[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 66 (Friday, May 13, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H3297-H3299]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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TROUBLES ON THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I want to identify with the comments of
my friend from Indiana. Well said. Great thoughts.
We have wonderful friends in this world, as a Nation. But we need to
recognize who are our friends and who are our enemies and who are the
places, the countries, the peoples that intend us harm, who are the
people that are willing to assist us in encouraging and allowing for
freedom to spread around the world.
We should be well aware that there are people across our border in
Mexico who are not Mexicans, people who would like to see this Nation
fail as such an important keeper of the peace.
We know that Hezbollah has been setting up camp across the U.S.
border in Mexico; that they have been working with drug cartels in
Mexico, and it appears we see some of the signs of that in the ways
that people are murdered, the way the crime business has developed.
We know that people coming across our border into this country, a
significant percentage at least, are other than Mexican. OTM, they're
classified. So many of them from the Middle East, many who are taught
to try to appear as Hispanic and come across and try to avoid
indicating anything that would give away the fact that they are coming
here, not for jobs, but to set up to try to do us harm.
So when you are aware that there is so much violence on the border,
Americans being murdered down on both sides of the border, we have two
lakes between Texas and Mexico, Lake Falcon and Lake Amistad, together
about 85 miles of international border that should be patrolled by the
United States Coast Guard. But this administration doesn't wish to see
the Coast Guard there.
Visiting with the Texas Governor a few weeks ago, he had made clear,
please help me in urging the administration to allocate some Coast
Guard resources to these lakes, where the drug cartels are bringing
dangerous people, bringing drugs, bringing mayhem across into the U.S.
Texas is committing money, resources, manpower on the lake, but it's a
Federal job.
And what we've seen with this administration, when a State does too
good a job or tries too well to do the job the Federal Government is
not doing in order to protect its State, this administration decides to
sue them.
We've seen also recently that if there is plenty of evidence to
support that people or groups are funding terrorism in the world, and
it is radical Islamists that are doing that, then this administration
wants to embrace the groups that we have evidence are funding
terrorism, rather than confront them and stop them. It's an interesting
time we live in.
I do want to follow up on the President's comments. Here Texas has
suffered the loss of around 2.3 million acres burned in the last decade
or so. Other Presidents, other administrations, and even this
administration, have recognized that when 177,000 acres, 300, 400,
500,000 acres have been destroyed, that is certainly worthy of
declaring a disaster area in order to provide Federal support.
Texas is a donor State. We always put much more into the Federal
Government from Texas than Texas ever gets back. We're proud to be such
an important, vital part of the United States.
It does follow that when there is such a compelling disaster as the
wildfires in Texas, 2.3 million acres destroyed, that it would be nice
to have the support of the President. But just as this administration
snubbed all the contributions that Houston provided to the shuttle
program, and refused to allow a shuttle to be on display permanently in
the NASA Space Center in
[[Page H3298]]
Houston, also Texas was again snubbed there with the 2.3 million acres
being burned, snubbed without any assistance or declaration of a
Federal disaster area.
Then we know the President did have a rather nice fundraiser in
Austin, during which probably hundreds of thousands of dollars were
sucked out of Texas due to the President's fundraising, and then headed
to El Paso.
And I have to say, much of the President's speech in El Paso was very
good. It was unifying, coming from a man who said he was a uniter, not
a divider.
But then, toward the end of the speech, the gloves came off and
things were said that were not true. The President said, and I know
they weren't lies because a lie requires intent to deceive on the part
of the speaker, and I'm sure the President would not ever want to do
that, but he did state things that were not true and they need to be
addressed.
The President said the fence is basically finished, that the fence on
our border is basically finished. Actually, our border is nearly 2,000
miles, around 1,969 miles of border between the United States and
Mexico. Close to two-thirds of that are in Texas.
We know that the so-called ``fence'' was going to be largely
consisting of a virtual fence, where there's no real fence, but there's
technology utilized that would allow monitoring, checking to ensure
that the border was protected even without a physical fence there. So
not only was there no physical fence, the administration ended that
program. No virtual fence, no physical fence. We're open for business
for the drug trade. Despite the Border Patrol, the limited folks,
they're doing all they can, it is such a massive border, it requires
more help than is currently there.
We withstood belittling from the President as he stood in El Paso,
Texas, where just within a few miles, 3,000 people have been killed in
the last year just across our border, the violence spilling over into
the United States.
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And the President chose this time and location to belittle those who
say we should secure our border; we should comply with our oath. We
have an obligation to provide for the common defense. That includes
securing our borders. And the President wants to belittle those of us
who say let's keep our oath. Let's keep faith with the American people
by defending them, by defending our sovereignty.
This administration, on the other hand, the very administration that
makes light of those who say let's secure our border; let's protect our
people, instead of doing that, says: You know what, Arizona, with 30
miles or so of border with Mexico and wilderness area where we don't
allow any mechanized vehicle to go, I tell you what: We'll put up a
sign, which they did, and there's a lot of violent drug smuggling,
dangerous people coming in this area, so we would advise American
citizens to use the areas north of the interstate, because this
administration has basically turned over our sovereign soil to foreign,
illegal, violent drug smugglers. That should not allow for any smug
condescension and belittling of those who are concerned about our
security.
