[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 197 (Tuesday, December 10, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H10013-H10014]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             SOCIALISM IS ABOUT ABSOLUTE GOVERNMENT CONTROL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk a little bit about 
the border, which is probably the most important issue facing America 
today as we determine what kind of country we have 10 or 15 years down 
the road, but I am going to lead off by talking a little bit about the 
past topic of capitalism versus socialism, because I don't think a lot 
of people realize exactly what socialism is about.
  Socialism is about absolute government control.
  People who are socialists want everybody to have to work for the 
government. Because they control the means of production, they want to 
determine what we have the right to buy, and they want to determine 
what we have the ability to invest in.
  Obviously, if you have to work for the government, which you have to 
in socialism, they can determine who gets hired, who gets promoted, 
what job you get. In other words, they will eventually use that 
absolute power that comes with being everybody's employer or 
everybody's regulator to promote you or hire you based upon your 
feelings, based upon your ideas.
  Not long ago, I went to Berlin and I saw the StasiMuseum, where, in 
the wonderful socialist country of East Germany, the government kept 
track of how you thought--kind of the way they do in China today--how 
you thought and if maybe you didn't say the right things. And maybe if 
the government becomes anti-Christian or doesn't like your other 
beliefs, they will miraculously fire you, you can't get the key job, 
you can't get promoted or whatever. That is why people who like to 
control lives more frequently become socialists.
  You look at the red flags under socialism that existed in the 1930s, 
and you will see those red flags--at the time, red meant socialism--all 
were adapted by leaders who liked absolute control of their 
populations.
  So, if anybody out there wants to vote socialism, what they are 
voting for is to get rid of their freedoms. They are saying: I turn my 
life over to the government. I want the government to tell me where I 
can work and what I can do when I am working. I want the government to 
tell me what I can buy.
  And if anybody accumulates wealth, they are saying: I want the 
government to be able to tell me where I can invest.
  That is the mindset of the socialist.
  There are fears that someday America may go socialist. Actually, that 
shouldn't happen, because socialism is unconstitutional under the U.S. 
Constitution, and any academic who pushes socialism should be aware of 
that.
  If you want to be, I guess it would amount to being a real serf. If 
you want to be a serf and have the government tell you where you have 
to work, tell you whether you can be promoted or not, tell you what you 
can invest in, and tell you what you can buy, you should go to another 
country, because the people who put together our Constitution, a goal 
was that we would never become anything like socialism.


                              Immigration

  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, now, let's talk a little bit about what 
was a major issue that used to be covered by the press, including the 
conservative press, before we started down the path to this 
impeachment, and that was the issue that was the primary reason why 
President Trump was elected: That issue is immigration and who we are 
going to let in this country.
  I don't think it has been well publicized, but just yesterday, we got 
the information from Border Patrol that they processed 42,000 people 
trying to come in this country either under asylum or inappropriately 
during the month of November.
  That is down from 45,000 in October, so I suppose you could say we 
are moving the ball in the right direction. It is down from 145,000 in 
May.
  Of those 42,000, under 5,000 actually got to come in the country. The 
vast majority who were not let in immediately, thanks to the work of 
President Trump, are currently being held in Mexico pending hearings.
  This is something President Trump has done without any help from the 
people in this body. He has done it by negotiating with Mexico and 
negotiating with the triangle countries in Central America. He has 
reached agreements or is receiving help from Guatemala, from Honduras, 
from El Salvador, and from Mexico itself.
  To a certain extent, through threat of tariffs, he has the Mexican 
Government patrolling its southern border--not doing that great a job, 
but they are patrolling their southern border.
  He has Central American countries doing what they can to hold on to 
their current population and allowing countries from which people are 
seeking asylum to settle in their country, which only makes sense. If 
you wanted to leave Venezuela, you speak Spanish. It doesn't make any 
sense that you would come to an English-speaking country. It makes more 
sense, if you really feel threatened at home, to go to countries like 
Guatemala and El Salvador and Honduras and Mexico.
  So these efforts by President Trump have dropped the number processed 
from 145,000 down to 42,000 and the number of people being let in our 
country from over 100,000 to under 5,000 a month.
  But it is always possible we are going to have a court decision 
undoing some of the efforts of President Trump, and, God forbid, it is 
possible we might have an election and a future President may not agree 
with the efforts made by President Trump.
  So what should this body be doing? We have to remind this body that, 
right now, we are only two of the 40 wealthiest countries on the globe 
to allow birthright citizenship.
  If somebody went down to the border, it is obvious that women who are 
near having birth are coming into this country to have children, which 
would make their children U.S. citizens and would create a situation in 
which, as a practical matter, they would stay there with them.

