[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 10, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H5243-H5247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE DECLINE AND FALL OF GREAT CIVILIZATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we have been going through appropriation 
bills, today Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. We have 
had an open rule process where anybody who wanted to bring any 
amendment could do so. I was a little surprised that my amendment did 
not pass. It had 160 votes today. This is a very simple amendment. We 
took the last official number we could find from an executive branch, 
from January of 2009, before President Obama was sworn in, and it 
indicated that there was less than 1 percent of those getting section 8 
public housing given to them, and so we took the amount of money clear 
back from 2009, even though there are indications that it is many times 
that now, we just took that conservative amount, trying to be 
conservative and trying to be more than fair, which it was, and said, 
okay, we have got to send a message to Housing and Urban Development 
folks that you can't just keep giving housing away.
  I know the mainstream media never talks about it when there is a 
Democratic President, but they sure bring it right back up as soon as a 
Republican takes over the White House, and that is homelessness. Well, 
if homelessness is ever a problem, then why do we keep offering and 
paying for people to use federally financed housing when they are not 
legally getting federally financed housing?
  So it gets me to use the word ``only'' with $24 million, but it was 
only $24 million that would be the amount reduced from section 8 public 
housing to send a message that, HUD, if you are going to be providing 
housing to people who are not legally allowed in public housing, then 
we are going to cut your funding by that much. It seemed like a pretty 
good amendment. It sent a message. And I was grateful for the numbers. 
The USA is very concerned about the illegal immigration issue. We 
scored that as an important vote, and we got 160 votes.
  If we cannot, as a majority Republican Congress, muster a majority of 
votes to say to the rest of the country that we have an obligation in 
this generation not to spend future generations' money, not to continue 
to be the first generation in American history to put succeeding 
generations into so much debt they can never get out of it--we have a 
moral obligation not to do that. It is absolutely immoral to be 
spending future generations' money. It is wrong, and if we can't even 
agree to cut public housing that is provided to people by the amount 
that was provided 5 years ago--illegally--then where are we ever going 
to make cuts?
  It would be nice if America were strong enough to house and feed the 
entire world. But if we try to do that, we will be so devastated and 
emaciated as a country that we will become a Third World country, 
because you just can't do that. You go bankrupt, then people quit 
buying your products, and then you have an entire rebound situation. 
But that is how you can become a destitute country.
  It is how the Soviet Union went out of business. It is what happens 
to any country, any group that tries to live under a communist or 
socialist system. As Margaret Thatcher said, eventually you run out of 
other people's money, and you are broke.
  A true free market system does not fail. A free market system fails 
when it becomes more and more and more socialistic, more government 
controlled, more giveaways, less reward for one's own work, and more 
reward for not working at all. That brings down a nation under the 
rules of socialism because it cannot stand--not in this life. It 
cannot. Yet, this Congress, though we are Republican-controlled in the 
House, is continuing to fail to stand strongly enough to protect future 
generations. And it is heartbreaking.
  Now, I got back from being in Nigeria for a couple of days. There are 
mothers with whom I met of young minor girls. Three of the girls were 
taken into captivity by Boko Haram, a radical Islamic group, and they 
were able to escape. There were only a handful that were able to do 
that, and this was three of those. Twenty-two of the mothers--one 
mother had two of her girls kidnapped.
  Radical Islam, because of its desire for a global caliphate, is a 
threat to all freedom-loving people. It is a threat to moderate Muslims 
because they generally go to the top of the list. If they protest, then 
they are at the top of the list to be knocked off by the radical 
Islamists. But consistently at the top are Christians and Jews. So 
radical Islam is a threat to civilization as we know it.
  The progress that was made in Muslim civilizations could not have 
been made if they were truly radical as we keep seeing them raise their 
ugly heads in Iran and places like Nigeria, the northern part where 
Boko Haram continues to terrorize, including yesterday. I am not for 
going to war, but we were able to go into Afghanistan when we knew 
Afghanistan was where the 9/11/2001 attack originated, and with less 
than 500 American soldiers, Special Forces and some intelligence, air 
cover, some weapons, they were wiped out within 4 or 5 months. It 
wasn't until we became occupiers with tens of

[[Page H5244]]

thousands of military in-country that we started running into real 
difficulty and loss of American lives.

