[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 99 (Tuesday, June 19, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H6727-H6733]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE BUSH-KENNEDY AMNESTY BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is 
recognized

[[Page H6728]]

for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, it was a great victory for the American 
people when the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill was withdrawn from 
consideration in the Senate 2 weeks ago with such a stinging rebuke 
from the voters, because we understand that the voters had contacted 
their elected Representatives in such number that the bill was no 
longer tenable. After that rebuke from the voters, one would think that 
the White House and the congressional leadership would have listened to 
the American people and concentrated on securing our borders and moving 
forward with those activities to secure our country, and forget about 
legalizing the status of 15 to 20 million people who are in our country 
illegally. Well, how wrong we were. Like a bad horror movie, the 
monster you thought had been killed is somehow being brought back to 
life. It's rearing its ugly head again in the sequel. Well, here it is, 
Nightmare on North Capitol Street, part two, starring the Bush-Kennedy 
amnesty bill. This time we need to drive a stake into the heart of this 
monstrous threat to the American people.
  And what threat am I talking about? It is about time that the 
Washington elite and the elite of America's business community 
understand what impact this massive flow of immigration into our 
society has had on the life of the American people.
  What we face in California and now throughout the country is a 
disintegration of our education system. Our schools, for which our 
children are dependent on their education and the future of their 
lives, are being diminished in terms of their capability of educating 
our children because there is a massive influx of children into our 
school systems, children who should not even be in this country.
  We have a health care system that is in crisis. Today, we see in 
California and we see in other States as well the closing of emergency 
rooms. So American citizens whose children are out on the highways, if 
there is an accident, may now not be able to go to emergency rooms to 
get treated, to have their lives saved, where only a few short years 
ago, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, there was an emergency room to service 
that.
  Why are these emergency rooms closing? Why is the health care system 
in our country breaking down? This massive influx of immigrants, 
illegal immigrants, into our society. In fact, many people today are 
not able to pay for their health care insurance. And why is health care 
so high? One of the major reasons health care insurance is so high is 
when American citizens go to hospitals in order to be treated, their 
health care policy, which is massively expensive, also has to take care 
of those people who have no health care insurance, many of whom, a 
large number of whom are of course illegal immigrants.
  And what about our criminal justice system? Our criminal justice 
system in California is breaking down. It's being crowded to the point 
where if someone does commit a misdemeanor or a crime, even a violent 
crime at times, they are let out on bond or sometimes they are let out 
on their own recognizance because there is no place to put them. These 
criminals, many of whom have come here illegally into our country, end 
up coming here because they know the punishment here is nothing as 
compared to the countries from which they are coming from.
  Our criminal justice system is not protecting our citizens. If 
someone in your family is raped or murdered or robbed or run down by a 
drunk driver, well, now it is highly likely that, or I should say that 
the chances are very good that the person who is victimizing our family 
is here illegally and should never be in the country in the first 
place.
  And what about the wages of ordinary Americans? Ordinary Americans 
now find that, yes, when they get out of school, they expect to get 
good jobs and good paying jobs. But, no. What we have is, with the 
massive influx of people into our country who will work far below the 
wages that Americans will work for, they have bid down the wages of our 
people. Now, that may not mean too much to the top 10 percent or the 
elite of the business community, but that means everything, everything, 
to ordinary Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. Our elite 
has not been hurt, our elite has not been victimized, but ordinary 
Americans find themselves not being able to get the paying jobs that 
will help them pay what is necessary to be in a middle-class existence 
in this country.

