[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 206 (Thursday, December 14, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H6978-H6980]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TACKLING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, we are going to follow up on the last 
series of speeches and point out to the American public that over the 
next month--we are now going to leave for about 2\1/2\ weeks. But over 
the next month, all eyes should be on the Republicans of the House of 
Representatives as we finally dig in and try to tackle the biggest 
problem that America faces today. That problem is the illegal 
immigration across the southern border.
  I want to give some statistics because I have talked to a lot of 
people, and some people are still confused. They think we will be mean 
if we try to cut off the illegal immigration, or xenophobic, or 
something.
  I point out to the American people one more time that the number of 
people coming across our southern border each month is historically 
wildly high. It is even high by the standards of the Biden 
administration.
  The most recent figures we have are still for October 2023. Almost 
300,000 people came across our southern border in October. That is up 
from about 180,000 a year ago. It went from 180,000 to 290,000. If you 
go back 2 years, you are down under 100,000. If you go back 3 years, it 
was under 20,000.
  We are going up even higher than I thought. We are going up to about 
14 times as many people crossing the border today as were crossing the 
border 3 years ago. It is a disaster for the United States.
  Of that amount, depending on the month, we are up to having 6,000 to 
9,000 unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border. There was a 
time when Americans' heartstrings were pulled a little bit if a family 
was separated. If a 16-year-old comes across the border without either 
of their parents there, isn't that a broken family? For all we know, 
they may never see their parents again. They may be human trafficked. 
They might wind up working illegally on a third-shift job.
  The New York Times reported it, and the Biden administration objects 
to it, but I think anybody would agree that we have lost track of tens 
of thousands of unaccompanied minors in America.
  Why aren't more people upset by this? There are people who say some 
of them are okay. Are we making any effort to find out if they are 
okay?
  Some other statistics that should be tackled here, as we permanently 
change America, is that we not only look at the number of people coming 
here illegally, but we should be looking at the number of people who 
are coming here who are being deported after they do bad things.
  Let me say that one more time. We find dramatic reductions in the 
number of people who are coming to our country who are being deported 
from our country after they do bad things.
  In the most recent year available, 72,000 people were deported, 
primarily for breaking the law. You have COVID in the middle there. If 
you go back 2 years, that 72,000 was 185,000. Before COVID hit at all, 
we were deporting about 250,000 people a year for breaking the law. We 
have now dropped that to about one-quarter as many.
  We not only have a problem with the current administration that has 
an open border, with the number of people crossing the border up by 14 
times what it was 3 years ago, but the number of people deported 
compared to--and I don't like to make this a Trump thing--under Trump 
has dropped about one-quarter as many.
  It is hard to believe right now, but at the time of the Trump 
administration, people were critical because people were doing horrible 
things and not being deported. I think President Trump should have been 
deporting more. Nevertheless, almost a quarter as many people are being 
deported as were 4 years ago.
  We are both letting far more people in the country and kicking out 
fewer people who I think everybody should agree are a problem.
  Mr. Speaker, there is going to be a strong effort made when Congress 
returns from our Christmas break to do something to aid Ukraine. The 
Republicans feel, and rightfully so, that this is such a crisis of what 
is going on at our southern border that we should not be addressing any 
other crises around the world until this situation is solved.
  There are other statistics that the public should be aware of. Every 
year in this country, over a million people are allowed in the country 
with green cards. It is not impossible to come here. Right now, almost 
a million people are sworn in every year to become new citizens.
  This is the highest number that we have had since 2006, so don't let 
anybody say it is impossible to come here. Don't let anyone say that 
America is xenophobic and turning its back on the world. Just shy of a 
million people every year are being sworn in legally. A million people 
a year are also being let in on visas. As a result, nobody should say 
that America is afraid of people from other parts of the world.
  The only question is: Should we have people coming here who have not 
been appropriately vetted? How much of a quick change in the makeup of 
America's population can we stand?
  Mr. Speaker, I have statistics available for last year, when 970,000 
new people were sworn in as Americans. I was at a ceremony in Milwaukee 
County where 270 people were sworn in in 1 month by itself.
  Last year, despite this huge illegal immigration, we had just short 
of a million people naturalized. That is the most since 2008.