  Then this President came in and basically was ready to announce a 
date of withdrawal, which is considered by most warriors as an 
announcement of surrender. When you say, this is when we will withdraw 
no matter what is happening, most consider that as a declaration of 
surrender if they are opposing those who are going to withdraw.
  So we could do that in places. We have done it in the Philippines. 
Send a little embedded help for the Nigerians to eliminate Boko Haram, 
take them out as a threat, and then don't become occupiers, don't 
nation-build, just help them take out anything that is a threat to 
civilization as we know it and our freedom and liberty as we love it.
  It may shock some, Mr. Speaker, but in Nigeria these families have 
heard repeatedly that nobody cares about your daughters that were 
abducted and nobody cares what is happening. And if you think for a 
minute anybody from America cares, they are too busy enjoying their own 
lifestyle, they could care less what happens here. Nobody from America 
is coming.
  One Congressman came, and there are more, there was another small 
group there, but I was the only one that met with family members. So 
they didn't know there was another group.
  Again, it may shock some, but these families in Nigeria don't follow 
Twitter. They don't know what a hashtag is. So when the best an 
administration in the United States can do is #bringbackourgirls, it 
doesn't do anything for the families. They continue to cry day after 
day after day. One of these three girls was telling me that they had 
nightmares because they knew what was happening to the girls because of 
what happened to them while they were there, and they felt guilty 
because they were out and these girls were in.
  When the superpower of the world doesn't seem to care about the rule 
of law, number one, and begins to reward our enemies, begins to 
penalize our allies, those three things--and I will add one more--and 
then fourth, spending massive amounts more of money than we take in, 
those four are a very good prescription for bringing about the end of a 
great nation.
  Now, I am not a doom-and-gloom person, but I did major in history 
before I went--I knew I was going into the Army for 4 years, I loved 
history, especially American history, but anybody that studies world 
history understands that no nation will last forever--none. No nation 
will ever last forever in this life and in this world. So it is a 
question of how long you can maintain a great nation.
  The Romans, as great as they were, couldn't make an empire last 
forever. Later, the Ottoman Empire took over all these nations, most of 
them surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. And until the stop in Vienna, 
it looked like they were headed toward taking over all of Europe. They 
didn't last forever.

                              {time}  2015

  Going back before the Romans, the Greeks, they had a great empire. 
They didn't last forever. Ironically, some like to point to Alexander 
the Great and say: see, you can conquer Afghanistan and occupy it 
successfully.
  I point out that Alexander the Great died leaving Afghanistan. I 
wouldn't consider that a great victory. It didn't work out that well. 
It didn't then. It didn't for the Russians. We have to be smarter about 
what we do because no Nation does last forever.
  My goal in being in Congress--one of my goals--is to try to work with 
other Members of Congress to perpetuate this little experiment in 
democracy for another 200--maybe 100 to 200 years.
  As Ben Franklin said:

       It is a republic if you can keep it.

  That takes work.
  As Thomas Jefferson said:

       The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

  Our Nation seemed to grow more apathetic after World War II and has 
seen our deficits go through the roof. Countries around the world are 
now saying: You can't trust the dollar because Americans can't control 
their spending; they have no moral judgment which would keep them from 
spending their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren's 
money, so we need to stop taking the dollar.
  When the dollar ceases to be important international world currency, 
it will have a devastating effect, bring about a crash, most likely, 
here in the United States, and you will not be able to revive the 
economy by creating more and more and more money, day after day, as is 
currently happening in this country now and has been dramatically 
happening for some years, especially since 2008.
  Nothing indicates to the world at large our lawlessness more than our 
refusal to enforce our immigration laws and to secure our borders. Some 
say: oh, you must not like Mexicans.
  Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the Hispanic 
culture, with a love of God--generally speaking--a love of family, and 
hard work ethic can help reinvigorate our Nation's morality where it 
should be. My wife and I went for our honeymoon 36 years ago in Mexico. 
It was quite extraordinary. I have very fond memories.
  What we have seen recently are not Mexicans coming across our 
border--no. The big numbers have been coming from further south. They 
have been coming from South America and south Latin America, south 
Central America.
  In talking to a law enforcement officer in Texas, the pride of 
Governor Rick Perry, I was just told--talking in the cloakroom to Steve 
McGraw--they are not sure how many 12 and under are in these masses, 
but generally, it doesn't look like there is a big percentage 12 and 
under.
  Apparently, in the last 8 days, the first 8 days of June, it appears 
that they have dwarfed the massive thousands that have come into the 
U.S. in the whole month of May, and May was dramatically ratcheted up 
from the month before that, and it is continuing to grow larger and 
larger.
  It was a bit appalling to hear a spokesman for the Obama 
administration is saying they have no idea why there is such a 
tremendous surge in the numbers of children coming into the United 
States.
  I mean, for heaven's sake, when you send out an invitation saying 
``you all come,'' you shouldn't be surprised when they do.
  When you basically send out notification to the world that, if you 
can come quickly, we will give you amnesty, and we will provide you 
housing, and we will give you welfare benefits, and we will give you 
education, and we will give you better hospital care than you have ever 
had, then I think you can expect a great--a dramatic increase in the 
numbers of people who send their children to America. It shouldn't be a 
mystery.
  I have had great regard for the Anti-Defamation League. My 
understanding of their inception is basically to deal with hate, 
particularly as had been seen with anti-Semitism.
  After studying about the Holocaust during World War II and studying 
about it in history--high school and college--I couldn't believe that 
we would ever see anti-Semitism, an anti-Jewish sentiment arise in 
America as it had around the world.
  I didn't think we would see the rise of anti-Judaism in Europe again. 
I figured the Europeans would be too ashamed to ever allow that to 
happen, and yet we have seen it happen.
  While the Anti-Defamation League has not done the best job of helping 
suppress the anti-Jewish sentiment growing in Europe and that some see 
growing here in America, as we see Middle Easterners like Iran saying 
they want to wipe out Israel as the Little Satan and the U.S. as the 
Great Satan, and when you read the pleading that the mastermind of the 
9/11 attacks wrote in his comfortable cell at Guantanamo Bay and he 
talked about and quoted the Koran, in essence, as the basis for wanting 
to destroy all Jewish people and all Christian people, so that Jews and 
Christians are together, as far as the radical Islamists are concerned, 
we all need to be wiped out.
  Instead, the Anti-Defamation League, this noble endeavor, sent this 
letter to me that was received last week:

       Dear Representative Gohmert:
       We write to urge you to stop using inflammatory rhetoric in 
     the immigration debate. Your statements from the House floor 
     that the current administration is ``luring young children 
     across the border'' and that current policies are complicit 
     in ``helping lure people into sex trafficking'' do not help 
     engage in a

[[Page H5245]]

     productive discussion about the salient issues surrounding 
     the immigration challenges our country is experiencing. 
     Immigration remains a deeply polarizing issue in American 
     politics and public life.

  Well, let me assuage concerns by the Anti-Defamation League, but the 
policies of this administration are luring young people--children--into 
this country, mainly being sent by adults, because of the policy of 
trying to create amnesty for children.
  Anyone in Congress, Republican--and I know we have some--and Democrat 
who keep saying yes, any children that are here, we need to go in and 
give them amnesty, are helping to lure children.
  I know they are not doing it intentionally, but they are doing it, 
and talking about amnesty for children is sending more and more 
children from South America and Latin America and other places, so they 
can get here in time for their amnesty.
  I was told by a missionary about a billboard up with our President's 
face, encouraging sending children to America, and the word spreads 
like wildfire: America is going to give amnesty to any children that 
can get there.
  Deeply troubling should be the fact that some children get tied in 
with sex trafficking and really despicable human traffickers--why? 
Because of this announced, discussed policy that we want to provide 
amnesty for children that are here.
  There is an article from Breitbart today entitled, ``Illegal 
Immigrants Intentionally Surrendering to Border Patrol to Gain Entry to 
U.S.,'' by Tony Lee.

