[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 151 (Thursday, September 19, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H7824-H7826]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ACT NOW ON IMMIGRATION CRISIS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Tlaib). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Honoring Winton W. Carter on His 100th Birthday
Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, on September 30, 2019, northeast Florida
will help Winton Carter celebrate his 100th birthday.
The year Mr. Carter was born, World War I formally ended with the
Treaty of Versailles, alcohol was officially illegal with the formal
start of Prohibition, and Boston's Babe Ruth was traded to the New York
Yankees at the end of the season.
Even more amazing is the life Mr. Carter has led serving our country.
Mr. Carter received a Purple Heart after being wounded by shrapnel in
his thigh while under continuous fire, fighting the Japanese on the
island of Saipan in World War II. He was there for the famous raising
of the American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. Mr. Carter
also later fought in the Korean war.
After 22 years in the military, he retired as a Marine master
sergeant and served a total of 40 years in government service, which
included recruiting future Marine heroes.
Mr. Carter is a widower, having celebrated 60 years of marriage to
his wife, Norma Jean. He is the father of two, and he loves to talk
about the Lord.
Therefore, it is on this day, September 19, that I proudly
acknowledge Mr. Winton W. Carter on the House floor, and I ask you to
join me in wishing him an early happy birthday.
Observing National POW/MIA Recognition Day
Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I would like to take this time to honor
those who were prisoners of war and those who remain missing in action,
as well as their families, in observance of National POW/MIA
Recognition Day.
We are forever indebted to those who sacrificed everything so that we
may enjoy the freedoms granted to us by the Constitution.
``You are not forgotten.'' This is a central phrase of National POW/
MIA Recognition Day. It is our job as a nation to stand behind those
who are currently serving, those who have served, and those who have
never returned from service who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
Through international relationships, many of those who have fallen
have been returned back to our country and to their families, and we
will continue to do the search and return our MIA soldiers. It is our
responsibility as a nation to never forget or quit searching for the
men and women who paid that ultimate price. We must continue to honor
them in the years to come.
Honoring First Responder John Lankenau
Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I would like to take this time to honor one
of my constituents, John Lankenau.
As the anniversary of 9/11 just passed, we must always remember those
who we have lost and honor the heroes who sacrificed their lives for
others.
On September 11, 2001, Mr. Lankenau was assigned as a hazardous
material specialist in Albany, New York. On that tragic day, as the
second plane flew into the towers, Mr. Lankenau was requested to
respond to New York City to assist first responders at Ground Zero.
Upon arrival, Mr. Lankenau was requested by name to conduct the first
hazard surveys of Ground Zero. He worked until early morning, taking
air and soil samples on the wreckage site.
Mr. Lankenau remembered how dangerous it was, maneuvering through the
wreckage and fearing that there was a possibility that one of the
adjacent buildings could collapse, causing more fatalities.
He spent the next couple of weeks going back and forth from home,
continuing to assess the hazards and the conditions at Ground Zero.
It is my greatest pleasure to represent men like Mr. John Lankenau in
the United States Congress. I commend him and the rest of the first
responders on 9/11 for their character, their courage, and their
commitment to serving others. I thank them, these true heroes, for
their service.
Congratulating University of Florida on Its Ranking
Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I would like to highlight my alma mater, the
University of Florida, which I represent in Florida's District Three.
The University of Florida, under the guidance of its president, Dr.
Kent Fuchs, has again risen in the U.S. News and World Report rankings
to number seven among all public universities in the United States.
This is the third year in the row the University of Florida has
advanced in that ranking.
The University of Florida incorporates all health disciplines, is one
of the largest engineering schools in the country, and has a top-rated
veterinarian school, which I graduated from in 1983.
It is just one of the few schools in the Nation to have won major
sports team national championships and titles in football, basketball,
and baseball.
I guess that is why it is great to be a Florida Gator.
Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about another crisis that has not
been dealt with on this House floor, and that crisis is the immigration
crisis we have.
We hear a lot about the climate crisis. Crises are the things that
are happening right now that we must respond to. But so many of the
things that we face in Congress are issues that may be a crisis for
some along the border, or some who are being advanced by people coming
into the country illegally, but if Congress were to act, these crises
would go away.
There is time to deal with climate change, and there is time to deal
with the crisis on the border, but we must act.
I have a photo here from June 2014, when my colleagues on the other
side said there was a crisis, and it was under President Barack Obama.
This is still going on at the border. I look at these people, and they
look like people who want opportunity. They are coming to this country.
I have this other photo, and there are families, women, children,
husbands. They look like people who are wanting to come into this
country for opportunity.
Congress has failed, and it has not just failed this Nation, but it
failed these people in the policies that we don't have because of
political divide.
We talk about how we want to fix the crisis on climate change, but we
don't come together on that. We want to talk about the immigration
crisis, but we don't come together on it because it becomes a wedge and
a tool that people use in politics for the next election.
They say, well, they are against that, and that is why you have to
vote me back in.
That happens on immigration. That is why immigration doesn't get
fixed. I am convinced of that.
{time} 1900
So we have proposed a guest worker program that will solve probably
about 90 percent, what our estimates are, of the people who are coming
across our southwest border.
I think we are all in agreement that the people coming across our
southwest border are not the rocket scientists; they are not the
engineers; they are not the health professionals. They are the people
who are working in the lower skills--agriculture, hospitality, and
construction--but yet they are so needed in this country because,
without them, this country won't work. We can't grow the fruits and
vegetables, and we can't build the buildings.
So what we have proposed is a guest worker program. If you would
picture a banner, Madam Speaker, ``Guest Worker Program.''
And understand, it is not immigration reform, because
``immigration,'' if we use that word up here, they part.
[[Page H7825]]
This side blames the Republicans of wanting to deport everybody. On my
side, we will say this side wants to give everybody amnesty. Neither is
true. So they walk away and nothing gets done. We have seen this year
after year for 36 years.
So the banner bill will say, ``Guest Worker Program.'' It will have
three silos: One will be agriculture, which is the one I am heading;
one will have hospitality; and one will have construction.
I will talk about the agriculture program.
The way this works is it does three things: It creates a prescreened
pool before people come into the country, which is number one. Number
two is it addresses the people who are already here illegally. Number
three, it reforms the H-2A program, which is a temporary seasonal
program of 10 months, and it makes it stronger so it serves our
producers better, but it also protects the migrant worker.
This is something that should not be a partisan issue. This is
something that I have shared personally in this Chamber with over 50
Members of the House of Representatives in a bipartisan way; I have
shared it on the Senate side in a bipartisan way; and we have shared it
with outside industries around the country. In fact, I am getting calls
from people from Wisconsin, from Indiana, from Pennsylvania, and from
California who want this bill passed.
Basically, what this does, briefly, is, on the H-2A program, which is
a temporary worker visa program--for 10 months, it is supposed to be.
The way the program works now is somebody will come in on an H-2A
program for temporary work. They will get a waiver, and that waiver
will be for 1 year. Then they can get another waiver up to 3 years.
What we have seen is people just kind of fade off the grid, and they
wind up being in America illegally. They may have come in legally, but
then they transfer and become a person here illegally. Then they live
in the shadows, and they are afraid to come out for fear of
deportation.
The other thing is they come in on an H-2A visa currently, and they
may leave the agriculture permit that they came in on and work
construction and get hired by construction. Or they may go into another
field, and so the permit that allowed them to come in, they don't
honor.
So with our program, we tighten up the restrictions on H-2A. People
come in on a guest worker H-2A visa that dedicates them to the sector
of agriculture, and they are dedicated to be in that sector because
that is what they have agreed to come in on. They can stay up to 11
months is what we are proposing, then they go back home, and then they
can come back.