                              {time}  1915

  At the same time, unfortunately, we see an unfortunate trend among 
corporate executives, especially among the CEOs of companies, in paying 
themselves 10, 20, 30, even $100 million in compensation at the same 
time that the wage level of average Americans is under attack by a 
massive influx of illegals which is supported by the business elite.
  Whose side is our government on? Is it on the side of the business 
elite that is willing to lay their own workers off, giving themselves 
huge salaries, and then bringing on illegals or sending their 
manufacturing to China so that slave labor can do the job and then 
giving themselves huge corporate salaries? Are we on the side of people 
who are coming here from other countries who, yes, they are benefited 
by coming here at the expense of ordinary Americans?
  It is no mistake that this is happening. All of these dire 
consequences that are going on is not something that just happened. It 
was not something that was unavoidable. What is happening is a product 
of bad policy, policy that is not something that has been a mistake in 
policy, but an intentional policy that has been in place for 20 years.
  We now have 15 to 20 million illegal immigrants in our country. And 
that is not just something that happened. It happened because it was 
planned by those people who are making the policy in the last 20 years, 
people who were paying attention to the corporate elite, who want to 
bid down wages, and also to the liberal left wing of the Democratic 
Party which controls the Democratic Party who think that with huge 
numbers of immigrants coming into our country, they can change America.
  Neither one of those two groups of people who have such enormous 
influence in the Capitol of the United States are representing or 
watching out for the American people.
  Well, what we have done is given rewards to those people who have 
come here illegally. And then we wonder why they come here. They say, 
``Give it and they will come.'' Well, there is no doubt about it; we 
give a reward to people who live in poverty, abject poverty, in 
different countries. If we let them know they can have education 
benefits that should be going to Americans, but they now can get them 
for their children; if they know their children and their families will 
be given health care and health treatment with money that should be 
going to Americans; if they know that if they break the law that the 
penalties they face here are actually much lower than in the countries 
they are in; and if they know even if they are caught crossing our 
border and caught here illegally, they will not be punished, why 
wouldn't they come here?
  This is not something that was unpredictable. We have 15 to 20 
million people bidding down our wages, destroying our education system, 
destroying our health care system, making our streets and our 
communities not safe for our own families; and their presence here was 
not a mistake. It was planned out. Because people knew that if we give 
the benefits of jobs, good jobs, and the benefits that I just described 
that should be going to Americans, that people will come here from 
other countries.
  No border protection will stop the massive flow of illegal immigrants 
into our country if we continue to give huge rewards, a treasure house 
of rewards, to those people who are coming here. Don't say that you 
want to strengthen the border because you really are serious about 
trying to stop illegal immigration if you are unwilling to cut off the 
benefits that are the lure, which are the magnet that bring people 
here.
  Of course, there are those who claim that, who would like to say, 
well, yes, we really are concerned about this, and we're going to 
strengthen the Border Patrol. Let's just note that the Kennedy-Bush 
amnesty bill that was in the Senate suggested that they were going to 
strengthen the Border Patrol enforcement and enforcement mechanisms. 
Yet, everything in that bill that

[[Page H6729]]

