Congressional Record, Volume 156 Issue 72 (Thursday, May 13, 2010)

[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 72 (Thursday, May 13, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3474-H3481]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

IMMIGRATION ISSUES

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lujan). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to be recognized by
you to address the House of Representatives in this most deliberative
body that we are. I often come here; and in the 30 or so minutes that I
spend waiting and anticipating my opportunity to address you, I also
can't avoid lending an ear to the gentleman who often presents ahead of
me. I sometimes think about what it would be like if I just could walk
in here in the last 30 seconds and not feel compelled to rebut the
previous 60 minutes.
I am going to just compress this a little bit so I can get on to the
subject at hand that I came here to talk about; but, yes, many
Republicans, and perhaps every Republican, will oppose this financial
bill that has the Barney Frank bill sent to the United States Senate
and become the Chris Dodd bill. In fact, I don't know any two people
that would probably have less favor in rewriting the financial laws in
America than those two individuals.
They have had a long time now to investigate what has happened with
the finances in America and what has happened with the downward spiral
of our economy, and when this happened. It started before this seminal
date, but the seminal date, Mr. Speaker, was September 19, 2008, when
then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson came to this Capitol and
asked for the $700 billion in TARP funding. Then-Senator Obama, and
now-President Obama, supported all of those moves. President Obama as
Senator and later as President supported the takeover of the banks, the
insurance companies, Fannie and Freddie, General Motors, Chrysler. And,
by the way, the student loan program, not to mention ObamaCare. And now
we have the financial world and an effort to take that over. And yes, I
will stand and oppose these changes. I will stand and oppose them for a
lot of reasons, perhaps that I will have an opportunity to get into a
little bit later in this hour, Mr. Speaker.
The Federal Government should not be making arbitrary decisions on
which businesses succeed and which ones fail. They should not be in a
position to be evaluating. And if there is credible evidence of an
entity, a corporate entity, a financial credit entity--credible
evidence as to whether they might be in trouble, that would give the
Secretary of the Treasury the authority to pull the plug on a company,
take it over by the Federal Government, separate it any way he so
chose; or, bring regulators in to intimidate them before or after the
fact.
This bill, this Chris Dodd bill or Barney Frank bill, gives the
Federal Government the authority to take over any business in America
that is a credit business that they should choose.
Now, again, I hope to get to this. But at this moment, Mr. Speaker, I
would transition this subject over to the subject that I came here to
speak about, and that is right now we have Attorney General Holder
testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. I came directly here
from there, or I will say almost directly here from there, having

[[Page H3475]]

listened to a measure of his testimony and his response to some of the
people that are on the Judiciary Committee. And as this unfolds yet, I
come here because I am dissatisfied with the responses that I have
received from the Attorney General. I actually think that he is a fine
fellow and he would make a good neighbor, but I am concerned about the
politicization of the Justice Department.
And even though Attorney General Holder made remarks at the end of my
question period that their office would not be political, they would be
impartial, they would function under the law, I happen to have a
special view of Attorney Generals. And whether they be State Attorney
Generals or whether they be U.S. Attorney Generals, they have to
understand the Constitution. They have to understand the rule of law.
They can't know every Federal statute. I wouldn't hold anyone
accountable for that. But when they have had an opportunity to do an
investigation or had an opportunity to brief themselves on a subject
matter that is bound to come up, I would expect that they would be
conversant enough with the law and with the Constitution to be able to
make an argument that would defend the actions of the Justice
Department at a minimum.

