[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13063]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  THE USA PATRIOT ACT AND THE BORDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I came to have a little chat with the 
Members about immigration, and I intend to do that. But I cannot help 
but point out from the previous speaker that torture means many things. 
Perhaps the people who can best define torture would be prisoners of 
war in Vietnam, in Korea, and World War II. And I can say to the 
mothers of America that the people that we are accusing of torturing 
are people who want to kill their children as fast as they can. I would 
say to the fathers of America that the soldiers we are accusing of 
torturing are people that would like to kill their family as fast as 
they can. And I can assure the Members, having been in Vietnam, that 
pouring water on somebody, playing loud music, and lowering the air 
conditioner is not torturing anybody. It, though, however, may save an 
American GI.
  Mr. Speaker, like most of the Members of the body, on October 24, 
2001, I voted for the U.S. PATRIOT Act, which passed with an 
overwhelming bipartisan majority of 357 to 66.
  At the time many of us had concerns about whether or not the bill 
crossed the line on infringing on our constitutional liberties. We were 
assured that it did not. And when the new protections against terrorism 
were in place, we could actually see for ourselves that it did not.
  So we approved that bill, based on the fact that our Nation had just 
suffered 3,000 dead in New York and Washington at the hands of illegal 
immigrant terrorists.
  Since then we have put up with library and bookstore records examined 
by Federal agents. We have endured having our personal e-mail scanned 
by intelligence agents. We have seen our grandmothers forced to take 
off their shoes at airports, with no probable cause other than they 
have chosen to travel. All of these things are aggravating. We have 
been willing to put up with it as patriots if it means we can better 
defend ourselves against another 9/11.
  But we have also seen nearly 200,000 American troops sent to war in 
Iraq and Afghanistan, where over 1,800 of them have given their lives.
  All the while we have seen the administration and the Congress turn a 
blind eye to the continuing hordes of millions of illegal immigrants 
pouring across our northern and southern borders. There is no amount of 
eavesdropping, searches, or overseas military actions that will protect 
us against another 9/11 while we leave our borders wide open to 
terrorists with suitcase nuclear weapons or biological agents.
  We can secure our borders within months. We can secure our borders 
within months with a simple executive order or an agreement between our 
border State Governors and the Secretary of Defense. Congressional 
investigators say somewhere between 36,000 and 48,000 troops would do 
the job. The Secretary of Border Control and Immigration says maybe it 
will take 50,000. Since we are in agreement on needing somewhere 
between 36,000 and 50,000, there is no reason not to start deploying 
these forces soon.
  And that is just the first step. We then need to build up our border 
patrol to a level at which we do not need help and we can send our 
troops back home. We ought to be able to do that over the next 5 years, 
as an adequate number of new border patrol agents are trained and 
placed on duty and we get new fencing, lighting, sensors, and other 
improvements in place.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to see us get to a point where we do not 
need the PATRIOT Act. We can let it quietly expire as we did with other 
internal security measures enacted during previous wars. But I would 
like for the Speaker and this Congress not to ask me to vote for any 
new so-called ``guest worker'' program while this outrage at our 
borders continues. The Members can count on me for a ``no'' vote right 
now.
  When our borders are secure and we have absolutely stopped the 
invasion of our Nation by illegal immigrants, then and only then can we 
sit down and discuss how to solve this problem.
  This week the Minutemen volunteers are heading back out into the 
Southwest desert to do the job the Federal Government is supposed to 
do. I do not want them to have to do that. As a matter of fact, they do 
not want to have to be doing that. But until Congress starts enforcing 
the immigration laws of this country, they will continue in growing 
numbers.
  Mr. Speaker, protecting Americans against terrorists begins with 
illegal immigrants at our borders, not with our own citizens here at 
home.

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