dealt with enforcement; strengthening the Border Patrol, strengthening 
the fence, strengthening the ability of employers to be held 
accountable if they hire illegals; all of those things are already law 
but have not been enforced.
  In fact, it is even worse that they haven't been enforced. This 
administration has actually undermined the effort to try to enforce the 
laws against illegal immigration, and they have done everything they 
can. While the bill suggests they want to strengthen them, and the 
President has had his picture taken many times on the border with 
Border Patrol agents saying how important they are, yet there has been 
no other administration that has so demoralized and attacks our Border 
Patrol agents in doing their duty.
  By now, most Americans understand that there are two Border Patrol 
agents that are languishing in prison as I give this speech. But there 
are many such Border Patrol agents, there are many such law enforcement 
officers, who this administration has thrown the book at in order to 
send a message to those law enforcement officers and those Border 
Patrol agents who are there on the border trying to deflect this 
massive invasion from our southern border, and this administration has 
thrown the book at them if they make any mistake. A police officer who 
makes a mistake, a Border Patrol officer who makes a mistake, now 
understands that he or she will be prosecuted to the extent of the law, 
and the benefit of the doubt will be given to the illegal alien, even 
if the illegal alien is a criminal involved in such things as drug 
smuggling.
  What of course is brought to mind is the case of Ramos and Compean. 
As I speak today, Ramos and Compean languish in Federal penitentiaries, 
where they have been held for 133 days in solitary confinement.
  Mr. and Mrs. America, do you understand that the people who went out 
there to protect our families have been prosecuted to the fullest 
extent of the law, while a drug dealer who they were trying to stop was 
given immunity in order to convict them of mistakes? And those mistakes 
were turned into what? Into felonies by this administration.
  Johnny Sutton, who is the U.S. attorney, has a long-time relationship 
with our President. One might even call him a crony, or some might call 
him a member of the Bush family in that sense, that he has been with 
him for a long time. He is a protege of our President. This man 
determined that Ramos and Compean would be prosecuted to the fullest 
extent of the law and that the drug dealer that they stopped on the 
Mexican-American border would be granted immunity and that his word 
would be taken over the word of the Border Patrol agents.
  What happened was that 2 years ago, these two Border Patrol agents 
who have unblemished records, these two Border Patrol agents who have 
15 years of experience at the Border Patrol between them and a pristine 
on-the-job record, both of them U.S. military veterans, one of them a 
10-year veteran of the Naval Reserves, these men were on the job and 
they saw a truck that had clearly come across the border. They tried to 
stop it. The man in the truck ran out. They intercepted him. A scuffle 
ensued. The man then, after being involved in a physical altercation 
with a police officer, began to run toward the border.
  His version is they immediately shot him in the back. Of course, the 
U.S. attorney has repeated over and over again the lie that two U.S. 
Border Patrol agents shot a man in the back as he was running away. How 
many times have we heard Mr. Sutton say that? And then he also 
insinuated that the two Border Patrol agents are corrupt, using the 
word ``corrupt.''
  This administration has backed up their prosecutor who used that 
rhetoric, who threw the book at the Border Patrol agents, even though 
the Border Patrol agents suggested there had been a physical 
altercation; that the man who was actually involved with them at that 
moment trying to smuggle $1 million worth of drugs into our country was 
turning, and the two Border Patrol agents suggested they thought they 
saw him turning with an object in his hand. The seconds were passing 
just like this. What do you think when you see someone who is trying to 
smuggle things across the border? You assume they are armed.
  The Border Patrol agents, Ramos and Compean, shot at him, thinking 
that he was armed, and he got away. They didn't know if they had hit 
him or not. Well, the U.S. attorney took the word of the drug dealer 
that he didn't have a gun.
  Now, first of all, how do we know that the drug dealer didn't have a 
gun? He had $1 million worth of drugs. Was he thus trying to smuggle 
all those very expensive drugs, was he trying to do this unarmed? Is 
that what the drug cartel does? No. If you have got a valuable 
shipment, generally the Border Patrol agents understand that people who 
are smuggling drugs are armed because they have something of great 
value. Their drugs were worth $1 million in this case. Should we assume 
that this man had a gun? I think that was a logical assumption.
  What is more important is the only word that we have that he didn't 
have a gun was that the drug smuggler himself made that claim. Should 
we believe the drug smuggler over the two Border Patrol agents? That is 
what our prosecutor did.
  That is the policy of this administration. This administration gave 
total immunity to the drug dealer and threw the book at the Border 
Patrol agents, who have risked their lives to protect our families. If 
they had been stopping a terrorist who had a truckload of nuclear 
material, a dirty bomb aimed at El Paso or some other city, these two 
Border Patrol agents would have been heralded as heroes. Instead, it 
was a Mexican, instead of an Arab terrorist, and the Mexican drug 
dealer was given immunity, and the Border Patrol agents are now 
languishing in prison, having been charged with attempted murder.
  The jury in that trial, by the way, was lied to. They were told that 
the drug dealer had never done this before, even though newspaper 
accounts suggest that his family said he had been hauling drugs for a 
long time, since he was 14 years old, and that he indeed carried a gun 
many times when he was smuggling drugs.
  This administration decided that they were going to prosecute not 
only the Border Patrol agents, but they were going to lie to the jury 
and portray the drug dealer as this is the only time he ever did it, 
and, guess what? He only did it because he needed to make money for his 
sick mother's medicine. That type of tripe was allowed to be told to 
the jury.
  And let us note that three of the jurors after this was over broke 
down in tears when they were told that they could have actually voted 
not guilty, the foreman of their jury told them that if the majority 
voted guilty, they had to vote guilty.
  Johnny Sutton, our U.S. Attorney, claims that he didn't have a 
choice. He did have a choice, and it reflects on this administration, 
and that choice was to prosecute our defenders and give the benefit of 
the doubt and immunity to a Mexican drug dealer. He had a choice of who 
to prosecute.
  They also had a choice of whether they were going to tell the jury 
that this same drug dealer had been fingered for a second drug 
shipment, even after the Ramos-Compean incident, before they went to 
trial. But that was kept from the jury as well.
  The U.S. attorney claims that Ramos and Compean were corrupt. Now he 
defends that saying, well, anybody who would shoot an unarmed man is 
corrupt. Well, let me tell you this, another bit of lawyer-like 
legalese that the American people can understand: The Border Patrol 
agents have no corruption in their background whatsoever. Yet the U.S. 
attorney is calling them corrupt.

                              {time}  1930

  Department of Homeland Security briefers who briefed Members of 
Congress on these two Border Patrol agents claimed they said ``we are 
going to go out today and shoot some Mexicans.'' And kept that up for 
months and then had to admit it was a total lie.
  Something is dreadfully wrong here. What is dreadfully wrong is we 
have a President who is trying to send a message to the Border Patrol 
agents that they should not use their weapons or they are going to be 
prosecuted. Well, if you can't use your weapons on the border, how are 
we going to protect the border? No drug dealer or smuggler or

