[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 76 (Thursday, June 9, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4325-H4326]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THREAT TO OUR SOUTHERN BORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page H4326]]

  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I have spoken many times on this floor 
concerning the need to secure our borders. We must do so if we are 
going to have any kind of responsible immigration policy and retain our 
national sovereignty. We know with somewhere between 36,000 and 50,000 
additional enforcement personnel on our southern borders, we can catch 
virtually all of the potential terrorists and drug dealers trying to 
enter this country illegally.
  But we now find that other-than-Mexican illegals, or OTMs as they are 
referred to by our Border Patrol, have discovered a large loophole in 
our law. Under this loophole, OTMs can cross our border illegally and 
be apprehended by our border patrol. The border patrol is then forced 
to give them paperwork allowing them to bypass all other immigration 
checkpoints and virtually release them into our country.
  This criminal scheme is not the fault of some quirk in U.S. law. It 
is being forced on our border patrol by international law which we are 
allowing to undermine our rule of law, national immigration policy, our 
Constitution, and our sovereignty. International law says illegal 
immigrants must either be deported to their country of origin or placed 
in detention. If there is no room in detention, they must be released 
on bail with a promise that they return later for trial.
  There is never any room in detention any more for the millions of 
illegals violating our southern border every year. And since these 
illegals are not Mexican, our border patrol is required to buy them 
airfare back to Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, China, Iraq, 
and on and on. So they sign an agreement to show in court in 30 days 
and are released.
  With that paper in hand, they can pass legally through all other 
border patrol checkpoints and vanish into cities in America. We have 
caught 90,000 OTMs since October 1, 2004, and 98 percent have failed to 
show back up in court. Once hidden in large immigration communities 
inside our country with new false identification, it becomes virtually 
impossible to apprehend them.
  Mr. Speaker, I have stood here before and called for deploying 36,000 
troops to our border to effectively close it. But with this situation 
in place, we could send 1 million troops to our borders, and it would 
not make any difference. Border patrol says these people swim across 
the Rio Grande and come looking for our officers with a demand 
``permiso,'' for the warrant that gives them a free pass into our 
Nation illegally.
  Mr. Speaker, we need a new law right now. Anyone who crosses our 
border with Mexico illegally should be considered a citizen of Mexico 
for enforcement purposes. They should be returned there or incarcerated 
here immediately. This is not the United Nations or WTO. We represent 
the people of our districts. We are responsible to the people of the 
United States and are sworn to defend our Constitution. We have an 
inherent God-given right to national sovereignty, and this House must 
not stand by while foreign nations undermine our laws and our 
independence.
  Mr. Speaker, I will be back next week to further this conversation.

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