{time} 1530

And so I made the remark and posed this situation. And this is off of
the opening statement of Congresswoman Judy Chu, who said that Arizona
law--and this is with Attorney General Holder, the sole witness before
the committee and he was the audience that she was speaking to--she
said, Arizona law is cruel and it institutionalizes racial profiling.
She also said that people are ``already being detained because they
forgot their driver's license at home.'' She continued and said that
it's burdensome and unnecessary for people to carry multiple forms of
identity, which reminds her of living in a Cold War state. I don't know
what Cold War state she may have lived in. But I made this point to
Attorney General Holder and asked him if there was anything in his
knowledge that the Arizona law could be doing now that would affect the
activities of the law enforcement officers in Arizona in such a way
that the allegations by Ms. Chu could be accurate; that they're already
detaining people because they forgot their driver's license at home,
and that it would institutionalize racial profiling.
Mr. Speaker, this is the highest level deliberative body of the world
and this dialogue has gotten down to this point where we have people
that are representing a State law that's very well known by now that
specifically prohibits racial profiling and prohibits the utilization
of even the factor of race if it's the sole factor. That's by law. It's
an Arizona law. And to have a Member of Congress say to the Attorney
General in a hearing when the Attorney General is under oath that
people are already being detained. People are already being detained on
an Arizona law.
Here's the quote: ``Already being detained because they forgot their
driver's license at home.'' They also said the law is cruel and it
institutionalizes racial profiling. It's as if this law had already
taken effect. And it's a fact that Arizona law, unless specified
otherwise, does not take effect until 90 days after the Governor signs
the bill, which was some couple or three weeks ago. It's certainly not
90 days, Mr. Speaker.
As I point this out to the Attorney General, one would think that a
person that is at that high level in this country with this very high-
level responsibility could at least concur that the Arizona law hasn't
been enacted yet. But he could not bring himself to do that because
that would have caused him to come into a political disagreement with
the activists on the Democrat side of the Judiciary Committee, the most
polarized committee on the Hill. Now that's a presumption on my part on
his motive, but it seems to fit a pattern.
He admitted that he has an investigation going on looking into
Arizona immigration law. And when I made the point that the President
of the United States had announced that he had directed the Attorney
General to look into Arizona immigration law, I heard no rebuttal. I
twice presented to Attorney General Holder that the President has
directed that this happens. So if the President of the United States
directs the Attorney General to conduct an investigation into State
statute, on what basis is the follow-up question to Attorney General
Holder?
They've been investigating now for some weeks. And what is the basis
of your investigation? Well, Constitution, statutory, the principle of
Federal preemption of State law. Now that's a general answer that you
can pick up in any law school or many articles in the newspapers these
days about Arizona law itself. And so when I followed up with a
question of specifically where in the Constitution do you have concern
about Arizona law and where in the Federal statute would you have
concern about Arizona law perhaps violating the Federal statute and
stretching beyond the bounds of Federal preemption, I got a generalized
answer that, Well, it's been the practice that the Federal Government
has dealt with immigration law. The practice, the implication.
We have the Justice Department investigating Arizona. We have the
Justice Department investigating Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of
Maricopa County. They have targeted him for months and months and
months because he's politically incorrect. He enforces Federal
immigration law. It violates the activists that help support the
President. But we can't find out that it violates any Federal statute,
any constitutional requirement that's there.
I believe from what I've seen--and I've visited Tent City and Sheriff
Joe Arpaio on the border and I have gone to that border many times. And
I'll go back again, Mr. Speaker. But when we have an Attorney General
that's committing the resources of the United States and the resources
of the taxpayers to investigate a law in Arizona that enjoys at least
70 percent support of the people of Arizona, a significant majority of
the support of the people across this country--that mirrors Federal
law, and when you have a Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet
Napolitano, who's a former Governor of the State of Arizona, who
admittedly had her tugs of war with Sheriff Joe Arpaio when she was the
Governor and he was the sheriff, one would think that an
administration, a President of the United States, an Attorney General,
a Secretary of Homeland Security would have jumped for joy that
Arizonans have decided to use their State resources to enforce the
Federal immigration laws that the Federal Government is not enforcing
adequately enough.
Instead of jumping for joy, instead of going down and giving Sheriff
Joe Arpaio a high-five or maybe the Governor of Arizona another high-
five or a good ``atta girl'' for signing that bill and for the work
that was done in the State legislature, particularly that led by
Russell Pearce, whom I have watched for some time and appreciate a
great deal--we can't have the Federal Government, obviously, supporting
something that the American people want, the Arizonans demand.
It was almost a primal scream of desperation that caused the Arizona
legislature to pass the legislation that mirrored Federal law so that
they are going to prohibit sanctuary cities within Arizona and require
local law enforcement to support Federal immigration law by setting up
a State law that makes it against the law to break Federal immigration
law. That's not technically correct, but it is the analysis that best
describes it, Mr. Speaker.
Our Attorney General is spending resources to investigate Arizona and
still can't point to a single place in the United States Constitution
or a single Federal statute that he thinks could be the cause of
concern. When I asked him, he said, Well, it's under investigation, and
it's inconclusive at this point.
Well, I read through the Constitution and I came to a conclusion. As
far as the constitutional understanding is concerned, it is this:
there's two places in the Constitution that could be relevant with
regard to Arizona immigration law. One place where it says the Federal
Government has a responsibility to guard against foreign invasion.
Well, now, we could talk about what a foreign invasion is, but when
it's 4 million people a year pouring across our border illegally and at
best

[[Page H3476]]

we can interdict a fourth of them; when we have twice the size of Santa
Anna's army coming across our border every night, one might define that
as an invasion.
They aren't all carrying weapons. In fact, very few of them are. But
I will guarantee you there have been more weapons carried across that
border in the hands of people who are coming in here illegally than all
the weapons that were carried in the hands of Santa Anna's army when he
came across into Texas that 150-some years ago.