[[Page H6730]]

terrorist is going to stop. If a Border Patrol agent says stop, but I 
can't use my weapon, you have lost control of the borders over a 
nonsensical policy and it has resulted in two of our heroes languishing 
in solitary confinement.
  This administration is so mean-spirited and so nasty that when one of 
the Border Patrol agents was beaten up by a Mexican gang in prison, 
they refused to even consider asking the judge to let them out on 
appeal, which even common criminals are let out on appeal. No, they 
went into solitary confinement, quote, ``for their own protection.''
  My staff visited Agent Ramos who has been in solitary confinement for 
133 days. He has lost 25-35 pounds. They are not giving him proper 
medical care. This man, who was part of the Naval Reserve for 10 years, 
who risked his life for us, put his life on the border trying to stop 
drug dealers from bringing drugs into our communities, and this 
President refused to even consider asking the judge to let them out on 
bond until their appeal is heard.
  Why is that? My guess is the President has made an agreement with the 
Mexican Government that there will be no use of weapons on our border, 
and this is part of a bigger picture, bigger understanding, bigger 
vision of our President, that we should have an open border with Mexico 
so we can have a country sort of like the border between Belgium and 
France in the future.
  How do we know that the President has bigger visions that he doesn't 
let us know about? He made an agreement with the Mexican Government to 
provide Social Security benefits to illegals who have worked here if we 
indeed ever legalize the status of those people who are illegally 
working in our country. So yes, we are going to provide Social 
Security. That is part of the totalization agreement. And for 2 years 
we couldn't get that information about that secret understanding 
between our President and Mexico until Freedom of Information Act 
lawsuits forced them to disclose that.
  What other agreements do we have? One must be that we are not going 
to use our weapons on the border unless our people are shot at first. 
What does that do to control of the border? That means we have lost 
total control. The Border Patrol agents understand this. They have 
never been more demoralized. And you tell me that we should believe 
that the President is serious about this issue and that Senator Kennedy 
and President Bush will indeed strengthen the Border Patrol when they 
have done everything in their power to demoralize the Border Patrol?
  The bill that was being proposed in the Senate, that was withdrawn, 
had one purpose and one purpose only. It was not to strengthen 
enforcement or strengthen the Border Patrol or increase the number of 
beds for detention for illegal immigrants. All of those things were 
already done by law. And the bill that was being proposed actually 
decreased the amount of enforcement already mandated by law.
  There was one purpose and that purpose was to legalize the status of 
15-20 million people who are in our country illegally. The enhancement 
provisions of that bill were fraudulent because those provisions were 
already mandated by laws that have already passed and are not being 
enforced by this administration.
  So the American people when they heard this and understood what was 
being presented to them, and we kept hearing we have to have a 
comprehensive bill. A ``comprehensive bill'' only means legalization. 
Enhancement is there to cover up the fact that legalization is what is 
going on.
  The American people when they finally understood that, and thank God 
we have people on talk radio shows around this country who alerted the 
American people to the legislative threat that was coming down the 
pike, the American people rose up in a righteous rage and made sure 
that their Members of Congress and Members of the Senate were alerted 
to the fact they would not put up with this betrayal of their 
interests.
  But the American people are up against an incredibly powerful 
adversary in Washington. It is an unholy alliance between business and 
the liberal left that controls the Democratic Party. The business 
community wants lower wages. The business community wants to bid down 
not only the wages of the illegal immigrants that are coming over, and 
not only will they pay fewer wages to them, but they actually can pay 
lower wages to the American people because having the presence of 20 
million people here actually brings down the wage level that they have 
to pay to get the job done.
  So you have the business community pushing for policies that will not 
inhibit the massive flow of immigrants into our society, and you have 
the liberal left who really believe that they want to change the 
fundamentals of America and that a massive flow of illegals into our 
country, or at least a presence of a large number of immigrants, is 
going to help them change America.
  Well, the businessmen of course don't say that. That is not what 
officially is the reason. That is not officially how they can claim 
that they want to bring in people from other countries. They are 
claiming that they can't find Americans to do jobs. Before it was there 
are no Americans who will work at these jobs, and now they have changed 
the word that there aren't Americans who are working at these jobs.
  Let me note that I believe the American people will work on any job 
as long as the pay is right. We have 60 million Americans of working 
age who are not working in this country. But we are being told by the 
business community we can't find anybody to do these jobs. The hotel 
industry, for example, tells us they can't find people to change the 
sheets and clean up the rooms at hotels. What we need to do is take a 
picture in our mind of these big hotels and how many people they employ 
and realize where these hotels are located. They are located mainly in 
urban areas. There are millions upon millions of American women, and 
also men, I might add, who would love to have a job that would permit 
them to drop their kids off at school at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning 
and come back at 3:00 in the afternoon and pick them up. That just 
happens to be the time when you need people to work in those hotels.
  But you know what, those American people who would love to take care 
of their children and increase the take-home pay of their family, they 
are not going to work for a pittance. What happens with the illegals 
that come in, they work for a pittance. The hotels don't have to give 
them health insurance, and the American people are taxed or their 
health insurance has to pay for those illegals and they won't take the 
jobs because the jobs are paying so little.
  Yes, I believe we have plenty of people to clean those hotel rooms. 
Let's pay them a decent wage. There is nothing wrong in believing that 
people who clean hotel rooms should have a middle-class income.

