[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 23, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H5713-H5717]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) is
recognized for 55 minutes.
Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to speak before the
House today, and it's about an issue that many Americans all over this
Nation are discussing, are listening about, and, frankly, are very
concerned, if not outraged, and that is the proposal before the Senate
this week that would actually not only allow, but demand amnesty for
12- to 20 million illegal immigrants in this country while millions
wait patiently outside to immigrate into our country legally.
Tonight I am honored to be able to have colleagues here to be able to
address the issues and actually talk about what's going on in their
districts and address the issue that where does America go from here?
How do we stop the Senate from making this terrible mistake? How do we
turn the President and the Senate away from the path of amnesty that
was followed in 1986, which caused the greatest influx of illegal
immigration? How do we get the elite here in Washington to wake up to
the fact that you do not stop illegal immigration by announcing to the
world that you are now going to reward up to 20 million people who are
illegally in the country?
I have the privilege to recognize the gentleman from Texas at this
time.
Mr. CARTER. I thank my friend from California for recognizing me on
this very important issue to the people of the United States of
America, the opening of our borders and the pouring in of somewhere
between 12- to 20 million people who have broken the laws of the United
States of America.
I want to talk a little tonight about what's going on in my district
and what's going on in Texas and what's going on in the country. But,
first, I would like to respond to some talk that took place in the last
hour, just for a second.
When we talk about gasoline prices, you know, all this talk about
gasoline prices, I saw in this last hour, they kept trying to say all
this was President Bush's fault. The Democrats are in charge of
Congress. They have told us tomorrow that they are an equal branch of
government, and that they are, in fact, in charge of this Nation at
this time, and they are responsible for these gas prices. It's time to
be responsible to go along with your rights. The Democrat majority has
something they can do about gas prices, but, of course, let's look at
what they have done.
The first thing they did in Six for '06 was take away the incentives
to encourage domestic drilling and, in fact, place a tax on gas
production, and, thus, decrease the availability of American petroleum
to replace our burden on foreign petroleum. They proposed a cut-and-run
theory on dealing with the issue in Iraq, which, if we cut and run,
would turn over the second largest oil reserve in the world to Islamic
terrorists.
They propose now, out of the Senate, to open our borders to the
illegal aliens that are already here and to put together a policy which
would encourage more illegal aliens to come across our borders and
consume 20 million people's worth of oil and gas in this country. These
are the things that they are criticizing the Republican minority for
causing the gas prices to go up?
But that all just gives you a picture of where we are going right
now. Now the Democrats have come out of the Senate, remember, they are
the majority in the Senate, too, and they have come out with a proposal
to, they say, solve our immigration crisis.
I want to say, and I have told this to the White House, and I have
told it to my colleagues here in Congress, and I tell them again, the
American people want a solution to the illegal immigrant problem.
That's where they see and know the crisis is, and they are saying you
have the tools and have had the tools to do something about this
problem for a long time, over 20 years, and nothing has been done. The
American people see this as a crisis, and they are right.
You know, for 20 years I sat on the bench as a district judge in
Texas. When people broke the law, the people of our country, in
Williamson County, Texas, they wanted the laws enforced. They called
upon our sheriffs and our law enforcement officers to enforce the law,
and they called upon our courts and our juries to enforce the law. I am
proud to say we did.
This issue is a law enforcement issue as much as any other issue.
There are between 12- and 20 million people in this country, we are
told by some, came here to start a new life. You don't start a new life
by breaking the law, and the American people know that. The American
people want something done about it.
The American people want us to defend our sovereign borders of the
United States and to tell these people, you cannot break the laws of
the United States and then expect to come into this country and get the
benefits and the privileges of being a United States citizen. They are
unhappy.
When the Senate bill was announced, I believe it was last Friday,
before the end of the day and into Monday, we had over 1,000 phone
calls, an estimation. I know we had over 400, I think it was, right
here in D.C. Then our other two offices were overwhelmed with phone
calls, all from citizens who we, you know, who are people of our
community, who live and work in our community, and every one of them
said this is an outrage. Do not support this concept of amnesty for
people who have broken our laws. They have to be responsible for their
own behavior. We raise our children to be responsible for their
behavior, and we expect them to be.