So, Mr. Speaker, the Constitution requires the Federal Government to
defend against invasion, but it doesn't prohibit the States from
defending themselves against invasion. I would hope the Attorney
General would understand that principle. I address that because there's
only two places in the Constitution that address immigration. And I
think that I have handled that issue so that it's essentially not
rebuttable.
Then the other point is article I, section 8 of the Constitution, the
other place where immigration is dealt with, where it says that
Congress shall have the power to establish a uniform rule of
naturalization. A uniform rule of naturalization. Well, what can that
be? That means that Congress sets the legal immigration laws with
regard to how people come into this country and become citizens. We do
that. We have set those standards. But there's nothing in the
Constitution that prohibits the States from passing their own
immigration laws unless they are attempting to preempt existing Federal
law or unless those laws are unconstitutional.
So one would think that an Attorney General that had all of these
resources investigating Arizona law and was aware of the investigations
that are going on of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, when there are allegations of
violations of civil rights down in Maricopa County, all the resources
poured into that, I've yet to find any substance. And still, millions
of dollars are being spent, all kinds of time is being burned. There's
all kinds of politicization going on. And the Attorney General swears
there is not, that his office will not be political.
Well, I will submit, Mr. Speaker, that when the President of the
United States says, Here's what could happen under Arizona law if a
mother and her daughter are going out to get some ice cream, somebody
can come along and say, Where are your papers? Anybody remember that? I
do, Mr. Speaker. And so that was making this law political. The
President of the United States made it political. And he's the man that
ordered a Justice Department investigation of Arizona? And he alleges--
the President alleges--that it's race-based and racially motivated when
the law itself specifically prohibits that from happening. We can't
have the presumption on the part of the President of the United States
or the Attorney General that the law enforcement officers in Arizona
are motivated by something other than race. Maybe they're motivated to
support the rule of law. Couldn't we presume that that's it? That's the
case. That's their oath. Can't we tell by their practice that they have
enough to do without targeting?
Look at the crime across Arizona. Phoenix, the second highest in the
hemisphere. And kidnapping. The kidnapping, the smuggling, the deaths,
the murder rate, crime rates over the last 10 years in Arizona have
gone up. The illegal border crossings may have tempered down just a
little bit, but on the other hand, it might just be that Janet
Napolitano's operation isn't as aggressive as it was under even Michael
Chertoff. But I suspect that even then they had diminished their
enforcement.
When you make the argument that your interdictions on the border have
gone down, therefore you're getting the border under control, it might
just be you're not doing your job as aggressively as you were before.
There can be twice as many people crossing the border, and you can be
picking up half as many as you were before. But that doesn't mean the
half as many you're picking up equates into fewer people crossing the
border. That may be. In fact, I expect it is true that fewer people are
crossing the border. But it doesn't equate that the enforcement is any
better than it was. It may be better. It may be worse. But it's not
conclusive.
What is conclusive here is the Department of Justice has become
political. It is a political tool. It saddens me to see this and hear
this and to have to make this argument here on the floor of the House.
But I didn't come, Mr. Speaker, lightly armed. I only point out the
Arizona component of this because that's the dialogue that just took
place within the last hour or so. The Department of Justice is
investigating Arizona for constitutional statutory violations but
cannot point their finger to a single place in the Constitution or a
single controlling Federal statute.
And, by the way, I would point out also that, according to Federal
case law, the precedence that we can find, that there is ample
precedent that local law enforcement has the authority to enforce
Federal immigration law, with or without a 287(g) agreement and a
memorandum of understanding, which has been somewhat gutted by
Secretary Napolitano. The precedent that I would cite would be U.S. v.
Santana-Garcia, a Supreme Court decision that establishes that local
government has the ability--local law enforcement--has the
constitutional authority to help enforce Federal immigration law.
I would go on further with this: that Sheriff Joe Arpaio is on solid
ground. They would have found a way to crack him by now if he were not.
It's been, I believe, politically motivated. The effort to go down and
make race the issue when it is law enforcement that is the problem and
that Federal immigration law that's not being adequately enforced is
the problem. The Attorney General should be able to at least defend the
actions of his Justice Department, even though implicitly agreed that
the President had directed that there be an investigation. Based on
what? The President's supposition that a mother and her daughter would
be perhaps of the wrong skin tone and they would be picked up and asked
for their identification because they went out to get some ice cream?
It seems the President has an inclination to engage in these kinds of
things. When he had an Irish cop and a black professor, who did he side
with? He jumped to a conclusion without having heard the facts, and he
ended up having to have a beer summit.

{time} 1545

Well, maybe we could have a summit with Sheriff Joe Arpaio on the
South Lawn of the White House, and they could sit down at the picnic
table together and discuss these things so that all of the resources of
the Federal Government don't have to be tied up in knots on these
suppositions for the unfounded presumption that there is something
unconstitutional about Arizona law or something that violates Federal
statute.
I see that I am joined on the floor by the ranking member of the
Judiciary Committee, who has just come from the hearing of the Attorney
General. I would be so happy to yield as much time as he may consume to
Mr. Smith from Texas and thank him for joining me here on the floor.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding, and
I also want to thank Representative King for his good work on the
Judiciary Committee. I have just been listening to his last few
comments and appreciate his pointing out so many facts about
immigration law and about what is going on there.
The reason I wanted to be briefly recognized is because we've had
some recent developments in some poll results just in the last day or
two on some of the same subjects that the gentleman from Iowa has been
discussing. It's no surprise, for example, that in the latest Pew poll,
it shows that only 25 percent of the American public approve of
President Obama's handling of the Nation's immigration policy. The
Obama administration is not enforcing our immigration laws and, in my
view, has failed to protect our borders.
Arizona, which is trying to do what the Federal Government has not
done, continues to enjoy strong support for its policy. According to
the most recent Pew poll, 73 percent of the public support requiring
people to produce documents, verifying their legal status if police ask
them to do that, and 67 percent of the public support allowing police
to detain anyone who can't

[[Page H3477]]

