[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 77 (Thursday, May 20, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3691-H3698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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, it's a privilege and an honor to be 
recognized to address you here on the floor of the House. I listened 
intently to the dialogue that took place before with Mr. McClintock of 
California and Mr. Poe of Texas. And as I sat back here and listened to 
the speech of President Calderon, I had some thoughts of my own that I 
wish to impart here into the record and for your attention, Mr. 
Speaker.
  First I want to say that on the plus side of the speech that was 
delivered here to this joint session of Congress by President Calderon 
of Mexico, there were some up sides to it. He made some points that I 
think were constructive and needed to be said. One of the things that 
he said--and I am just going from my scratch notes--was that they are 
going to finally reestablish the rule of law in Mexico. Excuse me. To 
correct that, I want to make sure I'm accurate for the record, Mr. 
Speaker. I have the text of the speech here. It says, ``firmly 
establish the rule of law in Mexico.'' That's an important point.

  As I go to some of the worst places in the world, and I go there 
intentionally because I think to have that contrast, to understand 
where it's the toughest place in the world to operate, then it gives us 
that contrast to understand how well we're blessed here in America, and 
it helps us understand the functions of the institutions here in 
America and the functions of the culture and our values. Those pillars 
of American exceptionalism need to be understood and polished and 
refurbished, and we need to do that on a daily basis here in this 
Congress instead of have them chiseled away at by the other side of the 
aisle.
  But the contrast of how bad it might be, AIDS villages in southern 
Africa where there's not a single person there of reproductive age 
unless they're a missionary because the rest have died of AIDS. I go to 
Iraq, I go to Afghanistan, I go into those places in the world where 
poverty is a dominant force. Up into Tibet, for example. And most of 
those places that I go to--in fact, almost every place I go to, I can 
at least put together a formula on how to fix it, to be able to 
identify what's wrong and processes and procedures to put in place to 
put it on the right track. Most of us in this Congress believe we can 
at least gather the information to address these situations. When I 
come back from Mexico, I have this other sense. It's a different 
feeling. I can see a lot of the things that are wrong, but I don't know 
how to fix it, because the corruption goes so deep, it threads through 
so many components of their society. Unless there's a good formula to 
fix the culture of corruption, I don't know how you fix the rest of the 
institutions in Mexico.
  I want to give a hats-off to President Calderon for taking on the 
drug cartels. I know, being down there in part of the exchange program, 
as he was a candidate for office shortly before he was elected, one of 
the things that I was advised, sitting in those meetings and sometimes 
it was one-on-one with the door closed, was that he is going to have to 
take on some of the forces that helped get him elected in order to 
straighten things out in Mexico. So when I see the numbers that show 
the thousands of casualties in the drug cartel wars that are going on 
and the federal officers that have been lost in that battle and the 
local police departments that are either afraid to enforce the law or 
are corrupt and wrapped up in the cartels, it's a very difficult task 
that he has faced.
  I will give another point to the point that he has made that the 
consumption of illegal drugs here in the United States is one of the 
huge forces that drive the illegality that comes through Mexico. I have 
to concede that point. We need to address the illegal drug consumption 
in America. We lack the ability to do that. Our society, our culture, 
our civilization has accepted a certain level of illegal drug 
consumption and abuse in America. We've accepted the violence that goes 
with it. We've accepted the child abuse, the domestic problems that go 
along with it as simply a component of our society, as we accept the 
rotting inner cities in America, and we essentially send money there to 
start a new inner city economy that isn't based on something productive 
as a rule. Those are American problems that we need to address. He 
spoke to those lightly. He spoke to those gently. He referenced them. 
But President Calderon came on very strong against the Arizona 
immigration law. And I'm wondering who briefed him before he gave his 
speech here today. It almost looks as though the speech was prepared by 
the Obama White House.

                              {time}  1745

  When you look at the language that was used and the language that he 
emphatically disagrees with Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070, that's 
the bill, he emphatically disagrees with the bill, even though he says 
that he recognizes our constitutional right to pass laws and establish 
immigration laws and enforce those immigration laws.
  So I am wondering what it is that offends President Calderon so much 
about the Arizona immigration law since it mirrors the Federal 
immigration law. Was he offended then by the Federal immigration law? 
And when he sat down in the Oval Office with President Obama, did he 
say, I think you ought to amend the Federal immigration law so people 
here as legal immigrants don't have to carry their papers after the age 
of 18. That is the law. It has been the law for a long time. It is not 
something that offended people before. I hadn't heard about it before 
Arizona stepped forward and made it part of their State law.
  So if President Calderon is offended and disagrees with Arizona 
immigration law, which mirrors Federal immigration law, if he hasn't 
voiced an objection to Federal immigration law, by the law of deductive 
reasoning, you would just boil it down to he is only offended because 
local law enforcement in Arizona will be enforcing the mirror of the 
Federal immigration law, because it can't be the law itself that he is 
offended by or he would also be offended by the Federal immigration 
law. I think that is a simple law of deductive reasoning to take it 
down to that. I am not sure that the people on the opposite side of the 
aisle from us have the capability to do that deductive reasoning any 
more.
  And when I look at the people in the administration who have taken on 
Arizona's immigration law and willfully misinformed the American 
people, and I will include President Calderon of willfully misinforming 
the American people on the Arizona immigration law, but I look at the 
President of the United States who made comments that there could be a 
woman in Arizona taking her daughter off to get some ice cream and 
apparently because of the way they looked, they could be called over 
and asked to produce their papers.
  Now that was playing the race card, and that divides the American 
people. And that recognizes a statement made by Mr. McClintock a few 
minutes ago that there is an intentional effort to divide people for 
political purposes. The President has done it. And I can't imagine that 
he had read the bill until last night. He sounded a little more like he 
had, but he couldn't have read

