[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 119 (Thursday, September 21, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H6850-H6861]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4830, BORDER TUNNEL PREVENTION ACT
OF 2006; FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 6094, COMMUNITY PROTECTION ACT OF
2006; AND FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 6095, IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT
ACT OF 2006
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 1018 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 1018
Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it
shall be in order without intervention of any point of order
to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 4830) to amend
chapter 27 of title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the
unauthorized construction, financing, or reckless permitting
(on one's land) the construction or use of a tunnel or
subterranean passageway between the United States and another
country. The bill shall be considered as read. The previous
question shall be considered as ordered on the bill to final
passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of
debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and
ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary;
and (2) one motion to recommit.
Sec. 2. Upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in
order without intervention of any point of order to consider
in the House the bill (H.R. 6094) to restore the Secretary of
Homeland Security's authority to detain dangerous aliens, to
ensure the removal of deportable criminal aliens, and combat
alien gang crime. The bill shall be considered as read. The
previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill
to final passage
[[Page H6851]]
without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate
equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking
minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary; and (2)
one motion to recommit.
Sec. 3. Upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in
order without intervention of any point of order to consider
in the House the bill (H.R. 6095) to affirm the inherent
authority of State and local law enforcement to assist in the
enforcement of immigration laws, to provide for effective
prosecution of alien smugglers, and to reform immigration
litigation procedures. The bill shall be considered as read.
The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the
bill to final passage without intervening motion except: (1)
one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the
chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on the
Judiciary; and (2) one motion to recommit.
{time} 1015
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is
recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the
purpose of debate only.
Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1018 provides for consideration of H.R. 4830
under a closed rule. It allows 1 hour of debate in the House, equally
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of
the Committee on the Judiciary, it waives all points of order against
consideration of the bill, and provides one motion to recommit H.R.
4830.
In addition, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 6094 under a
closed rule. It allows 1 hour of debate in the House, again equally
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of
the Committee on the Judiciary, it waives all points of order against
consideration of the bill, and provides one motion to recommit H.R.
6094.
Finally, Madam Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of
H.R. 6095 under a closed rule. It allows 1 hour of debate in the House,
equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority
member of the Committee on the Judiciary, waives all points of order
against consideration of the bill, and provides one motion to recommit
H.R. 6095.
Madam Speaker, last December the House of Representatives debated and
passed H.R. 4437, the Border Protection Antiterrorism and Illegal
Immigration Control Act with a 57-vote margin. However, despite phone
calls and letters from constituents, our hard work in December met
difficulty because some of our colleagues in the other body opted to
support an amnesty program that simply cannot be substituted for border
security.
The need for immigration reform is critical and long overdue. I
remind my colleagues that we need to secure our borders before we
consider any other immigration proposal, of which amnesty should never
be a part.
Just about every congressional district in this country is affected
by illegal immigration, not just border States. Securing our borders is
not a Democratic versus Republican issue, and it is not about the
election in 7 weeks. It is an issue of protecting our Nation and
restoring integrity to our system of immigration.
If immigration were a Republican issue, 64 Democrats would not have
voted last week for the Secure Fence Act. Indeed, we are a Nation of
immigrants, but we are also a Nation of laws based on the principles
found in the United States Constitution.
In 1986, President Reagan pushed for reforms to address the problem
of illegal immigration. In 1996, the 104th Congress pushed for more
reforms. And now, 10 years later, this Congress once again has an
opportunity to debate how to best secure our borders and remove
incentives for illegal immigration by enacting these meaningful
changes.
Today this Congress continues an ongoing and difficult debate, and I
want to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner and Chairman Dreier for the bills
being considered under this rule, H.R. 6094, the Community Protection
Act of 2006, H.R. 6095, the Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006,
finally H.R. 4830, the Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2006.
Together, these three bills, along with the Secure Fence Act we
passed last week, reaffirm some of the highlights from the House-passed
legislation in December, almost a year ago.
By addressing these issues separately, we have a better chance of
achieving at least some degree of immigration reform in 2006.
Procrastinating or ignoring this problem will simply not make it go
away. Every day we put off debating and passing immigration reform
creates more and more opportunities for illegal immigrants to break our
laws and violate our borders. Each and every one of these offenses has
social, economic and, indeed, security repercussions.
For instance, according to the United States Census Bureau release
last month, there are an estimated 795,419 illegal immigrants who live
in my home State of Georgia, almost double the same estimate from 2
years ago.
During the August district work period, I had an opportunity to visit
some of the more porous areas on our southern border with my colleague
Mr. Sodrel from Indiana and Mr. Price from Georgia. After meeting with
Border Patrol and Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents, inspecting
the infrastructure, checking out places for improvement, the most
important lesson that we learned was that with the right tools and with
the right manpower, securing our border can be a reality, and it is not
a lost cause, as some would suggest.
The morale of these dedicated men and women who are protecting our
southern border is at an all-time high, because, as they said to us,
Congress is finally paying attention.
Some of the improvements needed include more Border Patrol agents,
more fencing and uniform penalties for smugglers, it is unbelievable
that we don't already have that, and removing the question of
jurisdiction for local law enforcement, an issue that my colleague from
Georgia, Dr. Norwood, in his CLEAR Act has just emphasized over and
over again and, thank goodness, was part of our original bill in
December. We also need more on-site immigration judges, we are woefully
inadequate in that manpower, border tunnel detection and criminal
detention and removal.
The three bills we are considering under this bill address many of
the problems that Customs and Border Patrol and ICE agents brought to
our attention during that August trip to the three sectors of our
border with Mexico.
The Community Protection Act of 2006 includes language from the
Dangerous Alien Detention Act, the Criminal Alien Removal Act, and the
Alien Gang Removal Act.
One of the most eye-opening moments on my tour of the border was
seeing the transport of prisoners at an airport in El Paso, Texas. An
airplane landed with prisoners for Mexico and so-called OTMs, other
countries south of the border. These individuals were not being held
and deported just simply because they had illegally crossed the border
seeking jobs. No, these individuals were being sent back to their home
countries after serving out sentences in this country for rape, murder,
child molestation, and grand larceny.
The scenario addressed in H.R. 6094 would involve detaining
individuals with similar offenses and also, also, Madam Speaker, in
cases of highly contagious diseases and mental illnesses, detaining
them longer than current law allows, a 6-month limit which begins when
they are ordered removed. This legislation would make sure that these
criminals are not released back into our society because of that 6-
month rule to cause serious safety problems in our local communities.
Also included in H.R. 6095 is the Alien Gang Removal Act to deport
alien gang members such as MS-13 and prevent them from being protected
under this out-dated asylum law that we are burdened with. It is
important to stop these gang members from entering and staying in the
United States so that we can make progress toward not only deterring
violent crime, but also the spread of the methamphetamine plague.
The Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006 would reaffirm, indeed,
codify, the authority of local law enforcement officers to have
jurisdiction in Federal immigration laws, Charlie Norwood's CLEAR Act.
Many officers
[[Page H6852]]
want to enforce immigration law, but they fear repercussions at the
Federal level. This language would allow local officers to assist
Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents apprehending and removing
illegal aliens from our cities and local communities, in essence, Madam
Speaker, to deputize them and codify it.
Also included in H.R. 6095 is language to end this catch-and-release
system that I mentioned earlier and expedite the process of removal of
illegal immigrants. The legislation includes the Alien Smuggler
Prosecution Act to create uniform guidelines, let me repeat, to create
uniform guidelines for the prosecution of smuggling offenses.
On our trip to the southern border, we had a night tour at the
Arizona sector. In our group, Congressman Sodrel, the gentleman from
Indiana, Congressman Price from Georgia and myself, we watched agents
catch an individual trying to bring close to 400 pounds of marijuana
into this country. The reason why, we were told by Customs and Border
Patrol agents, that he chose 400 pounds was because in that particular
area, in that particular county, there would be no prosecution for
anything less than 500 pounds. So he was playing it safe, gaming the
system, if you will. While some areas prosecute for 5 pounds, others
will not budge for anything under 500. So we are addressing this
problem of smuggling. We need uniform and stringent guidelines to
prevent these smugglers from overwhelming certain areas of the border;
and as I said, they are attempting to use this loophole to game the
system. That has got to stop, Madam Speaker.
