[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24791-24798]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to be recognized to 
speak here on the floor of the United States Congress and have the 
opportunity to address you--while I understand that there are--many of 
our Members overhear this conversation that we are having and so do the 
American people. That is the important part about this; it is the 
people's House and the people need to be heard.
  And I would take us back to, Mr. Speaker, the people were heard. They 
were heard on the immigration issue. They were heard on that issue 
twice in this year, in this legislative year, Mr. Speaker. And that is, 
even though we had a great number of immigration hearings before the 
Immigration Subcommittee here in the House of Representatives, and 
where I am ranking member on the Immigration Subcommittee we listened 
to dozens and dozens of witnesses that testified across the breadth of 
this issue of immigration that has been on the front of the minds of 
the American people. It has been in the front of our minds for the last 
about 2 years, and it becomes part of debate in every conversation that 
has to do with American policy.
  Certainly, being a Member of Congress from the State of Iowa where we 
are the first in the Nation caucus, we have a number of presidential 
candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, that are in that State much 
of the time. It is a rare night that the shades aren't closed and there 
isn't at least one presidential candidate that is spending the night in 
Iowa after having spent the day and will spend the next day there. In 
fact, just at the Iowa State game last Saturday, I ran into two 
presidential candidates just random, not planned, just by the fact of 
the circumstances. They hear about the immigration issue on a daily 
basis, wherever they might go across the State of Iowa, New Hampshire, 
South Carolina, and beyond. The Presidential candidates are getting an 
earful from the American people. And the reason is, the American people 
understand that they are going to have to defend this central pillar of 
American exceptionalism called the rule of law. They rose up to defend 
it when, I call it, the comprehensive amnesty bill was brought before 
the Senate this year. We didn't bring a large bill before the House. I 
don't know if we are actually going to bring one. But twice it was 
brought before the Senate, and each time the American people rose up 
and they sent e-mails and they sent faxes and they made phone calls and 
they stopped in and visited their Senators in their district offices 
back in their States and also came out here to Washington to go into 
the Senate offices on the other side of the Capitol dome.
  The presence of the American people, the intensity of the message 
that they delivered to our Senators said, we don't want amnesty. And 
however you define amnesty, the American people know what it is. And so 
what I have done is, Mr. Speaker, is I have brought the definition of 
``amnesty'' to the floor of the House of Representatives so we can be 
talking about the same thing, because what I hear from the American 
people is the same thing that I believe, and I believe this:
  The rule of law is sacrosanct and must be protected. We can't suspend 
the rule of law because it creates an inconvenience for an individual 
or a family or a class of people.
  It is kind of like the Constitution itself in a way. The Constitution 
defines and protects our rights, and it is a unique document and it is 
the oldest document of its kind in the world. The oldest continuously 
functioning, surviving, effective Constitution in the world is ours, 
ratified in 1789. And that Constitution sets out parameters, guarantees 
individual rights, establishes the rule of law, determines where those 
laws are actually passed, here in this Congress or those 
responsibilities that are left to the States or to the people

                              {time}  1830

  And yet when we disagree with the results of a constitutional 
decision, if

[[Page 24792]]