[[Page H3692]]

it if he was going to say the things that he said.
  He knows Arizona law doesn't allow for a woman or her daughter to be 
stopped for no other reason than their skin color when they are going 
off to get some ice cream. It specifically states that in the bill, not 
the ice cream part. But it specifically states there has to be probable 
cause; and in order to investigate the immigration status, there has to 
be a reasonable suspicion.
  We understand reasonable suspicion. I happen to have written 
reasonable suspicion language in Iowa's workplace drug-testing law. We 
didn't ask a trained law enforcement officer to evaluate the reasonable 
suspicion. We simply asked an employer to either appoint himself or 
designate an employee to take 2 hours of course training in identifying 
reasonable suspicion. And then with that 2 hours of training and 1 hour 
per year refreshing training could be able to point to an individual 
and say I have a reasonable suspicion you are a drug abuser; you have 
to provide a urine sample. Here is the clinic. Here is the nurse. Go in 
there and we are going to test you.
  For 12 years it has been in the law in Iowa, and I heard all of the 
same things when we passed that law. That reasonable suspicion would be 
used to discriminate against people because someone didn't like them 
because of their skin color, sexual orientation, gender identity, or 
whatever it might be. All of this hysteria that gets built up around 
this legislation and the willful misrepresentation of the language and 
the effect of the law turns out to be--what do we call it, a tempest in 
a teapot in the end, not something that is going to produce substance 
on the other side of this, but a lot of hysteria created.
  As Tom Tancredo, who used to say these things on the floor of this 
House, he said the level of hysteria is proportional to the degree to 
which they are afraid the law will actually work and that Arizona will 
be able to enforce the mirror of Federal immigration law and they will 
be able to effectively outlaw sanctuary cities in Arizona. That is what 
this is about.
  The people who object to Arizona immigration law are lying to the 
American people. Many of them know it. The Attorney General sat right 
here in that seat today and when President Calderon said that he 
objected to Arizona's immigration law, who led the standing ovation, 
the Attorney General of the United States who confessed to the 
gentleman from Texas that he didn't read the bill.
  But he would commit the resources of the Justice Department to 
investigate Arizona for constitutionality questions, statutory 
questions, case law questions that had to do with Arizona's immigration 
law, not having read the bill, not having examined this or been even 
briefed by his own people, but having been directed by the President of 
the United States to use the full--well, use the force of the Justice 
Department to examine Arizona's immigration law and could not to me in 
that same hearing respond to a question, Could you point to a single 
place in the United States Constitution that causes you concern? Can 
you point to a single Federal statute that you think might preempt 
Arizona's immigration law? Can you point to a single piece of case law 
that would indicate that Arizona doesn't have the authority to enforce 
Federal immigration law.
  He could do none of those things, and subsequently the gentleman from 
Texas asked him if he had read the bill. I thought when that question 
was asked that it was a question to set up something else because I 
thought it was a given that the Attorney General of the United States 
would have read the bill before he misrepresented it to the American 
people.

  I yield to Judge Poe.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Regarding the Attorney General not reading the 
bill, he is a knowledgeable lawyer. Any knowledgeable lawyer who read 
the Arizona statute would know what he was saying was incorrect. That 
is why I asked him the question because I believed he hadn't read the 
law.
  The law states in four places that racial profiling is prohibited 
under the statute. In four different places it says that. To make it 
very clear to everybody in Arizona and the world that will read the 
law, that racial profiling is prohibited under Arizona's new illegal 
immigration law that they have passed which, as you have said, is a 
mirror copy of U.S. immigration laws, and because the Federal 
Government does all kinds of things except protect the border, they are 
desperate in Arizona to protect their citizens; and, therefore, they 
passed that legislation.
  I just wanted to mention, part of the problem with the Border Patrol 
in Arizona and other places along the Texas border, and why States like 
Arizona have decided they must enforce immigration laws is because of 
what is occurring.
  Here is a chart of the assaults that have occurred against our Border 
Patrol agents. Border Patrol agents, as you know, the gentleman from 
Iowa, patrol the border within 25-30 miles of our southern border.
  In the year 2004, there were about 380 assaults on our Border Patrol 
agents. I think that is a lot.
  Then in 2005, there were 687.
  In 2006, there were 752.
  And then in the last 3 years, 2007, 2008 and 2009, there have been 
almost a thousand assaults on border agents. And those are folks that 
protect the dignity of the U.S. These assaults primarily come from 
people crossing the border illegally and they assault our Border Patrol 
agents who are just trying to protect the dignity and sovereignty of 
the United States. People are not supposed to come here unless they 
have permission. They are supposed to come here legally.
  It has gotten so bad down at the border, they have improvised--and 
being in the construction business, Mr. King, you would appreciate 
this--they call these Border Patrol vehicles ``war wagons.'' And the 
reason they call them war wagons is because these patrol right up next 
to the Texas-Mexico border and also the Arizona-Mexico border. And 
people crossing into the United States illegally pelt the Border Patrol 
with rocks, heavy rocks.
  So they have put all of these meshed wire contraptions on their 
vehicles to protect the windows and protect themselves from bodily harm 
from the rock throwers who are arrogantly coming into the United States 
illegally. They see the Border Patrol, they start throwing rocks, and 
they come into the United States anyway.
  So that is just one example of why the State of Arizona and other 
States are in dire straits. They want to protect the dignity and 
sovereignty of their State. They want to protect it from people coming 
in, from everybody, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And right now we 
are getting everybody, the good, the bad, and the ugly; a lot of bad 
and a lot of ugly.
  It just seems to me that our government, rather than criticizing the 
State of Arizona, ought to be supporting Arizona, ought to enforce the 
rule of law on the border. If our government, the Federal Government, 
enforced the rule of law on the border, we wouldn't be having any of 
these discussions, but it doesn't. It is unfortunate that our Attorney 
General, and also the Secretary of Homeland Security, talked about this 
legislation and neither one of them before they made all of these 
statements about how bad the law was had read the legislation.
  I yield back to the gentleman from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Texas for bringing that 
perspective in.
  I have also spent time down on the border and ridden in the war 
wagons. I have seen the screen that hinged that goes over the 
windshield, and you can tip it back over the hood when you get away 
from the border and out of rock range.
  I have watched them climb the fence, come into the United States, 
take a look and watch the Border Patrol move towards them, and they run 
at the speed they need to run to climb back over the fence, hang over 
the fence, and smile and wave and smirk. Sometimes the same individuals 
get caught, and they come to the Border Patrol station.
  It is interesting to note that the Border Patrol in the Nogales area 
in particular, they will go out and pick people up, and they have a 
private contractor that comes and does the transport. They have 
paramilitary or military-type uniforms on these officers, gray 
uniforms, and they are riding in a white van. It has a cage built 
inside it. They will come along and pick them

