[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]




                              {time}  1140
                   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.

                              {time}  1150

  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.

                              {time}  1200

  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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