[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 134 (Thursday, October 20, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H9037-H9040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boustany). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 60 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, as a former judge and prosecutor in Texas, I 
spent most of my life enforcing the law. I know firsthand the cost of 
having laws on the books that are not enforced. To make law, whether it 
is on the State level or the Federal level, and then wink and ignore 
those who break the law is to live a lie. A government that tolerates 
law breaking surrenders its integrity, it surrenders its credibility, 
and it surrenders its self-respect. And right now, Mr. Speaker, 
America's immigration laws are not working. They are not even enforced.
  We must secure the borders and reduce the number of people residing 
in the Nation illegally. And, of course, amnesty is not the answer to 
this. Those people here illegally have violated the law, and giving 
them amnesty is rewarding them for breaking the law. As a judge for 22 
years, I never once gave a person amnesty because they got away with 
breaking the law for a long time. Those who have broken our laws must 
find themselves penalized, not rewarded, for the disregard for the rule 
of law.
  Mr. Speaker, we have anywhere between 11 and 14 million people here 
in the United States that are here illegally, and we cannot reward them 
for breaking the law. Many of them are here because several years ago 
this country adopted a plan, a plan that has not worked, and that is 
the plan of amnesty: Tell those people that are here it is okay, you 
can stay. And now we have encouraged people from all over the world to 
come to the United States illegally.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear that I am a supporter of 
immigration, a supporter of legal immigration. I am proud of the fact 
that my heritage is from Scotland and from Germany. But in this country 
we have now taken the policy of discriminating against people who want 
to come here legally to the benefit of lawless illegals. I will give 
you an example.
  In my southeast district in Texas I represent numerous individuals 
who have come to the United States legally, obtained citizenship, and I 
recently talked to an individual who was from the nation of Mexico and 
became a citizen of the United States, and he has been trying to bring 
the rest of his family to the United States legally. He has a son that 
he has been trying to bring to this country legally for the last 15 
years, Mr. Speaker. And yet because of bureaucracy, red tape, and 
incompetence, that has not been granted. He wants to do the things the 
right way, the legal way, and he has discouraged his son from just 
merely crossing the border illegally like 5,000 people a day do on the 
southern Texas border, come into the United States illegally by walking 
across our border.
  We have developed a policy that is no policy. We expect our border 
agents to patrol the vast thousands of miles from Texas to California. 
And when they actually capture someone coming into the United States, 
here is what happens, Mr. Speaker: They are arrested, they are taken to 
a Federal magistrate, they are told that they are going to have a 
deportation hearing eventually. But the detention facilities are so 
crowded that over 90 percent of them are released on their word to show 
up for their deportation hearing 6 months away.
  This defies common sense, the idea of this catch and release policy. 
Capture the people illegally coming into the United States, take them 
to court, and tell them: If you promise to come back for your 
deportation hearing, we will have a hearing in 6 months to determine 
whether you get to stay or you must leave. Are we not surprised that 
most of them do not come back for their hearings? This defies common 
sense, it wastes time, and it does not work to solve any problem with 
our immigration, or, shall I say, our lack of immigration policy.
  And just so it is clear, Mr. Speaker, we now know that over 50 
percent of the people illegally coming into the United States from the 
southern borders are not from Mexico. They are from all over the world. 
They are from China, they are from South America, they are from Europe, 
but they are not from Mexico. And the reason? Every country in the 
world knows the United States has open borders, that we do not protect 
our dignity, we do not protect our sovereignty. So people are coming 
into the United States illegally, over half of which are from other 
countries other than Mexico.
  I will give you an example. Recently we had an individual arrested by 
the name of Samir Abdoun from Algeria. He was caught entering 
California from

[[Page H9038]]

Mexico with a French passport. He was released with that summons to 
appear in court for his deportation hearing, and of course he never 
showed up for that hearing. He, like many thousands of other people in 
the same situation, assimilated into the United States.