We were told in the President's speech that, since 2004, the
President has more than doubled the Border Patrol. The actual fact is
that, when President Bush took office, there were about 8,600 Border
Patrol, around that number. When Bush left office, there were about
17,500 Border Patrol. And it took us a while to convince President Bush
to do it, but President Bush did double the number of Border Patrol on
our southern border. And since President Obama has taken office in the
last 2\1/2\ years, that has increased 18 percent.
But if you want to know what the President personally feels about
what should be done, you can look at his 2011 budget that he proposed,
because he actually cuts the number of Border Patrol.
Yes, it is true: Bush doubled the number of Border Patrol. But the
truth is, this administration has increased it only a fraction of that
and shown its true intent. They would just as soon cut it. Well, this
Congress isn't going to let that happen.
The President said, We've got more people on the border than we have
ever had in history. That is simply not true. I realize that the
President has spoken previously of what he says are the 57 States in
our country, so perhaps he is not aware of the history that goes back
to 1916 when a man named Pancho Villa from Mexico was involved in a
handful of Americans being killed. President Wilson was not going to
allow that to build. He wasn't going to allow renegades from Mexico to
come illegally into this country and kill Americans. So he took a
stand, he sent General Pershing there, and with 10,000 to 20,000
troops, Pershing went into Mexico chasing after Pancho Villa.
The way it was done may not have been well thought out; but the fact
is that at one point during that time, in order to protect America from
the small number of murders that had occurred from illegal Mexicans
coming into the United States around 1916, Wilson had over 100,000
troops, early National Guard folks, down on the border to protect our
sovereignty.
So obviously the President was not aware that any President had ever
seen murders by illegal immigrants coming into our southern area as
important as President Woodrow Wilson did, but hopefully someone on his
staff can do the research that hadn't been done before in the White
House and advise the President: Hey, there was a President who took it
real seriously when Americans were killed along our border. He didn't
go to El Paso and make a speech making fun of those who were concerned
about our security. He actually sent over 100,000 troops, and they
stopped the insanity before it could go any further.
Some historians talk about how Pershing was not able to get Pancho
Villa and how much it cost. There was a lot of waste in that campaign,
perhaps a lot more were committed than necessary, except he made his
point: the violence stopped.
And when our enemies who would like to destroy our way of life here
take away all the goodness that is developed in this country, take away
the things that people, we are told maybe as many as 1.5 billion of the
6 billion people in the world would like to come to America at some
time or other, there's got to be something good going on when that many
people would like to come here.
But there are those who want to destroy that, take it away, and this
President has an obligation and an oath to protect it. We hope that he
will stop the belittling of those who want him to keep the oath and
live up to his true commitments.
But we are dealing with a President who said: If you like your
insurance, you can keep it. And we find out that wasn't true. If you
like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. We found out that wasn't
true.
We were told here recently by the President in another speech just in
the last week or so that we are producing more oil right now than at
any time in our history. I know he doesn't know or he wouldn't have
said that, but the fact is that we have produced as many as 9.6 million
barrels of oil, and right now we are producing 5.5 million barrels of
oil in this country.
We also know that this is a President who assured us that he would go
line by line and scrub that budget, and that has never happened. He
told us that Vice President Biden was not going to allow any fraud or
waste. We know that hasn't happened. He said that he was going to close
Guantanamo within the year. I'm very grateful that he didn't keep his
word on that.
He said he was a uniter, not a divider, that he would bring people
together, and I hope and pray that, at some point before his 4 years
are up, he will actually do that.
But there are people that want to destroy this country. We can no
longer play around, make fun of each other in this country while people
are set about to destroy us. We've got to defend what we've got.
We had a hearing in Judiciary where the Attorney General of the
United States testified, and we also know that there is a memo. He has
been given the date and who provided the memo, and we asked for a copy
of it. He hasn't been willing to provide that either to Pete King or to
Judiciary thus far, so we are probably going to have to subpoena it if
he doesn't; and we may come to quite a row, governmentally speaking, if
they will not provide it.
[[Page H3299]]
Instead, the Attorney General said, Oh, I understand there was an
article in the Dallas News where the interim U.S. Attorney down there
said that politics didn't play a role in our administration not
pursuing the co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist
funding trial.