  We are told that we can't find people to work on the farms. The 
farmers say there is not enough labor. There is a large number of 
people who labor on farms, but there is, yes, a component of people 
that we have brought in from other countries. We don't need to bring in 
these people from other countries. But every time I mention there is an 
alternative, people scream and yell. There is a big smoke screen that 
comes up because everybody refuses to look at an idea honestly. 
Instead, they want to negate the argument without actually confronting 
the idea because there are millions of young men in particular who are 
able to work on the farms; and millions, by the way, are in prison.
  I look to see where the prisons are located in this country, and they 
are almost all in farm areas. Is there any reason in the world that we 
should just have prisoners beefing up at the gymnasium and watching TV, 
that we can't also have them earning money that otherwise would be 
going to foreigners, let them earn the money. Let them pay half of it 
to pay for their keep so it brings down the cost to the taxpayers, and 
let them walk out of prison 5 years later with half of the money that 
they have made being paid a market value for helping pick fruits and 
vegetables.
  I have talked to prisoners and people who work in the prisons. They 
all love this idea, but every time you bring it up in the Congress, no, 
you don't hear a logical argument against it. You just hear no, no, no, 
we can't do that.
  I'm sorry, just raising your voice and saying that can't be 
considered is not good enough. The American people understand that 
prisoners can work. And

[[Page H6731]]

we don't have to bring in millions of people from overseas to take 
those jobs.
  Also, we, of course, understand that it is not just low-level jobs 
with massive numbers of immigrants coming into our society. The 
business community also tells us these are the jobs people won't take, 
supposedly. We need to bring in hundreds of thousands of people with H-
1B visas to run computer systems and to be technical people. What's the 
matter, Americans won't do those jobs?
  I went to a function a few years ago and I will never forget it. A 
middle-aged person stopped me, and said, Congressman, I came here 
because I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to thank you because you were 
the only one who really stood up and argued against the H-1B visas 
which brought in hundreds of thousands of people from the Indian 
subcontinent to do these computer jobs. He said, you said it is going 
to bring down the wages of the American people, and I have the 
newspaper quote. And he said, you know what, I was a computer operator 
in Orange County earning $80,000 a year. They laid me off and a year 
later when they called me back to the company, they said they were 
going to pay me $50,000. He said, I had the same job and I was earning 
$80,000. And they said take the job because we can get an H-1B visa 
person from India to take this job for $40,000 if you won't take it for 
$50,000. He said, I took the job.
  And he said, Do you know, Congressman, what the difference between 
earning $50,000 and $80,000 is? When you earn $50,000 a year in Orange 
County, you never dream of owning your own home.
  Why are we betraying people like this? Why are we bringing in 
hundreds of thousands of people from overseas rather than have the 
industry pay more money? No, no, they are keeping the wages down, 
bringing in people who will work for a pittance while the CEOs of these 
companies are paying themselves tens of millions of dollars a year. 
There is nothing wrong with paying a CEO a good salary, but you are 
doing that by destroying the middle class of our country by taking it 
out of the mouths of working people, honest Americans who are willing 
to work, but now you want them to work as if they are peons and people 
of lower income are coming from all over the world?
  Well, I was just confronted by this again in the health care 
industry. People want me to agree to bring in 100,000 Filipino nurses 
or 100,000 Indian or Pakistani nurses into our country. Nurses make 
$65,000-$70,000 a year. Our junior college system in California, you 
know, how many nurses are we graduating from there? No, in my own city 
we have a junior college that has 25,000 students and they graduate 185 
people from their nursing program a year, and they think that is a 
great thing. What about those other thousands of kids? They are getting 
prepared to do what, sell clothes at Nordstrom's, so they can be an 
assistant manager at a 7-Eleven store and earn $35,000?
  We need to remold our educational efforts to make sure that our kids 
are equipped to do these jobs, whether it is in computers or whether it 
is health care, rather than bringing in hundreds of thousands of people 
from overseas. It is our kids who should be getting the jobs for 
$65,000 a year when they start. But no, our system would prefer, 
because the people in our system are lazy. They don't want to go 
through the heartache of trying to reform the structure because a lot 
of college professors, by the way, who teach sociology in junior 
colleges, refuse to let the people who are teaching health care to our 
nurses to make more money than they make, and of course a nurse makes 
more money than a sociology professor, but they can't do it in our 
schools. So instead of reforming our education system so we can have 
more nursing people, rather than going overseas, instead we are just 
going to go overseas and bring hundreds of thousands of Filipinos and 
Pakistanis and Indians in.
  This is horrible. H-1B visas are nothing more than an excuse by big 
business to keep wages down and give these opportunities to foreigners 
rather than our own American people.

