[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 24, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H3220-H3223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Marchant). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is 
recognized for the remaining time until midnight as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the honor to address 
you tonight, and the subject matter I wish to take up, along with my 
colleague from California, will be the subject of illegal immigration. 
We are continually discussing this issue because it is a big issue. It 
is complicated. It is very, very detailed, and it has many, many 
ramifications for the short term, mid term and long term.
  As we speak, at least today and likely tomorrow, there will be more 
debate over in the United States Senate about this very subject matter. 
And as we watch them make decisions over there, many of us in this 
Chamber and across the country get quite apprehensive as we review the 
decisions that are made there, which are recommendations to us here, 
because many times those decisions are made, I think, without 
considering and maybe even without access to the facts at hand.
  As nearly as I can bring it up to date with the amendments that have 
been passed and the way the bill sets today, the cap that they have put 
on for a guest worker plan is 200,000 a year. That would be a flat 
number that would presumably increase, and it would go 200,000 each 
year.
  There are a number of other categories there. As we know, we have 
visa categories all the way from A to V. And so with all these 
categories that we have, there are many different ways to legally come 
into the United States. So I would like to send a message out there to 
the people who have come into this country illegally or the people 
outside of America that are interested in coming to the United States 
to live and work and play. And that is that you can go to the Web page 
of the U.S. Consul, and on there, you can click your way through to 
find out how to come the United States legally.
  That is the right way to do it. That is the way we welcome people 
here. That is the policy we have here in the United States of America, 
the country that has the most liberal immigration policy on the face of 
the earth. Any way you measure it, we have welcomed more people into 
this country legally. We have welcomed them here, and they have had the 
opportunity to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and contribute to 
this country. That is the right way to do things.
  We have this debate going on in this country, and the debate, Mr. 
Speaker, is about illegal immigration and what to do with 10 or 12 or 
20 or more million illegals in this country. There seems to be a lack 
of will in the United States Senate to enforce the law. In fact, it 
seems as though, if all the illegals in America lined up and said, I 
think I want to go home, a bunch of the folks in the United States 
Senate would say, please, don't comply with the law; we don't want that 
to happen.
  Well, I will say that I want everyone to comply with the law in the 
United States. The law says, if you come into the United States 
illegally, the penalty you are facing is 6 months in jail and 
deportation. Those two penalties go along with that violation. If you 
make that violation and you are walking the streets of America today, 
that means you are here illegally. If you came into this country 
illegally and you are not lawfully present here and you don't have 
proof of how you might have come here in a lawful fashion, then you are 
guilty of a criminal misdemeanor punishable by 6 months in jail and 
deportation. So many of the people that were marching in the streets 
claiming they

[[Page H3221]]

were not criminals, yes, in fact, many of them were that day and are 
today criminals.
  One of the issues we need to deal with are people who overstay their 
visas. At least 20 percent of the people that are here illegally come 
into the United States legally, as did the September 11th bombers. Some 
of them came here legally and then violated their visas and found 
themselves unlawfully present in the United States. That is part of it 
that we are not doing much enforcement of.
  The balance of this, though, the vast majority, the mass quantity of 
humanity is pouring across our southern border at the rate of 11,000 a 
day, 77,000 a week, 4 million a year. That is a huge haystack of 
humanity. Some of that humanity is pretty good humanity, though they 
have still broken our laws. And then there is some of that humanity is 
not very good humanity, and in that group is the criminal element and 
the drug dealers and the terrorists, the needles within that 4-million-
person haystack of humanity that must be sorted out.
  It is not possible to sort them out with a haystack of 4 million 
strong. We have to cut down on the flow of humanity coming across our 
border.
  I went down to the border about a week and a half ago and spent 4 
days on the ground. I have sat through hearings in the Immigration 
Subcommittee, and I have done that for 3\1/2\ years, sometimes two and 
three and even four different hearings a week. And in that period of 
time, you pick up a lot of information about the immigration subject 
matter.
  In reality, I had one of the more pessimistic views of how much 
illegal immigration was coming across our southern border, how many 
illegal drugs were coming across our southern border, how bad it is 
down there and how much crime comes along with it. So I went down there 
and spent those 4 days on the border, and I am prepared to go back to 
the border very soon. But it made me more pessimistic. It opened up my 
eyes more on how bad it actually is down there on the border.
  The crime that was there in front of my nose almost every time I 
turned around with the interdiction of about 180 pounds of marijuana on 
one afternoon, and later in the afternoon, I went to a port of entry. 
And there on the Mexican side of the border there, I don't know if it 
was a drug deal that went sour there, but there was an interdiction. 
They brought one of the Mexican nationals that had been stabbed in the 
liver, and they brought him across the border in a Mexican ambulance, 
and we air-lifted him out to Tucson and saved his life. You and me, as 
taxpayers, we paid for that, and we pay for that on a daily basis.