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We want the memo. We don't need a newspaper article from the Attorney
General. And when we have documentation from the FBI that arose in the
Holy Land Foundation trial, five defendants convicted of all 108 counts
in late 2008, we know that in 2005 massive amounts of additional
evidence were obtained, and we have these transactions, journal
vouchers, there are deposit slips, all kinds of things, that helped
establish with the judge that co-conspirators like ISNA or CAIR should
be left as named co-conspirators and not eliminated from being named in
the pleadings in the Holy Land Foundation trial, we know the evidence
is there. We know that there is a case to be made. And yet this
administration not only refuses to go after the Islamic Society of
North America, often referred to as ISNA, but we have the remarks on
the White House's own Web site, and this was put up March 6, 2011,
remarks of Denis McDonough, Deputy National Security Adviser to the
President. Our Deputy National Security Adviser starts his remarks at
this Muslim Society by, ``Thank you, Imam Magid, for your very kind
introduction and welcome. I know that President Obama was very grateful
that you led the prayer at last summer's Iftar dinner at the White
House.''
The president of a known co-conspirator of financing terrorism is not
only buddies with our Deputy National Security Adviser, he's leading
the Iftar prayer, which is the ceremony that ends the Ramadan
celebration. So the White House had the Iftar celebration and had the
president of the named co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation
leading the prayer in the White House. Who's running this henhouse?
And then we find out, as we hear in the news, and I know the
President gets briefed and is aware, not only are there al Qaeda
involved in going after Qadhafi, we're helping those people, including
al Qaeda. Qadhafi needs to go, but, my goodness, intelligent people on
foreign affairs know you should never help take out a foreign leader
unless you can be assured that the subsequent leader will be better for
your country.
Whose country are we trying to help here anyway? We know we've got
people being killed on our southern border, and instead, because the
President said, not Congress, but the U.N. and Arab League had
encouraged us to get involved in Libya, we're going to go expend
American treasure and American lives at risk in Libya? That we're going
to push for an ally, whether he's a nice guy or not, he was helping
keep the peace in the Middle East, Mubarak, in Egypt, and we pushed to
take him out, so that instability is going to reign in the region.
Who's running this show? Who are we trying to help? We ought to be
helping this country. That's where our oaths have been made and that's
to whom the oaths have been made. It's scary stuff here. It is
staggering what this administration is doing.
There's good information. Andy McCarthy and Patrick Poole have been
publishing some good information on what has been going on in the Holy
Land Foundation non-prosecution. It's time to defend this country, not
be protecting other countries.
There have been some excellent things written and said encouraging
the President on what would be appropriate action in the Middle East.
Unfortunately, this administration has chosen to play handsy, be
friendly with and encourage, it seems, the development of the
relationship between Fatah, the Palestinian Authority leaders in the
West Bank, with Hamas, who we have listed and know to be a terrorist
organization that is in control of the Gaza Strip.
We have laws in this country that prohibit us from providing funds to
any nation or any entity who is allied with terrorist organizations,
and yet what we are seeing is this administration apparently being
willing to somewhat embrace, I am hoping the President will come out
and make clear he's not going this far, but embrace that, hey, the West
Bank joining hands with Hamas, the terrorist organization, is okay,
when the fact is our laws prohibit us providing money to Hamas.
We have had five defendants convicted in the Holy Land Foundation
trial for providing funds, including to Hamas. And yet if this
administration does not stop the funding of the Palestinian Authority
when it is joined with Hamas, then whoever pushes for that funding may
have some criminal sanctions to lie. This is a very, very serious issue
and it needs to be addressed.
Caroline Glick, who writes for the Jerusalem Post, has an excellent
article this week on that very issue, and I hope that, Madam Speaker,
you and others will review that, because it makes very clear this
administration keeps pushing the Israeli leaders to give away land,
make unilateral concessions, when it is not Israel that is acting in
terrorist fashion. This administration seems to be ignoring the fact
that Hamas is still killing people in Israel, still killing people and
promoting terrorism in the Middle East.
It is time to stop acting as if this Nation's administration is okay
with terrorism in the Middle East as long as it is by the Muslim
Brotherhood, as long as it is by Hamas or Hezbollah. We are helping
rearm people who are Israel's enemies. This stuff's got to stop. It is
insanity when we help arm people who want to see this Nation destroyed.
I hope and pray that this President will come to his senses, his
advisers will give him better advice, and that we can stop this. We are
hurting ourselves when we hurt our friend Israel. It makes no sense. It
has to stop.
We are going to be fortunate to have the leader of Israel speaking to
us from that second-level podium right here on May 24, and I know the
administration is going to be trying, probably has already, to push
Binyamin Netanyahu into making concessions. But the fact is Israel is
still under attack, its enemies are still not willing to recognize
Israel's right to exist as a Jewish nation, they are still not willing
to stop the pushing of hatred and the teaching of hatred and anti-
Semitism in the Middle East. So Israel owes them no unilateral
concessions. There should be nothing, and I hope and pray will be
nothing in the way of concessions.
As I pointed out to Prime Minister Netanyahu, any time Israel in its
long history going back 3,000 years or so has given up land to others,
it is normally used as a staging area at some point from which to
attack Israel.
The Tanakh is full of incidents where leaders of Israel have tried to
placate terrorists, those who would want to destroy it; and giving them
land, giving them things, paying tribute, it has never worked. It will
never work. This is no time to do it now.
With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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