The other thing we do is the prescreening portion of this bill works
this way:
We will have a country-to-country agreement between, say, the country
of Honduras and the United States. It is a state-to-State Department
agreement. So, if a person from Honduras or anywhere in Central America
wants to come to the United States, they apply. They must be a minimum
of 18 years of age. They have to apply individually. If they are
married and the spouse wants to come in, that spouse applies, but they
have to be a minimum of 18, no children.
They apply. That information from the country they come from goes to
our State Department, and it would be basically passport information:
their name, their address, age, and things like that. Our DHS will take
that information. They will do a background check. Once they clear the
background check, that person who applied as an applicant, they are
permitted to come into the country, but only after a job is available.
When a person applies, they can apply to a sector. Maybe it is dairy;
maybe it is fruits and vegetables; or maybe it is a citrus program.
Once they get accepted into the country and a job is available, they
get issued what we call a GWIC card, which is short for ``guest worker
identification card,'' and it will look like any other kind of
identification. It will have smart card or smart chip technology. It
will have the individual's picture on it.
Once a person gets this card, they are permitted to be in the country
for a 5-year period of time. For 5 years they can stay in this country,
and they can renew 4\1/2\ years into the program. After that, they can
continually do that, provided they stay a person of good standing in
the Nation.
They can get a driver's license number. It will be a guest worker
driver's license number that has to be renewed every 5 years. It will
start off in the State they get approved in and when they pass the
test. But that will allow them to drive in the country legally.
It gives them a chance to come into the country legally, whether they
want to be a temporary worker or a 5-year, year-round worker.
We have a restriction in there that they have to commit to work 75
percent of the year in the agriculture sector, on the guest worker
program for agriculture. That person has taken on the responsibility
and commitment that they will work in ag, and ag only.
On both programs with the H-2A or the 5-year guest worker program,
that individual is automatically entered into the E-Verify system. So
when our employers take somebody out of the pool, they are
automatically using E-Verify.
That person, again, is free to travel the country. If they come in,
say they want to do citrus in Florida, that season is over usually by
mid-June. They can go to North Carolina and work with another crop, or
maybe the State of Washington or New York, and they can stay
indefinitely in the country for that 5-year period of time. But they
must work a minimum 75 percent of the year in the United States in
agriculture.
If they choose to leave agriculture and work in construction and they
get picked up or found out and they get hired illegally by a
contractor, what happens is they have broken the terms of their
agreement, and they will be deported for that.
That identification number will be a 15-digit identification number
with the initials ``AG'' at the end of it for agriculture. So that
person, when they are put into the E-Verify system, if they are hired
by an ag employer, those have to jibe. If that person tries to go to
construction, then his number won't work in a construction entity.
If an employer tries to hire somebody illegally who is permitted to
work in agriculture and they want to hire them in construction, then
they are subject to a $2,500 fine per person per incident.
This is something that we hear over and over again from our producers
and our contractors in the hospitality industry. They need a guest
worker program, and our goal for this was to create a reliable, a
predictable, and a certain workforce for the labor of this country.
The second part of the 5-year program is this: For the people who are
in the country illegally, they can apply to this program. What we have
done is we have moved ag labor from the Department of Labor to the
USDA.
So for that group of people who are in this country illegally, they
can apply to this program. The program will be run by the United States
Department of Agriculture, and they will run a program that says: For
this time period, if you are here illegally and you want to apply to
this program, then you can apply with the understanding that we are not
looking to deport you. We are looking to get you to a legal status in
this country for 5 years at a time.
While that person is applying, he is what we call the applicant.
During that process, they are protected from being deported. Background
checks will be run.
We realize that some people are going to have fender benders. They
may not have shown up for a court date or didn't return a library book.
We understand that, and they will be given due time to get right with
the law and clear up their past.
When they get accepted into the program, they become a participant.