  We have a situation of chain migration in which people are coming 
here not because they are qualified to work here, but because they have 
relatives who are here, and we may be taking people who are not 
necessarily a good economic bargain for the United States.
  We need more ICE beds for single adults to be held right now. It is 
very difficult for ICE to do their job without these beds. As we are 
working through appropriations bills, it is time to pass a bill with 
that in there.
  We need more Border Patrol agents. Can you imagine what it is like at 
night doing the border patrol, finding 20 or 40 or 50 people coming 
across the border at once, and it is 2 o'clock in the morning and you 
are the one expected to bring people in? We have to respect our Border 
Patrol.
  We have a huge problem that, under current law, we are encouraging 
separation of families, and that is not President Trump's fault. He 
would be happy to change it.
  Right now, we have a law in which, if a child comes here from Canada 
or Mexico, they could be sent back, but children coming from Central 
America,

[[Page H10014]]

Africa, other places in Latin America, we have to let them in the 
country. That is a horrible thing.
  We wouldn't like it if a 15-year-old child left the United States and 
wound up in Nicaragua or Honduras. We would expect them to be returned 
to their parents.
  We are asking this body to pass a law allowing the United States to 
return single children to their parents and other countries. The other 
countries would like it.
  It is very arrogant of the United States and arrogant of this body to 
continue the current system in which a child, unaccompanied by their 
parents, comes here and we have to keep them.
  Right now, under the Flores settlement, we have to stop holding 
people after 20 days near the border, families with children. It is 
time that we statutorily change that and allow the holding of people 
for a longer period of time.
  We have to do something with sanctuary cities. We have to do 
something so that, if people break the law and are being held in 
prisons and being held in jails, the Federal Government has the ability 
to remove these people from the country.
  For whatever motivation, there are people in this country going down 
the path of having their city--and including people in this House 
encouraging cities--not ask people about immigration status and 
forbidding our immigration service from removing criminals from this 
country. That is another thing that we ought to be doing now.

                              {time}  1915

  Other things that President Trump is trying to do--but he needs a 
little bit of help here--we currently have illegals in low-income 
housing. I am not sure we need more low-income housing in this country, 
but a lot of people feel we do. Right now we have the rather bizarre 
situation in which people who are here illegally are sitting in low-
income housing, while American citizens are on a waiting list, 
including people like homeless veterans.
  I want to point out that President Trump and myself are not anti-
immigrant to say this. It recently came to my attention that the number 
of immigrants sworn in in this country in the last year available is 
830,000. Two years prior to that we were under 700,000.
  So President Trump has presided over a dramatic increase in the 
number of people who are coming in this country legally, showing his 
compassion and understanding that we do need immigrants in this 
country.
  However, it is time Congress stepped to the plate and did what was 
necessary to rein in out-of-control illegal immigration. So I encourage 
my colleagues not to forget about this crisis. I encourage the media, 
particularly the conservative media, not to take their eye off this 
ball, which will determine what the United States looks like 5 and 10 
and 25 years from now.
  I realize there are a lot of people who want the media to only focus 
on immigration, but we cannot forget what is going on in the 
immigration front.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.

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