[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 69 (Wednesday, May 6, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5258-H5260]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     RECOGNIZING THE BORDER PATROL'S FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN SMUGGLING

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
resolution (H. Res. 14) recognizing the importance of the Border Patrol 
in combating human smuggling and commending the Department of Justice 
for increasing the rate of human smuggler prosecutions, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
  The text of the resolution is as follows:

                               H. Res. 14

       Whereas human smuggling and trafficking in persons continue 
     to threaten the United States as well as individuals in 
     transport;
       Whereas human smuggling and trafficking rings introduce 
     numerous violent criminals to neighborhoods and communities 
     in the United States;
       Whereas human smuggling and trafficking rings expose the 
     United States to further acts of terrorism by subverting the 
     authority of, and safety provided by, U.S. Customs and Border 
     Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement;
       Whereas individuals voluntarily being smuggled are exposed 
     to tragic and dangerous conditions, many times resulting in 
     their injury or death;
       Whereas countless individuals are abducted and trafficked 
     against their will, continuing the grotesque practice of 
     human slavery;
       Whereas human smuggling and trafficking in persons are 
     often conducted by organized crime rings, which expose 
     Federal agents to increased danger in their enforcement 
     efforts;
       Whereas Department of Homeland Security personnel have, in 
     the past, arrested many human smugglers and traffickers in 
     persons, only to see them freed without prosecution;
       Whereas many of these same human smugglers and traffickers 
     in persons have been repeatedly arrested;
       Whereas such repeated encounters have been extremely 
     demoralizing to U.S. Customs and Border Protection at a time 
     when the American public has been putting tremendous pressure 
     on the agencies to do more to stop illegal border crossings;
       Whereas Federal prosecutions of human smugglers and 
     traffickers in persons have increased in recent months, 
     resulting in decreased repeat offenses and arrests and 
     improved morale;
       Whereas U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses a 
     global enforcement strategy to disrupt and dismantle domestic 
     and international human smuggling and trafficking 
     organizations;
       Whereas U.S. Customs and Border Protection have worked 
     cooperatively with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 
     the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and local nonprofit 
     service providers to identify and rescue victims of human 
     trafficking and modern slavery and to ensure their safety and 
     continued presence in the United States pursuant to the 
     Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000; and
       Whereas the 110th Congress of the United States unanimously 
     adopted the bipartisan William Wilberforce Trafficking 
     Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, providing 
     U.S. Customs and Border Protection and its law enforcement 
     partners with new tools to bring human traffickers to justice 
     and new responsibilities to identify and protect victims of 
     modern slavery and at-risk unaccompanied alien children: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
       (1) reaffirms its support for the role and importance of 
     the Department of Homeland Security, including U.S. Customs 
     and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs 
     Enforcement, in combating human smuggling and trafficking in 
     persons;
       (2) commends the Department of Justice for increasing the 
     rate of prosecutions against human smugglers and traffickers 
     in persons; and
       (3) urges the Department of Justice to continue prosecuting 
     smugglers and traffickers at a rate that will help eliminate 
     the trade in human beings.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee.


                             General Leave

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 
5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include 
extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Tennessee?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. COHEN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation, sponsored by the Honorable Darrell 
Issa of California, a member of our Judiciary Committee, and a most 
valuable one, recognizes the recent important steps taken by the 
Department of Justice and several agencies within the Department of 
Homeland Security, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and 
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to fight human smuggling in 
all its forms, including human trafficking and slavery.
  I am proud to say that last year the 110th Congress took decisive 
actions to renew the Nation's efforts against human trafficking and 
modern slavery. We also went so far as to issue an apology in this 
House for the slavery that this country condoned before 1865.
  Both Houses of Congress unanimously adopted the bipartisan William 
Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. 
It bears repeating that this bill, this substantial bill of 129 pages 
that provides a myriad of tools to protect trafficking victims and to 
combat human trafficking at home and around the world, passed both 
Houses unanimously, once again, a bipartisan effort Mr. Issa led.
  This is a strong indication that we are really serious about 
eradicating human smuggling in all its forms.
  Building on our efforts in Congress, the Department of Justice and 
the Department of Homeland Security, including Customs and Border 
Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have also renewed 
their efforts against smuggling and human trafficking. Recently, we 
have seen a substantial increase in the prosecutions of smugglers and 
traffickers.
  We have seen the adoption of a global enforcement strategy to disrupt 
and dismantle domestic and international human smuggling and 
trafficking organizations. And we have seen strong interagency 
cooperation of identifying rescue victims of human trafficking and 
modern slavery. These agencies should be commended for their renewed 
commitment in these areas.
  I further commend Darrell Issa for his leadership on this bill. And I 
commend my chairman, John Conyers, and I commend him on everything he 
has done. He has been a wonderful member and a mentor to me; and 
Ranking Member Lamar Smith, also a great mentor to me of the Judiciary 
Committee; and Chairman Bennie Thompson and Ranking Member Peter King 
of the Homeland Security Committee for their work in improving the bill 
and making it a consensus, bipartisan measure.
  I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I concur with everything the gentleman from Tennessee 
just said. Mr. Cohen and I do enjoy