the American people decide that we like our Constitution, we revere our 
Constitution and the parameters that are established in this 
Constitution, Mr. Speaker, if we want to change it, there are 
provisions in this Constitution to amend it.
  We respect this Constitution as being sacrosanct; that it means what 
it says, and it means what the text of the Constitution said as 
understood at the time of ratification. And when we amend this 
Constitution, it's a pretty high bar, but the provision is in here 
because we are going to hold that standard and adhere to the language 
that's here because we understand that that's what holds this 
civilization and this society together. And if we want to amend it, 
then we go through the process of amending, and it has been done a 
number of times. It's a high bar.
  But that standard of respect for that profound rule of the 
Constitution is the same standard that we need to have with respect for 
the profound viability of the rule of law. When we ignore laws, they're 
undermined. If we ignored the Constitution, if we simply decided I 
don't like the results of the language that's here, I'm going to 
disregard this Constitution and cast it asunder and operate in a 
fashion that we see fit, if we do that, the Constitution is 
systemically destroyed. It would be destroyed by our failure to respect 
it. It would be destroyed by a Supreme Court that didn't respect the 
text of the Constitution. It actually has been undermined, in my 
opinion, by a number of the decisions of the Supreme Court when they 
didn't respect the text of the Constitution, its original intent and 
its original understanding.
  And if the administration, the Department of Justice, if the people 
in this Congress, if the people in America don't have respect for the 
rule of law in the same fashion we must have respect for the 
Constitution itself, then the disrespect for the rule of law, the 
ignoring of the law, the failure to enforce the law, the turning a 
blind eye, the whisper, that's okay, the people that break the law 
because it's inconvenient to them, all of you, Mr. Speaker, all 
Americans who ignore the rule of law undermine it, erode it and erode 
that central pillar of American exceptionalism, the rule of law.
  Think of this as a huge pillar that's been established by our 
founders. Think of building a large office building or a shining city 
on a hill or a castle. What would you put it on? You'd put it on a 
foundation. You would drill down to bedrock and you would build your 
foundation for a shining city on the hill or a castle or a large office 
building. You would build that foundation down to bedrock. And if you 
had to hold it together with a central pillar, build it all on the 
strength of one pillar, it would be a large pillar drilled to bedrock, 
and that pillar would be the rule of law.
  There are other pillars, too, that you'd use to hold up the corners. 
Our Christian faith, the Judeo-Christian values, our family values, 
marriage, free enterprise, free enterprise capitalism, property rights, 
those things all are corner pillars that hold up the outside.
  But the central pillar is the rule of law. And the things that we do 
in this country that disrespect that central pillar of American 
exceptionalism, the rule of law, erode it like it would erode a 
concrete or a marble pillar of a bridge, for example.
  And all of us that might chip away by disregarding the law, by 
disrespecting the law, by failing to enforce the law, by turning a 
blind eye, by allowing entire classes of people to ignore and defy the 
law, those things become a corrosive agent that erodes that central 
pillar of American exceptionalism, that rule of law.
  That's why it's so important that we adhere to the law. And if we 
don't like the law, then we need to come, Mr. Speaker, to the floor of 
this House of Representatives, offer legislation, offer amendments to 
the legislation, perfect that legislation in a full debate process 
here, and amend the law. Not ignore it.
  And now I'm hearing from the administration that to not pass 
comprehensive immigration reform, which I refer to as a comprehensive 
amnesty plan, brings about de facto amnesty, in fact, amnesty, amnesty 
in reality. That's the language that's coming out of our administration 
and has been for the last couple of months since the people last rose 
up and drove another stake in the heart of the comprehensive amnesty 
plan.
  Well, to not pass comprehensive immigration reform does not mean that 
there has to be a de facto amnesty. First we need to define what 
amnesty is. I have put this poster out here and this poster defines 
amnesty.
  We've had many debates with the American people on what amnesty 
actually is. Presidential candidate after presidential candidate, 
politician after politician, Senator after Senator, Congressman after 
Congressman will tell you, I'm opposed to amnesty. And they will say 
that because they know the American people are opposed to amnesty. And 
in some of their cases they have a strong conviction that they're 
opposed to amnesty, Mr. Speaker. But that's not in all cases.
  But in most cases they want to avoid the criticism of being a 
proponent for amnesty. And so to do that they say, I'm opposed to 
amnesty. The thing that they don't do is define amnesty. If you can't 
get them to define amnesty, then you have a pretty good suspicion that 
maybe they're not really against amnesty in all of its shapes and 
forms.
  And so I've put up here the definition, after a careful study, of 
amnesty itself. Amnesty, to grant amnesty, Mr. Speaker, is to pardon 
immigration law-breakers and reward them with the objective of their 
crime.
  Now, a pardon for immigration law-breakers, and generally an amnesty 
is a pardon to a class of people, a group of people. Whereas the 
President might pardon an individual, he has powers to do that, and 
that happens. Often it happened at the end of Bill Clinton's second 
term when he pardoned a large number of people for a variety of 
reasons.
  Well, this is a pardon for a class of people. To define that pardon a 
little bit, class of people, would be the immigration law-breakers. All 
those people that came to the United States, both illegally, and those 
who came here legally and overstayed their visas, found themselves 
unlawfully present in the United States, or misrepresented their status 
here in the United States, maybe as a lawful immigrant without the 
right to work in the United States but misrepresented themselves in 
order to work and earn money. For whatever reason, they have broken 
immigration law. If they allowed their visa to expire and stayed in the 
United States, they've broken immigration law. If they came into the 
United States illegally, if they came here with contraband, if they 
came here and misrepresented themselves, if they worked when they 
didn't have a permit to work, if they came on a student visa and took a 
job, if they came on a visitor's visa and took a job, they've broken 
immigration law. To give them amnesty is to pardon them, those people 
who broke our immigration law. And that's really enough for that 
amnesty definition, but I thought I'd be a little more generous because 
this defines then what the Senate tried to do, what the majority in 
this House of Representatives seems to be seeking to do, and that is, 
not only grant them a pardon, not only grant them amnesty, the people 
that have broken our immigration laws, but also reward them with the 
objective of their crime or crimes. Pardon immigration law-breakers, 
reward them with the objective of their crimes.
  Now, I define that that way because some will say, well, reward them 
with a job. Some came here for a job. All did not. And, in fact, of the 
12 million that the government admits are here, about 7 million of them 
are working. About 5 million of them are not. So it's clear that 42 
percent of them who come here, even for a job, are not working. And 
some are keeping house, some are not in the work force in one fashion 
or another.
  But I want to point out, Mr. Speaker, that we don't get one worker 
per illegal immigrant, one who comes across that border just for a job. 
Seven out of 12 are working. Five out of 12 are not. Fifty-eight 
percent are working, 42 percent are not. That's how it breaks

