[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6943-6944]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     FOCUSING ON CONSTRUCTIVE SOLUTIONS TO U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to begin what I hope 
will be the start of a constructive dialogue about our Nation's 
immigration laws.
  There has been a lot of heated rhetoric about this topic in recent 
months. But what I believe has been lacking from this debate is a 
discussion of real solutions and an accurate portrayal of the real 
contribution of our Nation's immigrant community.
  In Congress, on cable shows and in newspaper columns across the 
country, we witness undocumented workers being unfairly and 
inaccurately blamed for all of our Nation's ills. In fact, it seems as 
though there are some cable show hosts out there who have made this 
practice the cornerstone of their programming. Just look at Lou Dobbs 
and his ``Broken Borders'' segment. If you ask me, it should be called 
the ``Broken Record'' segment. Because night after night after night, 
it is the same thing. It is about giving a platform to anti-immigrant 
extremists so they can espouse their misguided, misleading, and often 
malicious views.
  Mr. Speaker, I am the first to admit that our Nation's immigration 
system is simply not working. It is not meeting the needs of our 
Nation, it is damaging families, and it is hurting businesses. But 
rather than targeting Windex-wielding cleaning ladies, we should be 
talking about practical solutions.
  Do these individuals actually believe we should deport the more than 
10 million undocumented working men and women working in this country? 
Do they think that is truly the answer? Let us say they say yes. Do 
they think our Nation has the will or the requisite resources to round 
up these individuals and ship them all off? If that is the case, I 
would simply ask them, what would life be without the more than 700,000 
undocumented restaurant workers washing dishes and cleaning tables, 
250,000 household employees, or the almost 1 million undocumented farm 
workers? These industries where these workers toil would literally come 
to a screeching halt if not for their labor. Their absence would 
cripple entire communities. Fruits and vegetables would rot on the 
vine, office buildings and hotels would go uncleaned, and children 
would go unattended.
  So this evening, I thought I would set the record straight and give 
the folks at CNN and other news outlets a little unsolicited editorial 
advice. I think we should be talking in this country about mending 
borders. Rather than a segment about broken borders, why not create a 
segment about mending borders on your stations? How about a segment 
where elected officials, policy analysts, and immigration experts on 
all sides of the political spectrum discuss ideas and proposals for 
fixing our flawed immigration policy? How about, instead of endless 
footage of workers crossing the border, we see footage of real 
contributions of immigrants to our agricultural industry?
  I wish I could turn on the television set one night and see scenes 
like this, by Rick Nahmias. This is the face of our immigrant 
community, right here, Mr. Speaker. It is back-breaking, thankless 
labor. These men and women are exposed to dangerous pesticides and 
punished by brutal working conditions. They lack safety equipment and 
have no place to send their children to school. Many of these workers 
wake up at 2 in the morning to take a bus to our fields, and they do 
not return until long after dark.
  But this is why we have fresh fruits and vegetables at our grocery 
stores and on our kitchen tables. It is men and women like this in this 
poster who sustain our $30 billion agricultural industry. According to 
the Department of Labor, at least half the 1.8 million crop workers in 
the U.S. are undocumented. That is the Federal Government.

[[Page 6944]]

  I would like to show the next poster, one we never see on TV. The 
subtitle of the article is ``Jobs Americans Won't Do.'' I wish 
everybody would read the front page of The Wall Street Journal on March 
11. The Wall Street Journal article focuses on the challenges growers 
have finding workers. For example, ahead of a recent lettuce harvest, 
one grower took out ads in local papers for field workers to pick up 
the lettuce. He needed about 350 workers. The grower got one reply, 
just one reply. Mr. Speaker, the simple truth is our aging, more 
educated workforce is unwilling to pick the lettuce.
  I do not blame them. It is truly arduous work. So rather than 
attacking immigrants for filling these important jobs and for 
sustaining our vital agricultural industry, let us talk about creating 
a system that allows them to come out of the shadows and work here 
legally and safely and humanely. Rather than unfairly attacking 
immigrants for draining entitlements, let us talk about the 
undocumented workers who are here in this country and, according to the 
Social Security Administration, subsidize our Social Security system by 
$7 billion. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a segment about this on 
the cable channels.
  Mr. Speaker, rather than focusing on the fiery rhetoric that boosts 
cable ratings, I would rather we focus on the words of the late Pope, 
John Paul II, who said, Undocumented migrants are the most vulnerable 
of foreigners. With those words as our guide, I hope we can work 
together to create an immigration system that is reflective of their 
enormous contribution and the greatness of this Nation.

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