Finally, Border Tunnel Prevention Act, the Border Tunnel Prevention
Act of 2006 introduced by Chairman Dreier to address the problem of
these border tunnels. H.R. 4830 would increase penalties for border
tunnel construction, with up to 20 years' imprisonment.
One of the agents I met in Nogales, Arizona, mentioned that they
really need more tools to combat border tunnel construction, tougher
penalties and a means to detect tunnels before their completion. Often
organized crime on both sides of the United States-Mexican border will
invest substantial resources into the construction of tunnels for drug
smuggling and human trafficking. The tunnels, if we find them, they are
filled with cement as soon as they are detected, but we don't know how
many pounds of drugs or the number of illegal immigrants have made it
through the tunnel before it was closed for business. Despite the
aggressive nature of our Border Patrol, it is still difficult for them
to detect tunnels and discourage their construction. H.R. 4830 takes
the first step by increasing the penalties for that construction.
Madam Speaker, once again, I reiterate that border security is
eminently doable. Our Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border
Patrol agents are making progress, but they still need help. They know
that border security is possible, and they work long hours trying to
achieve that goal.
Our Border Patrol has not given up on us, and it is important for
Congress not to give up on them. The three bills we are considering
today will help them tremendously.
So I encourage all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, please
support this rule and support the underlying legislation.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
Madam Speaker, immigration and border security are not new issues.
These issues have been around for a while. They are serious issues, but
they have been issues that have been ignored by this Republican
leadership and this Republican Congress for years.
Notwithstanding the fact that President Bush has challenged us to
come up with comprehensive immigration reform, which also includes
tight border security, and notwithstanding the fact that this Congress
passed what I believe is an objectionable immigration reform bill and
the Senate has passed a more acceptable immigration reform bill and we
are supposed to go to conference and work out the differences and
produce a comprehensive immigration reform bill, as the President has
requested, the leaders of this House have chosen to do nothing, not a
thing.
So while many of us may disagree on some of the issues, this is a
high priority for all Members of Congress. But some of us are
questioning, why not do what we are supposed to do? Why not go to
conference and work out the differences and come out with a
comprehensive immigration reform bill that deals with border security
and that deals with the issue that a lot of people are concerned about,
what do you do with the 12 million people here in the United States who
are undocumented?
{time} 1030
Madam Speaker, the rule before us and the bills that will be
considered if this rule is adopted is not about border security and
immigration. That is not what we are doing here today. For those who
are watching, this is not about real legislative progress. No, Madam
Speaker, this rule and these bills are about politics. It is about a
press release and trying to convince the voters that we in this
Congress are actually doing something when, in fact, we are doing
nothing.
Now, before my friends on the other side of the aisle roll their eyes
and say, there he goes again, let me urge them to look at the calendar.
The Republican leadership cancelled votes for tomorrow and plans to
adjourn for the elections next Friday, September 29. The Senate is
following a similar schedule. That gives us 1 week to consider these
bills in both Chambers, pass and reconcile them before next Friday.
Now, it is not impossible, but the truth is there are competing
comprehensive immigration and border security bills that have been
passed by the House and Senate, as I have mentioned. The House passed
its bill on December 16, 2005, and the Senate passed its version on May
25, 2006, but again, this House has refused to go to conference. It is
puzzling because the Republicans, Madam Speaker, control the White
House, the Republicans control the House of Representatives, and the
Republicans control the Senate. One would think that since the
Republicans control everything, they can get along with each other and
actually move important legislation forward.
Madam Speaker, what we see on the issue of immigration reform and
border security, quite frankly, is a failure of leadership. You have a
dismal record on protecting our borders, a dismal record on dealing
with illegal immigration. This is a failure of being able to legislate,
to be able to do your job.
Instead, we are here again with another set of immigration and border
security bills. Let us be honest with the American public. This is not
a serious effort to legislate. No, Madam Speaker, this is about
election politics. This is about the Republican leadership in the House
trying to appeal to the cheap seats and gain some political points 1
week before we adjourn for the November election.
The gentleman from Georgia mentioned with great pride this
legislative accomplishment that we passed last week, the border fence
security bill which the Senate is now dealing with. It is important to
point out to the American people that while it sounds nice, there is no
money in it. There is no money to provide for the construction of such
a fence. The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee before the
Rules Committee last week could not even tell me how much it was going
to cost, but we know it is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars,
if not billions of dollars. So we pass a bill saying we want to do
this, but no money. Guess what? Without the money, you cannot build it.
So what are we really doing here? Are we protecting the borders, or
are we trying to put on a show for the American people before elections
that somehow we are doing something meaningful when, in fact, we are
not? We are wasting time.
The American people want comprehensive, compassionate immigration
reform, and they want strict border security plans, not partisan
legislation and not just a show to imply that somehow we are doing
something when, in fact, we are not.
[[Page H6853]]
Madam Speaker, for 5 years the Republican-controlled House, Senate
and White House have failed to move forward on comprehensive
immigration and border security. Done nothing. We have a crisis today.
It is a serious crisis in border security because Republican infighting
has crippled anyone's ability to enact comprehensive reform.
Madam Speaker, with 1 week left before we adjourn, we should be
considering meaningful legislation that will actually affect people's
lives today. Where is a clean bill increasing the minimum wage? The
Federal minimum wage is at $5.15 an hour. It has been that way for 9
years. I mean, how can you live on $5.15 an hour? We need to pass an
increase in the minimum wage, not a minimum wage increase tied to a tax
break for millionaires, but let us all agree that $5.15 an hour is not
enough for somebody to live. They cannot get out of poverty on $5.15 an
hour. Why can we not pass a clean minimum wage bill today? That would
be something meaningful. That would impact people's lives today. We had
time this year to vote ourselves a pay raise here in the Congress. Do
you not think we could take a few minutes and pass a pay raise for
those workers who are earning $5.15 an hour?
Where is legislation implementing the rest of the 9/11 Commission's
recommendations? The gentleman talks about homeland security and the
need to protect our border security. The nonpartisan 9/11 Commission
has given this Congress Ds and Fs on implementing homeland security
legislation. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be ashamed of
ourselves that we have not enacted all of those recommendations. We
need to do that. We could do that today. We should stay in session to
tomorrow and do it.
Where is the Labor-HHS appropriation bill? Where are some of the
other important pieces of legislation?
Madam Speaker, the truth is that this Republican leadership has
proven that they are incapable of running the House of Representatives.
Their priorities just do not mesh with those of the American people.
Bringing divisive bills to the floor to be used as political ammunition
in the upcoming elections is not leadership, but time and time again it
is how the Republican leadership in the House operates. Instead of
doing what is right for the American people, they continue to do what
they think is necessary to be reelected.
Madam Speaker, the American people are sick and tired of business as
usual. It is time for a change in leadership in this House. It is time
for a new direction.
One other thing, Madam Speaker, this is a closed rule. It is a closed
rule, which means you cannot amend it. You have to take it as is. No
amendments are in order, not one. If these issues are so important, why
can Members not have the opportunity to deliberate and to legislate, to
be able to offer amendments? Why can we not amend these bills? Why does
this have to be brought up under a closed process?
This is one rule we are debating on which is a closed rule, but
really it is three closed rules because there are three separate bills
we are going to be taking up and all of them under a closed process;
you cannot amend them.
Now, it is not surprising that it is being brought to the House in
this manner because democracy is dead in the House of Representatives.
This place is run poorly and cynically. It has lost the trust of the
American people. Every public opinion poll out there shows that we are
held in the lowest esteem possible. People have had it. They know the
way this place operates. They want this to be the people's House, not
the House where a few special interests get to call the shots.
Madam Speaker, over the last several years, the Democrats have tried
to offer amendments to various bills to improve our border security.
