[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 61 (Tuesday, April 17, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H3440-H3441]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           OPEN BORDER CHAOS

  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, recent memos that have been released finally by 
the Justice Department regarding certain situations in the Federal 
Government, specifically in the U.S. Attorney's office, have revealed 
numerous things. No wonder the Justice Department fought releasing 
these e-mails and memos.
  We now understand that the prosecution of Federal drug cases along 
the Texas-Mexico border has dropped dramatically. All the way from 
Texas to California, prosecutions of drug cases have dropped. In some 
places up to 25 percent of drug cases are not prosecuted that were 
prosecuted just a year ago. What is happening is the Federal Government 
is not able to prosecute drug smugglers, and they are asking the States 
to prosecute those cases.
  Many States--especially those counties on the border with Texas and 
Mexico, same was true in Arizona and Mexico, New Mexico and California 
and Mexico--don't have the resources to prosecute all those drug cases.
  So what is happening is many cases are dropping through the cracks, 
all because the Federal Government has dropped 25 percent of 
prosecution of drug smugglers into the United States because they say 
they are overwhelmed with cases.
  How many cases are we talking about? What types of drug cases? Well, 
in some cases they are prosecuting cases of only 500 pounds or more of 
marijuana. Five hundred pounds, that is just a number. But we can 
relate it to money, and 500 pounds of marijuana is worth about 
$400,000. A drug smuggler smuggling in $400,000 worth of dope or less, 
in some cases is getting a pass by the Federal Government because they 
say they are too overwhelmed with the illegal entry into the United 
States by drug smugglers.
  If the States don't prosecute those cases, as many States are not 
able to do, what is happening is those drug smugglers are getting a 
get-out-of-jail-free card.
  Drug smugglers are not stupid. They can weigh their marijuana. So all 
they got to do, before they bring that dope into the United States, is 
make sure they have less than 500 pounds, because if they are caught by 
our border agents, the Federal Government won't prosecute them because 
the Federal Government says we have too many cases.
  This is absurd; this is nonsense. This is chaos. Law enforcement is 
mad about this, and rightfully so. One former DEA official in the El 
Paso sector made the comment that if the Feds decline to prosecute, and 
the State lacks the resources to prosecute these drug smugglers, they 
just go free. You have people violating the drug laws who now get away 
with it in the United States, all because the Federal Government 
doesn't do its job. The job is bigger than prosecuting drug smugglers. 
The job is protect the borders, and our Federal Government doesn't do 
that.

[[Page H3441]]

  They claim that they are not prosecuting drug cases because they are 
prosecuting folks that illegally enter the United States. But maybe 
that is not true either. These same memos now reveal that in the State 
of Texas an illegal coming into the United States has to be captured 
six times before they are actually prosecuted criminally for being in 
the United States.
  What happens is if they are caught the first six times, they are just 
taken home. Of course, they come right back to the United States. They 
are not being prosecuted. In Arizona, sometimes it is up to 11 times 
illegals enter the United States before they are criminally prosecuted 
for being here illegally.
  So what is the Federal Government doing? Well, we do know they are 
spending a lot of their time prosecuting border protectors. They are 
spending a lot of taxpayer money to make deals, back-room deals with 
drug smugglers so that they can prosecute the likes of border agents 
Ramos and Compean, deputy sheriffs like Gilmer Hernandez, individuals 
who are enforcing the law.
  The Federal Government's duty is to protect the dignity of this 
Nation. It needs to protect the border from everybody coming into the 
United States illegally, no matter the reason, but especially those 
people who are criminals, especially those drug smugglers who bring 
drugs into the United States and make a profit off of that human 
weakness, and now giving them a pass, because they are not bringing in 
enough dope? This is absurd. Not prosecuting illegals until the sixth 
or eleventh time because we don't supposedly have the resources is 
absurd, and it is all because we don't protect the dignity of the 
United States.
  Border control in this country doesn't seem to even exist. Third 
World nations protect their borders better than the United States, and 
the United States protects the borders of other nations like Korea. Why 
don't we protect our own border?
  While all of this is going on down there on the lawless border of the 
United States and Mexico, now we hear about a new reform package, a 
comprehensive immigration plan that is supposed to have little border 
security, supposed to have a lot of amnesty and supposed to have a 
whole lot more guest workers in the United States. That is not going to 
work.
  What we need is the National Guard on the border. We need to protect 
the borders, the dignity of the United States.
  And that's just the way it is.

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