[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 10 (Thursday, January 17, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H710-H712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1515
                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Underwood). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2019, the Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. This is an important week in history as I was taught in 
law school that courts do not take up cases to merely give an advisory 
opinion, that there has to be someone who is actually harmed by some 
action about which they are suing.
  As we know, in the Roe v. Wade case, at the time it was adjudicated, 
there was no justiciable issue. The plaintiff in that case now publicly 
states she was used by the pro-abortion groups, she was manipulated, 
and that she has suffered because of what the pro-abortion groups 
talked her into. She has dedicated her life to try to undo the wrong 
that has been done purportedly for her.
  So I appreciate my friends' speaking up. As I said, in my case, I 
will never forget my child, many weeks early, holding on, breathing 
rapidly, but doing everything she could to live.
  Most of us have seen the in utero photograph of an unborn baby, an 
unborn child, grasping the finger of a doctor. They want to live. They 
want to grow. They want to be. They want to know.
  Though my child couldn't see me with her eyes because they weren't 
far developed, as the doctor said: She knows your voice. You give her 
comfort because she knows your voice.
  We heard testimony in our Judiciary Committee previously from a 
doctor who did maybe 1,000, I think he said, late-term abortions. It is 
difficult to take as he described.
  Of course, the female body is not able to birth or get rid of a child 
without intervention, so if somebody wants an abortion of a child that 
is further along and is developed, he described--and I won't use the 
detail he did because it gets me too emotional.
  He would go in with clamps, find something that felt like an arm or a

[[Page H711]]