verify their legal status. And just today in The Wall Street Journal,
there was a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll. It asked the American
people a number of questions, but one of them was about the Arizona
law. And 64 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll
that was just today in The Wall Street Journal, 64 percent of the
American people support the Arizona law. Let me say that that's
actually, I think, gone up from 60 percent last week to 64 percent
today. Almost two-thirds of the American people support what the folks
in Arizona are trying to do. And we probably ought not try to second-
guess what they are doing.
The residents of Arizona know they have a problem on their hands.
Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the United States right now.
People in Arizona see that human smuggling that crosses their border,
they see the drug trafficking that comes across their border. Several
thousand people have been killed within sight of the Arizona-Mexico
border in the last several years. So to me, the people in Arizona are
really crying out for help from the Federal Government to protect their
borders, but the Federal Government is not responding, and this
administration is not responding. The message from the American people
and the message from the folks in Arizona is that we want to see
immigration laws enforced. And believe me, the message from Arizona is
not, ``We need amnesty for people in the country illegally,'' it's that
we need to enforce our immigration laws.
And let me go back to that most recent poll where you have two-thirds
of the American people wanting to enforce immigration laws and
supporting what Arizona residents have done in regard to immigration
laws. By the way, that includes, as I recall, about 60, 61 percent of
all Independents. And most tellingly, it includes half of the Hispanics
across the country, who are also in support of the Arizona law that was
just passed, enforcing immigration laws and trying to make their best
efforts to reduce illegal immigration.
So I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa yielding. I just wanted to
bring everybody up to date on the most recent poll. And the poll is
even more surprising. The poll, which shows that almost two-thirds of
the American people support the immigration law that Arizona has just
passed, is even more surprising because another Media Research poll
shows that in the coverage of the Arizona law, the three networks, ABC,
NBC, CBS, have actually aired 12 negative stories about the Arizona law
for every one positive story. So you have a degree of media bias on the
subject that has, frankly, been unseen. I think when it comes to
immigration, the national media, including the three networks, probably
do their worst job of reporting and show their greatest bias. This I
consider to be a threat to democracy. When the networks and the
national media are not giving the American people the facts and instead
are trying to tell them what to think, that is a danger to democracy.
Also, according to a Media Research Center, for example, only 1 out
of 10 stories have actually mentioned that a majority--70 percent of
the residents of Arizona--support the Arizona law. As I said, a great
majority of the American people support the Arizona law, and yet the
media are not reporting it. Considering that 12 to 1 negative coverage
of the law and the fact that two-thirds of the American people still
support it shows how strongly people across the country feel.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to enforce immigration laws.
There is nothing wrong with wanting individuals to respect law and
order. The American people know that, and I thank them for knowing
that, and I thank them for not being persuaded by a very liberal media
bias. And also, again, I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa and his
yeoman's service, hard work, diligence, and commitment to such an
important issue.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, and I asked if the gentleman
from Texas could yield for a question before he moves on to his other
important duties. And that is, I am a bit perplexed that the Attorney
General couldn't or wouldn't point to a part of the Constitution that
he thought might be violated by Arizona law or point to a Federal
statute that might be violated by Arizona law or point to a piece of
Federal case law that would prohibit local law enforcement from
enforcing Federal immigration law. And would the gentleman from Texas
have any idea how that question might have been answered by an Attorney
General better informed?
Mr. SMITH of Texas. The gentleman is correct. I do not believe the
Attorney General answered the questions on that particular subject. And
while I was out of the room, I understand in response to a question
asked by a Texas colleague that he admitted that he had not even read
the Arizona law. And if that's the case, that is both surprising and
disturbing. Again, I thank the gentleman for his good comments on the
subject.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, and I very much thank the
gentleman from Texas for illuminating the subject matter and especially
the polling component of this. One would think that the Attorney
General, as he was preparing to come before the Judiciary Committee--
and historically, the Attorney General has briefed himself for several
days with people who will ask questions and, I will say, play out a
role so that he can be tested, prepared, and ready to testify before
Congress. One would believe that the Attorney General, that the first
thing that he would be briefed on is Arizona immigration law. The
Justice Department is investigating Arizona, and yet there seems to be
not a realization of what's going on. He admits to the investigation.
And to not have read the law and perhaps not read the summary----

Mr. Speaker, I need to put the little bit of this in the Record from
memory of what I have read of the immigration law, which is actually
most of it. That it mirrors Federal immigration law, and it makes it
against the law to violate Federal immigration law, but it's the law
that is set up--it's mirrored and written by the State of Arizona. And
I thought I had a summary of it here. Should I be able to find that, I
will speak to it factually, but otherwise from memory.
But in any case, it allows for--if a law enforcement officer
encounters someone in the normal practice of their doing their duties,
they have to have probable cause to stop someone. Probable cause might
be speeding, an accident, a crime that's taken place, a traffic
violation. And once they pull over a vehicle, for example, they can ask
for identification, like they would for anyone that is driving under
any other stop. If then at that point, they have probable cause to stop
the vehicle or encounter an individual, then, if the identification
isn't adequate for, let's say, driving, then there's a reasonable
suspicion for that officer to ask a few more questions. That officer
can ask some questions such as: Where are you going? What are you
doing? Where are you coming from? Where were you born? Why don't you
have a driver's license?
And if the individual hands the officer a Matricula Consular card,
that's pretty much conclusive evidence that they are in the United
States illegally, and there isn't any other purpose to have one other
than to function in the United States by those entities that will
recognize it. It's issued by the Mexican consulate. It's not a valid
U.S. ID. And if they're U.S. citizens or if they are lawfully present
in the United States, they will have immigration documents or U.S.
identification. And the immigration documents for legal immigrants,
they are required to carry on their person. So people lawfully present
in the United States who are not citizens--let's just say they have a
green card, and that green card allows them to legally work in the
United States, they are required to carry it on their person if they're
18 years old or older at all times. Arizona law just respects that.
That's a Federal law. Arizona law respects that as well.
So this is probable cause to stop someone, reasonable suspicion that
they're unlawfully present in the United States in order to follow
through with any further questions or any further inquiry. Now if
people boil out of the back of the van and start to run off into the
desert, that's more than reasonable suspicion. And yet the objections
that are coming from the people who are protesting against Arizona law
are the objections that we're hearing from--I guess before the
Judiciary Committee and a person of Representative Judy Chu, who
already alleges that Arizona's law is cruel and it