                              {time}  1330

  There were only 2 years, from what I can tell, in the last 50 years 
when more people were legally sworn in as new citizens than who were 
sworn in last year. I am led to believe, at least by my local 
officials, that that number is going to go up again when we collect the 
final numbers from 2023.
  I strongly encourage my Republican colleagues to hold the line. We 
have passed legislation out of the House--and we don't even really need 
legislation, but we have passed legislation out of the House to change 
the immigration laws the degree to which we will go back to where we 
were a couple years ago and only a small number of people will come 
here who are not legal, and we will stop the current trend of having 
such a wholesale change in the make-up of our immigrants coming to 
America.
  John Adams said that the Constitution is built for a moral and 
religious population and totally unfit for any other.
  We therefore have to make sure that just as we do a good job of 
raising our children who are expected to live in a country under our 
wonderful Constitution which anticipates a limited government which is 
necessary for a free people, we have to make sure that the people who 
come here are a moral group of people who are prepared to live in a 
country based upon less government and leaving people alone. If the 
House Republicans do not get what they want in January or February, 
then it is scary for the future of our country.
  This is a fight the Republicans, of course, do not want.
  Who wants to fight?
  Nevertheless, it is something that is necessary to change our 
country. If we lose that fight, then we are going to go back to the 
days, or continue the days, of 180 or 300,000 people per month crossing 
the southern border.
  I hope the press pays careful attention to what is going on here, and 
I hope the American people pay close attention to what is going on 
here.
  The next topic I am going to address, and we have addressed it 
before, is that we are right now working through the 12 bills which we 
call appropriation bills and which the people back home would call 
budget bills.
  In virtually every bill, there will be a disagreement as to whether 
America ought to be spending more money identifying people based on 
racial make-up, trying to use the racial make-up of where your parents 
were born 2 or 3 or 10 generations ago when determining who gets a job, 
who gets a promotion, and who gets a government contract.
  This has been a big part of American life since 1965, but under the 
Biden administration it has become a much bigger, I won't say problem, 
but a bigger part of American life because we ask people what their 
racial background is.
  Maybe I should explain why it is something of concern to me.

[[Page H6979]]

