[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 101 (Thursday, June 26, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H5811-H5813]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Perry). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to direct attention to a 
robocall that was made on behalf of one of our Republican colleagues 
down the hall. I really hope that he had nothing to do with it because 
it was dishonest, reprehensible, played the race card, and attempted to 
divide people, and, in fact, apparently was conspiring to try to get 
people who were going to vote for the Democrat in November to vote for 
the Republican in the Republican primary runoff, which, under their 
State's law, is not lawful--not legal.
  I certainly hope Senator Cochran had nothing to do with it, but it 
sounds like it helped him win his election. This is exactly the kind of 
thing that people in the House or the Senate should not be involved in, 
trying to mislead individual voters, trying to trick them into voting 
for themselves--because one thing is absolutely clear: if it requires 
trickery, deception, dishonesty, manipulation--unfair manipulation of 
people in another party to violate the law and vote for a particular 
candidate, then, very clearly, that candidate is not worthy of being 
elected to anything.
  This past weekend, I was down on our border between the United States 
and Mexico along the Rio Grande Valley and along the Rio Grande River 
itself.
  I had the impression, from the way some stories were written and some 
talk was going, that we actually had a situation on our border where 
people would come rushing across the Rio Grande River--even if there 
were law enforcement officers, Border Patrol officers--that it didn't 
matter. People were just rushing across, so anxious to get here.
  Having spent the weekend on the border, what I learned was that, yes, 
people are very anxious to come into this country, but the coyotes that 
are bringing them--from what we learned apparently--paid by drug 
cartels to bring people across, those coyotes don't want to bring 
people across if they are going to get caught because one thing our 
Border Patrol and the Texas Department of Public Safety does very well 
is, if they catch a coyote transporting people illegally across our 
border, for example, in a raft--which is apparently the most frequently 
used method of getting larger numbers of people across--then they take 
the raft, and they destroy it--normally right there in front of the 
coyote--and help destroy his current illegal business.
  The coyotes don't want to lose their rafts, their Jet Skis, or 
whatever they are using to get people illegally across the border, so 
they wait, even into the wee hours of the morning, which I was there to 
see firsthand. They don't want to be caught. They will wait until they 
feel like they have got time to get across and get back.
  I have also heard plenty of times, from friends across the aisle, 
from people outside of Congress, who continue to say the same thing--
and I know they don't mean to be dishonest, they are very honest 
people--but they keep saying they are trying to get away from the 
horrible murders, rapes, and terrible situations in their home 
countries.
  The thing is, if you look at the crime rates in those countries from 
which they come--in Central America, for example--you don't see a 
tremendous dramatic rise in the amount of crime. There is not a 
dramatic increase in areas where so many of these people are coming 
from, to come illegally into the United States.
  So the question keeps arising: Well, then if the murder rate is 
deplorable or horrible as the situation is, if the violence has not 
dramatically increased, then why has there been such a dramatic 
increase in the number of people coming across our border illegally?
  The answer that this administration apparently refuses to acknowledge 
is that it is not because of a dramatic increase in violence in Central 
or South America, it is because the word has gone out in Central and 
South America that, if you can get to America, you will not be sent 
back.
  In the wee hours Sunday night, Monday morning, there was one group of 
adult women--three adult women, some small children. These were very 
honest people. They spoke Spanish. They didn't speak any English.
  Some say: well, I bet they are coming from Mexico, and they are being 
coached to say they are from El Salvador, Guatemala, South America, or 
other places.
  These kids could not have been coached at their age to say what they 
did. They are very honest people.
  When asked why did they come, the immediate answer was: well, we 
wanted these little children to get a good education.
  Well, most everybody in the world--there are 6 to 7 billion people in 
the world--most want their children to get good educations; yet, if we 
have an influx of even 1 billion people into the United States, our 
country as we knew it will be gone.
  It will no longer be a country where there is a rule of law, where 
capital investment feels safe, because you can't maintain a country 
unless you have the rule of law enforced. You can't just magically, one 
day, say: okay, now, today, we start enforcing the law as it is.
  It doesn't work that way. If you have raised a generation or 
immigrated in a generation who believes that you just ignore the law 
when it is inconvenient, then you are not, all of a sudden, going to 
have a country that follows the law and attempts to enforce it across 
the board. It doesn't happen.
  I have been told before that, gee, there may be a billion, billion 
and a half people in the world that would love to come to America. 
Well, when you have just over 300 million people in America and you are 
increasing the numbers here by giving out over a million visas a year--
more than any other country in the world, even though you have India or 
China with several times more people than we have in America, nobody is 
giving out more visas than we are.
  Even though you have a country like Mexico that condemns the United 
States for our treatment of people coming in even illegally--and even 
those legally--what they don't bother to notice in their massive 
hypocrisy is the way they treat people that legally or illegally come 
into Mexico.