                              {time}  1945

  Our American people, especially the young people, are being betrayed 
by this type of policy and this type of thinking.
  There is a war that is being waged on the middle class in this 
country. It's a war that's being waged, yes, by people on the liberal 
left who have a radical agenda, never believed in the American way of 
life in the first place, and yes, in the business community that has no 
loyalty to their American workers whatsoever.
  We see it in the China policy, where businesses will go overseas and 
basically participate in slave labor in order to make a 20 percent 
profit rather than a 5 or 6 percent profit here in the United States 
paying people decent wages.
  We end up having a government policy that subsidizes these 
businessmen to go overseas, especially in China. There are loan 
guarantee programs for people who invest in manufacturing facilities in 
China. This is outrageous. We transfer our technology and our skills to 
the Chinese people when their government is a dictatorship that is 
opposed to everything we believe in and represses their own people, 
especially the religious people.
  But yet, we let our American business community ship our jobs and our 
technology over there at what? The businessmen make a lot of money. The 
business elite make their money for a few years, and in the end, the 
American people suffer. Their high-paying manufacturing jobs are gone, 
again, subsidized by the American taxpayer.
  We can see it in the China policy. We can see it in our immigration 
policy. There is a war being conducted on the American middle class. 
And what do we have here? Our people work hard, and they have fought 
the battles for freedom, and they have fought the battles to make sure 
that the businessmen in this country have a right to private property. 
Yet, those people who send the jobs to China are bringing illegal 
immigrants to bring down wages. They do not care about the American 
people.
  It is our job, supposedly our job, to watch out for the American 
people. However, we have various powerful interests at play right here 
in the Congress that are stirring us away from watching out for their 
interests. As I've said, we've got our health care system and our 
education system and our legal system are all under attack. Our Social 
Security system is under attack, and we are called bigots and hate 
mongers because we want to watch out for the American people.
  There was some suggestions by very high government officials and high 
political people here that those of us who were opposed to this 
comprehensive amnesty bill that, in some way, we're not for doing right 
for America or that our hearts are filled with hate. Well, let me note 
this. It is not selfish for the American people to demand that the 
resources that we have in our country be used for their benefit and the 
benefit of their families. That's not selfishness.
  If being an American citizen means nothing, it means nothing, how can 
we ever expect the people to go and defend our country? How can we 
expect the American people to think that there's something special 
about being an American if we give every benefit that belongs to them 
to someone who's come here illegally?
  And let us note this. We don't hate the people who come here 
illegally. In fact, we have to note, yes, there are criminals that come 
here illegally. There are drug dealers, but 90 percent of the people 
who come here are probably very wonderful people. We would come here, 
too, but it is the job of the United States Government not to help good 
people who need help and would come here from all over the world. Our 
job is to watch out for the interests of the American people, and if 
that doesn't mean anything, why should the American people be loyal to 
us if we're not being loyal to them?
  We're not saying that illegals are bad people. We just know that if 
they drain the education system, the health care system, if they come 
in and they're poor, they're going to take $100,000 in their lifetime 
more out of Social Security than they put in. It's going to bankrupt 
Social Security. Is there anything wrong with saying that we're going 
to watch out for our people first, our people being the people who are 
citizens of the United States and people who have come here legally?

[[Page H6732]]