  I personally became aware of this when a local human resources 
professional contracted out to someone. This business had over 50 
employees, and it is something that every business with at least 50 
employees has to worry about. They were going to hire a new engineer, 
and they were told by a firm they had hired to monitor this sort of 
thing that if they currently had four men who were engineers, then they 
had to make sure the fifth person was a woman.
  In other words, despite the fact that the guy owned this company 
privately, the government was going to sit in a room and say: We don't 
care if the best person for the job is a guy, it has to be a woman.
  Later on, they were going to hire a member of management. Before this 
time they had four members of management who happened to be White 
folks. They were told that the next person should be a person of color.
  Again, this person who called me was a human resources professional, 
a woman herself, but she just felt that something was wrong with this. 
It is our company. If we find somebody we think we ought to hire, then 
we ought to hire that person.
  The Biden administration and virtually every agency wants more 
attention paid to where people come from. I think there are two 
justifications for that, and I wish we were debating it more openly.
  The first justification is diversity. I question whether that is 
really the motivation or is it just to divide Americans. The reason I 
say that is because when you identify people by their ethnic 
background, it has nothing to do with their life experiences or their 
opinions on any individual issues.
  Some of the rules make no sense whatsoever. When identifying 
somebody, a person self-identifies. You could be one-quarter a 
protected class or one-eighth a protected class, and the government 
will say that because you are say, one-eighth Peruvian, that therefore 
you bring a diverse viewpoint and it is important we bring you into a 
company. That makes no sense. Nevertheless, that is the current 
justification.
  Or the justification may be that we have to make up for past sins. 
Again, people getting preferences are ever-increasing. These are people 
who were not even in this country 20 years ago.
  Why would we have to put our thumb on the scale or order a company to 
hire somebody who thought the United States was so wonderful that they 
would immigrate here?
  Last night, I was reading about a woman who came here who had one 
parent from Jamaica and one parent was, I think, from the Bahamas. In 
any event, this person's ancestors were not suffering in any way in the 
United States. Nevertheless, they used the excuse that in order to make 
up for past injustice, we have to give preferences. This makes no 
sense.
  The diversity argument is also strange. We can have somebody who came 
here from Vietnam three generations ago. Maybe they are right now one-
quarter Vietnamese. Maybe they don't know how to talk Vietnamese and 
have never set foot in Vietnam. Nonetheless, according to the diversity 
bureaucracy, it is important they are given preference because they 
will bring a diverse viewpoint to the workforce.
  Mr. Speaker, does it make any sense to say that you are going to 
bring a diverse viewpoint if you know nothing at all about the country 
or culture which you supposedly represent?
  In any event, there are programs along this line being pushed 
throughout the Federal Government.
  I think, largely, the Republican Party will try to decrease them and 
just say that we are going to view people as individuals while the 
Democratic Party wants to forever label people by where their 
grandfather or great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather lived.
  I think that is a recipe for divisiveness. I hope the Republicans 
prevail, and I hope the American public objects to this increasingly 
divisive program.
  I want to focus on one area in particular. Recently the Biden 
administration has decided to add to the groups of people whom I think 
will be given preference in the government contracts.
  By the way, I recently toured a company owned by and run by a guy 
from Asia. His parents had founded the company and were very, very 
successful, but despite the fact that, from what I could tell, he was 
going to inherit a company worth tens of millions of dollars and had 
lived a very lavish, let's say a spoiled life to this point, he was 
taking advantage of, or was being given an advantage for government 
contracting because he was perceived to be a protected person or a 
person who needed assistance.
  This is a person who is going to inherit tens of millions of dollars 
and who is living in an upscale Wisconsin suburb, but under current 
law, he had to be given preferences over maybe somebody who had lived 
in America for generations, who was brought up in a difficult 
background, and who founded his own company working it from the ground 
up. Nevertheless, because of this divisive affirmative action sort of 
stuff, the American, the guy whose great-great-grandparents were here, 
was going to be given a disadvantage in getting a government contract 
because he was not the son of Asian multi-multimillionaires.
  We ought to have a discussion about this. This is the sort of thing 
that should matter.
  Nevertheless, the Biden administration, in addition to trying to hire 
all different people in our agencies, wants a new group that would be 
considered persons of color and given preference, and that is Middle 
Eastern or North Africans.
  Now, I will make a couple of comments about that. Right now, Mr. 
Speaker, if you look at a map from Morocco all the way over to Iran, 
these people are considered just like any other American. They are not 
given preferences.
  Why they would get preferences, I don't know.
  I think most people from this part of the world immigrated here only 
very recently, so I wouldn't even say their parents or grandparents or 
great-great-grandparents were treated poorly in this country.
  Insofar as I know people from this part of the world, I believe they 
think like every average American. I don't see what sort of diverse 
viewpoint they are bringing to the workplace. Moreover, I should point 
out, that right now people from Middle Eastern or North African 
background are making, if money can be described as a success, 
considerably more than the average American citizen, including the 
average American White citizen.
  Nevertheless, the Biden administration wants to say to this group 
from Morocco, from Lebanon, from Syria, and from Iran that if you found 
a company here, then you get preferences if you are dealing with the 
Federal Government.
  I have yet to find one person back home who knows the Biden 
administration is trying to do this, but it is something that ought to 
be more publicized in the mainstream media, and it ought to be subject 
to debate.
  One of the topics that should be brought up is the question: Is this 
a way to destroy America and divide Americans, or when people vote they 
create a situation in which people say: What are you going to give me 
because I am from Peru?
  What are you going to give me because I am from Vietnam?
  What are you going to give me because I am from Iraq?
  What are you going to give me because I am from Angola?
  I think that is where we are headed, and the time is now to nip it in 
the bud.
  By the way, I mentioned that people from North Africa make more than 
the average American. That is also true for the wealthiest immigrant 
group in this country, people from India. People from China make more 
than the average American. People from the Philippines make more than 
the average American. People from Cuba make more than the average 
American.
  From what I can see, it might take one or two generations, but then 
people from Africa or Southeast Asia make more than the average 
American. So we should not be afraid to put an end to this.
  We have a labor shortage. These DEI specialists should be swept 
aside, and we should go back to the days in which companies could hire 
and promote people based on who is the best for the job.

[[Page H6980]]

  I hope this is discussed over the next 3 weeks back home so that when 
Congress reconvenes and works on our appropriations bills we try to do 
what we can to get rid of these DEI specialists.
  The final topic of the day is with regard to two different groups who 
are being treated very differently, and it is time we got rid of the 
differences.
  Beginning in the 1960s, the Federal Government began to institute 
widespread use of income-based benefits. Some of them were low-income 
housing benefits, some of them were at the time what we called AFDC 
benefits, some of them were food benefits, and some of them were 
healthcare benefits. Nonetheless, they all gave more benefits to people 
who were considered to be in poverty.
  Frequently, being in poverty meant that you couldn't get married 
because if you have a couple together and one of them has a job, then 
they usually are not considered to be in poverty, so they don't get 
free housing, free food, and free checks. There is a flawed program 
called the earned income tax credit in which people also get more 
money.
  All these programs have two things in common: They largely penalize 
people who get married to someone with an income, and they largely 
discourage people from working. In my experience talking with people on 
a lower level of the income scale, they all know when they should stop 
working to get the maximum benefits.

