[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 17 (Monday, January 29, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H963]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    DON'T HURT THE FEELINGS OF CHINA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about immigration chaos that is 
occurring in this country.
  There has been a lot of talk about immigration, border security and 
all of the problems that are occurring. But let's talk about one that 
has maybe slipped through the cracks and we don't hear too much about.
  We have people in this country that have come from foreign nations 
that are illegally in the United States. Some of those people are 
criminals. They have gone to penitentiaries throughout this country. 
Our Federal Government then captures those individuals, takes them to 
an immigration judge. They are ordered deported back to their nations, 
and here is what happens: eight of those nations refuse to take back 
lawfully deported aliens. They won't take back their own citizens. 
Remember, all of these people are illegally in the United States, many 
are criminals.
  How many people are we talking about? Well, we are talking about 
136,000 individuals. The cost to the taxpayers to incarcerate those 
individuals while they are waiting deportation hearings is $83 million. 
Who are those nations? Well, seven of the eight, Vietnam, China, India, 
Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, and Jamaica. They get a permanent get-out-of-
jail-free card in the United States because we cannot permanently 
detain these people in jail after they have been ordered deported and 
their country of origin refuses to take them.
  So what do we do about it? Well, I think that these countries, any 
nation that refuses to take back lawfully deported individuals, should 
not receive foreign aid from the United States. But many of these seven 
or eight that I have mentioned do not receive foreign aid. So why don't 
we make sure that these people take back their aliens? Well, we already 
have a law on the books that says under section 243(d) of the 
Immigration and Nationality Act, upon notification by Homeland Security 
that a country is not accepting or unreasonably delays repatriation of 
their citizens, the Secretary of State must discontinue granting 
immigrant or nonimmigrant visas to those citizens of that country until 
Homeland Security informs the Secretary of State the alien has been 
repatriated.
  That sounds good, but the problem is Homeland Security doesn't 
enforce the rule of law; and the reason they don't enforce the rule of 
law, according to a letter we have received from Homeland Security, is 
that there are other sanctions that they must use because we have 
foreign policy issues specifically with the Chinese. So apparently 
Homeland Security is not even notifying our own Secretary of State to 
deport these individuals.
  Mr. Speaker, this ought not to be. If a person is supposed to be 
lawfully deported back to their native country, even China, Homeland 
Security has the obligation to follow the law and tell the Secretary of 
State so these people can be shipped back to where they belong.
  It is simple, if you come to America illegally, you go home after you 
are lawfully deported. If your own nation doesn't want you, then you 
don't get foreign aid, or you don't get any visas for any purpose.
  These people that these countries will not take, 136,000, have become 
our problem because their nations don't even want their own citizens. 
Our government needs to be more concerned about the rule of law, the 
cost to the American taxpayer than it is about hurting the feelings of 
the Chinese on some foreign policy issue.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we urge that Homeland Security follow the law and if 
you are ordered deported and these nations won't take them, then they 
shouldn't receive any visas to come to this country for any purpose.
  And that's just the way it is.

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