[[Page H3693]]

up. When a Border Patrol officer picks them up, they will call the 
wagon and the contractor picks them up and delivers them to the 
station. And they walk in there. They already know the drill. They have 
their personal items in a Ziploc bag. They waltz in. Some have a smirk 
on their face. They know that the consequences are zero.

  They will sit down along the wall. They know there is a little time 
while they take their turn to get fingerprinted and get their digital 
photograph. Then they will be sorted into cells and then loaded back on 
sometimes the same van, within an hour or so and taken back down to the 
port of entry on the border. They turn the van sideways, open the door, 
and they walk back into Mexico to come back again the next day or the 
next hour. We don't have catch and release any more the way we used to 
have it. We have now catch and return.
  It occurs to me that we aren't really making progress. The mission 
statement down there on the border is not that we are going to get 
operational control of the border, even though Janet Napolitano seems 
to think that they are doing so because they have fewer interdictions, 
but I know you don't measure border crossings necessarily by how many 
people you stop coming in. You do it by how many people actually make 
the attempt and/or get through.
  So to lower the law enforcement and interdict fewer people doesn't 
mean there are fewer attempts necessarily, but that is the metric that 
we are using.
  I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Louisiana who has some 
comments on this issue.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman from Iowa. I would like to state 
emphatically here this evening, Mr. Speaker, that I support the law of 
Arizona. Just as the gentleman said, it is really a mirror image of the 
United States law. I would say that those who are against the law who 
criticize it, some in our own government, do so for very interesting 
reasons. It is not really the law that they have such a problem with. 
It is the fact that we are enforcing a law that already exists. If that 
were not the case, then why, Mr. Speaker, do these people who are 
against this Arizona law, why don't they simply bring a bill to the 
floor and vote to repeal the existing American law. But that is not 
happening.
  What we have had is a wink and a nod for many years, in which case we 
have a law on the books--I think it is a good law, it is not a perfect 
law--but a law that if we enforced it, we wouldn't have the problems 
that we have today. Let's just take a moment to understand why we have 
the problems that we have.
  I lived in the San Diego, California, area some years ago, and it was 
very interesting. When you would leave San Diego and drive across the 
border into Tijuana, here we are, two cities that are so close together 
that they abut one another, and yet on one side of the border you have 
beautiful homes, million dollar homes. You have wonderful bridges and 
infrastructure. And then as you cross the border, you find poverty. You 
find dirt roads. You find people in some cases living in the streets.

                              {time}  1800

  So there is such a chasm between the standard of living below the 
border than above that border, no wonder people try to cross the border 
for opportunity. I can't blame them for doing that.
  But the problem is that it's a cultural and political problem that 
exists in Mexico today. And so rather than pointing his finger at us, 
President Calderon should, I think, address the problems in his 
country, and that is the fact that they have a high level of 
corruption, a high level of poverty.
  I do agree with the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) that he is doing a 
much better job about the drug cartels and enforcing those laws than 
any President in modern times from Mexico, so I definitely tip my hat 
to him for that.
  But there is also no middle class in Mexico today. And like many 
third world countries, it's mostly a poverty-driven country, where many 
people are desperate for work and desperate for opportunities. But on 
the other hand, there is 10 percent or so of the population that lives 
a wealthy lifestyle. But there's very few opportunities for upward 
mobility.
  And let's just finally look at it. We're all descendents of 
immigrants at one point or another, and our ancestors came here because 
they were looking for opportunity. And we have many people around the 
world who come here looking for opportunity, and we have a way for them 
to do that.
  I think it was the gentleman from California earlier that mentioned 
that 600-something thousand legal immigrants came to this country last 
year. So we have a way of doing that, although we, I think, could make 
it better. We could make it more efficient. But the truth is there is a 
legal way to immigrate to the United States, and we should make that 
available, and we do make that available.
  On the other hand--and I welcome those immigrants. But on the other 
hand, those who come across our borders illegally, inappropriately, and 
who, in many ways, create danger for our own citizens, create problems 
for our own economy in terms of the need for education for their 
children and for health care, doing that illegally is not a solution to 
the problem. It may be a short-term solution for their immediate 
economic problems, but Mexico has got to address its own economic and 
cultural problems. And we, on the other hand, have got to take care of 
our borders, our sovereignty here.
  And so, again, I would just reiterate that I do support Arizona's 
bold move, I think a necessary move, to protect their borders, to 
protect their economy. I believe it's Phoenix that is considered the 
kidnapping capital of at least the United States, if not the world. And 
who can blame the people of Arizona for doing for themselves what the 
Federal Government refuses to do, even though it has an obligation to 
do that?
  And then, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) points out, and the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) as well, we have the Attorney General 
sitting here today right in front of this body and having already 
admitted, confessed that he didn't read the law to begin with; and, 
after all, it's essentially the same law that he's agreed to uphold and 
defend as Attorney General, and somehow agreeing with the President 
from another country who says we should turn a blind eye to the illegal 
immigrants who are coming across the border.
  So I would just say that I agree with the two gentlemen here tonight. 
It's time something is done. And I agree with the efforts of Arizona, 
and I do think other States are going to take this up as well and come 
up with similar laws.
  And I think we here in the body of the U.S. Congress should also move 
forward with immigration reform, but not in the form of amnesty that we 
hear about from the other side, but a true reform where we can more 
efficiently allow people to come across the border to work here 
temporarily if there are jobs for them in a legal way, but make sure 
that they return when they're done; and, on the other hand, those who 
are here illegally return and never come back in an illegal status.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, and I thank the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Fleming).
  A number of things come to mind as I listened to the dialog here. One 
of them was lurking in the back of my mind that I had to go back and 
find. It was a statement that was made by President Calderon that I'd 
like to have a sit-down conversation with him on, when he said in the 
early part of his speech today, he said, As you can see, Mexico was 
founded on the same values and principles as the United States of 
America. I don't think I can see that. I'd like to know what he's 
thinking about and talking about when he makes that statement. There 
are certainly principles that are similar and principles that are 
identical, but there are principles on the way the United States was 
founded that are unique to the United States of America. And that's a 
conversation for another time.
  I pose that question out there, and if anybody has an answer to that, 
I'm not illuminated enough on that subject matter to see into his mind 
to understand what he's actually saying so that I can agree with him. 
No, I disagree with him until I can find a better explanation.