  Down there, at just that one port of entry, they get four of those a 
quarter, generally gunshot victims and, not as often, a knifing. So 
about 16 a year just at one small port of entry, with only about 180 
vehicles going through it a year, which gives you an idea of how bad it 
is at the rest of the border, Mr. Speaker.
  So I am for sealing this border, and I am for shutting off the jobs 
magnet, and I am for eliminating the birthright to citizenship. But 
shutting off this border is not going to happen with the 11,000 people 
a day, 4 million a year pouring across that southern border.
  So what I have done, Mr. Speaker, is I have designed a concrete wall 
to go down on the border. I would put it 60 feet on the north side of 
the actual borderline, so we could have a barrier fence right on the 
line, and then I would put the border fence, the border wall back about 
60 feet, and we can top it with concertina wire, and I am going to 
demonstrate just exactly how I want to go about building that.
  This cardboard box, Mr. Speaker, represents the desert in Arizona, 
New Mexico, Southern California or Texas. Some will argue that is not 
all desert down there, and it is not. But looking at this on the end, 
one can see that this is just a trench cut through the floor of the 
desert. Most of that is flat ground down there. Yes, there are rocks, 
and there is tough terrain in many of those places, but there are 
hundreds and hundreds of miles that lay out smooth and flat and without 
a lot of rocks in it and this ought to work pretty good.
  We have a company that can build a machine, and that won't even be 
one of their biggest challenges, that can set in and drop in a trencher 
and slipform a concrete footing all in one operation. This is what I 
have designed.
  This would represent that footing, and it would drop in the ground 5 
feet deep. Here is a slot we would put precast panels in, and I will 
demonstrate that in a minute. But this concrete footing would be poured 
in right behind the trencher in a slipform fashion. And as you pull 
that in, an operation you might visualize like this, and as you 
establish this footing in place, it would sit here in the desert. The 
earth would go up to just about the top of this.
  This would be about 12 inches thick, this portion of the footing 
here. You would have concrete in the ground at least 5 feet. It would 
look like this from the side, and then you would just simply go to 
work, picking off your truck that has delivered precast concrete 
panels. These panels would be 13 feet, 6 inches long. You would pick 
them up with a crane and drop them in something like this. You pick up 
the next one and drop it in something like that. And you just continue. 
Once the footing is poured, it doesn't take a lot of time and it 
doesn't take particularly a lot of skill to install the precast panels, 
Mr. Speaker. They look like that, and the last section like that.
  Now, you can see what I have here is a concrete wall that is 12 feet 
high and it goes down underground a good 5 feet. It has 6-inch thick 
concrete panels on top. It will have a roll of concertina wire on top, 
at least one, maybe two. We can put really any kind of fixtures on top 
here that we like and affix them to this concrete. If we want to do 
infrared or a camera setup, if we want to do vibration and motion 
sensors along this wall, we can do all of that.
  But I think, for the most part, once we get the wire on top, they 
aren't going to want to test this wall, Mr. Speaker. They are just 
going to look at that and say, well, now they have built a wall I can't 
get over very easily, so I am going to go try to find something else.
  But we need to put this in place where we have the most human traffic 
as fast as we can. It needs to be something that will stand up to the 
weather, something that doesn't rust out, something that is cheaper 
than the steel. If you buy that new steel, the steel prices have gotten 
too high. This concrete is substantially cheaper than the steel. And 
the construction of it is fairly easy. If you can slipform a footing, 
as I have demonstrated, it is very easy to set up these concrete 
panels.
  A little company like I used to own before I came to this Congress 
and my son operates today could set a mile of this in a day pretty 
easily. You could move along pretty well. And there wouldn't be just 
one crew out there along that desert, and you wouldn't do 2,000 miles 
all in the same operation, Mr. Speaker. But this is a simple 
demonstration of what can be done with a rational approach.
  We are spending $8 billion on 2,000 miles. That is $4 million a mile. 
Now, if you pay me $4 million for a mile of that desert down there and 
say, guard that mile, Mr. King, I would say, for $4 million, you would 
not get a cockroach across that border. We can put a barrier in place 
so that humanity doesn't get across the border, and that will stop the 
lion's share, at least 90 percent of the human traffic going across.
  There are $60 billion worth of illegal drugs pouring across the 
border and much of it in the form of 50-pound backpacks that get tossed 
through the fence. They climb through and put the pack on their back 
and walk 20 miles through the desert to a pickup location.

