[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 144 (Monday, December 1, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H8206-H8212]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            EQUALITY FOR ALL

  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, there are some Members who wanted to be 
heard from the prior Special Order, and they didn't have a chance, and 
I am glad to yield to my friend, Mr. Jeffries, so they may conclude.


                       Congressional Black Caucus

  Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank my good friend, a very important member of the 
Judiciary Committee, for graciously yielding a few moments for us to 
close this very important Special Order.
  I yield to Congresswoman Joyce Beatty to finish her remarks as we 
prepare to conclude this CBC Special Order. Again, I thank Congressman 
Gohmert for graciously yielding a few moments of his time.
  Mrs. BEATTY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues. Let me continue and 
be very brief and just say Michael Brown had a promising future before 
his life was cut short by police gunfire on that fateful Saturday in 
August.
  He was supposed to start technical college this past fall, planning 
to become a heating and cooling engineer one day. He hoped to start his 
own business. He strove to set an example for his younger siblings, 
teaching them to stay in school and further their education--instead, 
another loss.
  Michael Brown fell victim to a criminal justice system that too often 
fails people of color. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, he is now another 
Black male whose full promise and potential will never be realized 
because his life was taken too early by the very department created to 
protect and serve his community, the Ferguson Police Department.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is appropriate that the Congressional Black 
Caucus is on the floor today discussing being Black in America. The CBC 
is the conscience of the Congress and, in many

[[Page H8207]]

circumstances, the conscience of America on the topic of race 
relations, struggles, and inequities.
  We are also scholars and crusaders. We are our brothers' keepers. We 
have marched and written civil rights laws, and today, December 1, we 
are celebrating the 59th anniversary of Rosa Parks maintaining her seat 
on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her civil disobedience on this day 
should be celebrated.
  As we see in the majority a peaceful protest in refusing to give up 
her seat, Rosa Parks sparked a civil rights movement that continues 
today; a movement highlighted by incremental progress such as the Civil 
Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, where a Nation came 
together with hopes of eliminating centuries of discrimination against 
Blacks and providing equal rights under law.
  The civil rights movement is ongoing and faces significant 
challenges. A great distrust between local residents and law 
enforcement remains today. Too many young Black men have been left 
behind and are seen as objects of fear, and we have a school-to-prison 
pipeline that tears our communities of color apart, leaving them 
forever incomplete.
  As Martin Luther King, Jr., said:

       Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every 
     step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, 
     suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and 
     passionate concerns of dedicated individuals.

  Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I am, today, hopeful. I am hopeful that 
initiatives like the President's My Brother's Keepers, which is 
implementing cradle to college and career programs for young people in 
my district, will allow us to continue Rosa Parks' progress that she 
sparked 59 years ago.
  Finally, should we work harder to get more people registered to vote? 
Should we have more get out the vote? Yes, but it takes more than that. 
This Congress should work with the President, and I fully support his 
request for some $263 million in part to equip police officers with 
cameras.
  Mr. Jeffries, Mr. Speaker, thank you.
  Mr. JEFFRIES. As we prepare to conclude, let me, again, thank Mr. 
Gohmert for this gracious act of bipartisanship, and I yield to the 
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Kelly).
  Ms. KELLY of Illinois. I thank Congressman Jeffries for his 
leadership and my colleague from Texas for his generosity.
  As we reflect on the events in Ferguson, let me begin by offering my 
prayers to the family of Michael Brown and the entire Ferguson 
community. Tonight, we stand before the House as Representatives of our 
communities and as concerned citizens.
  We stand here to say we, too, mourn Michael Brown. We mourn his loss 
and what it represents--the very real fear and frustration of Black and 
brown families across the Nation who worry for their sons. We are here 
to speak for those who are weary after another incident of a young 
Black man being killed by police.
  Ferguson speaks to the broader challenges we face as a Nation--race 
relations--but particularly the fraught relationship between the Black 
community and the police. Members of my family have and do serve in law 
enforcement, and I am fortunate that, for most of my life, I have been 
able to have many positive personal experiences with that community. My 
grandparents' grocery store in Harlem always had police officers 
checking in.
  On the whole, I believe those who put their lives on the line for our 
communities are good, but that doesn't negate the fact that, in America 
today, we still have too many in the Black community who fear the 
police or feel disrespected by the police, including my son and his 
friends, and we still have too many police officers who fear the Black 
community. This is a dynamic that colors every encounter and paves the 
way for tragic outcomes.
  Regardless of your perspectives on the events in Ferguson, we can all 
agree that no community should live in fear of the institutions that 
are charged with protecting it. We must hold our law enforcement 
officials to the highest professional standards and provide them with 
the training they need to effectively police diverse communities.
  This training must address the biases and stereotypes that influence 
decisions in the field and that creates obstacles to mutual 
understanding, and in working to achieve that understanding, we can and 
must strive toward a justice system that treats all Americans fairly 
and values all American lives equally.
  I am encouraged by the many peaceful, productive protests across the 
country from everyday citizens of all colors calling for change in the 
way our country views and values young Black men, but this is just the 
beginning and not enough. As a mother, a wife, and a Member of 
Congress, I believe that this change must begin today.
  I encourage everyone who is outraged by Ferguson to look for ways 
that they can prevent a similar tragedy from happening in your 
community. Don't let this issue fade until the next tragedy. Get 
involved with your local government.
  Go to your local town hall, city council, and community policing 
meetings. Know who represents you and who is policing your streets. Be 
a part of the change, and lend your voice to the discussion on the 
direction of your community; vote, exercise your rights, demand and 
expect accountability. That is how we work together toward the kind of 
change that makes our communities safer and honors the memory of 
Michael Brown.

  Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Kelly. We are here 
today to begin a conversation about a fair, equitable, and colorblind 
criminal justice system. That should be something that all Americans 
embrace, and that is what we are going to work toward as we move toward 
the next Congress in 2015.
  To close, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Jeffries for his 
leadership, and I thank the Speaker, I am sorry that we were walking 
across the floor, and we may not publicly say it, but we thank you for 
your clarification, and to my good friend on the Judiciary Committee, 
Judge Gohmert, who has engaged in the issues of the criminal justice 
system. We are grateful for your knowledge on these issues.
  I want to leave two points behind as we clarify how we can move 
forward and recognize crises, but yet not be overcome by such. Might I 
thank the former mayor of New York for his provocativeness, but say 
that I disagree with some of the interpretation of why officers are in 
the African American community.
  A statistic does say, in fact, that over 2005 to 2012, a white police 
officer used deadly force against an African American person almost two 
times every week. That does not have to be because we know there are 
broader ways of addressing these questions, so let me say to you why 
there is such ire about what happened to Michael Brown.
  As I started out in my remarks about the grand jury system, it is one 
that raises the fact question, and if the fact question is not 
answered, why were his hands up? Why was he shot these many times? Then 
you go to a jury of your peers. It is a criminal justice system that no 
matter what color, creed, race, or religion you are, abiding by the 
Constitution, you can clearly say a question has been raised, and 
justice needs to answer that question.
  Mr. Speaker, that is what we are asking for, a simple justice that 
allows everyone to stand at the table of opportunity, equality, and 
rightness.
  So I would make the argument tonight that we have laid out a roadmap 
with a number of suggestions, whether it is cameras--supporting the 
President's request for money--whether it is legislation dealing with 
the utilization of tickets and citations, stopping people from moving, 
whether or not it is My Brother's Keeper, I believe that the Judiciary 
Committee, along with our colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, can 
raise up the specter of the Constitution and no matter who we are, we 
can look at those young men in St. Louis who raised their hands, 
applaud them for their work, applaud law enforcement officers who are 
engaged in community-oriented policing, and make a purposeful 
commitment that we will follow in the pathway of nonviolence and use 
the tools that our Constitution has given us to make our criminal 
justice system work for all of

[[Page H8208]]