[[Page H5259]]

working together on a bipartisan basis on a great many issues.
  Today this bill, H. Res. 14, attempts to begin, if you will, a 
downpayment on thanking the men and women of the Border Patrol and of 
ICE and other portions of Homeland Security for their tireless efforts 
to defend America, and particularly on an issue that I find very 
personal, that of human smuggling.
  Mr. Speaker, 5 years ago I wrote the U.S. Attorney for the Southern 
District of California expressing my concern after learning from a 
reporter that U.S. attorneys had refused to prosecute an alien smuggler 
apprehended while transporting a car loaded with undocumented 
immigrants.
  The smuggler, Mr. Antonio Amparo-Lopez, had attempted to escape the 
arresting Border Patrol agents and, upon his recapture, the Border 
Patrol learned that this smuggler had 21 known aliases, had been 
arrested and deported more than 20 times without ever having been 
prosecuted once.
  Mr. Speaker, this is what the Border Patrol once faced, is something 
that the Border Patrol no longer faces, and we would hope, on a 
bipartisan basis, would no longer face.
  As I dug deeper into this, I learned that this was, in fact, at that 
time a common problem, and that Border Patrol agents had been forced to 
accept the reality that no matter how many times they did their job, 
often with people with large amounts of drugs, often with people who 
they knew were guilty of more heinous crimes, and, in fact, sometimes 
when they knew that people who perhaps had abandoned the human beings 
they were trafficking in to die in the desert, they could not take 
action.
  On a bipartisan basis, I want to recognize the men and women of the 
Border Patrol for their willingness to do this job with personal 
danger, having had rocks pummeled at them, having been shot at.

                              {time}  1415

  The men and women of the Border Patrol and their allied agencies do 
what we ask them to do even when we do not fully support them.
  The San Diego Border Patrol sector chief even told the House 
subcommittee in a hearing how the failure to prosecute the foot 
soldiers in alien smuggling organizations had created an opportunity in 
which ``what would happen then, we would apprehend people that were 
guiding people across the country, many times at risk. And without 
meeting prosecution guidelines, they were simply voluntarily return 
back to Mexico where they could continue to conduct their illicit 
activity. There is no level of consequences.''
  Mr. Speaker, I'm glad to say that is no longer the case. I join with 
my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to say, human smuggling, whether 
illegal immigrants or in fact victims of kidnapping around the world 
for purposes of prostitution, cannot be tolerated. We must have a zero-
tolerance policy, and we must support the men and women that protect 
our borders and our interior.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the 
gentlewoman from Arizona, a valuable new Member, Mrs. Ann Kirkpatrick. 
  Mrs. KIRKPATRICK of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of 
House Resolution 14, which recognizes the critical contributions that 
the Border Patrol and the Justice Department are making in the fight 
against human smuggling. Human smuggling is a serious threat to greater 
Arizona where country roads are targeted by cartels and smugglers. 
Smuggling cannot be separated from the trafficking of drugs, guns, and 
money across our borders.
  The people controlling the human smuggling trade are the same gangs 
and drug cartels who are spreading violence throughout northern Mexico 
and are now openly threatening our law enforcement. The increased 
efforts to target human smugglers by Border Patrol and the Justice 
Department are an important part of the plan to address violence along 
our border, and they should be praised for this crackdown. The 
department, along with the entire Federal Government, needs to commit 
to a sustained, comprehensive effort to secure our borders and keep our 
communities safe. And this is one valuable step in the right direction.
  Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I would now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Poe).
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from California 
bringing this to the House floor.
  The Border Patrol that patrols our borders on the north and the south 
are many times in isolated areas. The vastness of the land makes it 
lonely. And for much of the time, all they are able to do is seek and 
find out those who wish to sneak into the United States at the hands of 
a human smuggler. We call those people ``coyotes.'' I think that 
insults the coyote population of south Texas.
  The deadliest human smuggling attempt took place in my home State of 
Texas not far from Houston when a coyote bringing 70 immigrants into 
the United States abandoned the tractor-trailer that they were in at a 
truckstop, and 19 of the people in that vehicle died from dehydration 
and suffocation. And now we are learning that the drug cartels are 
working hand-in-hand with the human smugglers, and they are both making 
a profit off of these humans that wish to come into the United States.
  This is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. And that money goes to 
criminals, coyotes and the drug cartels.
  Last week in the Senate hearing, Arizona Attorney General Terry 
Goddard noted that in Arizona just last year, the cartels grossed $2 
billion from human smuggling alone. This billion-dollar industry is 
being stopped by the Border Patrol. And we need to applaud their work 
and their efforts in trying to keep the dignity and sovereignty of the 
United States intact and keeping out the drug cartels, the human 
smugglers and the outlaws that make a profit off of people who come 
into the United States.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how many more speakers Mr. Issa 
has.
  Mr. ISSA. I have one more at this time.
  Mr. COHEN. I reserve my time.
  Mr. ISSA. At this time, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I want to close on my side by thanking the gentleman from Tennessee. 
Memphis is a long way from the southern or the northern border, and yet 
he has helped us in moving this piece of legislation along because, in 
fact, our borders ultimately, once somebody is over our border in 
America, they can go anywhere virtually without ever being stopped. And 
so I thank all the Members who, whether they are a border district like 
myself or far inland, have seen that human trafficking is something we 
need to end.
  And I again ask all of us to support this bipartisan legislation.
  And I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I would just again like to thank Mr. Issa for 
his work on this issue. And this is a very important issue. It is 
important for our security. But it is also important for the concept 
that people ought to have freedom. And they ought to have freedom in 
all ways. Many types of enslavement, unfortunately, have gone on in 
this world for a long time, and still it goes on today. And it is not 
just commercial slavery, there is slavery in other parts of the world 
where it is still something that has not been eliminated. It was only 
200 years ago that we said we wouldn't import any more slaves, and 144 
years ago that we ended the practice in this Nation. It was a long time 
that people used their power over others.
  So this is an important concept and an important, substantive bill, 
and I thank Mr. Issa. I ask everybody to vote for the bill.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support 
of H. Res. 14, ``Recognizing the importance of the Border Patrol in 
combating human smuggling and commending the Department of Justice for 
increasing the rate of human smuggler prosecutions''.
  I have long been an advocate of human smuggler prosecutions. I have 
also worked on human trafficking. These issues particularly affect 
border States and Texas is no exception. I urge my colleagues to 
support this bill.
  There are few, if any, crimes that are both more corrosive to our 
Nation's security and offensive to the fundamental moral impulses of 
its people, than the kidnapping and exploitation--whether it is for 
forced physical labor, for the sexual degradation, or anything else--