We tell the American citizens, we set up a series of laws, we call it
the rule of law. It is a basic principle of the Republic of the United
States that the people respect the rule of law. Without it, democracy
and the Republic cannot function. Yet we have proposed a bill that will
waive the rule of law for up to 20 million or possibly more than 20
million people that are in this country illegally.
That's just not right, that's just basically old country boy not
right to the folks back in Texas and to the folks, I believe, across
this Nation. They get up
[[Page H5714]]
every day, and they abide by the laws of the United States. They pay
their taxes. They do the right thing for the right reasons because
that's what Americans do. That's the kind of people we want in the
country, people who abide by the law.
To just say that it's a good way to start a new part of our
population by letting them break the law to become part of our Nation,
it just flies in the face of everything America thinks is right. We
hear the argument, we are sure they are good people. I am sure they are
good people. They are hard-working people. I have lived in Texas all my
life, and I have seen this phenomena all my life.
These are hard-working people. I have visited with many of them in my
limited Spanish and find them to be people looking for a job and who
are hard-working. But it doesn't change the fact that they are starting
their life in the United States of America illegally. This is wrong,
and the American people know it's wrong.
Mr. BILBRAY. One of the things, I think, people misunderstand when
they talk about the amnesty, that people that are here illegally
working in the United States are not just violating immigration law. A
lot of people don't realize that about 73 to 75 percent of everyone who
is here illegally is working illegally because they acquired false
documents, stole somebody's ID or identification to work, which is a
felony.
The Kennedy proposal in the Senate not only gives amnesty, an
exemption from prosecution, for being illegally in the country, but
exempts them and gives amnesty for the felony they committed when they
used somebody else's identification or used false documentation to
acquire a job.
So we have got to remember that we are not only giving amnesty for
immigration, we are now proposing that we will pick a certain
population to be exempt from a felony violation and not only forgiven
for that violation, but to be given a special program, the Z visa, that
only those who have broken the law qualify for. Those individuals who
have been waiting patiently to immigrate into this country illegally
are not allowed, under this proposal, to have the Z option, to go for
the Z visa.
That is a concept of rewarding illegal behavior, a little felony
illegal behavior, when you are telling those who have not broken our
laws that you are not going to offer them the same thing.
{time} 2315
Mr. CARTER. Absolutely. And you hit on a very good point, and I thank
the gentleman for yielding. The point that you hit on is that there are
people that are trying to do it the right way, that have been waiting
patiently to do this the right way in countries around this world; not
just from our neighbors to the south, but all over this world that have
waited patiently to get the opportunity to come to the United States,
following the rules in the effort to go to work, enjoying the freedom
of the world we live in, and ultimately by doing the right thing, the
right way, hopefully become American citizens.
Mr. BILBRAY. Reclaiming my time. I am chairman of the Immigration
Caucus, and I am proud that my mother is an immigrant, a legal
immigrant. She came here, played by the rules; and, as she reminds me
again and again, it is an insult to her and everyone else who played by
the rules to gain legal status in this country to watch anybody, let
alone the Senate of the United States, announce to the world that they
are going to give up to 20 million people the cherished ability to live
permanently in the United States and to give them a vehicle towards
citizenship.
At this time, I have the honor to yield to the gentlewoman from North
Carolina.
Ms. FOXX. I thank the gentleman for taking on the task of serving as
chairman of our Immigration Caucus. I appreciate the leadership that
you have given to it and I appreciate the comments that you and
Congressman Carter have made tonight. I have several points I would
like to make.
The members of our caucus know that I am very keen on the use of
language, and that language makes a big difference. And we keep hearing
over and over from the supporters of this Senate bill that this is not
amnesty. But I think it is important that we define the word
``amnesty,'' so I looked it up under dictionary.com unabridged.
The first definition: a general pardon for offenses, especially
political offenses against the government, often granted before any
trial or conviction.
And then I like this one, another one from Online Etymology
Dictionary: pardon of past offenses, intentional overlooking.
I think that is what we are talking about here. And, again, I think
it is important that we define what we are talking about. That is
exactly what the Senate is proposing.
Now, the other thing that I want to say is that I am really concerned
with the way this bill has come out. It is being debated in pieces. It
was written in secret, sprung on us late in the day, and it didn't go
through a committee structure as most of our bills do. It was brought
straight to the floor of the Senate. The leadership of the Senate, the
Democratic leadership of the Senate wanted to cram it through before
the Memorial Day holiday.