       Illegal immigrants are reportedly signaling Federal 
     officials to detain them once they are near the U.S.-Mexico 
     border, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have 
     declared they may not pursue all illegal immigrants who do 
     not show up for hearings after they enter the country.

  Mr. Speaker, if anybody in this administration thinks they don't hear 
that and that word does not get around to those who are tempted to send 
children to America, they are wrong. That word gets around: they are 
not going to send you back if you come.

       According to the Los Angeles Times, Yoselin Ramos, an 
     illegal immigrant from Guatemala who was with ``20 other 
     families with children,'' actually ``had looked forward to 
     being caught,'' telling the outlet ``at one point even waving 
     down Federal helicopters--because of the welcoming treatment 
     they had assumed they would receive.''
       In their home countries south of the border, reports have 
     been circulating that illegal immigrants, especially those 
     with children, will be allowed to stay in the United States 
     ``indefinitely.'' Ramos said she decided to make the trek to 
     the United States after hearing reports ``that parents will 
     not be detained in the U.S. if they arrive with a child.''
       The Federal Government has been sending illegal immigrants 
     to States like Arizona and Oklahoma, and local officials do 
     not even know where some of them are headed. And though 
     illegal immigrants are required to show up to meet with local 
     Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, officials within 15 
     days, ICE official told the Times that ``they couldn't 
     guarantee they would pursue all cases in which immigrants do 
     not show up for follow-up appointments, but would examine 
     each case to determine priorities.''
       In fact, ``ICE officials say that the immigrants are 
     released as long as they can provide an address for their 
     destination--with family or friends, no matter their legal 
     status.''
       Ramos was sent to stay with her family in Iowa. And the 
     Houston Chronicle reported that another illegal immigrant 
     said he considered the papers ICE gave him to be a ``permit'' 
     to remain in the United States. That illegal immigrant was 
     sent to stay with family in North Carolina.
       Though these illegal immigrants said they intended to show 
     up at their hearings, there is no guarantee that ICE is 
     willing or even has the resources to track them down if they 
     do not show up.

  This is from Judicial Watch from yesterday: ``Influx of Illegal Alien 
Minors a Disaster: Overcrowded Shelters, Diseases, Sexually Active 
Teens.''
  It sure seems to be clear from the pictures we have been seeing that 
a very small percentage of the minors coming in would be below teenage 
years, but this story says:

       The barrage of illegal immigrant minors entering U.S. 
     through Mexico in recent weeks has created an out-of-control 
     disaster with jampacked holding centers, rampant diseases, 
     and sexually active teenagers at a Nogales facility, 
     according to information obtained by Judicial Watch from a 
     Homeland Security source.

                              {time}  2030

  There was a liberal game plan laid out some years ago that indicated 
the way to bring down the United States, for those extreme liberal 
activists who wanted to do so, the hippy mentality, let's bring down 
the evil United States that was the freest country in the history of 
the world, they wanted to bring it down, destroy it. The part of the 
game plan for doing so in this well thought-out narrative, you 
overwhelm the system. You get so many people on welfare rolls, the 
government implodes. You bring so many people in, you lure them in, so 
much so that the country cannot take care of them, and it implodes.
  My dear friend Joel Rosenberg has a good book I was reading recently, 
called, ``Implosion.'' That is one way a nation can end its existence 
as a strong nation.
  Another article from Newsmax, ``Central America Newspapers Tout Open 
U.S. Door for Illegal Minors.''
  Mr. Speaker, for those in the administration that just cannot imagine 
what is causing the dramatic increase week after week, more and more 
and more coming to this country and overwhelming our Border Patrol's 
ability to handle the situation, then they just need to read a few 
newspaper articles. It's really quite telling.
  This one by Todd Beamon says:

       Newspapers in El Salvador and Honduras are promoting 
     policies by the Obama administration that defer deportation 
     to minors brought to the United States as children by their 
     parents--known as ``DREAMers''--and those that are housing 
     illegal children at military bases in the South and West.
       Almost all agree that a child who crossed the border 
     illegally with their parents, or in search of a father or a 
     better life, was not making an adult choice to break our 
     laws, and should be treated differently than adult violators 
     of the law,'' Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is 
     quoted in a story about a new 2-year extension of the 
     Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act published by Dario 
     El Mundo in El Salvador.
       Signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the law grants 
     temporary legal custody to many young illegal immigrants, 
     ending the threat of deportation for at least 2 years.
       The policy, however, does not entitle the immigrants to 
     state services. The law was renewed for 2 more years. ``With 
     the renewal of DACA, we act according to our values and code 
     of this great Nation,'' Johnson said. ``But the biggest task 
     of comprehensive immigration reform is yet to come.''
       Meanwhile, La Prensa of Honduras discusses in a report how 
     as many as 500 illegal minors are being housed at the Naval 
     Base Ventura County in southern California. ``The children 
     will be accommodated for between 3 and 4 months, while their 
     parents or relatives are located in the United States,'' the 
     report says.
       ``The administration of President Barack Obama has 
     acknowledged he faces a serious crisis for the continuous 
     arrival of children, mostly Central Americans, who are 
     illegally entering the country on the border with Mexico.'' 
     Besides Mexico and Honduras, the report notes that many of 
     the children are coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, and 
     Nicaragua.
       ``During their stay, in addition to accommodations and 
     food, the children receive English classes, play sports, and 
     participate in targeted programs while immigration 
     authorities contact their families,'' the La Prensa report 
     says. On Monday, the Obama administration said it would begin 
     housing as many as 1,200 illegal minors at the Army base in 
     Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

  And it goes on.
  For anybody who could wonder why the numbers are increasing basically 
daily, weekly, dramatically increasing, so that potentially in the 
first 8 days of June they have already overshadowed the massive number 
that came in in May, and because this Nation is a caring and the most 
charitable nation in the history of the world--any time, any place--the 
most charitable nation in the world, the most welcoming of immigrants 
around the world to our country legally--no one comes close to the 
number of immigrants that we allow into this country annually, nobody. 
Legally, I am talking about. And yet they dare to criticize our 
immigration policy as not being open enough?
  I still believe if the President or the Secretary of State notified 
the leaders in Mexico: Look, we turn around people that come in by 
mistake to the U.S. If they try to come in by mistake, we normally turn 
them around--that is until this administration's policy of just 
welcoming everybody, basically, particularly if they have got children. 
But if the President or Secretary of State added that we are about to 
start pushing the change of our laws in some respects to being like 
your immigration laws, so when an American citizen

[[Page H5246]]

cannot own property outright by themselves in Mexico, we are going to 
change our laws, because if it is good enough for you to treat United 
States citizens like this in your country, then it should be good 
enough for the United States to treat our--treat your Mexican visa 
holders the same way, so we are going to outlaw Mexican nationals 
owning property outright in America. But if you want to head off our 
beginning to have our immigration laws more reflective of your own laws 
treating us when we come in, then you better let our marine go, and you 
better not ever pull that again.
  The man said he made a mistake. It was easy to make a mistake. I 
couldn't believe somebody could make a wrong turn and end up being 
unable to turn around, but then when you see Greta Van Susteren's video 
where she goes in, you have the concrete barriers, you can't turn 
around until you get there and say, ``I made a mistake; I want turn 
around and go back,'' and they decide this is a great chance to grab an 
American soldier and throw him in jail.
  It is a similar message that's being sent around the world by this 
administration doing nothing about our marine being falsely, wrongly 
held in jail. The same kind of message is going into Africa and into 
Afghanistan and into the Middle East and China and Russia and Crimea. 
And the message is: we don't even protect our own people, really. If we 
have a deserter, then we may give away five people that are destined to 
kill lots more Americans, but otherwise, we are not going to help a 
marine who really had served honorably. We are not going to help him, 
but we may help somebody who walked away from his post.
  The message is going out and making America appear to be a joke. It 
is why some are pushing their nation like Putin, knowing he could take 
over the Crimea. And the U.S. Government might talk about it, they 
might do as they did and put a hashtag and Twitter something and then 
be shocked that the Russians weren't scared to continue on in their 
imperialistic landgrabs by this administration's Tweets.
  What a shock. A man who learned manipulation and domination from the 
KGB appears to the world to be backing down a community organizer. What 
a shock.
  The story from Breitbart written by Kristin Tate, ``Border Children 
Reportedly Sickened by Food in U.S. Facilities, Throwing in Trash.'' It 
is from a Houston story.