us, whether we are poor, whether we are rich, whether in unique 
communities, or whether we are Big Mike.
  We are going to say to Mr. Brown and we are going to say to Mike's 
mother that justice is going to come, not respecting whether or not we 
stand on one side or another, one race or another, because we are going 
to do right.
  I have faith in the Constitution, and I have faith in this Congress. 
For the very reason that Judge Gohmert yielded us the time to finish 
our words, I know that we will be engaged, Republicans and Democrats, 
with the Congressional Black Caucus in a pathway forward to make 
America rise to our higher angels and to the Constitution that we so 
love.
  Thank you, Mr. Jeffries, for your leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for convening 
this very timely Special Order on one of major challenges facing our 
nation: how can we best rise from the ashes of the miscarriages of 
justice in Ferguson, Missouri and restore the trust and confidence of 
all Americans in the fairness and impartiality of the criminal justice 
system.
  That trust and confidence does not exist today among large segments 
of our population in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown, an 
unarmed teenager who died after absorbing six gunshots from a Ferguson, 
Missouri police officer even though he posed no imminent threat, was 
not resisting arrest, and was observed by numerous witness to be 
holding his hands up, the universal sign of surrender.
  Compounding this unreasonable and excessive use of lethal force was 
the failure--some might say refusal--of the local prosecutor to obtain 
an indictment of any kind against the officer who killed Michael Brown.
  The strength and foundation of democratic government rests upon the 
consent and confidence of the governed. Similarly, effective 
enforcement of the law and administration of justice requires the 
confidence of the community that the law will be enforced impartially 
and that all persons are treated equally without regard to race or 
ethnicity or religion or national origin.
  While most police officers take this responsibility seriously and 
strive to treat all persons equally and with respect, their efforts are 
too often undermined by some of their colleagues who abuse the enormous 
trust and confidence placed in them.
  Remedial action should be taken with respect to officers whose 
conduct has been determined, after an adjudicatory proceeding, to 
violate applicable legal standards.
  In recent months, the nation has been repeatedly shocked by the 
killings of unarmed African Americans, mainly young African American 
males, by persons claiming, despite substantial and credible evidence 
to the contrary, that the use of lethal force was justified. The tragic 
killing of Michael Brown is just one of the worst examples.
  In August of this year in Staten Island, unarmed Eric Garner, an 
asthmatic 43-year-old father of six and grandparent, died from an 
unlawful chokehold administered by a New York Police Department officer 
who suspected Mr. Garner of selling an untaxed pack of cigarettes.
  And closer to home my constituents in the 18th Congressional District 
of Texas and I all remember the outrageous case involving young Robbie 
Tolan, who was shot and seriously injured by a white Bellaire Police 
Department officer while in the driveway of his home, 15 to 20 feet 
away from the officer, had committed no crime, and whose innocence had 
been affirmed to the officer by his mother and father.
  Let me state at the outset that as a Member of Congress and member of 
the bar that I hold the rule of law sacred.
  I have always supported law enforcement and have always recognized 
the value and importance of prosecutors seeking justice and defense 
attorneys fighting to protect the rights of the accused.
  I also revere the grand jury process, which on the federal level at 
least, has been one of the bulwarks safeguarding the public and the 
accused since the ratification of the 5th in 1791.
  I do not fault the decision to impanel a grand jury to investigate 
the killing of Michael Brown; on the contrary, a grand jury 
investigation was the proper way to proceed. Like many others, however, 
I have two main concerns regarding the way the grand jury investigation 
was conducted.
  First, the failure of the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, 
Robert McCulloch, to recuse himself and seek the appointment of a 
Special Counsel was a grave mistake.
  Not just because his father was a St. Louis policeman killed in the 
line of duty by a black man when he was 12. Not just because his 
brother, nephew and cousin all served with the St. Louis police and 
that his mother worked as a clerk for the force for 20 years. And not 
just because Mr. McCulloch would have joined the police force too, but 
he lost a leg in high school due to cancer.
  Mr. McCulloch's credibility and reputation for fairness has been at 
low ebb among African Americans in St. Louis County since his handling 
of the notorious ``Jack-in-the-Box'' shooting in June 2000, in which 
two officers approached a stopped car carrying two unarmed African 
American men from the front and fired 21 shots, killing Earl Murray and 
Ronald Beasley.
  In the ensuing investigation, Mr. McCulloch put the case to a grand 
jury which declined to indict the officers, and McCulloch said he 
agreed with the decision.
  The story presented by Mr. McCulloch's office to the grand jury was 
that Murray's car moved toward the two officers, who then fired out of 
self-defense. The two officers who shot Murray and Beasley were also 
invited to testify before the grand jury and both men told jurors that 
Murray's car was coming at them and that they feared being run over. 
However, a later federal investigation showed that the car had never 
come at the two officers: Murray never took his car out of reverse. The 
officers involved in the shooting did not testify truthfully to the 
grand jury, yet Prosecutor McCulloch stated publicly that he agreed 
with the decision not to indict.
  The second major flaw was that the manner in which the grand jury 
investigation was conducted impeded rather than facilitated the search 
for truth that is the province of a petit jury.
  The purpose of a grand jury is two-fold: to make the threshold 
determination as to whether probable cause exists to believe that a 
crime has been committed and that the accused is the person who 
committed it. Once this minimal showing has been made, it is for the 
petit jury to determine whether the evidence presented at trial is 
sufficient to prove beyond reasonable doubt each essential element of 
the offense.
  In discharging its duty, the grand jury looks to, and is dependent 
upon, the prosecutor for an orderly and coherent presentation of 
evidence establishing probable cause and for guidance as to the law and 
in making sense of the evidence and testimony.
  That did not happen in this case. Instead, the prosecution did not 
present any indictment that the grand jury could evaluate against the 
evidence to determine whether to return a ``true bill'' and did not 
make any recommendation regarding charges that could or should be 
lodged.
  It is common wisdom that a grand jury historically has functioned as 
a tool of the prosecution, so much so that is frequently noted that a 
prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to ``indict a ham sandwich.''
  This is not an exaggeration. According to the Bureau of Justice 
Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, 
the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to 
return an indictment in only 11 cases.
  So the failure of the Ferguson Grand Jury to return an indictment 
exacerbated the lack of public confidence in the criminal justice 
system, especially among African Americans, not just in Ferguson, 
Missouri but all across the country because to many it sends the signal 
that the lives of African American males have less value that do 
others.
  It should be noted that according to the FBI's most recent accounts 
of ``justifiable homicide,'' in the seven years between 2005 and 2012, 
a white police officer used deadly force against an African American 
person almost two times every week.
  Of those African American persons killed, 18 percent, or nearly one 
in every five, was under 21 years of age. In contrast, only 8.7 percent 
of white persons killed by police officers were younger than 21.
  In 2012, Houston had an African American population of 23.7 percent. 
That same year, African Americans accounted for 48% percent of victims 
killed by the police.
  Chicago was even worse with a whopping 91% of police killings 
involving an African American victim, nearly three times their 
percentage of the city's population.
  For New York, the comparable figures were 87% and 28.36 percent. 
Across the country, in 2012 there were 739 justifiable homicide 
shootings by police and citizens and of these, 313 of the victims 
(42.35%) were African American.
  This cannot and must not continue. That is why I am renewing my 
request to Attorney General Holder that the Justice Department consider 
bringing federal charges so that those responsible for the killing of 
Michael Brown are held accountable.
  I am also calling upon the Department of Justice to exercise the 
authority conferred by the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law 
Enforcement Act, which gives the Department's Civil Rights Division 
authority to investigate state and local law enforcement agencies that 
it believes have unconstitutional policies or engage in 
unconstitutional patterns or practices of conduct. The law is intended 
to address