                              {time}  1615

  Three years later, he was arrested on September 22, 2001, when it was 
learned that he had met for coffee several times with two of the 
hijackers that took part in the attacks on our country on September 11. 
Finally, Somar was deported last year.
  This catch-and-release policy, where we spend the time to catch those 
few people that come across illegally and release them on their word to 
come back to court, simply does not work. We obviously need detention 
facilities for these people. We obviously need quicker hearings. It 
should not take 6 months to have a deportation hearing. They should 
happen within that week.
  Then, Mr. Speaker, we have other policies that defy common sense in 
our immigration lack of policy. One of those is the sanctuary policy 
where many cities in the United States have taken the position that 
they will not arrest people in their city that are there illegally. 
They will not help the Federal Government arrest those individuals. Let 
me give my colleagues an example.
  Many police agencies cannot inquire as to the status, the legal 
status of an individual that they arrest. One of those cities 
unfortunately is the City of Houston. In the City of Houston, if a 
police officer arrests somebody for let us say jaywalking, that 
individual can be fined for jaywalking, but the police officer cannot 
inquire as to the legal status of that individual and turn them over to 
the Federal authorities if they are here illegally in the United 
States. Why do we enforce the jaywalking laws, why do we enforce the 
traffic laws around the Capitol with all of the cameras and the red 
lights, why do we enforce those laws, but yet we do not enforce the 
basic rule of law protecting the dignity of the United States? And we 
do not deport those individuals that police officers know are here 
illegally because they cannot even turn them over to the Federal 
authorities.
  Mr. Speaker, there are ways to beat the United States and the United 
States system. What I mean by that is a policy apparently perpetrated 
on this country by the country of Mexico. I have here a pamphlet that 
is published by the government of Mexico that explains to people who 
want to come to the United States from Mexico illegally how to come to 
the United States. Part of this I have blown up on this chart. It 
explains, this pamphlet explains to Mexican nationals where to cross 
into Texas so they are not caught, what to do if they are confronted by 
a border agent, how to deal with coyotes, those are the people for 
money that illegally bring people into the United States; and where is 
the best place to cross into the United States. Mr. Speaker, the 
country of Mexico is exporting its problem and making it our problem, 
and this is something that ought not to be.
  Of course, there are other ways to defy the law, the rule of law. 
Before a person illegally comes into the United States, before they 
cross the border, there are flea markets, places where an individual 
can obtain illegal, forged American Social Security cards, obtain other 
forged documents such as green cards to come into the United States, 
and assimilate among the rest of us.
  We have to remember, by the way, Mr. Speaker, that Social Security 
cards are not identification. They serve the purpose of retirement. 
They do not serve the purpose of identification, but yet that is what 
it is used for.
  The problem continues on the southern Texas border, the other borders 
that border Mexico, where individuals come across to receive health 
care, not at their expense, but we pay for it. One way is many 
individuals come across the border, the individual is pregnant, goes to 
one of our emergency hospitals, our emergency care is tremendous, and 
then grants that individual of course permission to come in. A baby is 
born, that baby becomes a United States citizen, and then the whole 
family then becomes the problem of the United States. Individuals come 
here to receive that free health care because we do not turn anybody 
away. So maybe the United States needs to start sending a bill back to 
those countries and expecting them to pay for the health care that we 
pay for that they refuse to pay for in their own country.
  We have heard a lot, Mr. Speaker, today on this floor on both sides 
talking about two important issues that are expensive to Americans. One 
of those is health care. Oh, we heard on and on and on today about the 
costs of health care, what we are going to do about it. But one thing 
we do not want to talk about, Mr. Speaker, is part of the reason health 
care costs are going up in this country for Americans is because we 
have people that are receiving health care at the expense of the rest 
of us. And those are people who are in the United States illegally that 
go and receive at our hospitals that free health care; free to them, 
expensive to us. We now know that approximately $2,700 a year each 
American has to spend for the health care of people who are illegally 
in the United States. I will repeat that again. It costs each American 
taxpayer about $2,700 a year of their money to pay for the health care 
of somebody else that is illegally in the United States. Those 
Americans, as we heard tonight from that side and this side, may not 
even have health care benefits. This ought not to be.
  Mr. Speaker, we also now know that on the southern border of Texas, 
that there are reports that individuals who wish to do us harm, we call 
those people terrorists, are assuming the identities of Hispanic 
individuals. They are learning Spanish, they sneak into the United 
States as the downtrodden, illegal immigrants, and they set up cells, 
networking cells to eventually do us harm. Because, you see, terrorists 
understand, like everybody else in the world, that we have open 
borders, that you can sneak into the United States and, once you are 
here, you can assimilate into the entire population.
  So it is a cost factor for Americans, illegal immigration. It is also 
an illegal issue. But, more importantly, Mr. Speaker, it is an issue 
regarding homeland security. The next terrorist that does us harm is 
probably not going to fly into the United States, land over here at 
Reagan National Airport, and come do us harm. They are probably going 
to just walk across the border, either the Canadian-American border, or 
the Mexican-American border. We know that most of the 9/11 hijackers 
that did us harm, that is exactly what they did. They came across the 
Canadian border and assimilated into the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, as the battle for Iraq races on, the battle for Laredo 
has begun. I say that because Laredo, Texas, the largest inland port in 
the United States, is across the Rio Grande River from Nuevo Laredo, a 
city of 400,000 individuals in Mexico. This weekend I plan on going 
down to the border of Texas, Laredo, Zapata County, I will be there 
with a Texas Ranger and some of the local sheriffs and eventually with 
the border agents to view that situation.
  We know what is taking place in the battle for Laredo and Nuevo 
Laredo. We know this year that 135 people were murdered, 44 Americans 
were kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo; 7 policemen were murdered. The police 
chief, the new police chief that was recently made police chief, lasted 
about 6 hours after he was sworn in, and then he was gunned down with 
35 bullets shot into his body. Nuevo Laredo has become a haven for drug 
traffickers, a haven for gun-running, and a haven for human trafficking 
into the United States. Because this is an example of where failure to 
protect the integrity of our borders encourages illegal conduct. That 
illegal conduct includes those people that wish to make money off the 
weaknesses of other individuals, and I am talking about those drug 
dealers. They are bringing that cocaine, that marijuana into the United 
States from our southern borders. It disseminates throughout the United 
States. We know that it is a location for gun-running, people who wish 
to bring firearms illegally into the United States. And we also know 
that that is where those coyotes, those individuals for money charge 
other individuals from other nations to come into the United States 
illegally.