[[Page H3478]]

institutionalizes racial profiling. No, it prohibits racial profiling
as far as an exclusive component of reasonable suspicion or probable
cause. She said, People are already detained because they forgot their
driver's license at home. Who's doing that? They're not detaining
people because of that, not under the color of this new Arizona
immigration law, because it's not enacted yet.
We're already hearing the fears, and the Attorney General is
investigating because the President has apparently decided for some
political reason that they need to do something to suppress Arizona
from enforcing Federal immigration law, instead of saying, attaboy,
attagirl. It's about time that the State stepped up to help out of
frustration. If the Federal Government had done their job, there
wouldn't be an Arizona immigration law. But they are not. They are
ineffective. They lack the will. And that's our problem. It's not lack
of resources; it's lack of will to enforce Federal immigration law.
It's not lack of resources.

Three years ago or so, a little bit more, we were spending $8 billion
to protect our southern border. That's a 2,000 mile border. So, Mr.
Speaker, I know you've already done the math. That's $4 million a mile,
$4 million a mile to protect our southern border, and I said then, If
you give me $4 million to protect a mile of border, I will be happy to
take that check, and I can warranty my work. I could guarantee you that
we aren't going to let anybody cross that mile for $4 million. Now the
price has gone from $8 billion to protect our 2,000-mile southern
border to $12 billion to protect our border, and still we have
ineffectiveness because we have a lack of will and a lack of clarity of
mission. And it comes from the top down. If it's clear that the
President doesn't want the borders enforced, the Secretary of Homeland
Security seems to not want to enforce against illegal workers in the
workplace. She seems to want to just simply posture to enforce against
employers.
Now I admit that there are many Border Patrol officers and CBP
personnel and ICE personnel who go to work every day who do their job
very well. In fact, I congratulate them for that. They want to do that.
They put their lives on the line every day. They deserve our support.
They deserve our adulation many times. But they're burdened by a lack
of mission, and even though the mission is posted on the wall down at
the station in Nogales, that mission has got to be something that the
top articulates. And if the President of the United States articulates
something else, when Arizona passes an immigration law that mirrors
Federal law, and the President attacks Arizona law and inflames public
fears in an erroneous fashion, what more could he do to undermine
Arizona law and Federal immigration law?
He has said to everyone that's enforcing--not just local law
enforcement that's enforcing immigration law. He has said to all of his
Federal officers from the White House down, ICE, CBP, Border Patrol,
all of them, well, he really doesn't want to see immigration law
enforced. And it's clear, of course, that he doesn't want to have
racial profiling used, and I would agree with him--as an exclusive
component. However, if it's part of the other indicators, it had better
be used. Would we say that we can't use as an indicator when it comes
time to enforce the law against international terrorism that a young
Middle Eastern male cannot be considered as one of the factors? We've
kind of said that when people go through the airport. I think it's
wrong. I think it's foolish. And in fact, Mr. Speaker, I think it's
downright stupid to set aside our common sense for the sake of
political correctness.
So an Arizona law, though, goes to great lengths to make it clear
that race cannot be the sole factor when evaluating reasonable
suspicion or probable cause. How much further could they go? It reminds
me of the official English law that I spent actually 6 years getting
established in Iowa. We have demonstrations and protesters. I would
say, Come into my office, sit down, tell me what your concerns are.
Hour after hour, I listened. We had witnesses before the committee. And
it was about how their language would be disparaged. So we wrote right
into the law that it was unlawful to disparage any language in Iowa
other than English. And do you know, I don't know that anybody's
disparaged English either, but they haven't disparaged any other
language in Iowa.
These fears that are mounted by that 1 percent or 2 percent or 3
percent of the aggressive liberals, they wouldn't come to pass. They
didn't come to pass when we passed an official language law in Iowa or
the 20-some other States. And furthermore, the fear about reasonable
suspicion, giving law enforcement an excuse to target someone that they
don't like because of racial reasons, that isn't going to come to pass.
It may be a wild exception somewhere out there in the barest little
minority of law enforcement officers, but it's not going to come to
pass. This is a presumption that the law enforcement officers are
racist and that they're biased and that they're bigoted against a
particular race. And many of the communities in Arizona have a
significant percentage--and in some communities, a majority of their
law enforcement officers are Hispanic, and yet we're going to label all
law enforcement officers in Arizona as racist without one scintilla of
evidence and have allegations by Members of Congress, as Ms. Chu, or
the President of the United States, or, by his silence, or refusal, or
his reluctance, I should say, to respond to the points that I raised
with him, the Attorney General of the United States.