                              {time}  1345

  There is a sweet spot if you are a single parent, around $16,000 to 
$18,000, and you get your earned income tax credit. You get your rent-
free apartment or almost rent-free apartment. You get your food share. 
You get your medical care. You may be getting some separate individual 
checks. As a result, we are discouraging two things: We are 
discouraging marriage, particularly marrying somebody who has got an 
income, and we discourage work.
  There is a bill working its way through Congress right now, which is 
adding a new class of Pell grants. Pell grants are what amount to 
college scholarships for people who are perceived to be low income.
  What happens with Pell grants--and the same thing should be said 
about food stamps, the same thing should be said about low-income 
housing--if one couple gets married and raises a child on their own, 
under most cases they are not eligible for free government scholarship.
  If they decide not to get married and maybe you have one parent with 
a small income, their children get what amounts to a college 
scholarship. I had a woman approach me saying that her and her husband 
got married and their daughter was $35,000 in debt when she graduated 
from college. She thought that was unfair because her sister didn't get 
married and her daughter was getting what amounted to almost free 
tuition for 4 years because of the martial status of her parents.
  The child from a married couple is $35,000 in debt, compared to very 
little debt of the child of the unmarried couple.
  In America, we are supposed to be treating people equally. Obviously, 
we are not treating people equally here. It is like it is the policy of 
the Federal Government to discourage marriage and particularly 
discourage marriage if you have children. This is not something that 
has been talked about lately. It hasn't been talked about in depth 
here, as far as I can tell, since the 1990s, but since equity or 
``equalness'' or something is the catch word that you hear a lot of 
around here, I think we ought to look at these programs and stop 
penalizing people who get married and have children.
  It is a shame, but a lot of people feel they can't afford to have 
kids anymore, maybe they have no kids, maybe one child, and you hear it 
is because they don't have enough money; meanwhile, we have no problem 
taxing them to make sure people with a different lifestyle have a 
variety of things.
  It is not going to change in January or February, but I hope the 
people in this institution begin to think about that. Was it right to 
set up programs and the only way you can get them is if you don't get 
married when you have children?
  I will recount a little anecdote with regard to the Pell grants. I 
used to speak on this back in Wisconsin before I was a Congressman, and 
I would go through all the different programs which you lose if you get 
married and have a job. I talked to a young gal who was in the room at 
the time--because sometimes I think I have to know more how young 
people think--and when talking about the grants that went out to people 
of supposed lower income--of course, this also encourages working off 
the books. All these things do--the gal said, me and my husband got 
married before we had a child, but none of my friends are getting 
married. They get free college. I think people in this institution have 
to stop and think, is that right? Should we be teaching the young 
people that you get free college if you don't get married when you have 
a kid?
  That is what we are teaching them right now. That is what we taught 
that young gal in Green Bay if she is listening. I have heard what she 
said, and I hope it is something that is talked about a little bit more 
in this institution.
  The three topics for the American public to chew on over the next 3 
weeks: The record number of people coming across our border and 
permanently changing America and bankrupting America. The obsession 
over identifying people where their great-great-grandparents came from 
as if their view of the world is the same of somebody who was born in 
Mexico or China or somewhere else in the 1890s. Lastly, our rather 
strange policy of trying to discourage people from getting married 
before they have children. I hope the American people chew on that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague has been covering a lot 
of very important subjects here. I know he is frequently in the area of 
immigration and the invasion of our border, so I appreciate Mr. 
Grothman's strong efforts on highlighting that so the American people 
understand.
  It really boils down to when we are looking at the border invasion 
that we have quite a battle. I do not understand why the Biden White 
House is simply sitting by watching it happen, even having personnel 
propping the gates open to allow this to happen.
  We do not understand fully who is coming in. It is not just people 
from Mexico or even Central America. There is a lot of very dangerous 
people coming across the border. They apprehend many people on the 
known terrorist or mayhem list, at the very least, and I wonder whose 
side are they on. Whose side is the administration on when they allow 
this to happen? Whether it is the drugs coming across, the fentanyl, 
the people who are setting up and going to be the potential terrorist 
cells that are going to hit this country at some point, and we see all 
these protests going on over Palestine.
  Mr. Speaker, they are just waiting for the green light on this. It is 
completely irresponsible and antithetical to the constitutional vows we 
take what is going on with the Biden administration and their 
nonenforcement of the border. Much work needs to be done.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________