Over the last 5 years, if these amendments were adopted, there would be
6,600 more Border Patrol agents, 14,000 more detention beds and 2,700
more immigration and enforcement agents along the border that now
exists. That would be a positive thing if those things were adopted,
but each and every time they have been objected to by the Republican
majority in this House. They have been against increasing Border Patrol
agents, against increasing detention beds, against more immigration
enforcement agents along our border that now exists. Instead, we get a
fence bill that is not paid for. Instead, we get these bills that are
before us today that in all likelihood are going nowhere before we
adjourn for Congress.
This is not the way we should run the House of Representatives. This
is not the way to deal with border security issues and immigration
reform. This is cynical what is going on here today. This is a
rifleshot approach to a problem that needs a comprehensive approach.
We need to do so much better. So I am asking my colleagues to defeat
this rule.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, I yield to myself such time as I may
consume to respond to a couple of the comments that my good friend made
in regard to the point of the Senate-passed bill that is more
acceptable, the so-called comprehensive reform bill.
Well, I will tell you, my colleague said that would be more
acceptable. That comprehensive reform bill, by the way, is just a
euphemism for amnesty, and 90 percent of my constituents would beg to
differ with him, and I think that is true across this country.
He also made the point about this Congress not doing its work and
taking off tomorrow. Well, he knows and all of us know that the reason
we are not going to be in session tomorrow is because the leadership of
both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, in deference to the
fact that tomorrow is a high Jewish holiday, that we not be in so that
people could worship and observe these holidays.
So it is disingenuous these things that my good friend and colleague
is mentioning.
The other thing about going to conference with the Senate. Well, he
knows that in the Senate bill there is a revenue provision which makes
their bill unconstitutional. If they want to remove that provision and
then send that bill back over, we can go to conference. So it is just a
game that they are playing.
My colleague also, and he is perfectly within his rights to do this,
he talks about some issues that are more important to him and maybe to
his party and his leadership and brings up the issue of the minimum
wage and a stand-alone minimum wage bill. Madam Speaker, if we solve
this problem of porous borders and prevent these millions of illegal
immigrants from flooding into this country, taking jobs away from
American citizens and legal immigrants and, in the process, driving
down wages, if we can stop that hemorrhaging, then we will not need to
increase the minimum wage because it will be increased automatically by
employers.
So he wants to take a rifle approach and say we are taking a shotgun
approach. We are going to get the job done, and we are going to solve
many of these problems with this bill.
Madam Speaker, I proudly yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), my good friend who knows of what he speaks in
regard to immigration and secure borders.
Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
We have used a lot of analogies here to describe what is happening,
and, of course, I have one, too, and that is that we are looking at a
patient that is the United States of America, and we are hemorrhaging
at our borders. When that occurs, you first do something to stop the
hemorrhaging. You may want to think about how you may treat the patient
subsequent to that, but you stop the hemorrhaging, and this is what we
are trying to do on the border. That is the first way of addressing
this horrible problem that we have got.
It is important for us to do this and important for us to keep
reminding the American people that there are things that can be done,
that should be done by the Federal Government in order to try and
protect them and do what we should be doing to live up to our
responsibilities under the Constitution.
One of the bills today is of particular interest to me. It is the
State and Local Law Enforcement Cooperation Act, and it talks about
what we need to do and the authority of the State and local law
enforcement to voluntarily investigate, identify, apprehend, arrest,
detain, and transfer to Federal
[[Page H6854]]
custody aliens in the U.S. in order to assist in the enforcement of the
immigration laws.
Let me tell you how important this. Just yesterday it was reported in
Colorado, another event of one of hundreds that are around the country
of a similar nature, where someone who was in the country illegally
comes in contact with the local police. In this case, he was driving a
car that had a warrant out for it across the country. He was driving
without a license. He was driving with a forged identifier, something
that was observable to the policeman, who said he saw that the picture
had been cut out. That happened in early April. He was taken in and let
go. No contact was made with ICE whatsoever.
Just a few days ago he dragged another person, we are not even sure
who this other person is because there is not much left of the body,
but dragged her behind a truck until she was dismembered.
Now, if the everybody had done their job there, including the Federal
Government, and the job had been done at the local level, this
gentleman would have been off of the streets. If it was done at the
Federal level, he would have never gotten into the country. If the
local police had been able to do their job, except for their sanctuary
city provisions that stop them, he would have been off the streets in
April and would not have been able to commit this horrible crime.
But all these things are happening. They happen on a daily basis. We
need to engage the local communities in this effort to help us, and the
Federal Government must take on the responsibility here to secure our
borders. It is our true and one single responsibility.
I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, let me again point out to everybody in this Chamber
that the Republicans have controlled this place for a long time, and
for the last 5 years, they have even controlled the White House. It is
puzzling to me why they are all lamenting that we need to get things
done when they have been in charge. Why can they not work with each
other? Why can you not get things done?
The gentleman from Georgia talked about this comprehensive
immigration bill. The one in the House he voted for. The one in the
Senate he may not like. When the Senate passes a bill, and the House
passes a bill, in this case Republican control both Houses, you get
together, work out the differences and come up with a compromise.
{time} 1045
You know, we should have a conferees meeting and work out that
compromise and do what you are supposed to do, your job. This is not a
radical or controversial idea. Let's work it out; let's do it right.
And he has yet to explain why all this has to be brought up under a
closed process. Why can't we open this to amendments? We proposed last
night in the Rules Committee, the Democrats, that this be an open rule,
that Members be able to come down and amend this as they see fit. And
that was voted down along party lines; all the Democrats voted for an
open process, the Republicans as usual stuck together and voted to shut
this process down. That is objectionable. This is so important, we
should be able to, it should be open to amendments to any Member.
You know, again, I would say to the gentleman from Georgia,
Democrats, if you would follow our lead and you had adopted the
amendments that we proposed over the last 5 years, there would be 6,600
more Border Patrol agents, there would be 14,000 more detention beds,
and 2,700 more immigration enforcement agents along our border than now
exist. That, to me, would have been a positive accomplishment. But you
rejected all that time and time again.
So I object to the manner in which you are bringing these bills up.
This is all about politics. This is about trying to imply that you are
doing something when you are not. And I object, once again, to a closed
process. We need a little democracy in the House of Representatives.
This should be an open process; it should be open to amendments.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, at this time I want to proudly yield as
much time as he may consume to the distinguished chairman of the Rules
Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I first want to extend my congratulations
to my Rules Committee colleague, Dr. Gingrey, and thank him for his
fine work on this rule as he does such a great job on so many other
measures that we bring forward from the Rules Committee.
You know, this issue of working together which my friend from
Massachusetts has just talked about is something I am very proud of.
Included in this measure is a package that was first brought to my
attention by my Democratic colleague from California who serves in the
other body, Dianne Feinstein, and she raised concern about the issue of
tunnels going between Canada and the United States and Mexico and the
United States. And she and I spoke about this, and we said let's see if
there would be a way in which we could put into place a commonsense
reform.
She was shocked, my Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein, as I was
shocked, when we found that it is not a crime to bore a tunnel from
Mexico into the United States or to bore a tunnel from Canada into the
United States. It is not a crime to use property in the United States
for the tunnel to come out and for drugs, human trafficking, other
contraband to come through.
So we sat down, we joined with our colleagues Duncan Hunter from San
Diego, I know that J.D. Hayworth is strongly in support of this effort;
and one of the items that we have here is something that I think again
is a commonsense reform. Anyone can come to the conclusion that the
idea of boring a tunnel between our two countries is just plain wrong.
And so I believe that we have done the right thing. We have recognized
that border security is national security. And while there is no
evidence whatsoever of a Mexican terrorist, the threat of someone
utilizing one of those tunnels to pose a terrorist threat to the United
States is still there, and I believe that we need to do everything that
we can to make sure that we secure it.
Madam Speaker, since September 11 of 2001, 38 tunnels have been
discovered between the United States and Mexico and Canada and Mexico.
Frankly, 37 of them between Mexico and the United States, one from
Canada into the United States. And just this past weekend a tunnel was
discovered from Mexicali to Calexico, in my State of California.