{time} 1600

It creates a perception that this is a racist society and that we
can't even have logical laws that uphold the rule of law because
somebody will abuse those and stretch the limits and target someone.
Now I will tell you, and we heard from Mr. Smith, statistically, the
law enforcement officers in Arizona have enough to do without that.
They are faced with the highest kidnapping rate in the United States,
second highest in the entire hemisphere. They have murder rates that
have gone up, kidnapping rates, drug smuggling rates that have gone up,
and violence that has gone up. The coyotes are taking the lawlessness
from Mexico into the United States. Ninety percent of the illegal drugs
consumed in America come from or through Mexico. And 100 percent,
according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, 100 percent of the illegal
distribution chains in America have at least one link that is the link
that is provided by an illegal that is in the United States.
So, if by some magical formula everybody woke up tomorrow morning in
a country that they were lawfully residing in, it would at least
temporarily sever every illegal drug distribution chain in America.
Now, it probably wouldn't take very long to rebuild some of those, and
it would take longer to rebuild more of those, and eventually we would
still have this illegal drug distribution chain in America because the
problem we have is that the demand for illegal drugs in this country is
so powerful and so great, somebody is going to find a way to meet that
demand.
Until this Nation understands that we have to line up against the
consumption of illegal drugs and shut down that magnet that brings
illegal drugs into America, we are going to have billions of dollars
come out of our economy that are going to flow to and through Mexico to
other points where drugs are originated. We have $60 billion a year
that are wired out of the United States to points south; about half of
that to Mexico, and the other half goes to the Caribbean, Central
America, and South America. About $30 billion into Mexico, about $30
billion to points south.
Some would argue that those are legitimate wages that are being wired
back to family and loved ones. Yes, I would agree some of that is
legitimate wages that are being wired back to family and loved ones in
those countries of origin of people who are working here in the United
States. A lot of it is illegal wages that is going south that should
not have been earned in the first place if we had enforced our
immigration law.
But a whole lot is being wired, shipped, laundered out of the United
States to pay for the drug buys going south in places like Mexico and
on down through Central America to South America. And we don't have a
Drug Enforcement Agency that understands this equation adequately
enough to intercept them. I have

[[Page H3479]]

talked to them. I don't blame them entirely for that. We need a mission
at the top.
The President of the United States has got to articulate a mission.
Instead, he is playing race bait games to undermine the law enforcement
in the State of Arizona and across the country, and undermining the
efforts of our Border Patrol, ICE, and customs border protection. And,
by the way, the Shadow Wolves down there, the cells whom I admire so
much and have a good friendship with, they are out there doing their
job every day.
The Attorney General isn't willing, cannot, and I asked the ranking
member of the Judiciary Committee to point out for me what I am missing
in the Constitution that would prohibit Arizona from passing an
immigration law like they did, or what is in the Federal code that
would prohibit them from doing so, or what is in case law that might
apply to that. And, of course, Mr. Smith, an excellent lawyer with a
wonderful staff in his own right, doesn't fill out the answers to the
those questions because I don't believe there are any. And I don't
believe the Attorney General fills out the answers to those questions
because I don't believe there are any.
When I raised the issue that the office of the Department of Justice
is playing, is politically motivated, of course he rebuts that. He has
to give the ``I am pure'' and ``we don't do political things within my
department.'' Well, I will raise some points that I believe are
definitive rebuttals to that.
I believe that the Justice Department has demonstrated a political
nature well beyond immigration, and I would take us to the case of the
most open-and-shut voter intimidation case in the history of the United
States of America, and that was in Philadelphia in a previous election
where we have video of members of the New Black Panthers standing
outside of a polling place in paramilitary uniforms and berets, and one
of them is standing there with a billy club, a nightstick, smacking it
into his hand and calling people, white people coming in to vote,
calling them ``crackers'' and telling them that they are going to take
over the country and he is going to be out of power, those white
people. It was intimidating to the individual that collected that film.
There is much other investigation which has gone on, and this
investigation that was carried on by the Justice Department before
President Obama swore into office and before Eric Holder became the
Attorney General, there was an open-and-shut case that was completed
against the Black Panthers that were intimidating voters. And I don't
believe I need to say at this point ``allegedly,'' because I have seen
the film. It is the most open-and-shut case.
But, when Eric Holder took office shortly after that, we saw the most
open-and-shut case in the history of America of voter intimidation
cancelled by the Justice Department. The case was there. They had
everything but a plea, and perhaps they had a plea and I didn't verify
that.
Now, the New Black Panther Party, there were two lawyers involved in
the dismissal of this who have a bit of a reputation: Steve Rosenbaum
and Loretta King. According to an article written in the National
Review by Hans von Spakovsky, who has a personal knowledge of most of
the lawyers involved in Justice on these issues, that Rosenbaum and
King are two of the worst political hacks to be found in the career
ranks of the civil rights division. That is an exact quote out of his
article. He goes on and says: I have previously written about King's
ambition to run for office in Maryland and on the Democratic ticket.
But putting that aside, Rosenbaum hasn't worked on a voting case
since he left the voting section in 1994; yet he came in in 2009 to
cancel the most open-and-shut voter intimidation case in the history of
the United States. That is the New Black Panther Party members standing
in paramilitary uniforms and berets, billy club in hand, calling white
voters coming in ``crackers'' and intimidating them, and at least
implicitly threatening them. And they cancelled the investigation when
we have video of the most open-and-shut voter intimidation case in the
history of America.
And then von Spakovsky goes on in his article to say that Loretta
King hasn't worked on a voting case since she left the voting section
in 1996. Yet the assistant attorney general on that case was Thomas
Perez, who testified before the Judiciary Committee, and I believe he
did so dishonestly, not just deceptively, when he told us they had
achieved the highest punishment allowable under law. That was not true.
That was not true. They accepted simply an injunction to prohibit one
of those four members of the New Black Panther Party from doing the
same thing again in the next election at the same location. That's the
highest penalty allowed by law for intimidating voters in America? When
the very underpinnings for our Constitution are legitimate elections,
and even as important as legitimate elections it is the American people
having faith in the legitimacy of our elections, canceled the case.

