federal dollars are attached to.
We can do that and we should do that.
Also, of course, the other thing that the bill does is to plug up
some of the loopholes in our statutes, in our laws, with regard to
people who are here as refugees, claiming refugee status. Many of these
people have taken advantage of the loopholes. Some of them are
terrorists or are potential terrorists, and they have a record; and
they get here and they claim a certain status, and we have to
essentially keep them. And if we can stop some of them, if they are
terrorists in the country of origin and we know it there, we can deny
access still. But once they get here, under the present law, if they
get here, somehow we can not deport them. We can stop them from coming
here because they are terrorists, but if they get here somehow, we
cannot send them back under the present law. This bill is designed to
address these issues.
There will be a huge fight tomorrow, and the debate will be lengthy
and it will be vitriolic and very bitter on this kind of an issue.
I do hope, of course, as I say, that we pass it. But this is the
first time since I have been in this Congress now, and this will be my
seventh year, that I have actually seen a bill come to the floor with
the potential of passage anyway, and this bill, having a true reform
aspect to it. So I am encouraged by that, but I know a lot of work yet
has to be done in the area of immigration reform.
Some of our opponents in this area keep putting bills forward that
they say are true remedies and they are bills that are designed to
develop some sort of guest worker program, but all of them with a
component that I think is unacceptable to a majority of at least the
Republicans in this House, I know to a majority of Americans it is
unacceptable, and that component is this thing called ``amnesty.''
There was a Member on the Floor not too long ago, a proponent of this
particular kind of plan who kept saying that we should not call these
things ``amnesty.'' He is trying to emulate Bill Clinton, when
President Clinton at the time kept redefining terms in order to suit
his own agenda. We all remember it all depends on what the definition
of ``is'' is, that famous line. The same thing here.
Well, what is it? We are going to do this, but we do not want to call
it ``amnesty,'' and we should not say ``amnesty,'' because people do
not like amnesty, so we will not call it ``amnesty.'' Now, it is
amnesty if you tell people who are here illegally that if they just
come and tell us who they are, they can stay, that is amnesty. That is
what amnesty is. That is the definition of amnesty.
Now, there are a whole bunch of things, other things that the
President throws into this periodically. He says, I am not for amnesty,
because I am not for giving anybody immediate citizenship. Well, good,
I am glad. I am very happy to hear that, Mr. President, but that is
about 5 or 10 steps past amnesty. That is not amnesty in and of itself,
so do not set up these definitions, create the definition, and then you
say, I am against that.
We cannot tell anyone who is here illegally that they can stay,
because if we do, then that is amnesty, and if you give amnesty, all
you do is encourage lots of folks, of course, to come here to this
country, break the law, because they get rewarded for it. It is as
simple as that. It is a terrible policy to give people amnesty, to
reward people for breaking the law.
Now, the other side does not like us to use the word because they
know Americans do not like it. So they keep trying to figure out how to
obfuscate, to pretend that it is not part of their legislation when, of
course, it is. We will point it out time after time after time, no
matter where they want to run or where they want to hide or how many
dictionaries they want to try to rewrite. It is amnesty, and we will
point it out every single time they bring it up. What they say is that
we do not have a plan, because we say we do not want to do mass
deportation and we do not want amnesty, that it is the status quo on
our side.
Well, let me tell my colleagues right now that I would deport anyone
who is here illegally. I want that understood clearly. If someone is in
this country illegally, the penalty for that is deportation, and I
would, in fact, deport anyone who is here illegally.
Let me also hasten to say that our plans include provisions that, in
fact, would make that task relatively easy because most of the people
who are here illegally, if we did what our side is proposing, which is
to say secure the border, number one; and number two, go after the
employer who is creating the demand in the first place.
Actually enforce the law. That is all our side says, enforce the law.
There is a law against coming into this country illegally. We do not
enforce it. There is a law against people hiring people who come into
this country illegally. We do not enforce it. But if we did, if we did
this weird, wild, wonderful, strange concept of enforcing the laws we
have on the books, we would see a significant reduction in the number
of people who are here illegally, because they would not have jobs,
hopefully they would not get benefits and hopefully they would return
to their countries of origin. And then you can establish some sort of
guest worker program perhaps to allow people into this country in an
orderly fashion to end, as the President says, the chaos on the border.
But it is idiotic to suggest that we could have a guest worker
program if we do not secure the border on one end and go after the
employer on the other. That is the demand and supply side of this
problem.
So I absolutely am in favor of deportation for anyone who is here
illegally. And I know all of the sad sob stories we would hear, that
they have been here for ages, a long time, they have kids in school.
Well, I am sorry about that, but the fact is, if they have broken the
law to come in, then the penalty is deportation. And if we can make it
easier by simply not giving them jobs on the one hand and making it
harder for them to cross that border on the other, if we can make it
easier for people to return to their country of origin and if we do not
have to go through ``mass deportations,'' fine. But anybody who is
still here after we put those two things in place needs to be deported.
Why are we so afraid of saying that? That is the law.
Now, if we do not want that law, then I think that the gentleman from
the other side of the aisle who proposes his plan for guest workers
should also propose that we stop deporting people who are here
illegally, just take that away, repeal the law. But if he has the law
on the books, then I suggest that the gentleman and anyone else who
stands on this floor, who has taken the oath of office to enforce the
law, should enforce the law. If they do not like the law, repeal the
law, but do not keep ignoring the law. It is the worst possible thing
to do.
We have put forth measures time and again on this floor that are
truly comprehensive in nature. We will be introducing a bill of a
similar nature in the very near future. It is a very comprehensive
plan, and it deals with the issue of enforcement of our borders, and it
also deals with the enforcement of our laws against people hiring folks
who are here illegally, and it also creates a guest worker plan. But
that can never happen in the absence of the other two things, never. It
is a sham.
Any plan that just establishes a guest worker program without border
security is a sham. No one thinks anything like that could work. I will
not impugn their motives, because who knows why. A lot of folks have
different reasons for pushing this concept of amnesty and ignoring the
20 million people who are here illegally.