  And again, let me note this. Not only do we not think poorly of 
illegals, because we have to protect ourselves against diseases that 
are coming in, criminals that are coming in, yes, but by and large, 
illegal immigrants are trying to come here to better their families, 
but they're doing it at the expense of the American people.
  However, let us note that the people who are the worst hurt on this 
are the legal immigrants. I had a telephonic town hall meeting last 
night, and the number of the people who called in to complain about 
illegal immigration are the people who came here legally, who are in 
this country legally, most of whom have become citizens.
  This flood of illegals into our society is the worst threat to people 
who have come here legally, and once we legalize the status of the 15 
to 20 million who have come here illegally, it is an insult and a slap 
at the legal people, also the people who are waiting overseas by the 
tens of millions to come here legally.
  Now, we are not being bigoted. We're not being selfish. We're 
watching out for the interests of the American people, and there's 
nothing wrong with that, and the legal immigrants who are here fully 
understand, and we are not in any way anti-legal immigrant.
  Well, what's happening, of course, the Americans who are worst hit 
are at the bottom end of the scale. Those people who are struggling in 
the black community to get these jobs and would like good paying jobs 
are being edged out by illegals. American citizens who happen to be 
black should pay attention to how their elected officials are voting on 
this illegal immigration issue. There's nothing more damaging to the 
black community than illegal immigration that denies benefits and jobs 
to our own citizens.
  Also, the Mexican American community, proud Americans who happen to 
be of Mexican descent, they are being hurt because they're being 
stigmatized by a massive influx of illegals into our country from 
Mexico. It is wrong and they know that. Americans of Mexican descent 
are proud and patriotic people. They have earned more medals in 
defending our country than any other ethnic group in the United States. 
They are being hard hit. These are the people who would be the hardest 
hit by the Bush-Kennedy so-called comprehensive immigration reform 
bill.
  What it is, of course, again is an immigration bill that the 
enforcement part is just a facade and a fraud, but the real purpose is 
to immediately legalize the status of 15 to 20 million people who are 
in our country illegally.
  Let's note, in that bill what was proposed, and we have no idea what 
they're going to bring back at us, a Z visa would have had to have been 
issued to any illegal immigrant who was applying to get this visa that 
would give them a temporary status, but the temporary status would be a 
legal status, and they could renew that visa as many times as they 
want. There's no limit on how long they could stay here on a 
``temporary'' visa, but the legal status permitted them to get all 
these benefits that legal citizens would get except for voting.
  And what would happen? The people of our government were going to 
give only 24 hours to give a person who had applied to give them Z 
visas. How many tens of thousands of criminals, of people who are ill 
with communicable diseases, of terrorists would have been allowed to 
come into our country on a temporary status but renewably forever, had 
that happened, thank God that bill was held back. But that bill will 
come back again and is coming back again unless we rise up again and 
make our voices heard, because they are trying to bring back the 
illegal immigration bill that would have given amnesty to those 15 to 
20 million illegals.
  Now, let me note that there has been a bill that has been submitted 
by Lamar Smith, Brian Bilbray and others that is a bill here in the 
House that is an example of the type of immigration reform that is real 
reform, which is aimed at enforcement, which is aimed at trying to make 
sure that employers can verify whether or not someone who's applying 
for a job is an illegal immigrant or not, and strengthening the border 
patrol and the agents and building a fence. This is in Lamar Smith's 
bill. That is a real bill. That is a bill we need.
  And I would hope that the American people say we don't need a 
comprehensive bill, we need an enforcement bill. As I say, unless the 
American people are paying attention, and becoming involved in the 
process, those powerful interest works that are at play here, working 
against their well-being, will carry the day. That bill will come back. 
Unless we express our anger and our outrage over this betrayal of the 
interests of average Americans, it will pass, just as it was on line to 
pass before. Yet another attempt to try to get a bill through without 
the American people understanding what is in that bill and how 
threatening it is.
  There is, of course, a lot of examples where the interests of our 
people are not being watched here in this Congress, and there's no 
doubt that there are interests at work. Unless the American people pay 
attention, those special interests will succeed.
  One of the powerful influences in Washington right now is based on 
the concept of globalism. That's why we're trying to build up the 
economy of China, because this strategy is that we're going to have a 
global system of government and of trade and of economics. And that 
global system is a dream that is a driving force behind many of the 
policies that are so detrimental to our American people. Because if you 
watch out for the globe, that means that you're going to be taking from 
the American people.
  By definition, our people, being in the richest country of the world, 
are going to be the targets that are selected to try to extract 
benefits from them and the wealth from them in order to have a better 
globe, a better world. Well, I want there to be a better world, but I'm 
not going to do it by taking away from the rights and the well-being of 
the American people.
  What we've got here in the immigration bill and our China policies is 
a fight between those with a globalist approach versus a patriotic 
approach. It's the patriots versus the globalists. Now, we care about 
the other people in the world. Because we want to protect the interests 
of the American people doesn't mean that we are nasty and that we hate 
people.
  But the people of the United States of America have a very special 
role to play in this world. We're people who come here from every race 
and every religion, every part of the world, and we have come here. We 
are living together, trying to live together in peace and harmony, 
trying to say to the world, as our Founding Fathers meant us to say in 
the Declaration of Independence, that people have rights of life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that we are here to show a 
better way.
  If we diminish the well-being of the people of the United States of 
America, we take away from their opportunity in order to build up 
others. In order to build a vision of the globe, it will be a great 
disservice not only to the American people but to the people of the 
world.
  It has been the American people that set the standard. It's been the 
American people who stepped out and defeated Japanese militarism and 
Nazism when it threatened the world. It's been the American people who 
have stepped out and defeated communism and deterred the communist 
expansion until that evil atheistic system had a chance to 
disintegrate. It is the American people now who bear the brunt of the 
war on radical Islam that would create Islamic dictatorships and treat 
women all over the world as cattle.
  We are the ones who are protecting the world against these evils, and 
if the American people ever come to the point where they lose faith in 
our system because we have not been watching out for their interests, 
yes, it will be a horrible, a horrible outcome, not only for the 
people, not only for our country, but for the entire planet because the 
planet, the good and decent people of this planet, depend on us to show 
the way.
  We cannot just forget that the Social Security benefits of our people 
will be damaged and be put in jeopardy if we allow poverty stricken 
people to flood into our country. We can't forget what it's going to do 
to the American people, what it will do to the United States. What is 
the United States? The United States is us, U.S.
  In 1986, we, us, the United States, the people of the United States, 
were told that by granting amnesty to 3 million