  If we began treating Mexican nationals coming in illegally into the 
United States the way Mexico treats American citizens, they would be 
screaming, going crazy every day; but it is because we are a more fair 
nation than Mexico is.
  Of course, it doesn't really help Mexico when we have an 
administration, as this one, and a Justice Department, as the one run 
by Attorney General Eric Holder, which not only has an effort to get 
2,000 or so weapons--guns--into the hands of criminals in Mexico with 
drug cartels, but then also engages in covering up evidence of exactly 
what happened during that horrible, horrible project by the Justice 
Department that actually put a couple thousand guns or so in the hands 
of criminals, resulting in deaths that would not have occurred 
otherwise, and yet, still, they cover it up.

[[Page H5812]]

  Clearly, it is not, under Attorney General Eric Holder, a Department 
of Justice. It has become a department of, number one, injustice; and a 
department of, number two, just us.
  Oh, sure, as long as the Internal Revenue Service is only going after 
conservative groups or Christian groups or religious groups, that is 
fine. As long as it is only going after groups that vote Republican, 
that is fine. It is okay.
  Oh, and you want to try to catch us? Well, our hard drives crash, and 
our emails disappear, and, gee, we have no idea where they went. Why? 
Because we are in a country where the Department of Justice becomes a 
department of injustice and a department of just us, where as long as 
you support ``just us,'' you are good. Violate the law, it is fine; we 
will make sure you are not prosecuted--but it is perfectly fine to go 
after people who vote Republican, perfectly fine to go after groups 
that may not support the President's position on things.
  Now, right down the hall, in the Senate of the United States, we 
actually have United States Senators who are wanting to destroy First 
Amendment freedom of speech rights.
  There are United States Senators, all from the Democratic Party, 
those that are pushing this, that are actually pushing an amendment to 
the U.S. Constitution that will allow Congress to take away people's 
right to make speeches.
  It is incredible that they don't even realize that, if the amendment 
to the Constitution--a bridge to take away freedom of speech rights, if 
it were to become part of the Constitution, and the American people got 
so mad at those Democrats pushing it that they gave the Republicans the 
majority in the House and the Senate and even gave them a veto-proof 
number, then you could actually have Republicans saying Hillary Clinton 
can't publish her book anymore.
  I was just talking about this with my good friend, Senator Ted Cruz, 
and he was talking about some of the language that is being pushed in 
the Senate.

                              {time}  1330

  Senator Cruz made the point that if this gets passed, you could have 
Congress--if there were enough Republicans in there--say that Hillary 
Clinton's book is illegal, it is contraband, and she can't do it 
anymore.
  NBC and ``Saturday Night Live'' like to do satire about political 
officials, and some of them are pretty funny. But, actually, under the 
amendment that we have United States Senators of the Democratic Party 
pushing, Congress could actually tell NBC, the National Broadcasting 
Company, that they can't do political satire anymore.
  Why would senators who like our Constitution think it was a good idea 
to take away free speech rights? I think they don't mean harm. They 
don't mean to harm our Republic.
  It is because we have now gotten into an environment here in 
Washington, D.C., where the IRS can go after people they disagree with 
politically. And heaven help some candidate or some Republican that 
stands up and says, We have got to eliminate the IRS, because you can 
pretty well count on them coming right after him or her. If you say 
those kind of things, the IRS is about self-preservation. They will 
come after you if you say negative things about them. Because, like the 
Justice Department, it is ``just us.''
  We have got to protect ourselves.
  So it is serious business. The environment is such here in Washington 
where some Democratic Senators have actually come to the idea that it 
would really be nice if we take away freedom of speech rights and give 
Congress the ability to say, You can't publish that book. You can't do 
that political satire on TV. No, you can't do that film because we 
don't like it.
  These are people that are supposed to be enlightened and be against 
censorship, and yet they are pushing an amendment that will allow 
Congress to basically go back to Orwellian ideas or all of those that 
have been written about in history when Big Brother gets so big, have 
book burnings. It seemed like that happened in the 1930s and 1940s.
  It has become dangerous here in Washington, where you have educated 
people that haven't thought through their constitutional amendment they 
have signed onto enough to realize just how dangerous it is to the idea 
of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
  They have bought in to a Justice Department that is ``just us,'' a 
Senate that is ``just us,'' an administration that says, Hey, if 
Congress doesn't do what we want them to, forget Congress. I will write 
my own laws and we will just ignore Congress.
  That is a dangerous concept if we are going to continue what the 
Founders referred to as ``this little experiment in democracy.'' It is 
a dangerous time.
  And then we have questions that were asked by Pete King of Secretary 
Johnson about what is going on at the border. He is asking:

       If you're a parent in Central America, in effect, this can 
     look like a free pass because you're making the situation 
     more humanitarian, you're making more facilities available, 
     as Mr. Fugate said, you're providing foster families, all of 
     which is understandable. That's our obligation as human 
     beings.
       But on the other hand, if you're a family in Guatemala or 
     El Salvador, this, in a way, is a free pass.

  Well, Secretary Johnson ends up saying:

       Well, a couple of things. First, I'm convinced that the 
     principle reason these kids--from everything I've heard, 
     everything I've seen, and from my own conversation with these 
     kids, the principle reason they're leaving is the push factor 
     from the country they're leaving.

  This is Secretary Johnson with Homeland Security saying this.
  He says:

       The conditions in Honduras, for example, are horrible. It's 
     the murder capital of the world. There is this disinformation 
     out there that this is permisos. That's what we're hearing. 
     Permisos, free pass, like you get a piece of paper that says, 
     Welcome to the United States. You're free.

  ``That's not the case. When you're apprehended at the border''--he 
says ``irregardless of age.'' My late mother, an English teacher, would 
have jumped on that and pointed out for Secretary Johnson that 
irregardless is not an appropriate word. It is either regardless or it 
is not.
  Anyway, our Secretary didn't have an English teacher for a mother. It 
is a common mistake.
  He says:

       Irregardless of age, you're a priority for removal. So 
     they're given a notice to appear in a deportation proceeding.
       The way the law works, the 2008 law, we are required to 
     give that child to HHS, and HHS is required to act in the 
     best interest of the child, which most often means placing 
     that child with a parent who is here in the United States. 
     But there is a pending deportation proceeding against that 
     child.

  By the way, Mr. Speaker, parenthetically, he references the 2008 law 
which requires the Department of Homeland Security to give the child or 
children to Health and Human Services.
  We were in a hearing yesterday where I was told I was wrong about 
that. I was just quoting Secretary Johnson in my comments, as well as 
other people in this administration, who said, Look, we don't have a 
choice because the law from 2008 requires us to immediately provide the 
children to HHS.
  Anyway, Mr. King comes back and says:

       But if I were a parent in Guatemala, wouldn't I see that as 
     being a free pass? I mean a child, a 5-year-old child getting 
     an order to show up in immigration court, you know, are you 
     going to actually deport that child?
       To me, it's a free pass, from their perspective.

  Then, these astounding words from Secretary Johnson. He says:

       Congressman, I don't see it as a free pass, particularly 
     given the danger of migrating over a thousand miles through 
     Mexico into the United States, especially now in the months 
     of July and August that we're facing. A lot of these kids 
     stow away on top of freight trains, which is exceedingly 
     dangerous.
       I spoke to one kid who was about 12 or 13 who spent days 
     climbing on top of a freight train, a box car, and these kids 
     sometimes they fall off because they fall asleep. They can't 
     hold on any longer. It is exceedingly dangerous.

  Well, Secretary Johnson is saying that because it is dangerous to 
come through Mexico, then it is not a free pass that he is handing out 
to people when they get to America.
  Having been on the border in the wee hours, let me tell you, to those 
little children, to the adults bringing them, it is a free pass. That 
is why they came. And this is open territory. Anybody can be standing 
there. Because

[[Page H5813]]

once these the coyotes get them across the river, then they go looking 
for somebody to turn themselves in to.
  I was there when there were different groups being processed out 
there in the open air; daytime, nighttime. So they are asking them 
questions, as their job requires, such as, Where are you from? You have 
got to get their names. They don't have any identification on them. 
They are strictly taking their names as they give it to them.