[[Page 24793]]

down out of those that come into the United States.
  What was their objective? Some was to get a better job, coming here 
for a better life. Some came in here with illegal drugs on them with 
the willful intent to smuggle those drugs into the United States, take 
them to the next level of the distribution chain, sell them, pocket the 
money. Some came in here illegally, dropped off their contraband and 
went back to get another load. And that goes on and on and on. Every 
single day, Mr. Speaker, there are people coming into the United States 
illegally carrying illegal drugs to the tune of $65 billion a year in 
illegal drugs coming across our southern border. That's 90 percent of 
the illegal drugs, $65 billion worth. And I'll perhaps come back to 
that.
  But I wanted to drive this point in, Mr. Speaker. What is amnesty? 
And when a presidential candidate takes a position and says, I'm 
opposed to amnesty, I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the public should ask 
them, do you agree with Steve King's definition of amnesty? If not, 
what is your definition of amnesty? Do you agree that amnesty is to 
pardon immigration law-breakers and reward them with the objective of 
their crime? Or do you have another definition that allows you to grant 
amnesty and say that it's not amnesty? For example, if you require them 
to leave the United States and go, touch back to their home country, or 
go to their embassy and sign up and then go into the work force, 
wouldn't you consider that to be amnesty? Do you think that you're 
waived from the responsibility of declaring it amnesty if you ask 
someone to pay a fine?
  That's the Flake/Gutierrez bill, the bill that we held a hearing on. 
It will be 2 weeks ago tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, a large hearing on the 
largest amnesty bill that this Congress has seriously considered. We 
had witness after witness come forward, and they wanted to testify that 
this wasn't amnesty in that bill. It wasn't amnesty because it was 
going to require them to pay a fine. And I think in that bill it's a 
$2,500 fine.
  Well, the going rate for a coyote to bring someone into the United 
States, and the report that comes back to me is, I'm sure it works 
cheaper but someplace in that $1,500 to $2,500 category is in the main 
of the going rate to be illegally brought into the United States and 
pay a coyote to do so. So the fine they'd ask to pay is equivalent to 
the freight that you would pay a coyote to bring you in illegally. 
That's what they would sell citizenship for, a path to citizenship. Not 
guaranteed. I'll concede that point to the other side. But it's not 
guaranteed because if you commit a crime, if you get in trouble with 
the law, if you're not on good behavior, if you don't at least sit 
through some English classes, then they don't want to give you 
citizenship.
  But those provisions that are written in there are not provisions 
that are a higher standard that we'd ask of someone who came into the 
United States legally, someone who came here with a visa, someone who 
acquired a legal green card, someone who, in that 5-year program, could 
find themselves taking the oath of citizenship.
  Another one of the allegations that's made is, well, if you're 
against this comprehensive immigration reform, they don't dare call it 
amnesty, and they wouldn't call someone who is here illegally a 
criminal, or they would not call them an illegal immigrant or an 
illegal alien. All of those terms, however accurate they are, are 
anathema to the people who want to pass their comprehensive immigration 
reform, which is comprehensive amnesty.
  No, Mr. Speaker, they won't use those terms. They say undocumented 
immigrant who simply is here looking for a better life. True for some 
of them, Mr. Speaker, but certainly not true for all of them.
  So we face the systemic devolution of the rule of law here in the 
United States, the rule of law that's founded upon this Constitution, 
that's written in the U.S. Code, and something that is established 
there as a majority of the House of Representatives and a majority of 
the Senate, and then signed by the President of the United States, and 
then the American people shut down the switchboards in the United 
States Senate because they oppose amnesty.
  The American people, Mr. Speaker, are with me on this definition of 
amnesty, to pardon immigration law-breakers and reward them with the 
objective of their crime.
  And so today, we're involved in a political dynamic, and the 
political dynamic is this, that the people over on the majority side of 
the aisle, for the most part, see a political leverage gain if they can 
grant amnesty to the 12 to 20 or more million people that are in these 
United States illegally.
  The people on the other side of the aisle, some of them, see an 
economic advantage and maybe a political advantage working with those 
who have gained an economic advantage by hiring the cheap labor. And so 
they say, this economy will collapse if we don't have the cheap labor 
that comes from, they will say, immigration, immigration, immigration.
  When I ask them to define the difference between legal and illegal 
immigration they have a little trouble there, too, Mr. Speaker, because 
they have constantly, for the last 2 to 3 and more years, sought to 
blur the distinctions between legal and illegal.
  And they will say that those of us that want to secure our borders 
and re-establish the rule of law and end automatic citizenship for 
babies that happen to be born to illegal mothers on U.S. soil, they 
will accuse us of all being against legal immigration.