                              {time}  2345

  You cannot stop that with a vehicle barrier or with a fence. You can 
only stop it with a wall.
  Sure, they can dig under the fence, but we are going to be checking 
this and monitoring and patrolling it, and you will not have them 
tunneling underneath it in the desert where they have no place to hide 
the dirt pile. That will only happen in the urban areas where they can 
come up inside of a building and hide their dirt pile.
  So this works very well for the vast stretches of the desert. Many of 
those areas they are not crossing very intensively at this point. They 
will. As we close this wall in, they will.
  Somebody who knows something about the southern border and has been

[[Page H3222]]

articulate in his response and firm in his stance, and this is a time 
for courage and conviction. This is a time to stand up for the 
Constitution, the rule of law and for the future of America and stand 
up for Americans who respect that rule of law.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Rohrabacher from California.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I want to thank you for the leadership you have been 
providing here. There have only been a few of us speaking up on this 
issue over the years. You have been a voice for reason and a patriotic 
voice, and there is nothing wrong with patriotism and believing in the 
United States of America and wanting to protect our people.
  You have demonstrated today that we can control the border. There are 
between 15 and 20 million illegal aliens in our country. This is a 
dramatic threat to the well-being and security of our people. The 
education, the health care, the criminal justice system that is there 
to protect us, all are in the process of breaking down. You can see it 
in the Southwest in particular, but if we do not correct the situation, 
it will quickly spread to the rest of the country, and many of our 
friends in other States can see it happening in their States.
  The wages of working Americans have been bid down, and less fortunate 
Americans have been knocked right out of their meager jobs as a result 
of this massive influx of illegals into our country. It is hurting the 
American people.
  Just as alarming is the potential threat of 15 to 20 million illegals 
residing in our country. What potential threat? Well, one out of four 
of the prisoners of California's prisons are illegal, illegal 
immigrants. They have been convicted for murder, rape, and armed 
robbery. They are members of gangs. They deal in drugs and violence. 
And they should not even be here in this country. Our jails are 
bursting at the seams, and the criminal justice system is breaking down 
in California.
  But, since 9/11, we are supposed to have been more committed to 
protecting America against threats like this. If not, at least against 
threats like terrorists. But for the last 3 years since 9/11, millions 
of people have crossed our border because we do not have the 
precautions that the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) has demonstrated we 
could have. Millions of people have crossed the border, and crossed the 
border from Canada, as well as come into our country with visas and 
have overstayed their visas.
  How many people who have crossed the border illegally are al Qaeda 
terrorists? We do not even know. But we know that al Qaeda has pledged 
to take as long as it takes to come here and kill Americans by the 
thousands. Yet our government, this administration, yes, and the last 
administration before it, has done nothing to protect the United States 
of America from this obvious threat of having thousands, tens of 
thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people coming into our 
country, and we do not know who they are. If even 1 percent mean to do 
us harm, we are in great jeopardy.
  Well, let us note that the people crossing the border, and with this 
many people crossing the border it does represent a monstrous threat. 
But it is not just crossing the border. That is about 20 percent of the 
illegals in our country are here why, because they have overstayed 
their visa.
  I held a hearing in my subcommittee, the Oversight Investigation 
Subcommittee which I am the chairman of, and we found about 4 million 
illegals in this country out of the 20 million have come here with 
visas and overstayed their visas. That has to be dealt with.
  Again, there has been nothing done to try to change the system to 
prevent people from crossing the border or to fix the visa system, both 
of which are elements of our society that need fixing and have been 