We have a problem. It needs to be addressed, and it is being
addressed in a bipartisan way: Democrats and Republicans in the House
working together, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate working
together to try and step up to the plate and deal with this issue.
It is a very clear measure that we have, and I am very proud again to
have such strong support for it. We criminalize the utilization of
property, and we criminalize those who would bore under the border and
come into the United States. And what we also do is we double the
penalties for the areas where there already is criminalization. If the
drugs are brought by way of a tunnel, we double the penalty, because it
is outrageous that this kind of thing is being used.
We have a wide range of things that we have done. I heard my friend
talk about the fact that we haven't been able to do a lot of things.
The Senate just yesterday had a vote on cloture on bringing up the
issue of building these strategic fences. Now, I don't believe that we
can fence the entire border. I think that we have got 21st-century
technology that can be utilized, with motion detectors, unmanned aerial
vehicles, other things that can be used. But in heavy urban areas and
in the five areas where we see a large problem with human and drug
trafficking, building a fence is the right thing to do.
And I regularly heard my friends in the Rules Committee say, oh, the
Senate is never going to bring this up. We passed it last week, and
part of the criticism of it was the Senate wasn't
[[Page H6855]]
going to bring it up. The Senate has brought it up, and they are going
to pass it. And so what we have done is we have found areas of
agreement.
It is true there are aspects of the immigration debate that have
great disagreement. But when we can find areas of agreement like
securing our border and we in the House of Representatives can provide
leadership to do that, it is something that needs to be done. Why?
Because the American people are expecting us to do this. It is our
responsibility; it is the Federal Government's responsibility to secure
our borders.
Madam Speaker, I am proud of all three pieces of legislation that we
have here. I am proud of the other things that we have done to make
sure that we do secure our borders. It is our job to do it, and I am
very happy that we are stepping up to the plate and doing that.
I thank my friend for yielding.
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, first let me say to my colleague, the
chairman of the Rules Committee, that I am glad he can point to an
instance where he has worked with a Democrat. My question remains, why
can't Republicans work with Republicans? The comprehensive Senate
immigration bill has a fence provision in it. And if the Senate and the
House can go to conference and start working out these differences, he
could get his fence and we could also get a lot of other issues solved
as well.
Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I would simply say to the gentleman that I
very much want us to be able to complete and address a wide range of
issues. The fact that we are able to come together now in a bipartisan
way and address these areas of agreement is something I think that can
be celebrated, because Republicans are working with Republicans, but
Republicans are also working with Democrats who are like-minded to try
and deal with some of these very important security issues. I thank my
friend for yielding.
Mr. McGOVERN. Again, it is frustrating that when the President of the
United States is urging us to approach this issue in a comprehensive
way, that the Republican leadership of this House can't get together
with the Republican leadership of the Senate and address a whole range
of issues.
I think it is also important to point out so that there is no
misunderstanding for those who may be observing these proceedings that,
even if the Senate passes the so-called fence bill, they should be
under no illusion that all of a sudden a fence is going to be built
along the southern border of this country. The fact of the matter is
there is no money for it. This is an authorization, not an
appropriation; and nobody has been able to identify where the money is
going to come from.
The other thing is, again, I go back to what I said before. We need
more border security agents on the border right now. We need more
detention beds. We need more immigration enforcement agents along the
border. We have tried, we have tried over and over and over again to
get the majority to allow us just the right to offer amendments to be
able to address some of these issues and have been rejected over and
over and over again.
So I would simply restate what I said in the very beginning, and that
is that what is going on here today is somewhat cynical, because I
think the other side knows that at least with the three bills that we
are talking about here today, the chances of them being enacted by the
Senate are almost zero between now and a week from Friday; and we are
not going to accomplish anything except a press release. And at the
same time, we are not addressing the challenge that President Bush has
put before us, which is comprehensive immigration reform.
Madam Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms.
Jackson-Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise
and extend her remarks.)
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the distinguished member of the
Rules Committee, and I thank him for highlighting some of the failures
in our Achilles heel in this process.
Certainly as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the
ranking member on the Judiciary Committee on Immigration, none of these
bills have come through the committee. There have been no hearings, no
fact finding. Certainly the reason might be given by our colleagues on
the other side of the aisle is because we have already passed this
bill. This bill is a clone of the Sensenbrenner bill passed through the
House and ready for conference.
I think it is important to note that even though my friends in the
other body have come to cloture on the tunnel provision or the fence
provision, let me make it very clear that Senator Frist, the majority
leader, has indicated that there is a heavy, heavy agenda for next
week. When the Senate goes out at the end of the week, the question is
whether or not this will be an item that will be addressed.
What really should have happened 2 months ago, 3 months ago when both
bills had been passed, the Senate passed a bill, the House passed a
bill, we could have gone to conference. Maybe my colleagues don't
realize that there was fencing language in the Senate bill. That means
when you go to conference, you can expand that language if that was the
desire.
Now, I know many of my friends on the other side of the aisle will
talk about the immigration hearings that they attended, and I would
venture to say that at many of them I met them because I had the
responsibility and privilege of attending at least one-third to one-
half of them. And those hearings were redundant testimonies by people
that had already been to Washington. They drove a wedge in whatever
community we went to with protesters on both sides. There was a lot of
maligning of innocent individuals who happened to be of Hispanic
surname, suggesting in one hearing in California that all of the
jailhouses were filled up with individuals from Mexico and other
places, the mental facilities were filled up, the hospitals were filled
up. It was an imbalance.
So we are simply asking that there be a comprehensive approach. And
Democrats are not taking a back seat to border security, and that is
why I am offering the previous question that indicates the hard work of
Democrats, particularly as it relates to the idea of alien smuggling,
and that we have offered amendments to enhance immigration enforcement
resources. And as my good friend from Massachusetts has said, if our
amendments had passed, we would have 14,000 more detention beds today,
2,700 more immigration agents along the borders.
I went to the borders. I saw our Customs and Border Protection agents
working 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. And when they have to have what
we call a secondary inspection, when you stop a car and then you say it
doesn't look right, you must send them to the other building for a
secondary inspection. Do you know that there is nobody there because we
don't have enough staff. So it befuddles me when my Republican
colleagues come forward with these three separate bills that are
already in the bills we passed and we can just go to conference right
now. And that is why we are offering this previous question so that we
can ensure that you know on the record that out of this we will get 250
more immigration agents; detention officers by 250; U.S. marshal
officers by 250; 25,000 more detention beds; and by 1,000 the number of
investigators of fraudulent schemes and documents would increase.
{time} 1100
None of this has happened. But on the other hand, we have three
border bills that my friends on the other side of the aisle know for
sure have poison pills. We are okay with the tunnel. Who wants to have
our Nation exposed? But we want real border security, not forcing local
jurisdictions to engage in civil enforcement.
Let me remind you of the Canadian citizen who was mislabeled as a
terrorist and sent wrongly to Syria. This bill has provisions to detain
people indefinitely who may be just children, mothers, fathers who have
come across the border for economic reasons. Of course we want to
regulate this process and make sure that we address comprehensively the
immigration concern. We want to ask and answer the questions of
Americans.
But Democrats have gone on the record year after year, these bills
represent a series of poison pills that, if
[[Page H6856]]
you read them, embedded in them is violations of the rule of law. The
alien gang removal possibly will remove people who live in a house
where a gang member is.
So we believe that you vet a bill so that the American people can
have confidence in this process. And we have these bills already
passed.
My friend is going to get up and show horrific pictures. I come from
Texas. There is a drug war at the border, but I go down to the border.
I have friends at the border. I interact with the sheriffs and the
mayors. There is also trade and jobs at the border. So they want a
comprehensive approach. They want the bad guys arrested, drug dealers
and smugglers, which we can do. Nobody here is talking about the Drug
Enforcement Agency. Nobody is telling you that the Colombia cartels
that were raging in the 1990s have been somewhat stomped out, and they
moved to Mexico. Mexicans don't want the drug violence going on. Texans
don't want the drug violence going on.