[[Page H3694]]

  When the gentleman earlier, Mr. McClintock, talked about 600,000 
legals, he must have been referring to 600,000 naturalizations a year 
in America. And when I look at the numbers of people that come into the 
United States legally, under a visa, we're up now to about 1.5 million 
in the last 2 or 3 years. That number over the last 10 years averages 
about 1 million a year. There is no nation in the world that is as 
generous with its legal immigration as the United States of America is, 
and there is no nation in the world that we're more generous to with 
legal immigration than the nation of Mexico. Those are simply facts.
  We saw some facts, I think, today that showed about 111,000 legal 
immigrants from Mexico on an annual basis. And I remember seeing some 
data that showed about 14\1/2\ percent of the legal immigrants into the 
United States come from Mexico. Those numbers would comport 
pretty closely to each other. That's pretty generous.

  And we saw also, our economy, we've had an increase in the numbers of 
unemployment, up to 470,000 new applications for unemployment. It was 
interesting that President Calderon talked about their economy creating 
400,000 new jobs in the last quarter in Mexico, and here we're watching 
470,000 new applicants for unemployment in the United States of 
America. And if I go back to the workforce in the United States 10 
years ago, the workforce was 142 million, and today it's a little over 
153 million in the workforce. And if you would add up the legal 
immigrants that have received green cards and processed through this 
process of, some to naturalization, some not to naturalization, about 
half that come to the United States legally actually follow through on 
the citizenship application component. But the legal immigration over 
the last 10 years and the jobs that have been opened up for people that 
came here that received green cards or workers' visas almost mirrors 
the size of the growth in our workforce.
  And so we have 15.4 million unemployed in America. We have another 5 
to 6 million that are looking for jobs. Around 20 million or more in 
America would meet my definition of unemployment, people that need work 
and are looking for it. We have a workforce that could be expanded 
dramatically if we would simply take those of working age who are not 
engaged in the workforce, that aren't working for one reason or 
another. That's about 80 million.
  So we have 20 million looking for work in America, unemployed, and 
those that have given up trying to look, and then you add another 60 
million that are simply not in the workforce for one reason or another 
that are of working age. That's 80 million Americans we can draw from. 
And we have 8 million illegals in America, at least, that are going to 
work on a regular basis.
  Now, enforcing immigration law would open up 8 million jobs. That 
would be half of the unemployment problem, roughly that 15.4 million 
that are technically unemployed. About half of those could go to work 
to fill the slots of those that are now being occupied by illegals.
  And when people say that there's work that Americans won't do, 
there's not a single job they can point to that they can't say an 
American won't do. And about 3 years ago, I looked into that when 
President Bush was making that statement constantly, there's work that 
Americans won't do and so we have to bring in immigrants, and the 
illegal ones are the ones that first come and he wants to legalize 
them.
  So I asked the question: What is the toughest, dirtiest, most 
dangerous, most difficult job there is that any American would be asked 
to do? And the answer to that, as I polled the people around me, came 
back, well, rooting terrorists out of places like Fallujah would be 
about the toughest job there is.
  And so, well, what do you pay the lowest ranking marine to go into 
Fallujah and put his life on the line to root the terrorist out of 
there?
  Well, if you paid him a 40-hour week instead, and it's 60 or 70 hours 
a week or more, but a 40-hour week, that comes to about $8.09 an hour. 
So if a marine will go in and root terrorists out of Fallujah, for his 
country, granted, at $8.09 an hour, I don't think you can find a job 
picking lettuce that an American won't do for the going rate.
  And what's happened is our economy has gotten so distorted, we've 
become such a welfare state that, according to Robert Rector of the 
Heritage Foundation, a study that he did a couple of years ago, if you 
would take a typical family of four that was headed by a high school 
dropout, without regard to their immigration status, legal or illegal, 
American, natural born, naturalized, but a high school dropout heading 
a household, a typical family of four, the net draw--well, first I have 
to say, they pay taxes. They pay about an average of $9,000 in taxes. 
But they'll draw down an average of $32,000 in benefits, and the net 
cost to the taxpayer is $22,449 a year. That's $1.5 million over the 
50-year span of heading that household.
  And so now America's become a welfare state. And the lower skilled 
people, natural born, naturalized, legal or illegal, can't sustain 
their household in this economy because their skill level isn't high 
enough. And we would argue, we need more unskilled people in America so 
we can pay more people not to work and subsidize more families because 
the pressure on those jobs at the lower skills is so high that the 
highest percentages of unemployment in America are exactly in the 
lowest skilled jobs that we have.
  I would say we need a tighter labor market so the wages and benefits 
can come up in the lower skilled workers so they can sustain 
themselves. And those other folks, the taxpayers don't have to 
subsidize that household and the households of the people that aren't 
working at all. That's one of those economic equations.
  Mr. FLEMING. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. The gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. FLEMING. I'd just like to expand on that point real quickly, and 
that is that we're moving rapidly in this country towards paying people 
not to work. So, obviously, that creates that vacuum that you're 
talking about where people from Mexico want to come across the border 
illegally to find jobs.
  But what's very interesting about President Calderon is, as I 
understand it, that the rules for immigration into Mexico from its 
southern border are far more onerous than our own laws. In fact, ours 
are much more generous, and yet he's again criticizing us. That really 
makes no sense. It doesn't add up. It's hypocritical, of course.
  So I think you're absolutely right, Mr. King, because not only should 
we make sure that the opportunities are there for our own citizens, but 
we should take away, I think, any incentives for people not to work 
when, in fact, they're fully able bodied to do so.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I'd just make this point, and 
that would be that when we have people that are being subsidized, their 
families are being subsidized because they can't make enough wages to 
sustain their household, and, for example, working in the packing plant 
in my neighborhood 20 years ago paid about the same amount that a 
teacher makes today. It paid about the same amount as a teacher 20 
years ago, but today a teacher makes about twice as much as the person 
that works in the packing plant. The person that works in the packing 
plant now has trouble sustaining themselves without some kind of 
support.
  There was a day when a young person growing up in my neighborhood, if 
they wanted to, they could go get a job in the packing plant and they 
could buy a modest house and pay for the home and prepare for 
retirement and send their kids off to college. There'd be some student 
loans in that, and significant ones, but they could manage their life 
and they could go to work and, with respect in the community, be able 
to sustain their family. Today, that's been driven out because of an 
oversupply of cheap labor.
  I'd yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. POE of Texas. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  A couple of points. One thing that President Calderon said today that 
I totally agree with is that the rule of law is important. He said he 
believed in the rule of law. So do I. But I think the rule of law ought 
to be enforced not only in Mexico, but ought to be enforced in the 
United States.
  And as the gentleman from Iowa has mentioned, the United States is 
the