  Mr. Speaker, many times we hear from people who think they know about 
the problem of illegal immigration. Some of those people are, for lack

[[Page H9039]]

of a better phrase, those northeastern elites who think they have the 
answers to all the problems. I would like to invite those people who 
spend their time out on their yachts near Cape Cod to come down to 
Texas with me this weekend and go to Laredo and see the problem, the 
real problem of what illegal immigration does to our country.
  The border security is an issue that affects all Americans. I have 
discussed with many of the property owners that live along our Texas 
border how illegal immigration affects it. One rancher in Zapata County 
told me that it was like Sherman's march to the sea, that Union general 
who invaded the South and burned everything in his path. He said, that 
is what it is like. They are coming onto my land, destroying all the 
land, all the property, stealing everything they can get their hands 
on, because this is the path into the United States.
  Property rights are something that maybe we ought to talk more about, 
how our Federal Government has the responsibility to protect the 
dignity of property rights of all Americans. Recently, we had an 
individual by the name of Luis Posada Carriles, he was a Cuban anti-
Castro militant who was taken into custody in my home State of Texas 
for immigrant violations. He is wanted in Venezuela for allegedly 
blowing up a Cuban plane and killing 70 people on that airplane. This 
alleged terrorist told American authorities he easily crossed the U.S.-
Mexican border in the car of a smuggler, hopped the bus to Miami, and 
even evaded arrest by U.S. immigration agents by claiming he was a 
forgetful old man and lost his identification. This is typical, this is 
scary. It is also proof, Mr. Speaker, how easily it is for a terrorist 
with plans to harm others can get into the United States. This is a 
serious matter of homeland security, and it must be fixed.
  Our borders are out of control, and securing our borders is the first 
step in any serious immigration reform policy. So what are we going to 
do? Well, just today, I have introduced a bill called the Passport 
Security bill. It is a simple bill that requires all persons entering 
the United States that try to come here legally to have a passport.
  Mr. Speaker, if you come to the United States and you are from Canada 
or from Mexico or from one of the Caribbean islands, you do not have to 
have a passport to get in. You can use any type of document that is 
acceptable; everything from a birth certificate to a baptismal 
certificate. Some of our border agents have to be so versed in up to 
500 documents from foreign countries before they can let a person come 
into the United States. It makes it very easy to forge those documents, 
to come in here illegally when you are trying and pretending to come in 
here in a legal manner.
  So all nations in the world basically require passports to enter 
their country. We do not do so, with the exceptions that I mentioned. 
So it is time for us to require a passport. A passport does not 
discriminate. It is the same document used for every individual. I have 
talked to numerous individuals who are concerned about border security, 
and they tell me, let us go to passports. Passports do not 
discriminate. It has a bar code that is in a passport, and it is a 
universal form of entry into any country. It even could be used by our 
businesses who have to now become policemen to determine whether or not 
the person coming into their business that wants a job is here legally, 
and they check the Social Security card, they try to check their birth 
certificates, all the documents they have; they do not have to check 
any of that any more. All they have to have is a passport. If they 
enter the United States legally, they will have that passport when they 
go and seek employment as a person trying to legally come into the 
United States. A passport is the gold standard for entry into all 
countries, and it is time that we require passports.
  Mr. Speaker, the 9/11 Commission, in its extensive report, stated 
that passports are necessary for entry into the United States. But here 
we are, we still do not have passport requirements. Why is that? It is 
because of bureaucracy at the Federal level that does not implement the 
9/11 Commission's report. So that is why I have filed this bill, to 
require a person to show a passport when coming into the United States.
  In some cases, Mr. Speaker, people who wish to come into the United 
States, for example, from Canada, do not even have to show 
documentation. All they have to do is profess that they are a citizen 
of that nation. The same is true of Americans who wish to reenter the 
United States. For example, one of my staff members recently went to 
Mexico over the August recess, and when she entered Mexico, she was 
waved through. She was not even asked for identification.