And he said that according to Tom Perez, the assistant attorney
general, who should have to answer for some of this, he had two
attorneys who had deep experience and he relied on their professional
experience, their 60 years. Well, their 60 years didn't have to do with
civil rights cases in the voter rights case, at least since 1994 or
1996.
And there were others that were involved in this that actually did
the investigation that had substantial experience. In fact, they have
more than 75 years between the two of them, the investigators that were
involved in the actual investigation of that suit.
And by the way, Tom Perez, the assistant attorney general, in his
testimony twice claimed that rule 11 mandated that the case be
dismissed. Rule 11 provides sanction against lawyers who file frivolous
and unwarranted lawsuits.
So our Department of Justice investigators, our attorneys trained
specifically in that, who are bringing a lawsuit against voter
intimidation for the New Black Panthers Party, when we have them on
videotape, were intimidated because they thought there would be a rule
11 brought against them and there would be damages that would have to
be paid because their investigation was frivolous? Frivolous or
unwarranted, to be specific with the language. But to any lawyer, that
is incendiary, to allege that a charge, a case that is being
investigated professionally and legitimately might have a rule 11
brought against it and they had to drop it. It is an insult to the
professionalism of our investigating attorneys whose names in this
article are Coates and Adams. And they have prohibited them from
defending themselves against such a charge, that they might have
pursued a meritless case. And the Attorney General, in this case Perez,
the assistant attorney general, operating under the authority of Eric
Holder, has even ordered these attorneys not to comply with subpoenas
before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights when the law directs that
they do so, the Federal law, and directs all these Federal agencies to
``cooperate fully with the commission.''
And the Justice Department isn't political? When they can cancel the
most open-and-shut voter intimidation case in the history of the United
States of America, I submit that is starkly and bitterly political and
the direction that was given by Loretta King would not cause me so much
to focus on her if I didn't see her name pop up elsewhere.
Well, it turns out that Loretta King, long time supposedly not a
political appointment of the Department of Justice, has been involved
in some other cases, cases in which attorney's fees were awarded
against the Justice Department, and that would be rule 11. In the civil
rights division of the Justice Department for filing a meritless case,
Loretta King, whom Perez claims made the dismissal decision, and I
accept that description because her name pops up enough other place so
I believe that is true, was one of the lawyers on record in the case of
Johnson v. Miller, which was a redistricting case that went all of the
way to the Supreme Court.
And not only did Loretta King lose that case, but both the Supreme
Court and the Federal district court severely criticized the civil
rights division's handling of the case. They found its practices
``disturbing.'' The district court found ``considerable influence of
the ACLU's advocacy on the voting rights decisions of the United States
Attorney General to be an embarrassment.''

[[Page H3480]]

So to read this in its continuity for the benefit of your attention,
``The Supreme Court and the Federal district court severely criticized
the civil rights division's handing of the case, finding its practices
disturbing. The district court found the considerable influence of the
ACLU's advocacy on the voting rights decisions of the United States
Attorney General to be an embarrassment. It was also surprising that
the Department of Justice was so blind to this impropriety, especially
in a role as sensitive as that of preserving the fundamental right to
vote.''
This is what is going on with the case that Loretta King worked on
that was rejected by both the district court and the Supreme Court. It
went all of the way to the Supreme Court. The American taxpayers were
forced to pay $587,000 in attorneys' fees and costs that were awarded
to the defendants to compensate them for an unwarranted lawsuit, one in
which Loretta King and the other Justice Department lawyers commanded
the State of Georgia, as the Supreme Court noted, to engage in
``presumptively unconstitutional race-based districting.'' That's what
we are working with.
So it looks like the antithesis of the allegation made by the
assistant attorney general. It looks like Loretta King has been
involved in some cases that had to do with race-based quota direction
and distorting I think equal protection under the law. And this isn't
the only case for Loretta King. I have named two now. She is a
principal player in the dismissal of the most open-and-shut voter
intimidation case in the history of America in Philadelphia, the New
Black Panthers Party.