[[Page H3695]]

most generous country on Earth when it comes to legal immigration. It 
is a policy of this country to allow people to come here. And if you 
travel around the world, everybody wants to come to the United States, 
and that's a good thing. And they want to come for a lot of reasons. As 
the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming) says, opportunity is one of 
those reasons. But they want to come also for other reasons, including 
the word ``liberty'' that we don't talk about too much.
  But, in any event, we allow people to come here the right way. And 
when people come here the right way, they appreciate being here, 
especially those who have gone through that long process of becoming 
citizens. They make fine American citizens because they are Americans 
after they take that oath to uphold the Constitution.

                              {time}  1815

  But the rule of law should also apply in the areas where people want 
to come here illegally. People who cross our borders illegally 
disrespect the rule of law. They disrespect our rule of law. They 
should come here the right way. They should get in line the right way. 
And they should not disrespect not only Americans, but those who do it 
the right way.
  You know, one of the things we do in our office, as both of you do in 
your offices, we help people come to the United States legally. We 
probably do more case work on immigration issues than everything else 
put together except maybe veterans and military issues. We help people 
come here all the time. We get those calls, and people want to come to 
the United States to visit, to work, to be a tourist, to go to school, 
or to become citizens. And we do everything we can to help those people 
come the right way.
  I too, like I think most Members of the House, are for legal 
immigration. But people should not sidestep that process and ignore the 
rule of law, as President Calderon says he is for the rule of law, and 
come around that process and just come in the United States any way 
they can and then take the benefits of being in the United States 
without being here legally.
  So I think when it comes to legislation, we hear about comprehensive 
immigration reform. What that means is, really that's disguise for the 
word amnesty. I think what we ought to start doing right now is before 
we start with more legislation, why don't we just enforce the laws we 
already have? We have plenty of laws already that talk about the rule 
of law and securing the border and making sure people don't come in 
here. We just don't enforce those laws. I think those laws are not 
enforced for political reasons. That's my opinion.
  But I will yield back to the gentleman from Iowa because I can tell 
you want to say something.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time from the gentleman from Texas, 
actually I was looking to see if I could come up with within the text 
of President Calderon's speech, it seems to me that I heard him say, 
and it wasn't clear enough in my memory, that our immigration laws were 
broken or needed to be repaired. And I want to find the exact text of 
that. And I will do that.
  But I wanted to add to the dialogue here on amnesty. Because amnesty 
has been the central word in the immigration debate from the beginning 
of immigration debate, and we go back to 1986, when President Reagan 
signed the amnesty bill. And even though I disagreed with that act, it 
was one of the very few times that President Reagan let me down, but he 
was in a position where he believed he had to sign the bill. And the 
bargain was if we would grant amnesty to a million people that were in 
the United States illegally, then they would turn up the enforcement of 
immigration law, and there would never be another amnesty again. And 
that's been, well, 1986. So 24 years ago when he signed that bill he 
was at least straight up and honest about it and said it's amnesty.
  Now, we understood what amnesty was in 1986, but I watched them try 
to change the meaning and the definition of the word amnesty throughout 
this debate going back to President Bush's immigration speech that he 
gave in about January of 2005. And throughout all of that I heard them 
argue, many people from that administration, and then the concept was 
pushed forward from the Obama administration that it's not amnesty if 
you make them pay a fine, learn English, and pay back taxes.
  Well, what is it that you wouldn't require of an American citizen? 
Learning English is something we would require of someone that would 
want to be naturalized. So that's not an extra burden to give somebody 
a path to citizenship to require them to learn English. That's already 
law. You have to demonstrate proficiency in both the spoken and the 
written English language. So paying your back taxes? We wouldn't accept 
somebody as a naturalized citizen that had back taxes that they didn't 
pay. That's an obligation to pay your taxes.
  So the only other thing, the thing that makes it not amnesty in the 
minds of the people that argue that it's not amnesty to give somebody 
amnesty, is to require them to pay a fine. So the fine started out at 
$500. And I pointed out that a coyote's average price is $1,500. Could 
you at least get it up there to where if they can pay a coyote $1,500 
to bring them into the United States, to smuggle them in, couldn't they 
at least match the pot to become a citizen of the United States? Well, 
then they raised the ante to $1,500. Now they said it's not amnesty, 
surely, because now it's the going rate for citizenship.
  You can't sell citizenship to America. You cannot do that. 
Citizenship is precious, it's sacred. It's something that when you go 
and speak at a naturalization service, and I have done that on a number 
of occasions, and I presume my colleagues have done that as well, it's 
a very, very rewarding thing to do. I recall one in particular in the 
Old Executive Office Building right across from the White House itself, 
in the Indian Room. This was presided over by the Secretary of 
Citizenship Immigration Services, USCIS, Emilio Gonzalez at the time, 
who happens to also be an immigrant from Cuba. And he understands this 
in perspective.
  And as he gave the speech to the several score that received their 
naturalization that day. He said, When they ask you where are you from, 
you tell them, ``I am from America.'' From this day forward, you tell 
them, ``I am from America.'' Tell them you are the first American. 
Don't answer you are from anywhere else; you are an American. You are 
the first American, you are the first generation of Americans in the 
lineage that will follow from you. And when you look out that window 
and you think of the person that lives in that House next door, the 
President of the United States--he didn't say President, but that's the 
scenario that we were in--to remember, from this day forward you are as 
much an American as he is.
  I have never heard it so eloquently put how much we embrace the 
naturalized American citizen that comes through and follows through the 
right way. And when we embrace American citizenship, we also embrace 
the Declaration, the Constitution, our history, the rule of law, the 
experiences that bind us together. And we should understand that words 
mean things, and you can't redefine them because they are inconvenient. 
And the word amnesty, to grant amnesty is to pardon immigration 
lawbreakers and reward them with the objective of their crime.