[[Page H8209]]

systemic issues, rather than individual complaints.
  As Americans we must demand that the law is applied fairly and 
equally to all persons in the courtroom and on the street.
  Achieving this goal is the best way to honor the memory of Michael 
Brown.
  Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Jackson Lee, and I 
thank Congressman Gohmert for the time.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank Mr. Jeffries, my colleague and friend. I knew 
that words that were going to be spoken were from the heart, and I am 
glad to be able to facilitate that. Thank you.
  And it does take me back again. I was just a little kid, a little 
bitty kid, when Martin Luther King, Jr., was standing up for civil 
rights for all people. We have heard over and over: Well, he did 
wonderful things for African Americans. But I happen to know as a 
little White Christian boy growing up in east Texas that the work he 
did and the life he gave actually enabled me as a little White boy to 
treat my brothers and sisters like brothers and sisters. That is the 
ultimate goal, as Dr. King said: we judge each other by the content of 
the character and not by the color of the skin. That is a goal to shoot 
for.
  It also meant that when I was quarterback and captain for the JV, 
junior varsity, team in our high school, it meant I got to have Coach 
Williams as my head coach. I just loved Coach Williams. But it was 
tough when he put both hands on your shoulder pads and got right in 
your face. You knew you were in for a lesson. But he was imminently 
fair. We had no race problems. He was just a fair man.
  Although I didn't vote for President Obama and certainly might have 
had other people in mind for Attorney General, I had hoped that there 
would be a piece that would come out with Eric Holder as Attorney 
General the way I experienced with Coach Williams, an African American, 
but great coach, very winning season, and he made football fun--a great 
leader, a great teacher. I just loved having him for a coach.
  I had hoped that that might be true across the country, but we have 
seen so many people hurt around Jefferson. I was reading about minority 
business owners who had their businesses burned. I so hope that the 
words that my friend Ms. Jackson Lee was saying will ultimately come 
through where protests will be nonviolent so people don't lose their 
stores and lose their homes or lose their lives.
  Just before coming over, I was hearing about a Bosnian man that was 
beat to death with a hammer. It is senseless, just senseless. I don't 
even know the cause of his being killed there in Missouri.
  Peaceful protests are what Dr. King knew would do the greatest good 
for the greatest number of people, and he certainly did a great deal of 
good. But basically most people what they want is to make sure that 
they get fair treatment. That is it: be treated fairly.
  Now, we do have some that want to engage in crony capitalism and want 
to have all kinds of advantages. We saw that with TARP. People wanted 
to have their cake, and then when they finish with that have your cake, 
too. That was very unfortunate. But overall, most Americans just want 
to be treated fairly. They want everyone to be treated equally and 
fairly under the law, which brings me to the subject I wanted to take 
up tonight.
  We know that the President, before Thanksgiving, announced that since 
Congress hadn't passed or hadn't changed the law as he wanted them to, 
he indicated he waited long enough. He waited for Congress to change 
the law, and since Congress had not changed the law, he decided to do 
it for Congress. The trouble is that is not equal and fair under the 
law.
  Some have said, well, they don't think there is a way that Congress 
can defund this illegal executive order that provides amnesty. And 
actually, the law is clear. I mean, if you are illegally in the 
country, you are not allowed to work in the country; and the President, 
regardless of whether or not he has the power to provide amnesty or a 
pardon in a single case, there is no law, there is no authority, 
constitutional or legislative, that allows a President to provide 
benefits across the board that are illegal and not authorized under the 
law. You just can't do that.
  So what do we do about that?
  Some have said we can't defund the President's illegal actions. An 
article here in Breitbart by Matthew Boyle, 26 November, and this is a 
quote to start the article:

       ``In light of Congress's constitutional power over the 
     purse, the Supreme Court has recognized that `Congress may 
     always circumscribe agency discretion to allocate resources 
     by putting restrictions in the operative statutes,' '' the 
     CRS, a legislative authority on Capitol Hill, wrote in a 
     report sent to incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman 
     Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. ``Where Congress has done 
     so, `an agency is not free simply to disregard statutory 
     responsibilities.' Therefore, if a statute were enacted which 
     prohibited appropriated funds from being used for some 
     specified purposes, then the relevant funds would be 
     unavailable to be obligated or expended for those purposes.''
       Sessions' team provided the CRS report--which is not made 
     public unless Members of Congress who request such reports 
     decide to make them so--exclusively to Breitbart News.
       Rogers, last week--

  And apparently it is talking about House Appropriations Committee 
Chairman Representative Rogers.

       Rogers, last week, argued that Congress could not block 
     funding for Obama's executive amnesty because the agency that 
     will be printing the work authorization and other documents 
     for illegal aliens--U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 
     (USCIS)--operates primarily on fees it collects rather than 
     from tax revenue collected by the Federal Government.

  So, as I understand it, the Appropriations Committee was concerned 
that since the Citizenship and Immigration Services, or CIS, gets a 
great deal of their funds from fees, perhaps we couldn't defund them. 
But the CIS report goes on to say this:

       A fee-funded agency or activity typically refers to one in 
     which the amounts appropriated by Congress for that agency or 
     activity are derived from fees collected from some external 
     source. Importantly, amounts received as fees by Federal 
     agencies must still be appropriated by Congress to that 
     agency in order to be available for obligation or expenditure 
     by the agency. In some cases, this appropriation is provided 
     through the annual appropriations process. In other 
     instances, it is an appropriation that has been enacted 
     independently of the annual appropriations process, such as a 
     permanent appropriation in an authorizing act. In either 
     case, the funds available to the agency through fee 
     collections would be subject to the same potential 
     restrictions imposed by Congress on the use of its 
     appropriations as any other type of appropriated funds.