                              {time}  1630

  But more importantly, when she reentered the United States, the 
border agent simply looked into the vehicle which had several 
passengers and asked, Well, are all of you all American citizens?
  Someone replied yes and they were passed into the United States 
without any search, without any identification. So our borders at 
border crossings must be protected, and the border between border 
crossings must be protected. It is a homeland security issue.
  Some people have discussed the issue of having a fence to protect the 
southern border. That is at least worthy of debate on this House floor. 
If we are going to get serious about protecting our borders, we should 
at least discuss the issue.
  Earlier I mentioned one of the costs that is imposed upon Americans 
for illegal immigration, and that is health care. Some say that health 
care costs in the United States, 20 percent of health care costs are 
because people are in the system, illegally in the United States.
  Now, let us go to the second topic most talked about on this House 
floor regarding costs, and that is education. Almost every day on this 
House floor we hear the talk about, oh, the expense of education in the 
United States. And it is expensive. It is expensive when your kids are 
in public school all the way through high school.
  And you want to talk about expensive, wait until they try to go to 
college and see how expensive it is. I have four kids in college, and 
one of them is still in college. It is expensive, education is in the 
United States.
  But all of the talk that we hear about the cost of education, no one 
wants to talk about the fact that there are people in the system 
getting an education and Americans are paying for it, once again the 
people who are illegally in the United States.
  Some experts say it is up to 22 percent of education costs re because 
people are in the system that are benefiting from it, but not paying 
for it. You know, we have a policy in this country. If you are here, 
however you got here, legally or illegally, you are going to get an 
education at the expense of the rest of us. And not only that, you are 
going to be educated in your own language.
  Now, think about that. If we went to a foreign country like France 
illegally, sneaked into the country, would we have the nerve to go to 
one of their public schools and demand to be educated not only for 
free, but in our own language? Of course not. That is absurd.
  But yet we do this in our country because it is the policy of this 
country. Regardless of whether it should be or should not be, it is 
costing Americans; and Americans have to pay for this expensive 
education for those who are in the system and do not contribute to it.
  Let me give you some examples of that that go to higher education. 
Let us say a person from Texas wants to go to Kansas to school. Well, 
Kansas charges that Texas student out-of-state tuition. Why? Because 
they are not from Kansas. Well, that is all right. Most States have 
that law.
  Let us say a person from a foreign country legally comes to the 
United States, legally wants to go to Kansas and get an education. And 
they are admitted on an education visa. They go to Kansas. They pay 
out-of-state tuition because they are not from Kansas. Makes sense.
  But take the third example of a person illegally in the United States 
in Kansas. They get admitted, first of all, to one of their 
universities and they pay in-state tuition. That ought not to be. We 
discriminate against American students. We discriminate against people 
legally coming into the United States to get an education, to the 
benefit of people who are illegally here;