  Now, if their objective is citizenship and you grant them a path to 
that, and they broke the law and you give them a path to citizenship, 
that's a reward. If the objective is they want to work in the United 
States, and you tell them you can do so and we are going to leave you 
alone now, then you have rewarded them with the objective of their 
crime. If they falsified their identity, stolen someone's identity, and 
you waive that identity theft that steals from someone else their 
security, their credit rating, their confidence that they can be secure 
in their person and you waive that because you would give them a path 
to citizenship, that's amnesty. Time after time again rewarding people 
with the objective of their crime.
  They might have come here just to deal in drugs. Well, so are we 
going to let them falsify their identification documents and become 
part of the--last time it was two-thirds of those who came in under the 
amnesty plan falsified their records. There was that much corruption. 
About a million that were designed to receive the amnesty,

[[Page H3696]]

and then the fraud and corruption expanded that to about 3 million all 
together in the 1986 amnesty act that rewarded them for violation of 
their crimes.
  And when I ask the illegal immigrants that come into the United 
States, We want to do a background check on you, how do we do that? Can 
you get me your birth certificate? We want to track and see if you have 
any violations in your old country. And their answer would be, well, 
yeah, I can get a birth certificate. Well, then why don't you get me 
one? Well, first, what do you want it to say? What do you want this 
birth certificate to say? Why do you ask me such a thing? Well, I want 
to make sure I get you a birth certificate that says what you need it 
to say. How old do I need to be? Where do I need to be born? Can I have 
a clean record?
  And so you can't trust the data that comes from a country that only 
half the people are born in hospitals, and the ones that aren't don't 
have birth certificates as a rule. And so there are many myopic things 
going on in this country.
  You have people over on this side of the aisle that are completely 
pandering for political power. And some will argue that Republicans 
want cheap labor and Democrats want all the political power that comes 
with that. I will argue there are a lot of Democrats in business that 
think they have a birthright to cheap labor. And it isn't even a 
majority I don't think any longer of Republicans that take that 
position.
  Sometimes they just simply have to compete because the people that 
they are competing against are hiring a lot of cheap labor. Then they 
rationalize and they decide I will hire some of this cheap labor, too. 
And pretty soon it becomes a virus that just takes over the economy, 
and the rule of law is the victim.
  But I would like to yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank you for yielding.
  To expand on that point, I have spoken to a number of business owners 
who have said just that. They really do not want to hire illegals but 
feel compelled to because the only way they can compete is to do the 
very same thing that their competitors are doing as well. So even those 
who wish not to be corrupt and wish not to break the laws are forced 
either out of business or forced to violate those laws that we should 
be enforcing in the first place.
  But the other thing, just to touch on amnesty again, it seems like we 
have gone through this cycle twice before. And the first thing that we 
do towards a solution has been to generate amnesty. And where has it 
gotten us? We have more illegals in this country and more problems with 
illegals than we have ever had before. So if starting with amnesty with 
or without a fine was a solution to the problem, the problem would be 
solved already. So obviously amnesty is not the answer. So I oppose 
amnesty.
  I support the enforcement of the laws on the book, both Federal and 
the Arizona State laws, and perhaps other States that will take up 
those laws.
  And the other thing, Mr. Speaker, that I support is that English 
should be our national language. It's really I think insulting when you 
are in your own country and you have to sort through all sorts of phone 
messages to just get to the right language you should be in. If someone 
is serious enough about coming to this country and staying or working 
here, then I think they should at least make the effort to learn our 
language, at least the basics of our language. And rather than citizens 
being forced to in effect learn other people's languages just because 
they are coming here illegally, or in some cases legally.