{time} 1615

She's an attorney in the case that has been reversed by the United
States Supreme Court resulting in $587,000 in settlement costs because
of the unjust case that was brought before the Court.
And now I move, Madam Speaker, to the third component of this, and
this is Kinston, North Carolina. In Kinston, North Carolina, they had a
referendum. They had a vote to decide to take their local elections and
move them away from partisanship, to make them nonpartisan, so that the
candidates that would be on the ballot for mayor and city council and
whatever offices they may have in that city of Kinston, North Carolina,
would not be labeled as Republicans or Democrats. They would be labeled
instead as candidates to serve their community.
Well, it happens, that's the case in most of the city government in
the United States. They are nonpartisan. People want to elect a mayor
that's not a Democrat or a Republican, a mayor that's going to serve
them in their community. They want to elect city council members of the
same thing. They don't want them identified as Republicans or
Democrats, and I'm glad that it is that way, as nonpartisan as possible
in local government. And whenever local government passes a referendum
to make their elections and their office holders nonpartisan, we should
champion that. We should be working against partisanship.
But the opposite happened in the case of the decision of the
Department of Justice. Now, you might ask yourself, Madam Speaker, why
would the Department of Justice stick their nose in a local decision.
Madam Speaker, you might ask yourself, had you been focusing on my
dialogue here, why local governments would want to have a referendum,
why they would want it to be nonpartisan. We know the answer. They want
to get away from the bitter partisanship.
But furthermore, Madam Speaker, you might ask, why would the Justice
Department inject themselves into a local political decision and deny
Kinston, North Carolina's decision made by a significant majority of
their people that they wanted their people elected, not as Republicans
or Democrats, but just simply as nonpartisan servants of their
community.
Well, it happens that Kinston, North Carolina, is one of those
covered districts that are defined under some of the Voting Rights Act
that was authorized, reauthorized here some three or more years ago in
the United States Congress. These covered districts cannot change
anything within their election law or practices without being approved
by the Justice Department, the civil rights division of the Justice
Department. And so if you're in a covered district--now, covered
districts are generally those districts that would have had a high
percentage of minorities in them, presumably, also that have a history
of, let's say, the institutionalization of Jim Crow laws or racism that
goes back to the civil rights era of the 50s and 60s. When the Civil
Rights Act was passed in, I'm guessing now, I believe it was 1964 or
1965, these covered districts were restricted from making changes in
their election practices without approval of the Justice Department, in
fact the civil rights division of the Justice Department.
So in Kinston, North Carolina, or many other places across the
country, if they had a voting booth that was in an old city hall
building and the city hall was falling down, and they wanted to move
that voting booth across the street into the new city hall building,
they would have to get the approval of the Justice Department to move
that voting booth over there, and the Justice Department would then be
doing an evaluation as to whether that voting booth was being moved for
some race reason.
That's the minutiae of what's going on. It's a bigger picture, and
there are other ways to analyze it. But I'll boil it down to the
minutiae because this is minutiae, Madam Speaker. This Kinston, North
Carolina argument is minutiae. They decided they wanted to have
nonpartisan elections. I couldn't imagine why that would be race based
or have anything to do with race.
Well, they were denied, and the will of the people in Kinston, North
Carolina, was wiped out and negated by a decision that was written by
Loretta King, who said, and when the case referred to a change to
nonpartisan elections, and I have the letter that goes to the city and
it says this--now, imagine, this thinking. It is beyond my ability to
get my mind around this. It says: Removing the partisan cue in
municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single
factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office.
Now, how could anyone get to this point where, if your motive is for
black candidates to be elected to office, you have to identify them
apparently as Democrats, or otherwise people going to the polls
wouldn't know how to vote for the black candidate if they didn't have a
D by their name. This is, if there's a rationale in Loretta King's
writing, that's it. And it's pretty much a stretch, in my view. But she
writes this, and I'll repeat this into the Record, Madam Speaker,
because this is breathtaking: removing the partisan cue in municipal
elections, meaning identifying as either Democrat or Republican, the D
or the R, in all likelihood, would eliminate the single factor.
Eliminate. Now it didn't say one of the factors or a primary factor. It
said it would eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates
to be elected to office.
In other words, she's saying if you don't have a D by your name and
you're a black candidate, you can't be elected to office. It's the
single factor, according to her interpretation. So she wiped out the
will of the people of Kinston, North Carolina, with this Justice
Department decision under the hand of Loretta King.
And she goes on and writes: In Kinston elections voters base their
choice more on the race of a candidate rather than on his or her
political affiliation.
Wow. Do I read that that she's defining the people in Kinston, North
Carolina, as racists at their core? They base their choice more on the
race of the candidate than on their political affiliation.
And she goes on to write: Without either the appeal to party loyalty
or the ability to vote a straight ticket, the limited remaining support
from white voters for a black candidate will diminish even more. And
given that the city's electorate is overwhelmingly Democratic, while
the motivating factor for this change may be partisan, the effect will
be strictly racial.
Oh, my gracious. These kind of decisions, the decision that wipes out
the will of the people of Kinston, North Carolina, identifies them as a
bunch of racists that can't decide who they want to be their mayor,
without having a label of an R or a D beside them because that's an
indicator of race. A D is an indicator that you're more likely a

[[Page H3481]]

minority candidate apparently, according to her analysis. There's
nothing here that's based on anything that has to do with law, except
that it tears asunder the equal protection clause of the Constitution
that makes it a race-based decision on her part, that sets up and
accuses people of being racist.
And by the way, the Voting Rights Act and the covered district
component of this label somebody's granddaughter who was born a
generation and a half or two after her grandfather was labeled a racist
by this law, also a racist. It makes it, you inherit racism under this
covered district Voting Rights Act.

But I suggest Attorney General Holder, if he's going to be a
nonpoliticized Justice Department, has an obligation to take a look at
all of the actions of Loretta King. If she can go in and wipe out the
will of the people of Kinston, North Carolina, define them all as a
group of, well, a significant majority of them anyway, as a group of
racists, if she can cancel the most open-and-shut voter intimidation
case in the history of the United States of America, if she can bring a
case that's so unmerited that it ends up costing the taxpayers $587,000
under rule 11, and if the Justice Department, under the direction of
Eric Holder and under the decision and under-the-oath testimony of
Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, if the Justice Department can do
the things that they have done and argue that they had to close the
Black Panthers voter intimidation case because of the fear of rule 11
when, in fact, it's the other way around, and the Attorney General of
the United States would sit before the Judiciary Committee an hour and
a half or so ago and tell this Nation that his office isn't
politicized, with all of this evidence to the contrary, and put all of
the resources that he has into the investigation of Arizona immigration
law, the constitutionality of it, whether there's a Federal statute
that prohibits it or whether there's any case law out there, any case
precedents that might affect it, and still not speak to any of those
three issues, so the resources of the United States of America are
being used in a politicized fashion, Madam Speaker, and I think I have
made my case. I appreciate your attention.
I yield back the balance of my time.

____________________