  Now, Mr. Speaker, I know that is a long quote from CRS, but the 
bottom line is right there at the end: It doesn't matter whether 
revenue is generated through fees or whether it is a direct 
appropriation. Congress has the authority to restrict how that money is 
spent.
  Anyway, that is a very helpful CRS opinion, and Matthew Boyle did a 
good job of covering that.
  But I also noticed an article by the Twitchy Staff--that would be my 
dear friend Michelle Malkin. She has a series of tweets that people 
have sent out in response to the amnesty that this President is going 
to provide and the illegal right to work that is going to be legalized 
by fiat by the President. This is from November 20.
  One tweet says:

       Excellent point made on @TalkRadio1210. Will all the 
     immigrants who came here legally get a refund from Obama for 
     the fees they had to pay?

  Of course, the Labor Secretary Tom Perez, previously with the Justice 
Department when we saw racial relations deteriorate dramatically, but 
Tom Perez said in his tweet:

       This is a moral imperative, a national security imperative 
     and an economic imperative.

  He is talking about the need for the President to act like a king and 
just dictate new law and allow people who are not allowed to work here 
legally to work here legally, though it is against the law.
  Tony Pelz says:

       @LaborSec are you going to refund all the money I spent 
     doing it legally? Huh? Huh?

  Ben Shapiro says:

       Our nanny is from Guatemala. She arrived legally 5 years 
     ago. Tomorrow, she takes her citizenship oath. Boy, did she 
     waste her time.

  Shar Viloria says:

       Hey @BarackObama I want a refund of all my legal fees plus 
     10 years' worth of interest. I have all the receipts. I came 
     here legally.

  Another tweet says:

       My family has paid fees to the U.S. immigration system and 
     followed the law. I'd like a refund, please.


[[Page H8210]]


  Another says:

       So, who's gonna refund the $18,000 I spent to bring my wife 
     here legally? @BarackObama? @NancyPelosi?

  There is another invoice apparently. They are seeking a refund for 
all the money they were out.
  Another says:

       Hey, you gonna chip in for my refund, for doing it legally?

  Another said:

       Lots of dollars for husband to immigrate to U.S. legally: 
     attorney, mounds of paperwork, interview, et cetera. Do we 
     get a refund now?

  Another said:

       So 5 million illegal immigrants get shortcut visas. Do I 
     get a refund of the $50,000 I spent over 14 years legally 
     becoming a citizen?

  A different person tweets:

       My wife came here legally. If #ObamaAmnesty happens, can we 
     get a refund for all the money we spent on her green card 
     application?

                              {time}  2045

  Another says:

       Does this act refund all the filing fees of those legally 
     at this time? Does it relieve us sponsors of our legal 
     obligations?

  There are a lot of people that are upset about this--and 
understandably--because they went about becoming citizens the right 
way.
  My office continues to help people. One worked for 7 years in order 
to get admitted legally. We have had people work for 10 years to get 
here legally and be authorized legally. And the message that is sent 
when a President just by speaking new law into existence because he is 
not happy that Congress didn't do what he told them to, that sends a 
message to those who abide by the law, just as these tweets indicate, 
that America, which has tried to be fair across the board, fought 
against the worst blot on American history--slavery--fought for civil 
rights, and now we are fighting to have the law completely disregarded 
so that it is an encouragement to people coming illegally.
  The word I was getting today from law enforcement friends on the 
border in Texas who are seeing the numbers and the President's promise 
of an illegal amnesty is, once again, creating a lure to people to come 
rushing illegally into the United States. And I know there are those 
that say, ``No, we have got to make sure you have been here 5 years.'' 
How about that? Isn't that amazing?
  The message of the President basically is, if you are really good at 
violating the law and you have been doing it over 5 years, so you are a 
pro at violating our immigration law, we want you to stay. We want you 
to work. You are good at violating the law. On the other hand, if you 
are new at violating the law, we don't want you here working.
  So the question arises: If someone is willing to break United States 
law to come here illegally for whatever reason, whether it is a desire 
for a job, a desire for benefits, a desire to come here and hurt us, 
whatever their desire they are willing to break the U.S. law to come 
for, does anybody seriously think that people that would break the 
law--at least some of them--would not be willing to sign a paper that 
says they have been here for 5 years when they haven't, if they are 
told, ``You sign this paper whether you know what is on it or not.'' 
Some don't speak English.
  I have been out there, as you know, Mr. Speaker, all hours of the day 
and night on our border around the Rio Grande. I have seen people come 
across and look at the Xerox copy with some mention of a country they 
are from. They look at each other and say, ``Oh, here,'' and they 
switch papers. They don't come with identification cards. They don't 
come with a government driver's license. They come with no legitimate 
identification.
  So as someone pointed out there in a holding facility near the 
border, ``Gee, that guy says he's a teenager,'' but you rarely see 
beards that well developed on somebody that is 15. So they can lie 
about their age and there is no question--some of them have--because 
they have got no identification.
  Of course, why would this administration want to require any kind of 
real identification to come into the U.S.? We have the right to vote. 
This administration has been fighting tooth and nail, spending massive 
amounts of money to fight any State that wanted to just make sure that 
people were voting legally, lawfully, and they were the person that 
they were representing they were.
  And some say, ``Well, it's just ridiculous to think there's any 
fraud,'' and then you find out there are still people in Louisiana 
telling Democrats to go out and vote again. And that is why I have, 
somewhat tongue-in-cheek, urged my Republican friends that there is no 
group, no matter that they vote traditionally well over 90 percent for 
Democrats, we can't just assume they should always vote Democrats. We 
need to be going after the deceased vote. Just because dead people may 
vote Republican, they shouldn't always vote Democrat after they pass 
away. Republicans should have a share of those.
  I know that people don't always get sarcasm around this town, but the 
fact is there are plenty of people that cheat the system, whether it is 
at voting, whether it is at legalization, and that is certainly going 
to happen when people have nothing but their word to say that they have 
been here for 5 years so that the President, under the new law he spoke 
into existence, can feel comforted that: Gee, they've been here 5 
years. I'm comfortable they're good at violating the law, so I want 
them to stay.
  There is an article written by Bryan Preston. It recommends watching 
a clip from President Obama's State of the Union address in 2009. He 
says Representative Joe Wilson was finally vindicated. But he points 
out:

       Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia 
     Mathews Burwell held an online chat with Latino bloggers on 
     November 11, 2014. The bloggers asked Burwell about ObamaCare 
     benefits for ``mixed families''--families in which some are 
     present in the United States legally, while others are not.
       Burwell said that so-called ``DREAMers,'' people brought to 
     the United States illegally when they were children, are not 
     eligible, but she indicated that she and President Obama 
     would like to change that. Surely another executive order 
     cannot be far off.
       But then she said ``mixed families should come . . . 
     Everyone should come on, and folks should not be scared. No 
     questions will be asked, and it is not about an immigration 
     issue.''

  So if you come to get medical benefits, the Secretary of Health and 
Human Services is saying ``no questions will be asked.'' How in the 
world are they going to avoid violating the law by providing medical 
care? Not medical care--that is required for anybody legally or 
illegally here--but insurance that the rest of America is paying for.
  This article points out that, despite Secretary Burwell saying that:

       ``No questions will be asked, and it is not about an 
     immigration issue.''
       It is an immigration issue, and it's a fiscal issue, it's a 
     rule of law issue and a constitutional order issue, but 
     deeper than that, it is an honesty issue.
       American taxpayers, a majority of whom never supported 
     ObamaCare in the first place, will now be forced to subsidize 
     health care for millions who are not even in the country 
     legally.

  As part of my alternative health care proposal I offered before 
ObamaCare ever passed and became law, one of the requirements would be 
to provide temporary work visas when we need temporary workers to 
harvest crops, whatever, but that doesn't mean that the rest of America 
should subsidize their health care. In other words, if someone wants to 
bring in people temporarily under a temporary work visa, they ought to 
be required to make sure that they have health care. So either the 
employer buys an umbrella health insurance policy for those while they 
are temporarily here or the individuals have to.
  Some nations have started requiring that before you can get a visa to 
come in their country, since they are not wealthy countries and they 
can't afford to be providing everybody in the world free health care, 
if you want to come into their country on a visa, you have to show that 
you will be covered by health insurance so they don't have to pick up 
the tab. That continues to be a problem here, however.

  An article from National Review Online, November 26, Peter Kirsanow, 
says:

       You've been working hard to support your family, paying 
     taxes--including Social Security and Medicare taxes--for 
     nearly 20 years. Now you find out that 5 million illegal 
     aliens the President legalized with a stroke of a pen will be 
     eligible for Social Security, Medicare, and disability 
     benefits--you know, the

[[Page H8211]]

     programs you've been supporting with your tax dollars your 
     entire working life.
       The plant you've been working at most of your career is 
     considering layoffs and benefit cuts due to the cost of new 
     regulations imposed by bureaucrats who've never run so much 
     as a pop stand, and who know absolutely nothing about your 
     business. So your employer is forced to hire cheaper labor 
     and is interviewing formerly illegal aliens to replace some 
     of your coworkers, and maybe you, because the company won't 
     have to pay the $3,000 ObamaCare penalty on such illegal 
     aliens for not providing health care coverage.
       So, to keep your job, you try to make yourself more 
     valuable to the company by getting additional training and 
     skills at the nearby college. But the school, supported by 
     your tax dollars, rejects your application in favor of an 
     illegal alien under the admission office's affirmative action 
     program that makes it 170 times more likely a preferred 
     minority will be admitted over you. He'll even get in-state 
     tuition rates, as well as a grant funded, in part, by your 
     tax dollars. And so what if that may be unconstitutional? 
     Indeed, you feel a bit chastened when one of the school's 
     professors suggests you might be racist for thinking this is 
     all somewhat unfair.
       You thought that, if push came to shove, you could always 
     get a job at your brother-in-law's tool and die shop over on 
     West Plymouth. But it got burned down when the elected 
     officials--to whom you've remitted tens of thousands in tax 
     dollars to protect property, as well as dictate your toilet's 
     water flow, failed to deploy sufficient law enforcement 
     personnel to control the rioters the very same elected 
     officials elected to inflame.
       Well, no worries. You're pretty sure that, much like your 
     preternaturally serene neighbor Julia, who never seems to 
     have worked a job in her entire life, you'll be able to 
     access a variety of social benefits to keep your family 
     afloat. At least for a while. Admittedly, you became a little 
     nervous upon learning that the newly ``legal'' immigrants 
     could drain the Treasury of nearly $2 trillion. But hey, all 
     the smart people in academia, Hollywood, and Washington say 
     this is all good for America. The fundamentally transformed 
     States of America.
       Happy Thanksgiving.