  So those are I think three solid requirements that we should have: 
That we should have English as our official national language; that we 
should not grant amnesty under any sort of reform bill; and that we 
enforce the laws that exist on the book today.
  With that, I yield back.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Louisiana as I reclaim.
  I certainly agree. And I would add to this that it is one of my very 
solidly held beliefs, and if you look across history and the forces of 
culture and civilization, that the single most powerful unifying force 
for humanity known throughout all of history is a common language. When 
you look, the most successful institutions over the last 200 years have 
been the nation states. And the borders of nation states have been 
shaped around the lines where people speak a common language.
  Why is France France? Because they speak French there. Why is Germany 
the reunified Germany? Because they speak German there. In Switzerland 
it's a little bit different. But that's a lot longer story. And they 
have actually not had a lot of agreement there for the last 700 years 
until after World War II. But it's a powerful unifying force.
  And if you look back 2,500 years ago in China, there was an emperor 
there. He was the first emperor of China. And I can never pronounce 
this in Chinese, so somebody out there is going to cringe. I can 
probably spell it, but it's close to Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor 
of China. It was actually about 245 B.C. when he lived.
  And he looked at that vast area of China, and there were 300-some 
different dialects and languages that were spoken. They had all of 
those separate provinces. They were not unified. But as he traveled 
around, he looked and he realized these are similar people. They look 
the same. They don't speak the same language. They wear similar 
clothes, they eat similar food, they are of a similar ethnic background 
just by looks. And he decided he wanted to unify the Chinese people for 
the next 10,000 years.
  So he hired some scribes to produce a language that could unify them. 
And that's where all of these 5,000 characters in the commonly used 
Chinese written language that are common to all the Chinese, or up to 
50,000 different varieties of all these 5,000 characters, came from. 
That's why it's picture writing. The intelligent people that he hired 
were intellectuals. They sat down and decided, well, we don't know how 
to make this make sense unless we draw a picture. So they did these 
pictures. Now we have the Chinese language. And the goal to unify the 
Chinese people for the next 10,000 years has been pretty effective. He 
is a fourth of the way along the way.
  He is also the one who standardized the width of the axles on the 
oxcarts so they could fit in or out of the ruts. And he standardized a 
number of things. The terra-cotta guards are another component of that. 
But it's a piece of wisdom that has been holding together for a quarter 
of a millennia. And it's a piece of wisdom that we can't seem to get 
figured out here in the United States of America. It's the only country 
in the world that doesn't have an official language. That's my 
research. Some others will disagree with that. But that's, again, a 
longer story.

                              {time}  1830

  But I would be very happy to yield to the gentleman from Texas to add 
to this wisdom, as we have about 12 minutes left on the clock.
  Mr. POE of Texas. I agree to the comment that we all should speak the 
same language. Now, being from Iowa, you would probably think those of 
us in Texas and Louisiana don't speak the same language you do even 
though it is a version of English, they tell us.
  I'd like to make one more comment about how difficult it is to live 
on the border.
  Everybody in this House needs to go down to the southern border and 
just travel the border and just observe what's taking place. The 
border, as a local Texas Ranger tells me, he says after dark, the 
border gets western. And what he means by that is it gets violent on 
both sides. Good people in Mexico and in the United States live in fear 
if they live close to the border, primarily the drug cartels. But it's 
also the international gangs that operate freely back and forth across 
the border.
  And the brunt of that, of course, occurs in the border counties, all 
the way from Brownville, Texas, to San Diego, California. So there are 
14 counties in Texas that are close to the border or border the 
northern border of Mexico. And periodically I will call the Texas 
sheriffs and I ask them this question. Pick the same day every month, 
and I call them and say, How many people are in your jail today that 
are foreign nationals? Don't distinguish between legal or illegal or 
where they're from. But how many are foreign nationals?
  So the most recent call that I made--called all 14 sheriffs on the 
same day--

[[Page H3697]]