But it is not an immigration issue. We need to secure the borders,
but we don't want to mix apples and oranges. We want to get rid of the
alien smugglers and the drug smugglers, but these poison pills, and
these bills are not the way to comprehensive immigration reform. I ask
my colleagues to defeat the rule so the previous question can go
forward.
I rise in opposition to House Rule H. Res. 1018, which provides for a
closed rule on the Border Tunnel Prevention Act, H.R. 4830; the
Community Protection Act, H.R. 6094; and the Immigration Law
Enforcement Act, H.R. 6095. We need an Open Rule for these immigration
bills so that they may properly be considered debated.
The Bush Administration has been in office for 6 years, and the
majority has controlled Congress for more than 10 years, but only now,
in an election year, have we begun to examine how to address the
critical need to fix our broken immigration security systems.
The House and Senate passed their bills on immigration reform and
border security months ago. Under regular order, we should be
appointing conferees and engaging the process of reconciling the two
bills. However, in a substantial deviation from normal practice, the
House Majority Leadership decided to launch a traveling road-show of
committee hearings in States across the country. The American people
saw through this charade and condemned the hearings as a waste of time
and taxpayer money, when Congress should have been focused on resolving
the immigration problem in conference.
Now that it is September, and the nationwide hearings are over, the
House Leadership continues to skirt its duty to conference with the
Senate, hiding behind procedural hold-ups and creating busy-work by
bringing these same provisions that were passed in H.R. 4437 last
December to the floor again, just before the election.
Consistently, the majority has sought great fanfare land publicity
for their supposed border security initiatives. But consistently, they
have refused to fund these promises and have failed to carry out the
security measures for which they seek public acclaim. The problem is
that immigration has become about talk and show, and winning elections.
The majority has done nothing to pass real, meaningful immigration
reform that addresses all needs--including the 12 million undocumented
already in our Nation, the needs for improved family reunification
policies, and reforms to the non-functional workplace enforcement, in
addition to the critically needed border security and enforcement
enhancements.
We know that 5 years after 9-11, the Bush Administration still does
not have any control over the borders. If the Bush Administration had
properly secured the border, we would not be facing the security issue
of millions of unknown people in our country.
If the Bush Administration had enforced the workplace laws, we
wouldn't have more than 7 million undocumented aliens working in the
United States.
If Congress had funded the 9-11 Commission's recommendations or
conducted proper oversight, we would not be voting on these same
enforcement provisions for the second or third time. We would be in
conference, hammering out a compromise with the Senate as we were
elected to do.
When we bring these bills to the floor, bills which we held no
hearings on, which did not go through committee, we owe the American
people a meaningful debate. We must have an Open Rule and an
opportunity to debate our Amendments in the Nature of a Substitute to
address the real needs of immigration and border security reform.
I urge you to vote against House Rule H. Res. 1018.
Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), who, in his capacity as chairman
of the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation,
held hearings in August.
Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this rule.
We do have a philosophical disagreement over open borders. Some of us
support fencing those borders. We do have a philosophical disagreement
over a massive amnesty. Some of us believe that massive amnesty in 1986
made the situation worse. That is why we don't want to go forward with
another amnesty of that type.
Let me say I did chair the hearings in San Diego and in Texas. I
toured that southern border with local law enforcement and immigration
officials. I heard their arguments in favor of putting up that border
fence and their arguments about doing something about these tunnels.
This was a tunnel that was six ballfields long. I went through this
tunnel. Contraband was trafficked illegally over these cement floors,
under electric lighting. The tunnel had water pumps, full ventilation,
and a system of pulleys through it. There have been other tunnels
discovered since. I don't believe in open borders. We are going to
criminalize the action of putting up these tunnels.
We are also, with the Immigration Law Enforcement Act, we are going
to allow local law enforcement, and there are 700,000 local law
enforcement. Wouldn't it be nice to allow them to voluntarily assist
the 2,000 ICE agents in this country so when we have a situation in the
future like we had on 9/11 where four of those hijackers had been
stopped by local police for speeding prior to the attacks, they can
call into that hotline and, if there is suspicious activity, can look
into the immigration status of those people who are here in this
country illegally.
Let me also say that the Community Protection Act is coming up under
this rule, and criminal gangs today like MS-13 are no longer just the
neighborhood kids who may be up to no good, the kinds of gangs we
remember from our youth, because we have transnational criminal gangs
active around the country that now resemble organized crime syndicates.
They have highly organized leadership and organizational models, and
networks that stretch across this Nation. They operate across the
border. They will bring, in the words of one sheriff, anything or
anybody across that border for a price.
I don't believe post-9/11 that we can have an open borders policy. I
think we have to fence the borders. I think we need these commonsense
bills to pass without that massive amnesty that our friends would like
to attach to it. I urge passage of this measure.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I think we need to be careful with words. Nobody is advocating
amnesty. I don't think President Bush is advocating an amnesty. I don't
think Senators Hagel or Martinez or McCain are advocating amnesty.
What people want is action. What people are frustrated with is the
fact that this Republican Congress has done nothing. We passed the
comprehensive immigration reform bill in the House. They passed one in
the Senate. We want to go to conference to work out the differences and
come up with an approach that will work.
Instead, what have you done? You have gone around the country holding
hearings at taxpayers' expense, and the reviews have been dismal. The
headlines from the leading newspapers from across the country are ``All
Talk No Action on Immigration,'' and ``Immigration Hearings Misfire.''
``Field Hearings a Waste of Time and Money.'' ``Immigration Hearing
Staged to Run Out the Clock'' so we don't do anything meaningful. That
is not what we want; we want real action.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts
(Mr. Olver).
Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and on the
rule.
Mr. Speaker, America needs comprehensive immigration reform. I think
every American who is paying any attention agrees we need comprehensive
immigration reform.
Everybody in this people's House, Democrats, Republicans, and even
the
[[Page H6857]]
Independent, understands that we need comprehensive immigration reform,
and every Member of the other body, every Republican, every Democrat,
and their Independent, understands that America needs comprehensive
immigration reform.
Now every Member of this body, Republican and Democrat and
Independent, every Member understands that in order to get a reform
bill passed and signed by the President, that one has to have a single
piece of legislation that is agreed to by both of the bodies.
So everyone knows that for immigration reform of a comprehensive form
to become law, that that must pass both bodies in exactly the same form
and be signed by the President or passed over with the President's
veto.
Now, the process of doing that is not understood by everybody in this
country, but in general form much of the country understands that. And
I am not sure whether the majority party here believes that people in
this country are not knowledgeable, ignorant of those processes, so
much that they think that this kind of a sham that we are going through
can be carried out.
The majority party in the House of Representatives is the Republican
Party. The majority party in the other body is also the Republican
Party. This process that we are engaged in today is a sham. It is meant
to mislead people that something is actually being done about
immigration before we go home for the elections in November, before we
recess for those elections, when, in fact, nothing really is being
accomplished.
In our people's House on the 16th of December last year, the Border
Protection Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Act passed by 239-182,
a margin much larger than is the margin by which the majority party
holds the majority. So it was a bipartisan bill in part.
In the other body on the 25th day of May of this year, 4 months ago,
their Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act was passed by a vote of 62-
36, again by a margin much larger than the margin by which their
majority party, also the Republican Party, passed the bill. It is again
a comprehensive and bipartisan bill.
So this process where we have legislation where two of the bills are
in large part within the legislation that is being put forward today,
and also is part of the bill that passed back in December by this body,
by this people's body, and the other one has been passed in a different
form by the other body, all one has to do is go to conference. It would
be possible to go to conference and work out the differences between
those two pieces of legislation so a single bill could go to the
President and be signed and provide what everyone in America, everyone
in this body and everyone in the other body would call comprehensive
immigration reform.
That is the way that this ought to be done. The process that we are
involved in today is a sham, and we should defeat the previous question
and defeat the rule and go to comprehensive immigration reform by going
to conference and doing it the way it has to be done in order to have a
law be passed in this country.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), a member of the Ways and Means
Committee.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, I rise in strong support of
the rule and the legislation. Let me start with this observation.