                              {time}  1845

  But truthfully, those who undermine the rule of law, those who are 
for the open borders have brought about this debate that has tried to 
blur the two together, and because they are blurred together, we can't 
get at the real subject matter of how to establish a good, sound legal 
immigration policy because of 12 to 20 million illegals in the country. 
It's kind of like when you apply for a college education and there are 
only so many desks available in the classrooms, only so many slots 
available. Let's just say 20 million slots for immigration are filled 
up by people that broke American law to get here. That's 20 million 
slots that we can't give out of this Congress to somebody that respects 
our law. And that is not just a policy of American immigration that 
should be set by Congress, and the Constitution defines immigration as 
a responsibility for Congress to set. It's not just that. And it's not 
just that the people of America are denied the opportunity to establish 
immigration policy, because they are. But it's that 12 to 20 million or 
more people who have elected to break American laws are now sitting in 
those desks, taking up those slots, filling up the available space that 
we might have to bring a legal immigration policy.
  So this immigration policy is out of our control. It is out of 
control here on the floor of the United States Congress, Mr. Speaker. 
It is out of control in the United States Senate. It's not within the 
control of the President of the United States or administration. It's 
out of our control. It's out of the control, out of the hands of the 
people of America. They shut down amnesty in the Senate by shutting 
down the phones, but another reason it is out of control is because 
people from other countries have broken our laws and have come here and 
every one that did so took away a piece of our ability to set our own 
policy here on the floor of the United States Congress.
  So I will submit, Mr. Speaker, that the people I know, the people 
that align themselves with me, those who will stand up and speak for 
border enforcement and the rule of law and shutting off illegal 
immigration coming into this country, are not opposed to immigration. I 
don't know anyone that is opposed to legal immigration, smart 
immigration, and one day I will put this up on a poster too, Mr. 
Speaker, but an immigration policy that is designed to enhance the 
economic, the social, and the cultural well-being of the United States 
of America. That's the policy that we have a responsibility to deliver 
to the American people. And we do not have a policy to a foreign 
country that reflects a responsibility to them to relieve the poverty, 
the pain, the suffering that goes on in other countries in the world. 
We can reach out with some of our compassion,

[[Page 24794]]