[[Page H6733]]

illegals, that would end the problem because there would be enforcement 
on employers and that would then stop this problem, and there was an 
irritation of having 3 million people here illegally.

                              {time}  2000

  Well, today, we are told there are 11 million. Most of us believe it 
is more like 15 to 20 million illegals who live among us. What that 
means is that if we end up now, giving them legal status, we will have 
50 million to 60 million illegals here win 10 years. We will have lost 
our country. America will be lost to people who have come here 
illegally from other countries.
  Wake up, America. We are losing our country, and it is not just a 
mistake. There have been policies that have encouraged this invasion.
  Now, we are told that those who are opposing this invasion of 
illegals into this country have no alternative. Oh, you are saying, 
well, you were opposed to legalization status.
  Well, what's your option? There is an option. The most dishonest 
argument that has been presented is that we have to either legalize the 
status with amnesty, or we have to have massive deportation. That was 
the most dishonest approach that I have heard, except for someone who 
is trying to claim that the word ``amnesty'' doesn't mean what amnesty 
means.
  Well, there is an alternative to mass deportation or just giving 
amnesty or legalization. It's called attrition. It means that when 
people come here, we should not provide them free education, free 
health care, free services. If their child is born here, they shouldn't 
become a U.S. citizen automatically, because, by the way when they do, 
automatically they get housing subsidies and everything else based on 
the idea that they have got a U.S. citizen in their household.
  No, if you deny them those things and you deny them jobs, first of 
all, people will hear that overseas and they will quit coming. Those 
who are already here illegally will find it hard to get by, and 
eventually, slowly but surely they will eventually go home. It's called 
attrition. There is nothing wrong with that approach. It is not massive 
deportation, it is not legalization. It is the one thing that will 
work. It is an alternative.
  Those people who present the so-called comprehensive plan have only 
one thing in mind, legalizing the status of those who are already here 
illegally, and that will result in 50 to 100 million more illegals 
coming to work for our country. Thus, what is the alternative? The only 
alternative is to strengthen our border, yes, strengthen our border, 
strengthen our visa system.
  Most people don't understand that 40 percent of all illegals don't 
come from our southern border, 40 percent of them are coming in with 
visa ands just overstaying their visa. Again it was a conscious 
decision not to reform our visa system so we would know if someone who 
had come in has left.
  Our system, right now, we don't know if they have left and gone home 
or not. We could have reformed that. But, instead, we did not because 
it was policy to bring in these illegals. Those who are talking about 
comprehensive approach, they are the ones who back that policy.
  Now, we have an alternative. The alternative, attrition, the 
alternative is making sure that we strengthen the border, but then we 
deny benefits and jobs to those who are here. We can do this. This is a 
job that is not beyond our ability in this Congress to do. We could 
certainly build a fence, and we can certainly have enforcement 
mechanisms done right away, which is what the bill Lamar Smith has 
recently placed in the hopper.
  Now, Americans need to pay attention to what's going on. They need to 
know the arguments. They need to know people, the arguments that people 
are making, who are trying to fool them, and they need to speak up. 
There needs to be the same kind of outcry that we heard about a month 
ago, because that's when the powers that be were back down on the 
Senate side with that amnesty, with the Bush-Kennedy amnesty 
legalization bill.
  It's time to step up. We cannot count on the government to protect 
our interest, the elected officials. We all have to participate.
  This is the United States of America versus those people who do not 
have the interests of the American people at heart. It's time for the 
patriots to be heard. We will lose this fight unless the patriots are 
heard.
  I would now like to thank the Chair for permitting me this time and 
would call on the American people to be active, be patriots, and I am 
proud to serve them here in the United States Congress.

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