Those kinds of actions are not the actions of people who are proud of
what they are doing. If they were proud of this bill, they would have
brought that bill to a committee, they would have debated it, they
would have heard the arguments pro and con, and then they would have
come up with something that was discussed openly with lots and lots of
people. That is the way, as Congressman Carter says, our Republic
operates. We don't operate in secret. We don't do things like that. We
don't cram bills through in a hurry, especially when they are so
controversial.
You know, you mentioned, we want to talk a little bit about our
districts. I live in, I think, the most beautiful area of the world,
the Fifth District of North Carolina. I am very blessed to live there.
And I live among, I think, the brightest, hardest-working people in the
world. And they are very intelligent, very conscientious, very
patriotic people. They are upset about this proposal. They don't like
it.
Since I came to Congress a little over 2 years ago, I have been
telling everybody who would listen, this is the biggest issue in my
district, it is the biggest issue in most districts. And why? Because
the American people, and again particularly the people in my district,
have played by the rules and they understand the importance of the rule
of law.
I tell folks over and over what makes this country so special are
three things: the rule of law, our moral underpinnings, and our
capitalistic way of life. But you can't have moral underpinnings and
you can't have the capitalistic system if you don't have the rule of
law.
Now, we can do something about illegal aliens who are here in our
country. People say, oh, we can't do anything about them. We surely
can. What we can do is start enforcing our laws. We have not been doing
that. Both Democratic and Republican administrations are guilty of it.
I can't forgive our Republican administrations because they are guilty
of it, too. But we can close down our borders and we can enforce the
laws as they are now. And I think that what we have to do is we have to
look at this issue of illegal immigration in a very careful, law-
respecting way. The solution doesn't lie in wholesale amnesty.
And the President has said that this bill will treat people with
respect. Well, I respect the President, but I have to strongly disagree
with him. Because from what I have seen so far, this bill fails to
respect the millions of people who have worked within the system and
have immigrated to our country legally. And those people who want to
come to this country legally, they are doing it the right way. These
people have done it the wrong way. We are not going to reward, we
cannot reward illegal behavior by uttering platitudes about respect and
fairness. Our first principle on immigration reform has to be upholding
American laws. If we do not do that, then our system will be
fundamentally flawed.
The bill that the Senate is proposing is going to legalize these
people immediately. They talk about triggers being in there, but the
triggers don't really go into effect. And the triggers are nothing but
laws that we have already had in place for a long, long time. And if
this bill passes and is signed by the President, we will be, I think,
doing severe damage to our country, not just in the short run, because
I think that it
[[Page H5715]]
will be both in the short run and in the long run. There will be a huge
battle ahead of us if we pass this bill, because we are going to be
facing more and more illegal immigration.
In addition, as I said before, the people of the Fifth District are
very bright people. They know amnesty when they see it, and they know
that if this bill or something even vaguely like it passes, it is going
to dilute the meaning of citizenship in this country, and that is the
last thing we want to do. We are the last best hope for freedom in this
world; and if we don't enforce our laws and help people come here
legally who want to come here, and deal with things on a case-by-case
basis, we are simply going to destroy what it is that is wonderful
about our country.
Congressman Bilbray mentioned that his mother was an immigrant but
came here legally. My father's parents came from Italy in the early
1900s; my mother's ancestors came much earlier than that from Scotland.
But the Ellis Island model was a very, very good model. People had to
come here, prove that they were healthy, prove that they either had a
job or had a sponsor for them to be here. That worked wonderfully well
in this country for a long, long time. And think that we have to have
something akin to the Ellis Island experience again in this country,
where we know that the people who are coming here are coming here
because we need them here or they provide a benefit and they can be
independent. They will not have to have public assistance.
Mr. BILBRAY. If I may reclaim my time. I think the one thing we don't
talk about enough in this country is that there is this perception that
we don't allow very much legal immigration inside.
The United States today, Mr. Speaker, accepts more legal immigration
than all the rest of the world combined. We are accepting more legal
immigration today than at any other time in the history of our
Republic. This country is one of the most gracious and welcoming
countries, the most welcoming country in the history of the world. And
so we have nothing to apologize for when it comes to accommodating,
except for the fact that we made a terrible mistake in 1986.