During that time period as a participant, they are here for 5 years at
a time and can renew 4\1/2\ years into it. They get the GWIC card, and
they get the 15-digit identification number that dedicates them to work
in the ag center. They are not dedicated to a certain employer, and
they can renew 4\1/2\ years into it.
If they came in illegally with a family, their family is also
protected during that period of time when a background check is being
done. Once that
[[Page H7826]]
is cleared up, that family is protected for up to 5 years at a time.
Again, when they renew, that family is protected.
It is not a pathway to citizenship. If somebody wants to become a
citizen, then they apply for citizenship just like anybody else who
wants to become a citizen of our great Nation.
In this program, again, what we are looking for is to create a
reliable and predictable workforce for our agriculture sector, and it
gives the flexibility of the individual to move around the country to
fulfill the needs that migrant worker has.
We did a roundtable throughout the State of Florida over the August
recess. We stopped at 10 different areas in my State. Florida is a
large agriculture State. People think of it as beaches and palm trees,
but we are also the number one producer of sweet corn in the country,
number one in watermelons, number one in citrus in the Nation, and we
have over 300 specialty crops. So we are very heavily dependent on
migrant labor.
As we traveled around our State, we got a tremendous amount of
feedback from all the different sectors. We sat down with the migrant
help workforce.
I am a veterinarian by trade, and I worked with horses and cattle. I
have been around agriculture since I was 15. I have talked to the
migrant. I have talked to the people. I found out by asking them: Did
you come here legally or illegally?
They would tell you because we had a great relationship. They would
say: I came here illegally.
You can ask them: Do you want to become a citizen?
Some do, some don't. Most of them just want the opportunity to come
here and work.
When we were in south Florida going through talking to some of the
producers, they were saying people from Honduras can come here and work
a season, maybe 5 months. The amount of money they make in 5 months is
equivalent to 5 years in that nation.
I saw this as a way that we can fulfill the needs of our producers
and fulfill the needs of food security for this Nation but also fulfill
the needs of that worker who wants to come here for a better life, and
they have the opportunity to become a citizen if they go through the
normal channels.
The other thing this does, and I didn't mention this, is there is a
$2,500 fee for that 5-year permit, which breaks down to $500 a year.
For the person who came in illegally, the first time they apply and
get accepted into this program and become a participant, there will be
the $2,500 fee for the permit, but there will also be a $2,500 fine
because they have agreed that they have broken the law coming in. That
puts that argument to rest of, well, they broke our law. These people
realize that. They acknowledge it. They paid the fine, and we can move
forward.
I thought it was interesting, when we went down and did our tour
around the State, that the producers said: You know, it comes down to
this. This Nation will either import their food, or they are going to
import their labor.
This is a national security issue. I look at these workers--I have
worked with so many of these people over the course of the years, over
the last 30 years, and they are great people. My heart goes out to them
because I know they want a better future. I know they want to live an
American Dream--maybe not in this country, but maybe the Honduran
dream. If a person can work 5 months here and have the equivalent of 5
years' pay in their home country, it can change lives, and it will
develop an economy down there.
So what I ask our Members of Congress to do is get this information.
They can go to our website, yoho.house.gov. They can go to the
legislation tab and click on that. That will have a drop-down screen,
and there will be the ag guest worker program. We have two short videos
on that that explain this program. We have a 10-page white paper that
explains this program. We have a bill that is already written--it is
right at 110 pages--that we look to introduce.
This is not a solution to immigration. It is a solution to the
workforce challenges we have in this Nation in agriculture,
hospitality, and construction.
By doing this and coming to agreement on border security and
enforcing the laws already on the books and by giving people a legal
portal to come into this country legally--they are prescreened before
they come in--and by allowing people who are in this country illegally
to become legal, we have solved a big crisis that this body has been
unable to fulfill, and we honor the American people. It causes more
division in this Nation, more division in this House, and it just
grinds the wheels of progress for this Nation to an end.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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