With all due respect to my colleague from Massachusetts, it is never
a sham when we come to the people's House with legitimately different
points of view to be articulated. That is the strength of our
constitutional Republic.
And to my other friend from Massachusetts managing the rule for the
other side, let me respectfully suggest that this is not a Republican
problem or a Democratic problem, it is an American problem.
Now, with the preceding speaker, I take great exception to the notion
that somehow this is a masquerade. I appreciate the delineation of
process, and following that logic, let's make this point. What we do in
process is prioritize.
I, for example, have a provision in the underlying legislation that
deals with outlawing the tunnels, which is not a crime, believe it or
not. This is a reasonable and necessary action. This is a reasonable
and necessary action to be taken.
My friend from Texas got up and spoke about a bill that had passed
through the Senate dealing with a fence. The problem was that in the
final bill passed by the Senate, there was a provision to ask for the
Mexican Government's permission to have such a fence. Clearly that
doesn't sit well with the American people.
Although my friends lament taking the hearings to the people out of
Washington, D.C., it is exactly what we should have done. We have heard
from the people. Support the rule and the legislation. Let's make these
tunnels illegal, let's strengthen the border, and we can do it for
America, not for either political party.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would just respond to the gentleman that
I think he has conceded that this is a sham by virtue of the fact that
it is being brought up under a closed rule, a closed process.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).
Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong
support of the rule for H.R. 4830, the Border Tunnel Prevention Act.
Our Nation's border security is essential to having effective homeland
security. However, since September 11, 2001, foreigners have breached
our borders with no less than 38 tunnels, and these are only the
tunnels about which we know.
During July I was at a veterans' post in Florida in my district, and
a gentleman had this shirt on. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what
America wants. They want the borders closed. They want to make sure
that people are not entering into our country illegally, either
crossing the borders or via the tunnels.
We all know that coyotes use them to bring illegal aliens into the
United States, bypassing our legal immigration system.
Listen up, America. Congress should not ignore these consistent
breaches of our security.
{time} 1115
And that is what the bill before us is all about. The bill before us
will do just that. That is one reason why we absolutely need to pass
this rule, because we need to make it a crime to build or finance an
unauthorized tunnel into the United States.
I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
I hope that all Members will join me and vote ``no'' on the previous
question so I can amend the rule and allow the House to consider an
amendment by Representative Jackson-Lee that would really take on the
issue of border security rather than just pay it lip service. The
proposal would amend H.R. 6095 to equip the Department of Homeland
Security with the resources the 9/11 Commission says we need to secure
our borders, to shut down the alien smuggling business, and to catch
and hold illegal immigrants entering our country.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to print the text of the
amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the
previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Wamp). Is there objection to the request
of the gentleman from Massachusetts?
There was no objection.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority in this House
continues to approach border security and immigration control in its
usual ineffective and piecemeal approach, putting election-year
politics ahead of real and responsible solutions. Republicans are big
talkers when it comes to border security and immigration reform, but
they have never been willing to put their money where their mouth is.
The bills we will consider on the House floor today are more of the
same. This debate and these bills are supposed to remind voters that
Republicans are somehow tough on immigration, but instead they just
remind all of us that Republicans have not been able to make any
progress on the urgent issue of border security.
[[Page H6858]]
So I urge all Members of this body to vote ``no'' on the previous
question so that we can bring up this amendment to actually do
something about the problems on our Nation's borders instead of just
talking about it.
The 9/11 Commission has given this Congress Ds and Fs when it comes
to homeland security, and we have a particularly low grade when it
comes to protecting our borders. Let us not only do the right thing.
Let us do something that is real.
People are cynical. They are tired of politics as usual in this
House. They are tired of these last-minute bills that come up before
elections to somehow imply that we are doing something when we are not.
We have a serious problem on our borders. We need serious action. This
is not serious action.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. If that
vote does not prevail, vote ``no'' on a closed rule. If these issues
are important, we should be able to amend these bills. We need a little
democracy in this House. Let's get this right.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to once again thank Chairman
Sensenbrenner, Chairman Dreier, and the House leadership for continuing
the debate in favor of securing our borders. The pattern in recent
years has been to address the issue of immigration and border security
once a decade. In 1986 we had an immigration reform bill. In 1996 we
had an immigration reform bill. But the results at best were mixed, and
this year we have yet another opportunity to get it right. Ninety
percent of the American people are demanding that we secure our borders
and secure our borders now.
The legislation offered under this rule will help our current agents
detain and apprehend criminals, not just those crossing in search of
work, Mr. Speaker, but truly dangerous individuals as well. Security on
our borders remains a crisis. Our agents on the border need our help.
Our constituents are forcefully voicing their support for immigration
reform, with an emphasis on border security.
And I ask my colleagues, please support this rule and the underlying
bills so we can start to solve this problem and solve it now.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, it's often said legislating is
like making sausage--stuffing various ingredients into one product. But
sometimes it's more like slicing salami--cutting something into pieces,
to be swallowed one at a time.
Today, the Republican leadership clearly has decided that sliced
salami will be the blue plate special, and that there can be no changes
or substitutions. They are saying they favor a piecemeal approach to
immigration reform and are more interested in political posturing than
in trying to enact legislation that will meet all the challenges
involved in strengthening our borders, reducing illegal immigration,
and addressing the status of illegal immigrants now in the United
States.
So they have cut three pieces off the immigration bill the House
passed last year, and are bringing them to the floor under this rule
which prohibits us from even debating any amendments or offering any
additions to the menu.
In other words, it's take it or leave it, and forget about trying to
make any improvements--just like it was with last week's serving, the
bill for 730 miles of high-price fencing along the border. I think that
is wrong, and I cannot support that procedure.
However, I will vote for the three separate bills covered by this
rule, because while I have some concerns about some of their
provisions, on balance I think they would improve current law and
policies.
That was why last year I voted for H.R. 4437, the Border Protection,
Antierrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, the overall
bill from which today's bills have been sliced.
Among other ingredients, that bill also included provisions added by
the amendment by our colleague from California, Mr. Hunter. As I
mentioned, those provisions were sliced off last week and served up as
H.R. 6061, the so-called Secure Fence Act.
I am not opposed to the construction of fencing or other barriers
along our borders, but I am not convinced Members of Congress should
attempt to substitute our judgment about technical questions of
engineering and law enforcement for the expertise of those responsible
for border security.
I voted against the Hunter amendment, and against H.R. 6061, because
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities--those with the
most experience in border security have not requested such a mandated
expenditure, and in fact, have expressed a preference for different
resources and tools to do their job. Moreover, I am skeptical that the
kind of fence-building mandated by the Hunter amendment and H.R. 6061
is a cost-effective response to the problem of illegal entries into the
United States.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, about 730 miles of
new fencing would be required by H.R. 6061. They say that it costs
about $4.4 million for a single layer of fencing per mile--but the bill
calls for double-fencing, which costs more, and also for building all-
weather roads in the middle. So, using a conservative estimate of $9
million a mile, it would cost nearly $6.6 billion to build the 730 mile
fence called for in H.R. 6061.
I think it would be better from Congress to resist the temptation to
micro-manage the Department of Homeland Security and instead to allow
it the discretion to spend those billions of dollars on a variety of
measures--fences in some places and other kinds of barriers in other
places, plus other technology and increased border patrol manpower--
that it decides, based on experience and expertise, will do the best
job of securing the border.
And if those steps turned out to cost less than 730 miles of double
fencing, the Department could put the rest of the money to good use.
For example, $2 billion would pay for the 35,000 detention beds
called for the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
(the 9/11 Act) that are need to implement the ending of the so-called
catch and release of illegal aliens apprehended after they cross the
border. It would take only $360 million to hire, train and equip 2,000
border patrol agents, while $400 million, 250 more port-of-entry
inspectors and 25 percent more canine detection teams could be added to
the field. Or for $400 million every U.S. port of entry could have a
radiation portal monitor, so that all incoming cargo can be screened to
detect nuclear or radiological material.