When you were talking about the definition of amnesty, it actually
comes from the Latin word for amnesia. And maybe what the Senate is
forgetting in having this amnesia is what happened the last time they
proposed this type of amnesty.
Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting a different result. Let's just look at what
happened when Mr. Kennedy, who promised in 1986 this would be the last
amnesty that America would ever have, clearly stated, ``It will never
happen again.''
Twenty years ago, we tried this experiment of rewarding illegal
immigration. We were promised that it was only going to be 1 million
illegals that were given amnesty. It turned out it was 3 million. Now,
20 years later, rather than having 3 illegals in our country we have 12
to 20. Mr. Kennedy, did your amnesty really eliminate illegal
immigration?
I will tell you as somebody who was down at the border, I was
actually the chairman of San Diego County on the border, a county of 3
million. The greatest influx of illegal immigration that we have seen
in this country happened immediately after the last amnesty. And anyone
who says that we are going to stop illegal immigration by announcing to
the world that 20 million illegals got rewarded is either ignorant of
the facts or willing to fabricate verifications that are absolutely
outrageous. And you cannot stop illegal immigration when you announce
that you are going to reward it, and the proof is in history. Last
time, Mr. Kennedy, you did this, we had the largest illegal immigration
population.
And, frankly, I think there are people who are proposing this amnesty
who know what it will do but will not come clean with the American
people. And I think the one thing we saw this week, and I think all of
us will agree, is that the elite in Washington think that the American
people don't understand this issue. Well, the American people
understood it. Within 45 minutes after Mr. Kennedy and the Senators
were doing their press conference, the American people started making
phone calls, they started e-mailing, they started faxing. They sent a
signal to the Senators and they sent a signal to us that, Washington,
we are watching and we are not going to fall for it this time. We are
going to stand up and defend our grandchildren's birthright, and we are
going to start demanding that you start doing the right thing.
And I think the guilt goes both ways. The public is fed up with the
Republicans and Democrats, because they have not seen an administration
enforce the law. We have to gain credibility that we really can be
trusted with the security of this country by being willing to do the
right thing and enforce the immigration laws here. And not until we do
that, no matter who is President, no matter what party is in power,
will the American public trust us to move on with a lot of other
agendas.
Ms. FOXX. I just want to ask one question. I think that you have
touched on a very important point again, and that is that we here in
the House of Representatives are the Representatives of the people. We
are the people's House. And I think the Senate is completely out of
touch with what the sentiment is in this country.
And I agree with you, the American people get it. The people of my
district get it, and they are very, very bright. I think that we need
to be listening to those people. And the House generally does listen to
the people.
And I hope that they are going to send a very, very strong message to
the Senators about how they feel about this, and turn this around in
the Senate, because we need this bill to be killed in the Senate and
not even come to the House of Representatives to be debated. But I know
that we as Republicans are going to have some alternatives that we will
be presenting in this House, and I hope that the majority party, which
has made so many promises, none of which it has kept in this session of
the Congress, will listen to the people and say, we are going to take
up legislation that will do what needs to be done, which is protect our
borders and provide for national security and give the people a true
immigration reform.
{time} 2330
Mr. BILBRAY. I appreciate that. And actually, I guess we've got to
remember that 11 months ago, I was standing exactly where you are and
gave my acceptance speech for being sworn into Congress. And there were
18 candidates for the 50th District in California. And the people of
San Diego wanted to send a clear message to Washington that this
illegal immigration issue is something that people need to address. And
I think today you're hearing not just one district scream loud and
clear that they want the illegal immigration issue addressed, but
you're seeing people calling from all the districts, calling their
Representatives and demanding that we finally do the right thing and
not sell out on this issue.
I'd like yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. CARTER. And I thank the gentleman for yielding. And you mentioned
that your wife came here as an immigrant, and my wife came here as an
immigrant also. And I'd like to share just a little bit of our story
because I think it gives us a good comparison to what's being proposed
in the Senate today and what we used to operate under in this country
when you do it right.
I am very blessed to the fact that my wife, Erica, fell in love with
a law student from the University of Texas law school back in 1965. And
I happen to humbly be that law student. And we married in 1968.