but we simply do not have an obligation to absorb the poverty in the 
world. In fact, we don't have the ability to do that.
  What we do know is that this lifeboat, America, this wonderful Nation 
that God has gifted us with the responsibility to do the best we can 
within the parameters of the Declaration, the Constitution, the rule of 
law and those pillars that I mentioned, all of those things, we have a 
responsibility to preserve and protect this American way of life.
  Think of America as a huge lifeboat. This lifeboat has got to have a 
captain. It has got to have a course chartered. It has to be steered. 
There have to be people pulling on the oars. And there have to be 
people that are unfurling the sails and swabbing the decks and down in 
the engine room and making this entire lifeboat of ours function and 
function properly. And if we go sailing off on a zig-zag course or 
drift with the winds up onto the shoals, eventually we will have so 
many passengers aboard this lifeboat that we will sink the lifeboat. At 
some point we can't function. The engine room doesn't work. We can't 
chart our course any longer because the load of humanity has gotten so 
great, and the process of training them and bringing them on board with 
our crew has gotten so far behind that we can't get it up to speed.
  How many can we bring into America and still function? How many can 
we bring into America and maintain this overall greater American 
culture that we are?
  The thing that binds us all together, this common sense of history, 
common sense of struggle, common sense of destiny, a common language. 
The language that binds us all together that happens to be the most 
powerful unifying force known throughout history, throughout all 
mankind, is a common language. We start breaking that apart, and we 
find out that there are something like 37.5 million immigrants here in 
the United States, the largest number ever to be here, and in the 
highest percentages they speak foreign languages in their households. 
The American culture is being undermined and diminished, Mr. Speaker, 
by the illegal immigration that comes in.
  And the legal immigration that we have, it's our job to set the valve 
down on that to allow an appropriate amount of legal immigration so 
that those that arrive here can do a number of things. The most 
important is that they assimilate into this civilization, into this 
American culture. That means they have to adapt to this broader 
American culture. It doesn't mean that you have to give up all of the 
culture of the foreign country. Those things that come from those 
countries that we adapt into this society, we would want to pick and 
choose the ones that are good. All things that come from other cultures 
are not good. There is a reason why people leave the countries that 
they leave. There is a reason why they come here.
  I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, that this America is not just a 
giant ATM. It's not just some big machine that anyone can sneak across 
the border and punch that ATM and get some cash to come spitting out of 
it. This country is more than a cash transaction. This country is more 
than cheap labor for big business. This country is more than opening up 
our borders so that you can gain a political margin that's here and 
advance this cause of socialism on the left side and advance the cause 
of capitalism on the right side.
  If you give either side the destination of their argument, if you 
give unlimited political power to those folks on the liberal side of 
the aisle, Mr. Speaker, and if you give unlimited economic advantage to 
the employers of cheap labor on not just the right side of the aisle, 
but I am finding out more and more on both sides of the aisle even more 
equally, turn those two forces loose with this policy on immigration, 
then big business will say ``I want more cheap labor'' and big politics 
will say ``I want more political power.''
  So they bring in 2 million, 5 million, 10 million, 20 million more 
and pour those into the equation, and business comes out with their 
cheap labor and left-wing politics comes out with their political 
power. But what happens to the middle, Mr. Speaker? What happens to the 
American people? What happens to blue-collar America? What happens to 
the union worker who has trained, has skills, and has organized his 
ability to be able to collectively bargain and sell his skills as a 
unit with his other union members? How difficult is it to sell your 
skills as a unit and collectively bargain when you're watching 11,000 
people a night pour across our southern border that come in that are 
low skilled or unskilled? How difficult is it to market yourself as a 
labor unit, a blue-collar labor unit, into an economy that is bringing 
more people in that will work cheaper than you want to work? How 
difficult is it to strike a labor agreement in a factory when there are 
tens of thousands, in fact, maybe even tens of millions of people 
outside that factory that will take those jobs at a cut rate from what 
you are getting today? How do you negotiate for a raise if there are 
thousands of people sitting outside the gates of your plant and those 
thousands of people are saying, I know, you're making $22 an hour and 
you're having trouble making ends meet with taxes as high as they are 
and having to make your copayment on your health insurance and on your 
retirement plan?
  I know that $22 an hour squeezes you down a little tight and you 
would like to get a raise, maybe 5 percent, 6 percent raise. You are 
willing to turn up a little more production, add a little more 
professionalism, to be able to work better with management to produce a 
product that is going to be more competitive. That is how things work 
between management and labor when it's working right. But what kind of 
leverage do you think you have, blue-collar America, when there are 
tens of thousands of people outside the gates of the factory that say, 
$22 an hour? I will work for $10 an hour. I will work for $9. I will 
work for $8. And if you give them their $10-an-hour job, they will go 
to work for that, of course, and they won't press for a raise. And if 
you bring in another 1 or 2 or 5 or 10 million people, that $10-an-hour 
job is being pressured by the people who want to work for $5 or $6 an 
hour.
  You have to understand that labor is a commodity. It is a commodity 
like corn or beans or gold or oil. The value of labor is determined by 
supply and demand in the marketplace. Labor is a commodity. That's why 
labor unions throughout history have always wanted to see a tight labor 
market so that they can negotiate for a good return on the labor. And 
business can operate in that kind of environment, too, because they 
want a high level of professionalism. They want job safety. They want 
skilled employees, people that are proud of what they do, people that 
can come in as a unit. And that is the bargaining power that is there.
  Now, I want to emphasize also that I support merit shop employees. 
You don't have to be organized to market your skills. If you have a 
skill and you bring that flexibility to the job and the employer looks 
at that and determines, here is someone that doesn't come out of a 
labor shop or a labor union but I can use him in four, five, or six 
different areas here and he is flexible enough that he can jump from 
machine to machine for me on the factory floor or out on the 
construction job. Someone that you want to make sure that you can 
provide health insurance for them as an employer and retirement 
benefits for them and vacation benefits for them. Those things all come 
because labor has value, and it is the hardest commodity to deal with 
if you're in business. The rest becomes fairly predictable, and that is 
what business wants also is predictability. But labor today, the blue-
collar labor today, organized labor today, confounds my sense of 
rationale. And I would think that if you are a rank-and-file labor 
member that your rationale would be confounded too, because the people 
who do the negotiations for the unions in America should be pressing 
for a tight labor market and a higher wage and a higher benefit and 
better retirement plan and vacation time. That has got to be the push. 
And the trade-off is more skills, more training, more efficiency, more 
professionalism, let me say the symbiotic relationship between labor 
and management.