  And it is quite an interesting point that my friends, my colleagues 
here have been talking about the tremendous problems in Missouri. I 
have talked to too many minorities that have had a tough time finding a 
job, a tough time finding employment that will pay them so they can 
live, help a family live, and now they are going to be competing with 5 
million people who didn't even come into the country legally.
  But the national Chamber of Commerce wanted this. The superrich in 
the country who, at least in the first 5 years of this administration--
we haven't seen the number for the 6 years--for the first 5 years of 
this President's administration set a record. Never before in the 
history of the country has 95 percent of all income in America gone to 
the top 1 percent.

                              {time}  2100

  Under President Obama and his policies, that happened.
  People in this administration can talk about the disparity between 
the poor and the rich and the unfairness to the middle class. There 
just can't be much more unfair to the middle class, more devastating to 
the middle class, more devastating to the Nation's poor than to 
suddenly announce, you are now going to compete with 5 million people 
that are here illegally, that are going to take jobs cheaper than you 
would be willing to.
  It is not that there are that many jobs Americans won't do, as we are 
told. Under a free market system, it costs the market whatever it takes 
to get the legal workers to come work for a living wage.
  You wouldn't have to have legislation about minimum wage if you 
weren't bringing in millions of people illegally and causing them to 
compete with people that are trying desperately to find jobs, doing 
everything they can to find jobs.
  But we also know that for the first time since President Carter, over 
92 million people who could work, who are over 16, could work, they 
have totally given up working. They are not looking anymore.
  With this new 5 million people that the President has, all of a 
sudden, with the stroke of his wand, taken from illegal status to legal 
status, and here are your work papers--all that is illegal, but he has 
done it, which should ultimately drive another 5 million people out of 
work, and either onto food stamps, onto welfare.
  So if the President has been upset about being tied so much of this 
year with Jimmy Carter's numbers, over 92 million people that are not 
even looking for work anymore, they have given up hope, he won't have 
to worry about that. He will be in a league all his own once he puts an 
additional 5 million working Americans out of work as they are 
displaced by people that are illegally here willing to work cheaper. 
Very, very tragic.
  An article from Victor Davis Hanson: ``For Obama, inconvenient law is 
irrelevant law.''
  He says:

       There is a humane, transparent, truthful, and 
     constitutional way to address illegal immigration. 
     Unfortunately, President Obama's unilateral plan to exempt 
     millions of residents from Federal immigration law is none of 
     those things. President Obama has said he had to move now 
     because of a dawdling Congress. He forgot to mention that 
     there were Democratic majorities in Congress in 2009 and 
     2010, yet he did nothing, in fear of punishment at the polls.
       Nor did Obama push amnesty in 2011 or 2012, afraid of 
     hurting his own reelection chances. Worries over sabotaging 
     Democratic chances in the 2014 midterm explain his inaction 
     from 2012 until now. He certainly wouldn't have waited until 
     2015 to act because Republicans will then control Congress.
       Given that he has no more elections and can claim no more 
     lasting achievements, Obama now sees amnesty as his last 
     desperate chance at establishing some sort of legacy.
       Obama cited empathy for undocumented immigrants.

  Well, I have got that. I mean, most of us do:

       But he expressed no such worry about the hundreds of 
     thousands of applicants who wait for years in line, rather 
     than simply illegally crossing the border.
       Any would-be immigrant would have been wiser to have broken 
     rather than abided by Federal laws. Citizens who knowingly 
     offer false information on Federal affidavits or provide 
     false Social Security numbers would not receive the sort of 
     amnesties likely to be given to undocumented immigrants.
       Obama has downplayed Americans' worries about social costs 
     and competition for jobs, but studies show illegal 
     immigration has depressed the wages of entry-level American 
     workers while making social services costly for States and 
     burdensome for U.S. citizens.
       Obama says he has the legal authority to rewrite 
     immigration law without working with Congress, yet, on more 
     than 20 occasions when it was politically inexpedient to 
     grant amnesties, Obama insisted he would not, or that such a 
     move was prohibited by the Constitution.
       President Obama not long ago warned us about the dangers of 
     granting amnesties by fiat. This is President Obama: ``The 
     problem is that I am President of the United States. I am not 
     the emperor of the United States.''
       On another occasion, he lamented: ``Believe me, the idea of 
     doing things on my own is very tempting, but that is not how 
     our system works. That is not how our democracy functions. 
     That is not how our Constitution is written.''
       By setting aside settled immigration policy and ignoring 
     statutes he finds inconvenient, President Obama has set a new 
     precedent that a President can arbitrarily declare what is 
     valid and what is not valid immigration law.
       Should his successors make up their own versions of any 
     Federal statutes that they choose, in areas ranging from 
     abortion and gun control to drug enforcement, environmental 
     protection?

  And I would also add, heck, why not throw in income tax? Just declare 
that all the people that are going to vote for you don't have to pay 
income tax.
  Why not?
  All you have to do is say, I waited and waited and Congress wouldn't 
allow my supporters to get away with not paying income tax, so I waited 
long enough. Here is the new law. My supporters don't pay income tax.
  Then here's another article from Steve Dinan, in The Washington Times 
from November 25:

       Under the President's new amnesty, businesses will have a 
     $3,000-per-employee incentive to hire illegal aliens over 
     native-born workers because of a quirk of ObamaCare.
       President Obama's temporary amnesty, which lasts 3 years, 
     declares up to 5 million illegal immigrants to be lawfully in 
     the country and eligible for work permits, but it still deems 
     them ineligible for public benefits such as buying insurance 
     on ObamaCare's health care exchanges.
       Under the Affordable Care Act, that means businesses who 
     hire them won't have to pay a penalty for not providing them 
     health coverage, making them $3,000 more attractive than a 
     similar, native-born worker, whom the business, by law, would 
     have to cover.
       The loophole was confirmed by congressional aides and drew 
     condemnation from those who said it put illegal immigrants 
     ahead of Americans in the job market.
       ``If it is true that the President's actions give employers 
     a $3,000 incentive to hire those who came here illegally, he 
     has added insult to injury.''