neglected. In many cases, we have an administration making decisions 
not to do things that will solve the problem.
  Well, what we have here is, of course, people streaming into the 
country. Well, the border alone is not the issue. Weak borders do not 
cause them to flow here. There are weak borders into other countries, 
but people are not flowing into those countries.
  The reason why we need this kind of protection is because our 
government is offering jobs and benefits to those illegals who can 
manage to get to our country. If on this side of the fence we tell 
people on that side of the fence if they can get across, we are going 
to provide them with jobs and a treasure house of benefits, this fence 
has got to be a lot stronger than anyone can imagine.
  The real solution is this fence, coupled with a cutoff of the jobs 
and benefits that we give to illegals which attract them over these 
barriers. If we do not do that, it is not going to work. When the 
President says he is going to send so many thousand troops down to the 
border, I guess National Guard troops, whatever benefit that will have 
will be totally overwhelmed if the President continues a policy that 
will permit these people to have jobs and benefits here.
  Why would they not come here for jobs and benefits when they are 
poor? Most of these people are good people, but we cannot afford to 
have millions upon millions of good people coming here, much less the 
threat of al Qaeda and the terrorists I just talked about.
  One of the reasons why so many people are here today is also because, 
in 1986, our government granted amnesty to those 3 million people who 
were illegally in the country at that time. If we grant another 
amnesty, and amnesty is nothing more than legalizing the status of 
someone who is here illegally, if we do that, we will have another 
massive flood. It has resulted in 15 to 20 million illegals.
  If we have another legalization of status, I don't care what kind of 
fence we build, what we are going to have is 40 million illegals here 
within a decade or two.
  This problem, to be solved, has to get rid of the magnet, and that is 
the jobs and benefits that we give to people throughout the world. And 
any legalizing of status will make the situation worse.
  What has happened, what we have had, of course, is American 
government turning a blind eye to those people coming across the 
border, a blind eye to people giving them jobs, and even a blind eye to 
the regulations that would keep them from draining the scarce resources 
we have in our country away from our own people to provide education, 
health care, food, and housing to illegals rather than that money going 
to our own people.
  Our government is supposed to be watching out for our people, and the 
government officials have turned a blind eye to this, and now they act 
surprised that so many people have come here.

  The American people now know that this is a threat to their well-
being. The American people are aware that something has to happen. But 
why isn't something happening? Why is there so much confusion in 
Washington?
  That is because powerful forces are at work in Washington to prevent 
our government, the people who make decisions, the people who work with 
Mr. King and myself, the people who work in the executive branch, we 
have powerful interest groups at work here. Who are these groups? We 
have a business community that wants to bid down labor. They want cheap 
labor, and they are willing to basically destroy the essence of America 
in order to get cheap labor here.
  Number two, there are people on the liberal left who want political 
pawns. They want millions of people here who are dependent on 
government programs so they can go right back to their Tammany Hall 
roots. This is their tradition of getting people dependent on 
government programs so they will give them power through the vote. They 
want political pawns, the liberal left; and the business community 
wants lower wages.
  These are powerful interest groups that are at play right now and are 
preventing us from coming up to a solution to this horrible threat to 
America.
  The U.S. Senate has passed a bill. Mr. King just referred to it. But 
that bill is not an illegal immigration bill. It does not even 
strengthen the borders. That bill would make illegal immigration worse. 
Anyone suggesting that they are for the Senate bill are telling the 
American people that they want to make the illegal immigration worse. 
They want more foreigners to come here because they are willing to, 
what, continue giving all of the jobs and benefits to illegals.