And to be very honest, I really never even thought about the fact
that my wife might have to actually apply to come to the United States
after she had married a red-blooded American. You know, I thought that
was just the ticket, but quickly found out that wasn't the ticket.
We had to go down to the embassy, and we had to fill out all these
papers. We had to have someone pledge $5,000 to ensure that she would
have a sponsor who would take care of her when, if she was allowed to
enter the United States and ultimately get a green card to be a
resident alien of the United States.
She had to take a physical, and as she took a physical with several
other women her age, one of whom looked very much like her, when they
got the lung exams back, this is a personal
[[Page H5716]]
thing that happened to us, they came to us and said, I'm sorry, but our
exam of your wife's X-Rays shows that she's got tuberculosis, and she
may not enter the United States, which we were newly married. We hadn't
even been married a month at that time, maybe a month and a half. We
were crushed. And then the doctor came back and said, I'm sorry, we got
the wrong X-Ray. This is something we will never forget. And
unfortunately, that X-Ray was for another redheaded girl who was in the
same physical group that had their physicals, and so I felt very sorry
for her, who was also marrying an American, but she was not going to be
allowed to come to the United States because she had tuberculosis. But,
praise God, it wasn't my wife.
So we paid our fee. We took our physical examination, we had the
background check which is required for all people coming into the
United States, and then when we arrived in the United States, in those
days every year you had to register with the Federal Government. Every
person who was not a citizen but had a green card, between January 1
and January 31 you went down to the post office and you filled out a
form every year and told the United States Government where you were if
you were a green card holder in the United States. We don't have that
provision anymore. It went away.
We did all those things. My wife learned American history. She
learned the English language. In the meantime, she had three American
children, but she still met all the qualifications that you had to have
to get to be an American citizen. And in 1976, I was very proud to see
my wife raise her right hand and take the oath of allegiance to the
United States of America and become a United States citizen. And I am
proud of her for many, many reasons, and that's one of them today.
That's how you do it to do it right, to do it legally, and to become
part of what this mysterious wonder that is America. It's not to sneak
across a border in the middle of the night and hide out as a lawbreaker
to make money. That's not the way you're supposed to come into the
United States of America.
And as you pointed out, we have a procedure where people legally come
here by the millions, and we welcome them.
And let me point one more thing out, and then I'm going to yield
back, and that is here about a month ago we had about, I don't know,
looked like several hundred people walking around this building with T
shirts on that said ``Legalize the Irish.'' And I stopped some of them
in the elevator and said, what in the world does that mean? And they
said, well, we're all here illegally, and we want to be made legal.
This is not an Hispanic issue. This is an issue for the people who
came to Disneyland and never went home. This is the people from all
over the world that have overstayed their visas and are staying in the
United States, as well as those who come across our borders. They are
just as big starting life as a lawbreaker as people who swam the Rio
Grande or walked across the desert of Arizona or California or New
Mexico in the middle of the night. This is something that is not the
right way to become an American citizen, and we can do better than
this, and we must. And I yield back.
Mr. BILBRAY. Reclaiming my time. I mean, the American people are such
a patient, humanitarian people that maybe sometimes we forget there's a
fine line between being the nice guy and being a patsy. My mother
immigrated from Australia. She got her citizenship, and she's very
proud that she was one of the first Australian war brides to get her
citizenship, April 1946. And when she sees that there are not only
illegals in the country saying they want to be legalized, they want
amnesty, what shocks her is that the United States allows people to be
here illegally and demand, demand that America change its laws to
accommodate them because they do not want to play by the rules.
What other Nation on Earth would allow people to be illegally in
their country and then demand that their duly elected representative
government modify its statutes to accommodate them because they do not
want to be bothered by following the laws of their host country?
What kind of relationship do we expect to come from a situation to
where we accommodate people who come to this country illegally, while
we tell those patiently that want to come here legally, sorry, you get
put on the back of the list?
And, you know, I'm very impressed. Learning a new language is always
a big challenge, and your wife did that. My wife didn't immigrate from
a foreign country. She came from New Orleans, and we're still trying to
understand some of the things she says. My mother immigrated from
Australia, and the Australians are going to have to learn English
someday themselves.