[[Page H8212]]


  That is a quote from Representative Lamar Smith.

       ``The President's actions would have just moved those who 
     came here illegally to the front of the line, ahead of 
     unemployed and underemployed Americans.''
       A Department of Homeland Security official confirmed that 
     the newly legalized immigrants won't have access to 
     ObamaCare, which opens up the loophole for employers looking 
     to avoid that penalty.

  Then Breitbart has an article regarding Robert Rector, our friend at 
Heritage Foundation. ``Amnestied Illegal Immigrants Could Cost 
Taxpayers $2 Trillion Over Their Lifetime.'' It is dated 24 November.
  Well, we do have this report from CRS, Congressional Research 
Service, and it looks like Congress should be able, without any 
problem, to pass a law that defunds any actions carrying out the 
President's illegal fiat that he dictated.

  I pulled language here--I have got a great staff, very helpful--I got 
them to pull this language from the law in 1974. This was in the bill 
that limited the funds that kept military in Vietnam, and this was on a 
continuing resolution. This was kind of what we are doing right here.
  But in 1974, the post-Watergate, Democratic majority in both houses 
just decided, you know what?
  We are going to stop Vietnam on a dime. Never mind that there are 
people who have been our allies that will be murdered as soon as we 
pulled out. Time to pull out.
  No plan for a slow withdrawal. No plan about leaving a stable 
government. We are just pulling out all of a sudden, and a million, 2 
million people, it is estimated, died.
  This is how they do it. Section 108 of this continuing resolution, in 
1974, simply said:

       Not withstanding any other provision of law on or after 
     August 15, 1973, no funds herein or heretofore appropriated 
     may be obligated or expended to finance, directly or 
     indirectly, combat activities by United States military 
     forces in or over, or from off the shores of North Vietnam, 
     South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

  Boom, that stopped Vietnam. We can do the same thing with the 
President's illegal law that he pronounced into being.
  And then, in 1984, we had a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. 
They just decided they didn't want anybody providing funds to the 
Contras that were fighting Communists just south of the United States 
in Nicaragua, so here is the language, and I am quoting. This was in 
the bill that was signed October 12, 1984:

       During fiscal year 1985, no funds available to the Central 
     Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, or any other 
     agency or entity of the United States involved in 
     intelligence activities may be obligated or expended for the 
     purpose which would have the effect of supporting, directly 
     or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in 
     Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement, or 
     individual.

  So we just take our language directly from what the Democratic House 
and Senate did in 1974, what they did in 1985, and do that to address 
what the President has done, otherwise, fund things I wouldn't normally 
at all be in favor of funding. But I think this is such an important 
principle to saving this little experiment in a democratic Republic, it 
is worth doing.
  Then I couldn't help but note Kenric Ward's article, November 25:

       More than a year after Watchdog reported the IRS sent 
     thousands of refunds to the tiny town of Parksley, Virginia, 
     a woman has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and mail fraud.
       Linda Avila admitted to obtaining more than $7.2 million in 
     refunds by exploiting the Federal Government's child tax 
     credit program. Avila filed more than 1,700 tax returns with 
     stolen identifications used by illegal immigrants, mainly 
     from Mexico.
       The Virginian-Pilot reported that Avila, 50, operated a 
     landscaping and cleaning business in Parksley. Investigators 
     found copies of refund checks in amounts from $4,000 to more 
     than $7,000. The tax returns frequently cited foreign 
     dependents, which increased the refund amounts.
       Avila had the refunds mailed to various post office boxes 
     on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware, according to court 
     records. The workers cashed the checks, turned over most of 
     the money to Avila, keeping a small fee for themselves.
       Avila, who remains free pending sentencing in U.S. District 
     Court on February 17, could not be reached for comment.

                              {time}  2115

  There is a good chance that has been going on in more than one place.
  Then there is this article from Neil Munro, today, December 1, 
entitled, ``Obama: Fund My Amnesty or I'll Shut Down the Government.'' 
It basically talks about that that is, indeed, what the President is 
threatening to do, ``You fund my illegal action when I spoke new law 
into being and overrode laws that were duly passed by the House and 
Senate and passed by the Congress and sent to the President.''
  The President signed it. He overrode it just by himself. In essence, 
he is saying, ``If you don't give me every dime I want, along with 
funding my illegal actions, I am going to shut down the government.''
  We have heard Mitch McConnell say it and John Boehner say it. They 
don't want a shutdown. We don't want a shutdown. We also don't want to 
fund illegal activity.
  We hope that the President is not going to throw a hissy fit and shut 
down the government because this is about the Constitution. It is about 
fairness under the law. It is about fairness to people who came 
legally. It is about fairness to the minorities who have an 
unemployment rate through the roof, and now, we are adding 5 million 
people who are going to get to compete with people who can't find jobs 
or who are underemployed as it is.
  It is up to Congress to do the moral, the legal thing, and force this 
President to work with Congress instead of dictating to it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will remind Members to refrain 
from engaging in personalities toward the President.

                          ____________________