The three bills we will consider today are not perfect, but they are
less problematical and I will vote for them.
H.R. 4830, the Border Tunnel Prevention Act would establish new
criminal penalties for people involved with constructing illegal
tunnels beneath our borders, including those who knowingly finance such
actions, with particularly severe penalties for using such tunnels to
smuggle illegal immigrants, drugs, weapons of mass destruction or other
illegal goods into the United States. I strongly support this
strengthening of current law.
H.R. 6094, called the Community Protection Act, like corresponding
parts of the larger bill I supported last year, would allow for longer
detentions of illegal aliens prior to deportation if they have refused
to comply with deportation proceedings, pose a threat to community
safety or public health, because they have a highly communicable
disease, or if their release would threaten national security or have
serious adverse consequences for American foreign policy. It includes
provisions for periodic review of such detentions and affords these
detained aliens an opportunity to seek reconsideration of their cases
and to present evidence in support of their release. In addition, it
would centralize judicial review of legal challenges to the detention
of illegal immigrants--something that I think is of dubious value but
not so bad as to outweigh the rest of the legislation.
Further, the bill would explicitly bar admission to the United States
of members of criminal street gangs, allow the deportation of illegal
aliens who belong to gangs convicted of threatening or attempting
crimes, and requires that they be held in detention prior to
deportation and makes criminal street gang members ineligible to
receive asylum or temporary protected status. I strongly support these
provisions, because criminal street gangs whose members include illegal
aliens are a serious and growing problem in too many communities.
Finally--for today, at least--H.R. 6095, the Immigration Law
Enforcement Act would establish new procedures to speed resolution of
lawsuits brought against the Federal Government that are based on the
implementation of immigration laws and require the Justice Department
to hire more people to prosecute human smuggling cases.
It also includes language reaffirming the existing inherent authority
of the States, their political subdivisions, such as counties or
cities, and their law-enforce agencies to investigate, identify,
apprehend, arrest, detain, or transfer to Federal custody aliens in the
United States . . . for the purposes of assisting in the enforcement of
the immigration laws of the United States in the course of carrying out
routine duties. I find this acceptable because the bill says ``Nothing
in this section may be construed to require law enforcement personnel
of a State or political subdivision of a State to--(1) report the
identity of a victim of,
[[Page H6859]]
or a witness to, a criminal offense to the Secretary of Homeland
Security for immigration enforcement purposes; or (2) arrest such
victim or witness for a violation the immigration laws of the United
States.''
In other words, this is not a mandate and will not interfere with the
ability or any state or local government to decide whether and how it
will undertake to respond to question of immigration law and policy,
matters which are essentially the responsibility of the federal
government.
Mr. Speaker, nobody should think that passing these bills today--
something I support--will come close to completing the work that
Congress needs to do regarding immigration.
This plateful of slices is not even the full salami the House passed
last year--a bill that, by itself, dealt with only part of the full
menu of issues that must be addressed.
I voted for that bill because I think improving border security is
absolutely necessary. But I am convinced it is not sufficient.
It does not address the most difficult and challenging aspect of
immigration reform, namely the question of how to deal humanely and
effectively with the millions of illegal immigrants currently living
and working in this country or the difficulties that their employers
including many Colorado companies that have contacted me--during the
transition to a changed labor market that may follow revisions in
current immigration laws.
As we all know, the Senate has passed what its supporters--including
President Bush--say is intended to be a comprehensive immigration
reform measure. We should follow their lead.
Following the Senate's lead does not mean simply accepting their bill
as it stands. I think that would be a mistake, because I think that
bill has defects that must be remedied. Instead, it means recognizing
the full dimensions of the problems that must be addressed and the need
to address them without unnecessary delay. It means appointing House
conferees and directing them to meet with their counterparts from the
other body to resolve differences and shape a final, comprehensive bill
that addresses those problems in a way that is in the best interests of
our country and the American people.
If that effort succeeds--as I think it can and am convinced it must--
the result not only will be better than any of the bills before us
today, it will be better than either the bill we passed last year or
the bill that the Senate passed earlier this year and in fact will
deserve to be sent to the President for signing into law.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, how long will the Republican Majority continue
to bring to this House Floor piecemeal legislation that purports to fix
the immigration crisis in our country?
H.R. 4830, H.R. 6094 and H.R. 6095 are not real reform. In fact,
these bills are largely a repacking of previously enacted bills dressed
up to look like the Republicans are serious about immigration reform.
Higher monetary and sentencing penalties, more enforcement and the
usurping of du process are all tactics that have been tried throughout
the years and have brought us to the situation we find ourselves today.
The American people are being duped into thinking these three
Republican bills will prevent illegal immigrants from entering our
country. I cannot in good conscience vote for these three bills not
because I don't want to stop illegal immigration but because they are
hollow authorizations without any funding to implement them. What we
should be voting on and what I would support is the implementation of
the 9/11 Commission immigration recommendations which I have voted for
seven times in Committee or on the Floor. Those seven votes would have
authorized and funded thousands of new immigration agents and detention
beds. Instead we are voting to impose a HUGE unfunded mandate in our
local law enforcement by deputizing them to be first line immigration
officers. If the leadership in the House and Senate want real
immigration reform, they need to fully fund all the immigration agents,
detention officers as called for by the 9/11 Commission report.
I do not support illegal immigration and believe that anyone who
enters the US in violation of U.S. immigration laws should be
penalized. But our country is in need of an immigration policy that
accounts for the fears
9/11 instilled, in addition to the hope that immigrants bring to our
nation.
Immigration reform should include family reunification, asylum and
refugee admissions, and employment-based immigration. It must be
compassionate and humanitarian and strike the delicate balance between
American jobs, border safety and national security interests. H.R.
4830, H.R. 6094, and H.R. 6095 do none of this.
I urge a ``no'' vote on these bills.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I stand to explain my votes on the
immigration bills that this Congress considered today.
I applaud our decision to pass the Border Tunnel Prevention Act (H.R.
4830), which would make it illegal for any person to build or finance a
cross-border tunnel and for any person to use such a tunnel to smuggle
drugs, weapons, or undocumented immigrants. These tunnels have become
remarkably sophisticated ways for lawbreakers to enter our country, and
I strongly support this bill to ban their construction and use. This
is, at least, a small step to better border patrol.
But though we took one small step forward today, it is not enough.
Instead of working on real reform, we passed the so-called ``Community
Protection Act'' (H.R. 6094). This bill is not about protecting our
community; it is about election-year scare tactics and fearmongering.
We need to fight crime and we need to deport criminals. But we can
already do that. This bill does not deal with people who are in our
country illegally. We can already deport individuals who are here
illegally. Nor does this bill relate to non-U.S. citizens who are
legally in the United States but commit a crime. We can already deport
gang members and any foreign national who is convicted of a crime
ranging from murder to shoplifting. This bill gives the Executive
Branch unprecedented powers to deport legal immigrants who have not
committed any crime. It gives the Attorney General of the United States
the unprecedented power to declare any group a gang. And it gives the
Department of Homeland Security the power to deport any non-citizen who
is legally residing in the United States if they declare, without any
due process, that such an individual is a member of those groups. This
means the Department of Homeland Security can deport a legal immigrant
who has obeyed all of our laws. This violates our First Amendment right
of association and our Fifth Amendment right to be treated as
individuals and not as guilty by association.
This bill also has an expedited removal process that severely
curtails due process and could lead to erroneous removal of people who
should not have been deported. This includes U.S. citizens who cannot
provide proof of citizenship in the seven-day window, or someone abused
or eligible for asylum who cannot build their case in time.
We all want to stop gang violence. It is an insidious problem in my
district and in the districts of many of my colleagues. But we already
have laws to deport criminals. We need to stop wasting time passing
laws we don't need to deport people who aren't committing crimes and
start working on real solutions to solve gang violence.
Unfortunately, it seems this Congress consistently passes laws that
allow us to avoid real reform. The misnamed ``Immigration Law
Enforcement Act'' (H.R. 6095) also passed today, is one such example.