leg, grasp hold, pull it off from the body, dispose of that, reach for 
something else that felt like an arm or a leg and pull it off, because 
the body with the head and the limbs attached cannot be brought out.
  He would rip one after another the two arms and the two legs off. 
Then, as he would describe, the last thing you reach for is something 
bulbous, and when you find it, you have to crush it so you can get the 
child out of the womb.
  After he lost his daughter in a tragic accident, he simply could not 
pull another child apart like that. He gave it up and regretted all of 
those abortions that he had done with no feeling until he lost his own 
daughter in an accident.
  I want to say I appreciate Majority Leader Hoyer bringing up a 
request that people speak civilly about each other. I get pretty 
frustrated with some folks here, some in the Senate, and that is just 
my own party.
  But I keep hearing--and we have heard this in the Judiciary 
Committee. We have had hearings on it. People keep wanting to say that 
the biggest problem is this rising anti-Islam hate crime body that is 
emerging.
  But we have got the numbers here from 2015, 2016, 2017. Even one 
hate-based crime is too many. There were 257 incidents in 2015 
involving anti-Islamic feelings, hatred, prejudice, 307 victims. That 
can include yelling, but normally, the offenses, there were 301.
  But anti-Jewish, in 2015, there were 664 incidents, 695 offenses, and 
731 victims. That is pretty much 2 to 3 to 1 more anti-Jewish hate 
crime offenses and incidents than anti-Islamic. One is too many, but I 
hope that people who are in the House will cease the anti-Israel 
bigotry and the anti-Israel hatred.
  After 6 million Jews were slaughtered during World War II, before 
that and leading up to it, they needed a place, and, of course, it 
satisfied and fulfilled a great deal of prophecy that Israel came back. 
There are no descendants of anyone who preceded the Jewish people in 
that area currently alive. Yet there is so much hatred for the Jewish 
people.
  I saw it in Germany last year. I couldn't believe I was seeing hatred 
rising again. Much of it was from people who were refugees, but it is 
shocking.
  Germany was trying to show the world how loving, open, and accepting 
they were, so they took in all of these refugees, most of whom were 
Muslim, and now they have all this anti-Jewish hatred. So, hopefully, 
this House can set the proper precedent by stopping the anti-Semitic 
comments.
  For heaven's sake, I have been mad at Senator Graham over different 
things, but one of our House Members accused him of being compromised 
and then made allegations insinuating that he is really hateful. So I 
am hopeful that my friends across the aisle will be able to avoid going 
to those hateful places so that we can have rigorous, tough debate 
without trying to assassinate character.
  One of the places we see a tremendous amount of bigotry, hatred, and 
racism is in the Judeo-Samaritan areas from the Palestinian Authority. 
It is unbelievable that, in today's time, an area the United States is 
sending a tremendous amount of money, that we would be mute while the 
Palestinian Authority sentences a man apparently of Arab descent, Issam 
Akel. He is a U.S. citizen. But he was abducted by Palestinian 
Authority intelligence October 11 in Ramallah, and he has now been 
sentenced to life at hard labor because he sold what they say is 
Palestinian property to a Jew.
  That is incredible. We are sending them money to help cultivate that 
kind of bigotry and hatred against Jews? Really? This day and time we 
are doing that? It needs to stop.
  I have seen literature that is being used in Palestinian areas to 
teach children to hate Jews, to think of them, as Farrakhan said, like 
termites or rats, for heaven's sake. Then I see friends across the 
aisle in pictures embracing Farrakhan as he has said some of the most 
hateful, vile, mean-spirited, and bigoted comments about our Jewish 
friends. Really?
  I would share the desire and the hope that one day we really will 
achieve Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream where people are judged by 
the content of their character and it won't be necessary to ask people 
on forms what race they are.
  I think it is important to know if people are citizens or not because 
that is how we arrive at how many Representatives, that kind of thing. 
Those are important things. It helps a lot with governmental decisions 
when we know who is a citizen and who isn't, that kind of thing.
  Madam Speaker, I look forward to the day we don't have to ask race. 
Everybody would just check ``human race,'' and it won't matter. It 
doesn't matter if you are Hispanic, black, white, red, or green. It 
won't matter.
  And I look so forward to that day. Then we won't need any groups that 
use race or skin color to delineate the group, because we will have 
other things and other priorities that draw our interests; and we will 
be determined by those kind of groups, not hate groups, but groups that 
come together because of shared interests, and race doesn't matter. I 
look forward to those days.
  But in the Palestinian areas, the Palestinian Authority is 
multiplying the hate, and we keep funding them. I was glad we cut back 
some of the money being sent that is still being spent and still going 
there.
  The other thing that we keep hearing more about than anything is how 
hateful, immoral, and mean-spirited walls are, even though everybody 
who talks about walls has an outer wall around their home or their 
apartment building. Whatever they live in, there is an outer wall.
  Why? Madam Speaker, it is because you don't want everybody coming and 
parading through your home unless you invite them.
  Yes, Madam Speaker, just because there are burglars who can get past 
your dead bolt lock or break through your window, you still have a 
wall. You still have dead bolts because it will help slow people down 
from trying to get in, and hopefully they will be caught before they 
can get in and do damage.
  Hopefully, just the presence of an outer wall around your home--I 
understand most people want to have interior walls to give family 
members some privacy, but if walls are immoral, why would you have one 
around your home, the outer wall of your home? It is because they work. 
They are not immoral.
  Some people say, oh, it is a 14th century solution. Actually, it is 
more like a 3000 B.C. solution.
  I have a picture in my office of some of our military there at a 
place called Ur, where Abraham came from. There has been a massive wall 
there since about 3000 B.C.
  They are used to slow down people whom you don't want coming in 
without your permission.
  So it isn't a 21st century problem with having people walk into your 
home or homeland unimpeded. It is as old as humanity itself, and walls 
can help.
  Madam Speaker, that is why I had the picture the other day, earlier 
this week, of the huge fence barrier that was put up at the 2016 
Democratic National Convention, because the people in charge there--and 
Hillary Clinton was the nominal head of the party, being the nominee. 
Those folks understood those help keep out people you don't want in.
  Nobody told the head of the Democratic National Committee, including 
their nominee, that fences, barriers, and walls don't work. So they had 
it out there on full display because they didn't want anybody coming in 
they didn't want there, and that includes people who were not delegates 
or the people they wanted. They knew that walls, fencing, and barriers 
would work, but only if you have security there to watch over them.
  So it is a good thing. So we had that picture.
  Then here is a picture of a wall and fence. A lot of people say 
Israel has a wall around it, because they do have some wall, but most 
of it is fence. It works because they guard it.

                              {time}  1530

  We ought to be doing the same thing because, if we allow this Nation 
to continue to have people pouring in, even people who pour in well 
motivated, coming in illegally, they haven't been educated on how you 
keep a self-governing country, and you lose it.