[[Page H9040]]

and in some States people illegally in the state that go to colleges 
get admitted into colleges, receive State grants. Maybe those grants 
ought to go to American citizens.
  And now with the competition of higher education so stiff, in some 
cases Americans are denied entry into a university to the benefit of 
someone who is admitted because they are illegally in the United 
States. Once again, this defies common sense. So the two examples, 
health care costs, education costs. Part of the reason is because there 
are people here who have benefited from it and not contributed to it.
  And the third example that I would like to use is the cost of the 
criminal justice system. I was a judge for 22 years in Houston, Texas. 
Heard about 25,000 felony cases, that is serious crime, everything from 
stealing to killing.
  About 20 percent of the people that I saw were in the United States 
illegally now. Think about that. First of all, they are here illegally. 
They commit another crime. When convicted, they are sent off to one of 
our State penitentiaries. Of course, Americans pay for that system. 
Americans pay for the criminal justice system. We pay for their 
incarceration. Then when the person serves their time for whatever, 
robbery or murder, you would think that the law in this country would 
say that person illegally in the United States that commits a felony 
and goes to the penitentiary, we would deport them back where they came 
from.

  But that is not what we do. We bring them right back to the county in 
which they were convicted, and we release them. Why do we do that? 
Because there is no cooperation by law with the State authorities and 
Federal authorities on people illegally in the United States and 
whether they should be deported after they have served their criminal 
sentence.
  So that costs us as well. And some likewise estimate is 18 to 19 
percent of our criminal justice costs are because we have people in the 
United States illegally here committing crimes and having to serve 
their time. And we pay for that. So these are some examples of issues 
that the American public has to deal with and deal with immediately.
  It is necessary that we as a people come to grips with the issue of 
illegal immigration and decide what position we are going to take, 
whether we are going to take a stand for the rule of law or whether we 
are going to ignore the law.
  It would seem to me that the first duty of government is to protect 
the sovereignty of the Nation, protect the identity of the borders of 
our Nation. It just seems to me that is what most countries do.
  But we have chosen not to do that, for whatever reason. I do not know 
the reason. But now the time has come for us to enforce the rule of 
law, enforce border security. It is the right thing to do. It is not 
the right thing to do to tell people who come here illegally, that is 
okay. That is the wrong thing to do.
  Mr. Speaker, it is a national security issue. We know that there are 
terrorists among us. We know they wish to do us harm. Why do we 
encourage that conduct by having no national policy that enforces the 
rule of law on our borders? Everybody wants to come to the United 
States. I do not blame them for that.
  I mean, everybody wants to come here, but everybody cannot come to 
the United States. Everybody cannot live in the United States. So what 
are we going to do about that? Well, let us have a policy. Let us have 
a plan. Let us have a plan that works. Let us have a plan that 
encourages people to come here legally so it does not take 15 years to 
come into the United States legally as in the example I mentioned to 
you.
  And let us have also a plan that enforces the rule of law and does 
not encourage illegal conduct, but tells people if you want to come to 
the United States, do it the right way, do it the legal way or stay 
home.
  You know, we all took oaths as public officials to uphold the 
Constitution, to protect this country from all enemies, foreign and 
domestic. And I think part of our obligation is to enforce the rule of 
law and the sovereignty of the United States.
  We call this place the land of the free and the home of the brave, 
and rightfully so. This very day, we have some of our bravest Americans 
halfway across the world protecting another country called Iraq. It is 
important that we in this country care more about Americans than we do 
about people who are illegally from foreign countries who come into the 
United States.
  So the line is drawn in the sand, Mr. Speaker. And as I mentioned, 
the battle for Laredo has begun. The battle for our sovereignty is upon 
us. We will either protect our country or we will not. We will either 
surrender or we will refuse to surrender. And we cannot surrender our 
borders to those people who invade our country illegally. It is an 
invasion. It is a colonization of the United States, and it is 
illegally being done right under our eyes.
  That is just the way it is, Mr. Speaker.

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