       A tidal wave of illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico 
     border has caused Federal housing and processing facilities 
     to become overwhelmed and overcrowded.

  The surge of thousands of children, it talks about. And so is it any 
surprise that more and more are coming to the extent we can't even 
provide them proper food?
  Here is one from Townhall.com, ``Internal Border Patrol Email: 
Unaccompanied Child Crisis is `Unprecedented' ''--Katie Pavlich. That 
is from today.
  A story from Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times, ``Holder Seeks 
Legal Team for Children on Border, Program to Aid `Most Vulnerable.' ''
  A story from Breitbart--I am not sure that is an appropriate title--
``Obama's Criminal Activity on Immigration.'' The story talks about:

       With the wave of illegal immigrants crossing America's 
     southern border thanks to the Obama administration's policy 
     of nonenforcement, more and more Americans are rightfully 
     anxious about the new and unprecedented use of executive 
     power by President Obama. In December, U.S. District Judge 
     Andrew Hanen of Brownsville, Texas, wrote, ``[The government] 
     has simply chosen not to enforce the United States' border 
     security laws.''

  It was written by my friend Ben Shapiro.
  Here is one, ``Officials `Overwhelmed' by Influx of Children Crossing 
Mexican Border into U.S. on Their Own.''
  It is very dramatic what has been going on, and there is a price to 
pay when we do not enforce our own laws, and we will pay by having more 
and more and more children coming into this country illegally.
  So, Mr. Speaker, let's think about this. When people come into the 
U.S. and we fail to turn them around and say: You are not lawfully 
coming in, so you can't come in. We are not going allow you to come in 
illegally, so go back, go back from where you came. You were able to 
get here, so go back wherever you came from. When we refuse to do that 
and allow them to come on in anyway, then we end up providing food, 
shelter, supervision, education. Apparently, we are going to provide 
legal services now, according to this article discussing our 
contemptuous Attorney General Eric Holder, who has shown a pattern of 
refusing and failing to follow and enforce United States law.

                              {time}  2045

  It would seem that when you add up all the costs of those things, we 
would be better off--I had heard there was a plane with 100 and 
something minors that landed in the U.S. It seems it would be cheaper 
to just refuel their fuel tanks and send them back where they came 
from, sending a message with it: we are not letting people come in 
illegally. We already let more people in legally more than any Nation 
in the world, and we are not even one of the largest nations in the 
world.
  You have got China with estimates between 1.3 and 1.8 billion. You 
got India that is nearly as big. We are a large Nation, but not nearly 
compared. We are about a fifth the size of China, a fourth the size 
maybe of India, yet we let in many more immigrants than they do.
  So it is not that we have a ruthless immigration policy. But, Mr. 
Speaker, it seems, and I have had more and more reporters asking this 
question: So what do you do? Well, you secure the border first. You 
don't seal it. I have never advocated that. People lie when they say I 
have ever said that. I have never said that. You don't seal the border. 
You secure the border so that we continue to allow over a million 
people a year legally to come in.
  But anyone who is trying to come in illegally must be stopped, they 
must be stopped and be required to attempt entering legally because 
they will not be allowed to come in illegally.
  Whatever adults are sending children, it would still be cheaper to 
put an ICE agent with a group that came from a place like the 113 and 
make sure they go back where they came from, because otherwise the 
radical liberal approach of overwhelming the system so you can bring it 
down is in full display right now on America's borders, overwhelming 
the spending so that our dollar is not worth what it was, overwhelming 
our ability to protect ourselves, dramatically cutting the military 
where we can't adequately defend ourselves and those who would be 
harmed immediately before we would be harmed. Because as President Bush 
used to say, it is a whole lot better to fight people in another 
country than have to fight them within our own country.
  There are those who have compared Israel to the miner's canary; that 
if Israel is under attack, as they are every day, then the free world 
will be immediately behind it.
  We have got to start being more lawful. As I asked somebody in one of 
our hearings on immigration before, why are people coming here? Well, 
they are coming here for jobs or for food or for opportunity. Well, no, 
that is not answering why they are coming here, because they wouldn't 
need to come here if the countries they were coming from had jobs and 
had opportunity. Obviously, they don't have the jobs and opportunity 
where they are coming from. So why are there more jobs or more 
opportunity here? The answer is, up until more recently, we have been a 
Nation of laws. Up until this administration, we abided by the 
Constitution as best we could.
  Sometimes in our history the Constitution was misconstrued. It should 
have stood for freedom for all men and women throughout our history, 
but it took a Civil War and then an ordained Christian minister named 
Martin Luther King, Jr., to see that rights were to be applied across 
the board.
  But nonetheless, there was an effort throughout our history where 
Presidents were supposed to follow the law and have their 
administrations enforce the law. This Attorney General is in contempt 
of Congress because he is not.
  It is time to take further action and send a message to the world 
that we are still a Nation of laws and believe in the rule of law, 
because until we do that we will be overwhelmed, and hopefully we can 
take a stand and require