This bill should be renamed the ``Pass the Buck for Immigration Law
Enforcement Act.'' While it claims to simply ``reaffirm'' the authority
of states to enforce immigration law, it actually distracts local law
enforcement from their most important job--safeguarding our
communities--and forces them to do the job that this Congress has
repeatedly failed to do. We should enact real border security and
comprehensive immigration reform; instead, we are passing the buck to
our local communities and, without direction or funding, making them
carry out complicated immigration enforcement. Enforcement of our
immigration laws is a federal responsibility. Let's not shirk that
responsibility. Let's not pretend this is someone else's problem.
The Montgomery County and Prince George's County Police in my
district are opposed to this legislation. They do not have the time or
the resources to handle the increased workload that immigration
enforcement brings. It is not their job. It is the job of the federal
government. And we need to do our job. If we abdicate our
responsibility on vital issues, we are failing the American people.
Moreover, it is irresponsible to make local police forces handle
immigration without giving them any additional resources or any
training in immigration law. Our police are already overburdened. We
cannot ask them to do our job, too.
I want to be clear--I believe that we should have tougher enforcement
of our immigration laws. But we need to do it in a way that makes
sense. And it does not make sense to pass the buck to local
communities. This is another unfunded mandate from a Congress that
repeatedly fails to seriously address the important issues.
So today this Congress has approved a bill that creates a law we
don't need to punish those who don't break the law and a bill that
passes the buck to local law enforcement. When is Congress going to do
the work we were elected to do? When are we going to pass real
immigration reform and real security instead of superficial band-aid
bills? It's time to stop playing politics, and to start protecting our
borders.
The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:
Previous question on H. Res. 1018, Rule for: H.R. 4830--Border Tunnel
Prevention Act, H.R. 6094--Community Protection Act, H.R. 6095--
Immigration Law Enforcement Act
In the Section 3 of the resolution strike ``and (2)'' and
insert the following:
[[Page H6860]]
``(2) the amendment printed in Section 4 of this resolution
if offered by Representative Jackson Lee or a designee, which
shall be in order without intervention of any point of order
or demand for division of the question, shall be considered
as read, and shall be separately debatable for 60 minutes
equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an
opponent; and (3)''
At the end of the resolution add the following new section:
``Sec. 4. The amendment to H.R. 6095 referred to in Section
3 is as follows:
Insert the following in section 201(a):
``(2) Alien smuggling is a continuing threat to our
nation's security, leaving the United States vulnerable to
terrorist attacks.
(3) Alien smuggling continues to be a threat to the
security of the United States because of the record of
failure of the Republican House, Senate and Administration,
including:
(A) Seven times over the last four and a half years,
Democrats have offered amendments to enhance immigration
enforcement resources, which would have enhanced efforts to
combat alien smuggling. If these Democratic amendments had
been adopted, there would be 14,000 more detention beds, and
2,700 more immigration agents along our borders than now
exist. Each time, these efforts have been rejected by the
Republican majority.
(B) In the 9/11 Act of 2004, the Republican Congress
promised to provide 8,000 additional detention beds and 800
additional immigration agents per year from FY 2006 through
FY 2010. Over the last two years, the Republican Congress has
left our nation short 5,000 detention beds and nearly 500
immigration agents short of the promises they made in the
Intelligence Reform (or 9/11) Act of 2004, to the detriment
of efforts to combat alien smuggling.
(C) From 1993-2000, the Clinton Administration added, on
average, 642 new immigration agents per year. Despite the
fact that 9/11 highlighted the heightened need for these
resources, in its first five years, the Bush Administration
added, on average, only 411 new immigration agents, to the
detriment of efforts to combat alien smuggling.
(4) Alien smuggling continues to be a threat to the
security of the United States because of continuing inaction
by the Republican congress, including the failure to go to
Conference to resolve differences between competing
immigration reforms, was valuable resources and time on a
series of field hearings during the Congressional recess that
excluded the input of local citizens and leaders, and
engaging in political showmanship by using the last few days
of the Congress to consider new immigration legislation when
it has failed to complete work on immigration bills that have
already passed the House and Senate.''
Insert the following after section 201(c):
``(d) Additional Resources to Protect Against Alien
Smuggling by Implementing the 9/11 Commission Act.--In each
of fiscal years 2007-2010, there are authorized such sums as
may be necessary to increase by 2000 the number of
Immigration agents, by 250 the number of detention officers,
by 250 the number of U.S. Marshals, by 25,000 the number of
detention beds, by 1000 the number of investigators of
fraudulent schemes and documents which violate sections 274a,
274c, 274d of Title 2, Chapter 8 of the Immigration and
Nationality Act.''
____
The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means
This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous
question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.
A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote
against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow
the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an
alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be
debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the
previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or
control the consideration of the subject before the House
being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous
question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the
subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling
of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the
House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes
the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to
offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the
majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated
the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to
a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to
recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said:
``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to
yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first
recognition.''
Because the vote today may look bad for the Republican
majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is
simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on
adopting the resolution * * * [and] has no substantive
legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is
not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican
Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United
States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135).
Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question
vote in their own manual: Although it is generally not
possible to amend the rule because the majority Member
controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of
offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by
voting down the previous question on the rule * * * When the
motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the
time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering
the previous question. That Member, because he then controls
the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for
the purpose of amendment.''
Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives,
the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a
refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a
special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the
resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21,
section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: Upon rejection of the
motion for the previous question on a resolution reported
from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member
leading the opposition to the previous question, who may
offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time
for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does
have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only
available tools for those who oppose the Republican
majority's agenda to offer an alternative plan.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I
move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous
question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule XX, this 15-minute vote on
ordering the previous question on House Resolution 1018 will be
followed by 5-minute votes as ordered on adopting the resolution, and
suspending the rules and passing S. 418.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 225,
nays 195, not voting 12, as follows:
[Roll No. 461]
YEAS--225
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachus
Baker
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Beauprez
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Boustany
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Chocola
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Crenshaw
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Feeney
Ferguson
Fitzpatrick (PA)
Flake
Foley
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gingrey
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Green (WI)
Gutknecht
Hall
Hart
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Istook
Jenkins
Jindal
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Northup
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Osborne
Otter
Oxley
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Pombo
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Schmidt
Schwarz (MI)
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Sodrel
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Sweeney
Tancredo
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walden (OR)
Walsh
[[Page H6861]]
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--195
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Barrow
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Cardin
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Chandler
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Cramer
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (TN)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Edwards
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Ford
Frank (MA)
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth
Higgins
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kind
Kucinich
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Maloney
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McKinney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Sabo
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz (PA)
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sherman
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
NOT VOTING--12
Brown (OH)
Capuano
Case
Cubin
Gohmert
Harris
Kirk
Meehan
Moore (KS)
Ney
Ryan (OH)
Strickland
{time} 1145
Messrs. OBEY, HOLDEN, GEORGE MILLER of California, DICKS and HOLT
changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Stated for:
Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 461 I was unavoidably
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Recorded Vote
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 227,
noes 195, not voting 10, as follows:
[Roll No. 462]
AYES--227
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachus
Baker
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Beauprez
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Boustany
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Chocola
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Crenshaw
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Feeney
Ferguson
Fitzpatrick (PA)
Flake
Foley
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Green (WI)
Gutknecht
Hall
Hart
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Istook
Jenkins
Jindal
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline
Knollenberg
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Northup
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Osborne
Otter
Oxley
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Pombo
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Schmidt
Schwarz (MI)
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Sodrel
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Sweeney
Tancredo
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOES--195
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Cardin
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Chandler
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Cramer
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (TN)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Edwards
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Ford
Frank (MA)
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth
Higgins
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kind
Kolbe
Kucinich
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Maloney
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McKinney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Sabo
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz (PA)
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sherman
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
NOT VOTING--10
Brown (OH)
Capuano
Case
Cubin
Harris
Meehan
Moore (KS)
Ney
Ryan (OH)
Strickland
{time} 1154
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________