  One adult woman who had a couple of little girls with her said, Well, 
I'm not the mother, but I'm the cousin of the mother. Well, where's the 
mother? She's got a good job in Miami.
  She came in illegally some time back and she has been working in 
Miami. So since they can now come and stay here, this was the time to 
start bringing the kids in.
  The other two women were mothers of the other children there and they 
were explaining that the fathers of those children were working. They 
had good jobs in North Carolina. And since all they had to do was get 
into the United States and Homeland Security or Health and Human 
Services would transport them--our government is now becoming human 
traffickers--they have become the human traffickers and take them to 
North Carolina, where the fathers have good jobs working illegally over 
there. But, again, since they saw it as a free pass, then this is the 
time to try to hurry into the United States.
  What was particularly telling, Mr. Speaker--I don't have it with me 
here on the floor today--is that there was a request, a solicitation 
from the Obama administration back at the end of January that actually 
says that we anticipate in the next short months that we may have 
65,000 children come across our border.
  Now why would they think that? Because there were only a fraction of 
that many the year before, and then a fraction of that many the year 
before that. So why would they think all of a sudden there are going to 
be over 60,000 children coming in in the months ahead?
  Well, they knew. The word is out in Central America and South America 
that if you just get to this country, the Obama administration is 
giving you a free pass.
  The women in the last group that the Border Patrol were talking to 
out there after they had turned themselves in, they had not heard the 
word ``permisos,'' but they knew they got a free pass. They knew they 
got to stay. And they said, We're here because we want these children 
to get a good education.
  And since we know they can stay--in effect, that is what they are 
saying--now is the time they come and get a good education.
  Well, we want everybody to get a good education. Unfortunately, if we 
in this country take tax dollars from Americans who are working and 
tried to pay for the education of every single child in the entire 
world--which I would love to do--but if we do that, it bankrupts this 
country and no child gets any kind of education.
  It is a dangerous time. It is a dangerous situation for these 
children to be coming across our border. In those areas the bush is 
thick, the river is swift. It is deep there where so many of them were 
crossing.
  And yet because this administration has the word out and it is being 
sent out by drug cartels--being advertised, is what we keep hearing--
the drug cartels have the best of all business worlds. They actually 
will charge $5,000. One lady got a real deal. She got two kids and 
herself for $5,000. For others, it is generally $5,000 a person. For 
some, it is $8,000.
  The drug cartels charge people to bring them up across Mexico into 
United States. And if they find an attractive girl, they may pull her 
off into sex slavery and make money off of her. Having three daughters 
myself, that idea is just abominable.
  Then, because of the masses of people that are coming across in 
greater and greater numbers, we have Border Patrol and ICE that are 
pulled away from their regular jobs. They are not out there looking for 
the drugs.
  So you have got drug cartels making money by charging people to bring 
them into America, and then that causes a problem for us to enforce our 
border against drugs, and they can get more drugs in.
  There is a war against the United States being staged by the drug 
cartels, and this administration better wake up and better start doing 
its job. I know my friends here on the Republican side, if the 
administration will start enforcing the law and enforcing our border 
and protecting us from the massive amount of drugs that are coming in, 
and enforce the border, we will get an immigration reform bill done so 
fast, people will be amazed how quickly we get it done.

                              {time}  1345

  There is no sense at all doing an immigration reform bill right now 
when the President is ignoring the enforcement of the law the way it 
is. The President needs to enforce the law as it is. Once he does that, 
then we can talk about amending it.
  In the meantime, very quickly here, I had a quote from the President 
on June 11. He was saying:

       I mean, the truth of the matter is, that for all the 
     challenges we face and for all the problems we have, if you 
     had to choose a moment to be born in human history, not 
     knowing what your position was going to be or who you were 
     going to be, you would choose this time. The world is less 
     violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has 
     ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is 
     better than it has ever been. It is more educated than it has 
     ever been.

  Then I thought about this cartoon, Mr. Speaker, and I will finish 
with this. In effect, we borrowed the cartoon here, but it is like the 
President has gone off a cliff, and all of the way down, he is able to 
say, ``We are doing all right so far.''
  The day is coming when the country will not do all right--when there 
will be a crash--because we failed to recognize the dangers on the way 
down.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________