[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.

                          ____________________