[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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