[[Page H3223]]

  They, in fact, have guaranteed in the Senate bill education benefits 
for illegals. They have in fact given them better work guarantees, that 
you cannot fire them without cause, as opposed to Americans who can be 
fired without cause.
  The Senate bill is wrapped around one center core, and that core is a 
guest worker program. That guest worker program is nothing more or less 
than amnesty because it includes legalizing the status of illegals in 
our country. That Senate bill, number one, will give these benefits.
  By the way, the Senate voted to make illegal immigrants eligible for 
Social Security. Wake up, America. Your United States Senate just voted 
to give illegal immigrants, make them eligible for Social Security. 
What kind of draw will that be? Hundreds of millions of desperate 
people with no pensions throughout the world will do anything to get 
over this fence if they are going to get a pension like we give our own 
people.
  By the way, the Social Security system is not just a pension system. 
It is also a survivor's benefit system. Now who is going to game that? 
What can you expect? Someone comes here. They are part of the Social 
Security system, and even if they do go home and all of a sudden 
someone declares they are dead, or maybe they do die, and we get the 
note from the coroner that says Mr. So-and-so died. He was part of the 
Social Security system there. His survivors are his five children. 
Please start sending the Social Security checks to his five children 
until they are 18 years old.
  If the Senate bill is passed and if those Senators who voted for it, 
we will be spending billions of dollars in sending checks overseas for 
survivor benefits for people who managed to get into the Social 
Security system. This is an outrage. The Senate bill needs to be 
defeated. We have the option, and I will leave it at that.
  We do not need to have a guest worker program. We do not need to 
provide benefits. Our solution is easy: Build this fence so they cannot 
get through. Cut off the benefits. Make sure no illegal is entitled to 
government benefits and make it hard for them to get a job and they 
will go home.
  Anyone who claims we have to have massive deportation, that is the 
only solution, massive deportation or amnesty, that is a disingenuous 
argument. No, we can reverse the trend and after a few years illegals 
will start going home because they have a tough time making it here.
  Again, I thank Mr. King for his leadership. We can come at this with 
a barrier. We can come at this by cutting off benefits, and we can save 
America.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Rohrabacher) for his remarks and his commitment to this cause.
  I wanted to point out that this concertina wire or razor wire on top, 
we can put two or three or four rolls up here.
  Then I point out that this wall does not speak about America. We know 
that America is a magnet for people all over the world. It speaks about 
the failure in Mexico. The failure in Mexico is what drives people 
here. They have a corrupt society and a failed economy. They need to 
clean up their act.
  Vicente Fox needs to do his job down in Mexico, rather than coming to 
the United States and interfere with the domestic policy of the United 
States. That would be a violation of the law in Mexico, for someone 
from the United States to go down there and interfere with their 
domestic policy.
  Their domestic policy needs improvement. They need to get the 
corruption out. They need investment. And one day, when they clean up 
Mexico, this wall will not have to be here any longer.
  When they do that, we can tear down this wall. We won't need it. This 
is a wall that can be torn down as easily or more easily than it can be 
put up. The footing will be there if we have to put it back again.
  Mr. Speaker, these are all solvable problems, but they are issues 
that must be resolved for the benefit of the people of the United 
States of America. Everyone's immigration policy should be designed to 
enhance the economic, cultural and the social well-being of the United 
States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, that is what Mr. Rohrabacher is for, that is what I am 
for, and that is what the House of Representatives is for.

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