[[Page H712]]

  Mostly, in history, they haven't lasted 200 years. That is about the 
end. We are beyond that. But we are headed to the dustbin of history 
unless we begin to teach all those here how you keep a republic.
  And I know some have been miseducated and think socialism is the way 
to go--oh, it is so much more caring; you have got billionaires pouring 
in hundreds of millions of dollars--because they think, when all is 
said and done, they will be part of that top ruling class. In socialism 
you never have just one class--that is the way it is sold--but you have 
the big, powerful, rich ruling class, like oligarchs in Russia, and 
then you have the ruled class.
  Actually, I saw it firsthand as an exchange student in the Soviet 
Union. You have got the rulers and you have got the ruled, and you 
don't really have a middle class. It is not a good way to live because 
you have got to have a totalitarian government, as Khrushchev found out 
when he tried to come up with a plan to get rid of government and go 
just to the ``share and share alike'' philosophy. He disbanded the 
commission because it didn't work. There is no way to ever go without a 
totalitarian government that tells you everything you can or can't do.
  Anyway, Israel, walls work, fences work, those barriers work. And I 
think this is a lovely wall and fence.
  My understanding is this one is part of--well, it protects the 
Hillary Clinton Chappaqua residence, Chappaqua, New York. Nobody has 
gotten word to Hillary Clinton, apparently, that these things don't 
work. You have got security. You have got the walls. You have got the 
fence.
  I know she is saying otherwise now, but she knows. That is why she 
has got a wall and a fence. She knows it works. It is not immoral, 
trying to protect what you have got, protect the people you love, what 
you love.
  There are just so many examples around the world.
  I needed this marked. I believe this is Bill de Blasio's. I am not 
certain. I think this is his wall and fence because, even though he has 
said something like, ``They have got plenty of money; it is in the 
wrong hands,'' he doesn't realize he is one of the wrong hands it is 
in.
  And if he would get rid of his wall, he could invite all those people 
into his home, and he could stop saying walls are immoral, because he 
got rid of his immoral wall.
  And, obviously, for those who don't understand sarcasm, that is 
sarcasm.
  And these are examples here of walls, fences that work. They keep 
people out.
  Now, the Iron Curtain, that was a different matter, because they were 
keeping people in that didn't want to be in, shooting people that 
didn't stay in.
  But they work. That is why they are around prisons. That is why they 
are around jails or jail facilities. Yes, they work. We have found that 
for thousands of years.
  So I hope that we will be more realistic in the arguments and debates 
that go on here, stop the ridiculous rhetoric.
  Everybody in here knows walls work. That is why their home has outer 
walls instead of just some partitions in the middle of the home where 
anybody can walk in and around and through their home. They know those 
walls work.
  So let's talk about what most people in here have voted for. Let's 
get the government reopened because we agree to do something to stop 
the death, the human carnage, the rape, all of these horrendous things 
brought about by drug cartels controlling our southern border. Let's 
stop it. Let's dry up the cartels.
  And for those who don't care about the Americans, if your number one 
goal is to help the people of Mexico, help the people of Central 
America as well, the thing to do is get a barrier, get a wall where we 
need it, but secure the whole thing. Then we dry up the money to the 
drug cartels and Mexico becomes a top ten economy; they have a 
burgeoning middle class and they have a better standard of living.
  The best thing we can do for Mexico and Central America: build a wall 
where we need it; secure the border; cut off the money, then, flowing 
to the drug cartels; and give the people of Mexico a life they deserve.
  Having some trickle in--they have got 130,000 or so in Mexico. Having 
a million come in a year, that is still not helping the people of 
Mexico, and it is bringing down our own country because we are not 
prepared and able to take care of such mass illegal invaders on top of 
the million-plus legal visas we give people to come in our country.
  Why? Because we are the most generous country in the world when it 
comes to philanthropy and when it comes to giving visas, because we 
know it is a strength to have many races, to have many national 
origins.
  But the one thing that I loved about 9/12--when we gathered in our 
town square and we held hands, we sang hymns together, we prayed 
together--that day, for that day, there was not a single hyphenated 
America out there. Every person there said, ``I am an American''--all 
races, creed, color, national origin, age. On 9/12, we were one nation, 
under God. And I hope and pray we can get back to that place.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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