But I think the real sad fact is that there are actually people that
think that there's some good that can come out of this not only for
America, but for the immigrants and immigrants around the world if we
think breaking the law is now going to be a standard. If you want to
live in a country where their law is bought and sold and shifted around
by politicians just for political expediency, there's a lot of
countries you can go to. Those countries tend to be poor, downtrodden,
and poverty-stricken, and, by the way, happen to be the places that a
lot of these illegal immigrants are coming from. But why transfer that
corruption from those Third World countries into this country and
destroy the mother's milk of freedom, the concept of the rule of law,
while at the same time you're saying that the economic backbone of
freedom, the middle class, is expendable at the same time?
In fact, there are people that try to accommodate illegal immigration
to such a point that this bill that the Senate is proposing will say
that an illegal alien qualifies for in-State tuition, even though a
United States citizen doesn't qualify. And this really hits me
personally, because in the State of California, where I have been a
resident since the day I was born, I have paid taxes my entire adult
life, I was told that my children, to get in-State tuition, I had to
show a personal tax return. But somebody that they suspect is an
illegal alien doesn't have to show their personal records; they just
have to show utility bills. And when I said, I'll show you my utility
bills, I'll show you all the way back to the '70s; oh, excuse me, sir,
you don't qualify because we don't think you're illegal.
So if the American people think this is just about illegals and just
about, you know, 12- to 20 million, they've got to remember that they
are going to be put in a position of having to prove more than somebody
who is illegally in this country; that American citizens will become
second-class citizens to those who are not even citizens and not even
legal. This is how absurd this line goes if you follow Mr. Kennedy off
the edge.
And remember, this is the same man, in 1986, that said no more
amnesties anymore. I guarantee it. That is a sad state of affairs that
the American people are facing, that same big lie, 20 years later. And
it's time we say no.
And I'm so proud, I am so proud to be an American, knowing that the
American people called those Senators, e-mailed them, faxed them and
wrote them to where the Senate, rather than trying to cram this through
this week, were forced to back off and give some time. And now this
next week the American people will have more time to read the fine
print, read about things like in-State tuition and loans to illegal
aliens, and read about what is really in this bill and how bad it
really is.
And I'd like to yield back to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. CARTER. And I thank the gentleman for yielding. There are a lot
of interesting things in this bill that common sense tells you that
nobody's thinking about this. I'll just give one example. They have
told us that there are people that have been waiting legally, and
they're going to make sure that these illegals will get behind those
people, and it will take approximately 8 years to process these people.
Now, I just sat down and looked at it. If you take the people that
are in the pipeline right now, and I don't remember the number, but
it's a couple of million, I think, and we're going to process them over
8 years to get them processed in doing it the right way, these are
people doing it the right way, and I can tell you this, I know this for
a fact. The last time I checked, which was about 3 months ago, those
people we were helping who were doing it
[[Page H5717]]
right processed their papers through the San Antonio office, which is
where, our part of Texas, I live just north of Austin, San Antonio
office, they were still working on 1999 and 2000. They may be up to
halfway to 2001 right now. So they're 7 or 8 years behind. So they got
the number right.
Now they're going to tell us that they're going to take 12 million
and instantly process them for a Z visa. About 18 months they say it'll
take. So that tells you right off that the standards have got to be
different. They have to be different.
And I was asking questions of someone who seemed to have some
knowledge of the bill, and he said, well, you take a full handprint,
you run it through all the criminal records, and you find out whether
they've got a criminal record. Well, if that's so easy, why is the
number one answer that we get from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service when we call them, why are we delayed, FBI's got to do
background checks? These things are extensive. They take a long time.
Wait a minute. Take a full handprint and run it through the records.
That's what we're told we're going to for these Z visas. That's not
enough for the legal people, but it seems to be enough for the illegal
people.
How about the fact that we've got diseases south of our southern
border which are incurable, like a strain of tuberculosis? Shouldn't
everybody that's here have a medical check? Where is it? Is it going to
be there? It doesn't sound like it is.
Mr. BILBRAY. Not even mentioned.
Mr. CARTER. Not even mentioned.
