[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15308]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                         AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, the great giveaway of American land has not 
occurred. The Amnesty International plan to grant legal permanent 
residents to 12 to 20 million illegal people from all over the world 
did not succeed in the Senate, and rightfully so.
  The bill that the Senate tried to push off on the American public was 
too massive, too complicated, too long. It was almost longer than the 
Bible and had less to say.
  Madam Speaker, the American people get it. They understand that the 
first problem that has to be solved is the border. Border security is 
the number one issue. The Federal Government, our government, the most 
powerful superpower that has ever existed, cannot protect the borders. 
Or is it that they don't protect the borders or refuse to protect the 
borders?
  The American public want our borders secure before we start talking 
about immigration, whether it's legal or illegal. And that's what our 
Federal Government should do, simply follow the law that's already 
existing.
  We have enough laws now to protect the border, but for some reason, 
the law does not get enforced by the executive department. We hear all 
kinds of reasons why it doesn't occur, but the bottom line is our 
borders are porous, on the northern border and on the southern border, 
and the first duty of government is to protect the people, and that 
means protect our borders and protect it first. When we solve that 
problem, then we can move on to the other issues.
  And the second issue is not what to do with the people that are here 
illegally. We first close the gap, close the border, keep people from 
coming here illegally, but the next thing we have to deal with is the 
immigration service. It's in chaos, it's in turmoil, and this last 
week's example is a perfect example.
  The passport service. Now, the law requires that all Americans 
traveling anywhere, including Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean islands, 
have passports. Congress passed that law 3 years ago. The Federal 
Government, the executive branch, had 3 years to get ready to make sure 
that Americans had those passports, and sure enough, 2007 came, 
Americans were following the law. They started applying for passports, 
and all of the sudden, there are lines all over the United States for 
people waiting for their passports. First it was 4 weeks; then it was 6 
weeks. Now, it's 3 months to 5 months. The Federal Government cannot 
even process a simple passport for an American citizen, and it is a 
relatively simple process to deal with a passport.
  And now, what has happened? The Federal Government says, well, since 
we can't follow the law, we'll suspend the law until we're able to get 
it together. Now, it's not the fault of those workers in the passport 
office. They're working as long as they can, as hard as they can, but 
those people that run the passport office, the Federal bureaucrats, 
never were organized enough to make sure that Americans, in a 
streamlined process, could get passports.
  So now the law's not going to be followed until the passport service 
gets it together, and that's very unfortunate because the problem is 
we're going to use this same department, the immigration service, to 
so-called legally legalize the 12 to 20 million people in the amnesty 
bill, the so-called Z visas which are very complicated to understand, 
something that will take a lot longer to process than a passport. So 
the Z visas for 12 to 20 million illegals will take forever to process 
if we ever go to that service.
  What I'm saying, Madam Speaker, is we deal with the border first. 
Second, we fix and streamline the immigration service so it doesn't 
discriminate against people who are coming to the United States 
legally, that we make it efficient for Americans to travel abroad. And 
once we fix that problem, then down the road we deal with the third 
issue, the issue of what to do with people that are here illegally.
  Until we take it in that order, until Congress addresses those three 
respective acts with three bills, we will never solve the problem. And 
a massive, so-called immigration reform bill, the American public is 
suspect and skeptical of that plan because, frankly, I don't think the 
American public trusts the Federal Government to do the job of securing 
the border and reforming the immigration service.
  But we know that the Federal Government does have the capability to 
grant amnesty to people that are here illegally. So, hopefully, 
Congress will do its job, get organized, pass three separate bills so 
that we have border security; that we have an efficient, workable 
immigration services; and then down the road, we deal with what to do 
with the people that are here illegally in the U.S.
  The American public expect it. They have expected it for a long time, 
and it's time for us to get about the people's business and resolve 
these three problems as efficiently and quickly as we can.
  And that's just the way it is.

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