[[Page H5260]]

of our fellow human beings. It is a practice formerly, and still 
largely, known as slavery; in recent years, it has reemerged in a world 
more interconnected than ever, under the title of ``human 
trafficking''.
  Human smuggling is a terrible crime. This activity attracts and 
creates the worst sorts of criminal--it is often conducted by organized 
crime and exposes Federal agents to increased danger in their 
enforcement efforts. Despite this, United States Customs and Border 
Protection has in the past, repeatedly arrested many human 
smugglers only to see them freed by the Federal Government without 
prosecution. These repeated encounters are extremely demoralizing to 
the Border Patrol, especially when under great pressure to do more to 
stop illegal border crossings.

  But we are seeing signs of hope. Federal prosecutions of human 
smugglers have increased in recent months resulting in decreased repeat 
offenses and arrests and uplifted Border Patrol morale. Furthermore, 
the United States is one of the leaders in the fight against human 
trafficking, and this is reflected in a number of acts by this body 
that define and expand the U.S. Government's role in the war against 
human trafficking--laws like the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 
2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, 
the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005.
  The interagency Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center, HSTC, brings 
together Federal agency representatives from policy, law enforcement, 
intelligence, and diplomatic sectors, so they can work together on a 
full-time basis to achieve increased effectiveness and to convert 
intelligence into effective law enforcement and other action. This 
includes the Department of State, DOS, the Department of Homeland 
Security, DHS, and the Department of Justice, DOJ. The HSTC also serves 
as a clearinghouse for trafficking information.
  A week ago yesterday, in my city of Houston, a U.S. District judge 
passed the last sentence on one of eight defendants--a man by the name 
of Maximino Mondragon--in a case that illustrates much of what we 
condemn and commend here today. Mondragon and his conspirators lured 
the women to the United States with false promises of legitimate jobs. 
Once here, traffickers charged the women huge fees for their trip and 
expenses and held them as prisoners until they could work off what, for 
many, seemed to be impossible debts. The women were forced to wear 
skimpy clothes and sell high-priced drinks to men at local cantinas who 
were then allowed to touch them. And now many of them are beginning 
prison terms to last 13 or 15 years, and have been made to pay $1.7 
million in restitution, a small consolation for their ordeal.
  I support this bill--praising the Department of Justice for 
increasing the rate of human smuggler prosecutions, urging the 
Department of Justice to continue to hunt down and prosecute men like 
Mondragon.
  Mr. COHEN. I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) that the House suspend the rules 
and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 14, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. Cohen. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.
  The point of no quorum is considered withdrawn.

                          ____________________