So, you know, I think there was some good-hearted people tried, but
they tried miserably on this bill. The American people want to take our
time and do this right. And right now their concern, if you ask them,
you don't hear them say, I want new immigration policy. You hear them
say, I want the illegal immigration problem stopped, which means pour
the resources to the border, pour the resources to law enforcement,
enforce the laws that are on the books. And then when the American
people say, you know what, we can trust our government again to enforce
the law, that's when they will be willing to say, now let's work with
coming up with alternatives to make this whole thing work. And we can
do it right the next time.
This is the wrong bill, the wrong time and, as Ms. Foxx pointed out,
shoved down our throat by the Democrat majority.
{time} 2345
Mr. BILBRAY. Congressman, you hit on the real point. In a Republic
where the governed get to choose the government, trust is an essential
component. And there isn't any trust in the American people when it
comes to the Federal Government enforcing our immigration laws. There
isn't any credibility in the Federal Government when it comes to
stopping illegal immigration.
The American people believe, and rightfully so, that special
interests manipulate the Federal Government to stop illegal immigration
from being controlled in the past, and that unless they really scream
loud and start holding elected officials accountable at the polling
box, that they are going to continue to have that type of corruption
delivered to them when it comes to the immigration issue.
I want to just say clearly, a lot of people say why am I feeling so
strong on this concept of amnesty? Why can't we just do it one more
time? Let me tell you something. I have talked to people south of the
border and in Third World countries all over the world. And if people
would take the time to listen.
To give an example, a congressman in Zacatecas, Mexico, a Mexican
congressman, says to me, Look, Brian, you know you have got to educate
these people because we all down here know you are going to give
amnesty again. They are all going to be U.S. citizens. Why do you think
they are coming up illegally? They know you are going to reward them.
You go down to places like Central America. They say, Look, we are
told come on up now. America is going to give us amnesty. We are going
to become citizens. The way to America is come illegal. That message is
being heard around the world. We need to send a clear and defined
message that says no more amnesty, no more rewards for illegal
behavior. You want to be an American? You follow the law and play by
the rules. If you are not willing to do it, we will never give amnesty
again. And, believe me, if we send that clear message, if we stop this
amnesty, people around world will finally understand, no, it is no
longer the option to come here illegally. You have got to play by the
rules.
And then and only then will we see the ability to control not just
our border; but our neighborhoods, our jobs, our parks, our hospitals,
our schools, are finally going to be ours, and those that we choose to
be our neighbors, not somebody who snuck in and stole away in the
middle of the night.
I am so honored to stand here today with you, sir. I appreciate the
hard work that you have given the people of Texas and your district,
and I look forward to working with you to make sure that we present a
workable, enforceable immigration policy that will stop illegal
immigration and not allow this proposal in the Senate to move in and
allow another illegal immigration wave being caused by another ill-
fated amnesty scheme. Thank you very much.
Mr. CARTER. If the gentleman would yield, I am very honored to appear
here with you, Mr. Chairman, with all the great work you are doing on
the Immigration Caucus trying to come up with a solution to this
illegal immigration in this country. I salute you and all of our
colleagues who join you in this effort to come up with reasonable
solutions for a very difficult problem.
I want to join you in saying to the world, we are asking the rule of
law to prevail. It's very simple. This Nation was built on the rule of
law. Let the rule of law prevail. And the rule of law does show
compassion on the poor and the downtrodden, but it has to exist or they
have no protection. And if we start to tear down the rule of law, it is
going to be as harmful to those who are downtrodden and poor as it is
to the richest man in the world because the rule of law is the basis of
our Republic.
So I reach out to the Hispanic community who feels like this is
targeted to them and say, no, it is targeted to all who come into our
country illegally. I reach out to those friends back home that say be
compassionate, and say to them we can be compassionate. Let's get law
and order back in our land and then let's show compassion. But law and
order must come first. It is what this country was built on.
Mr. BILBRAY. I would like to close, Mr. Speaker, by announcing that
the American people have really spoken this week, stopped the Senate
from forcing something through the Senate. And not only that, they have
sent the message to their Members of the House of Representatives. And
I would like to announce today that this week, because of all the
reaction and the backlash against the Senate amnesty scheme, five new
Members have joined the Immigration Reform Caucus in the House of
Representatives. And I am very happy to welcome new Members in that are
committed and working hard to be able to finally do the right thing on
illegal immigration and start enforcing our laws the way the American
people want to do; securing our borders and securing our neighborhoods
and securing our future for our grandchildren.
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