{time} 2330

But we cannot do it. It is not good public policy, and there are ways
to address the issue. What is encouraging, Mr. Speaker, is that I have
determined a shift in attitude on the part of this House, especially
members of the Republican side who have for whatever reason seen the
light and are now much more enthusiastic in terms of their willingness
to do something about this issue. Maybe it is because Members of the
other side in even the other body, in this case particularly Hillary
Clinton not too long ago stated her adamant opposition to illegal
immigrants coming into this country, wanted those borders defended.

[[Page H407]]

There is a bit of humor there because I cannot for a minute believe
that it is, I do not know how deep seated the feeling is. It does not
matter. When Hillary Clinton says that, it sends a message pretty loud
and clear to the rest of us that, politically speaking, we are on the
right side of this issue.
The American public wants and demands immigration reform. They want
an end to illegal immigration. They want a reduction of the number of
illegal immigrants into the country, and we better start understanding
that that is the mood of the country and respond to it. That is the
nature of the system. That is exactly what we are supposed to be doing
here, and it is happening. I have certainly seen it, and I am glad of
it.
I think perhaps the most significant event of which I am aware in
terms of its impact on this debate was the passage of Proposition 200
in Arizona. Mr. Speaker, this was a fascinating sort of exercise in
democracy. The people of the State of Arizona recognized that the
Federal Government has essentially left them high and dry. The borders
are undefended. They are the funnel, Arizona had become the funnel
through which hundreds of thousands of people, in fact, millions of
people, a year were coming across the borders of Mexico and the United
States into this country. Their social services were being depleted.
Hospitals, schools, all the things I talked about, the rates of crime
committed by people, illegal aliens was rising dramatically.
Incarceration rates were therefore up.
So the people finally got a belly full of it, and they could get no
satisfaction from the Federal Government. They could get no
satisfaction from the State government. Most of the people there were
afraid to touch this thing, and the people in government were afraid to
touch it. In fact, every Member of the Congress, everybody from the
Arizona delegation opposed it, Republican and Democrat. The two
Senators opposed it.
I should back up and say, as a result of being so frustrated, the
people of Arizona put an initiative on the ballot. It said a number of
things. One was that if you are not here in this country legally, you
cannot get social service benefits in the State of Arizona. It also
said that you are going to have to prove you are a citizen if you are
going to vote in Arizona.
These are pretty radical ideas. Ideas that everybody wanted to run
away from, the establishment wanted to run away from for fear, among
other things, that anybody connected with it would be seen as a racist.
Well, they go ahead and put the issue on the ballot. And, I mean, all
the newspapers came out against it; both parties came out against it.
The proponents were outspent, I think, 2\1/2\ to 1 by the opponents.
Mr. Speaker, I have put issues on the ballot in Colorado in the past.
I know how hard it is. It is a very difficult thing to do to pass them,
especially when you have that kind of opposition, the entire political
establishment opposed to you. But the measure passed. It passed with 56
percent of the vote. But even more important, more amazingly, more
shocking to many people here, although it was not surprising to me, 47
percent of those who voted for the amendment were Hispanic. So all
those old canards, those things we hear, if you do this no Hispanic
American would ever vote for you if you do things like this. If you do
things like what? Enforce the law?