[[Page H5247]]

the administration to follow the law before it is too late.
  But it genuinely was heartbreaking to me. It is not angering but 
heartbreaking to hear the President of the United States say, if 
Congress doesn't act I will, indicating that he would usurp 
constitutional authority reserved for the legislature in the 
Constitution. He would usurp that. The response by most of my friends 
on this side of the aisle was to stand and applaud the announcement 
that the President would ignore the Constitution, and if Congress 
didn't change the law he would take care of it himself by himself.
  To see people applaud the destruction of our Constitution was 
heartbreaking to me because I know they didn't realize they were 
applauding the implosion of our Constitution. There are an awful lot of 
good friends I have on the other side of the aisle who probably stood 
and applauded, and I am sure they didn't realize. But that is the 
effect when a President of the United States says if Congress doesn't 
address the law, change the law, then I will.
  The result is what our Founders promised. It was a Republic as long 
as you tried to keep it. You did have liberty, but you ceased being 
vigilant so you lost it. I tried to warn you about all these things. We 
tried to warn you, as John Adams did, that this government is only 
meant for religious and moral people, and not fit to govern any others.
  Abraham Lincoln, as inscribed on the inside wall on the north wall of 
the Lincoln Memorial in his inaugural address a month or so before he 
was assassinated, talked about God. Lincoln tried to debate in his 
inaugural address within himself how a good God could allow such 
suffering.
  It comes down, it appears, from his theological dissertation, that 
when a nation acts wrongly, as this Nation did in allowing slavery, a 
just God would allow suffering as a result. To paraphrase Lincoln, if 
it be God's will that every drop of blood drawn by the master's lash 
also be drawn by the sword in war, then we still must say, as was said 
3,000 years ago, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all 
together.
  When we as a Nation ignore the law, when we as a Nation encourage 
other nations to ignore our law, when our Justice Department refuses to 
enforce the law fairly and justly across the board, you lose the 
country that was, has been, and hopefully for a while longer will be 
the greatest country in the history of the world.
  We have an obligation, a moral obligation, to future generations not 
to leave this country the way we are about to. But people have got to 
wake up on both sides of the aisle. You can't keep announcing that we 
are going to ignore the law if you can just get here before we pass the 
law. We are looking the other way, come on, ignore our law along with 
our Justice Department, ignore our law along with the Homeland Security 
Department, ignore our law along with the White House, come on, we will 
ignore our law together. It truly is a prescription for the end of the 
Nation. We can't let that happen. People have got to wake up.
  So for those in the administration that just can't imagine why there 
is a dramatic increase in minors coming to our border, start reading 
some of the things you are saying and you will find the answer.
  Mr. Speaker, we have an oath to follow. By God's grace let's follow 
it.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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