and they told me how many people, percentage-wise, were in their jail. 
It goes all the way from Terrell County, where a hundred percent of the 
people in the jail are foreign nationals. True, small county, small 
jail. But the average across all of the southern counties in Texas on 
the day certain about 3 weeks ago, 4 weeks ago, was 37 percent. Thirty-
seven percent of the people, Texas border county jails, are foreign 
nationals. Now, that's expensive to take care of these people.
  Now, these aren't people charged with immigration violations. These 
are people charged with felonies and misdemeanors committed in the 
United States. These are poor counties. They can't afford to prosecute 
these folks.
  And so that is just one of the problems that occurs in the southern 
portion of the United States when the Federal Government does not 
enforce the rule of law on the border. Secure the border so that people 
come here with permission or they don't come. And that includes folks 
who come over here--not all, by any means--but those who come over here 
illegally to commit crimes.
  And because the border is porous, many of these people in the county 
jails down there, when they make bond, they head back south, commit 
crimes back and forth across the border on both sides of the border. If 
they commit a crime in Mexico, they hide in the United States. If they 
commit a crime in the United States, they run back to Mexico.
  So this, I think, is a phenomenal statistic. Thirty-seven percent of 
the people, border county jails, on this one day were foreign 
nationals.
  So I think the obligation of the Federal Government is to quit 
talking about this, get rid of the politics, and do what governments 
are supposed to do: protect the people, especially the people of the 
United States, not just the ones on the border but all of the people in 
the United States from those who wish to come over here illegally, 
primarily the criminal gangs and drug cartels.
  With that, I'll yield back to the gentleman from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the judge from Texas as I reclaim.
  I came across the language that I said I would look for in President 
Calderon's speech where he said, I fully respect the right of any 
country to enact and enforce its own laws, but what we need today is to 
fix a broken system.
  I would argue that, yes, there's a lot of burden on the system, but I 
am not seeing the Department of Justice come to us and ask for more 
money for judges, more money for prosecutors. We also heard in our 
dialogue today that they are bringing charges and prosecuting if 
someone has 500 or more pounds of marijuana they are smuggling into the 
United States.
  I have personally pulled out of the false bed of a pickup about 240 
pounds of marijuana. That wasn't enough to get him prosecuted when the 
threshold was 250.
  It's astonishing for me to think how much is 500 pounds of marijuana 
and how you might let somebody go and not prosecute. No wonder there's 
not a restraint there if we're not willing to put these resources in.
  And I'm not getting a number when I ask how much money are we 
spending on the southern border to defend that border. I want to know 
how much a mile. I can't get that answer back from Janet Napolitano 
because the budget is broken up in different categories and they mix 
and match and slide it around.
  We put this together and we've just tracked now the increases. But 
about 3 years ago, the numbers turned out to be $8 billion on our 
southern border. Now it's increased by an additional 50 percent. So one 
has to presume that 8 and 4 is 12--$12 billion on our southern border. 
Instead of it being $4 million a mile, now it's $6 million a mile. $12 
billion.
  With all of that money that's being spent with boots on the ground, 
and we're doing a catch-and-return and we're not able to prosecute in 
some of these sectors of the border unless they have 500 or more pounds 
of marijuana with them, how can we expect that that is a deterrent or 
that it is effective? I don't know that the system is broken, but 
neither can I see that we're using the laws that we have and enforcing 
them to their fullest effect. And neither can I see that there's a 
mission understanding on the border that is articulated from the White 
House on down to the Border Patrol agents who punch the clock, go in 
and do their job. And some of them do a great job. But it's a difficult 
thing to do if there's not an overall mission understanding.

  We've got about 5 minutes, and I'd yield to the gentleman from 
Louisiana.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman. I won't need much time to close 
out my remarks, and that is that, again, the Federal Government has 
failed to do its job. It's failed to protect its citizens, it's failed 
to protect its borders, it's failed to protect its sovereignty. And we 
have a State, the State of Arizona, which has stepped up, very 
carefully crafted a law that mirrors that of the Federal Government 
that's not being enforced. They've stepped up to the plate and said 
this is costing us in terms of human lives, really. And in terms of 
other costs, financial and otherwise, we're better off to step forward 
and do something about this even though the Federal Government refuses 
to send troops or whatever protection we need to have.
  So I think that that is the beauty of this Republic, and that is that 
each State has its own government and becomes a test tube for the 
entire Nation. It's going to be very interesting going forward to see 
what the results of this in Arizona are, and I think the results are 
going to be very good. And I think very soon we're going to see other 
States replicating this, and it will force the hand of the Federal 
Government to finally step up and do the right thing.
  And with that, I yield back
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I briefly reclaim and make the point also that the 
ACLU and a number of other left-wing organizations have filed a lawsuit 
against Arizona's immigration law, and they intend to press that in the 
courts. So if they're worried about discrimination taking place, I 
don't know why they're out there beating the drum.
  We've got other organizations out there that have announced, as of 
today, that they're going to continue and accelerate civil disobedience 
against Arizona's immigration law.
  And on top of that you have some of the cities in the country that 
are boycotting Arizona. You saw the basketball players that weren't 
able to go down to Arizona even though they'd earned their place in the 
tournament because apparently the school administration wants to make a 
political statement.
  All of these huge mistakes that are made to pit Americans against 
Americans. And we should stand together and stand behind and stand with 
the rule of law, which is represented so well by the judge of Texas, 
who I'd offer a final word to.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Thank you, gentlemen, for yielding briefly.
  I want to comment about our border protectors.
  The Border Patrol, the sheriffs all along the border do everything 
they can to secure the sovereignty to protect us from those who come 
into the United States illegally. The Border Patrol has asked, and we 
have asked--myself and others--have asked the President to grant the 
request of the Texas Governor to send the National Guard to the border. 
We need more boots on the ground. The National Guard can do that. The 
President has not answered that request, a yes or no or we're looking 
at your letter.
  So I would hope that the National Guard could work together with the 
Border Patrol, the sheriffs, secure the border. Let's mean it when we 
say we want border security and protect the people of the United 
States.
  I'll yield back the remaining time to the gentleman from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming and thanking the gentlemen from Texas 
and Louisiana for being here tonight to add so much to this dialogue 
that we had.
  We're a Nation. We can't call ourselves a Nation if we can't define 
ourselves by borders; and the border must be defended, and we must 
protect it, and we must control who goes in and who goes out.
  The Constitution has a couple of places where it addresses 
immigration. I'd point that out if the Attorney General were still 
sitting in this seat here that we're required, the Federal Government, 
is required to protect us from

[[Page H3698]]

invasion. That's one of the components. And then in article 1, section 
8, it says that Congress should establish a uniform naturalization law. 
Well, we have done that for a uniform naturalization. That means 
whatever nation you come from, you go through the same tests and meet 
the same standards and there won't be different criteria from one State 
to another, so that people can become Americans under a standardized 
formula.
  But it doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution that the States 
cannot support Federal immigration law.
  And I add that there was a lot of misinformation that was presented 
around this country, and it continues to be presented around this 
country that argues that local law enforcement doesn't have authority 
enough to enforce immigration law. And it's never been true in this 
country. It's been something that's a fabrication, but it's never been 
true. The case of U.S. v. Santana Garcia, 2001 establishes the implicit 
authority of local government to enforce Federal immigration law.
  I appreciate the attendance and the dialogue and the contribution of 
my friends from Louisiana and Texas and the job they do in this 
Congress.
  I appreciate your attention, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back.

                          ____________________