Do Hispanics not want the law enforced in this country? How many of
them have come here illegally? Many in my State have been here many
generations before my grandparents got here in the late 1890's. They
have a stake in the Nation. They have a part of the Nation. They are
Americans first. They want secure borders. They want the ability for
American citizens, Hispanics, yes, Hispanic by ethnicity to be able to
compete in the marketplace for jobs. They know that people who are
coming across these borders create competition at the lowest level, the
lowest rung of the economic ladder for low-paid, low-skilled jobs. So
Americans with few skills find it harder and harder to ever work their
way out of poverty.
When people talk about being compassionate when you look at this
issue, I ask them to be compassionate about American citizens. I
mention that the people in New Ipswich, the 10 that were taken into
custody by Chief Chamberlain, I neglected to tell you they worked for a
roofing company, according to the police chief, and they were paid $18
a day for their labor.
Now, I often hear that people are only coming for jobs that no
American wants. Well, for $18 a day, yeah, it is hard to get an
American to take a job like that. That is true. But for those who say,
as the President does and others on the floor, that we just have to
match every willing worker for every willing employer, I say think that
through. Do you mean that?
Willing worker. You have willing workers for $18 a day. Are you
willing to bring them here and allow them to compete against an
American worker? How about the guy who is willing to work for 16, 15,
14, 13? You will find somebody in the world willing to come here and
work for less than the guy who is presently employed here. The Federal
Government has no role in this, I ask? No role in trying to control
those borders and thereby, yes, prop up wages.
Yes, it is true, propping up wages is a result of controlling your
borders. That is true. But this is the difficulty we face here.
But as I say, Mr. Speaker, I think things are changing. I think Prop
200 sent a message that was heard by many people who are politically
astute, Hillary Clinton being one, of course, many others now who I see
standing up and talking about this and going on television about it. It
is great. I am happy to have the support of every single one of them. I
will happily turn over the role of immigration reform leader to those
who have positions of authority in this body which I do not have and
probably never will.
I like to see a committee chairman on our side. I like to see people
as prominent as Mrs. Clinton on the other side on this issue. It is
fine with me because what it tells the rest of us is that it is
politically acceptable now to move in the direction of immigration
reform. And we will be moving that way I think tomorrow. We should have
to keep our eyes on it.
The opponents will not simply walk away from the battle, but they
know they are on the defensive, and they are becoming very concerned
about that, as well they should because the tide is turning. And we
will be, I think, able to say by the end of this legislative session
that we have actually won some battles, that we have actually brought
the issue to the fore and been successful in many different ways.
So I just want to say in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that every night
when I do a Special Order and I go back, usually the fax machines are
going and the e-mails are coming in and the phones are ringing from
people who have felt strongly about this for a long time; and they come
from all over the country, they come from every area of the country,
north, south, east and west, small towns, large towns and from people
with Hispanic surnames, because it is just so true that this issue does
in fact touch a nerve Americans. It touches a nerve with Americans.

{time} 2340

They want to keep America a place in which they can be proud, and
they want to keep our borders secure, and they want to be able to pass
on a bit of America to their children and grandchildren, and of course,
in that endeavor, I wish them and us all the best.

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