[[Page 24795]]

  But what is happening is the leaderships within the union are going 
the other way. I think the union bosses have written off the rank-and-
file union members. I think they have forgotten about the tight labor 
supply. I think they have decided that they will not have the political 
power here in America if they stake their future on smaller numbers of 
workers. So they must have made one of those calculuses back in the 
smoke-filled room that decided, let's just write off this group of 
people and let's bring in as many as we can. Let's go for an open 
borders policy. Let's adopt the people that are today illegal into our 
side of this argument, and if we can get them legalized, we can get 
them to vote and we will get political power, and eventually we will 
get what we want with higher wages and better benefits for our workers, 
which, by the way, translates into more power, more cash for union 
bosses.
  Mr. Speaker, if we have blue-collar rank-and-file people out there, I 
do believe that they ought to take a very good look at the rationale 
behind the leadership within the unions that are filing a lawsuit 
against the Department of Homeland Security, because they are enforcing 
current immigration law, and they would go to court to get an 
injunction to stop just sending the no-match Social Security letters 
and asking them to take action to clean up the no-match Social Security 
numbers in America, whether or not there is a legal argument. And, Mr. 
Speaker, I don't believe there is a legal argument. I believe from the 
legal perspective it is a specious argument, but in any case, it is not 
a moral position that they have taken. It is not a moral position to 
say you shall not enforce the law and I'm going to go to the court with 
my ACLU and AFL-CIO lawyers and we're going to ball up this system and 
prove to you that we can shut down government enforcement of the laws. 
That, Mr. Speaker, is an active and willful assault on the central 
pillar of American exceptionalism called the rule of law.

                              {time}  1900

  That's taking a concrete stone and a concrete saw and cutting notches 
into that pillar of American exceptionalism, the rule of law, which 
eventually will topple the rule of law. Where do you get a job then, 
Mr. Speaker? Where does business do their business then? What is the 
future for the rest of the world if the American civilization 
capitulates to those kind of assaults? These are some of the things 
that are on my mind, Mr. Speaker, as I read the news and watch the 
things that are happening and engage in the debate in the Judiciary 
Committee, where we've had some hearings now on the massive amnesty 
plan called Flake-Gutierrez.
  When I hear the constant statements being made that the U.S. economy 
would collapse if we didn't have the people that are doing the work in 
this country that are defined by them as ``undocumented,'' and those 
that I will call illegals, to address that subject matter, Mr. Speaker, 
first the American people need to understand that we are not hostage to 
any threat of running out of cheap labor in America. As I've read 
through history, I've yet to identify a single sovereign state 
throughout history that ever failed because of too low a supply, not 
enough cheap labor.
  But in America today, you will see that the unemployment rates are 
the highest in the skills that are the lowest. That tells you that 
those jobs are being taken by people who have come across the border 
illegally or overstayed their visa, illegal aliens taking low-skilled 
jobs, many of them are illiterate in their own language and uneducated 
in their own language, and so they will take the lowest of skilled jobs 
because, whatever it is, it's better than where they came from. And 
unskilled Americans are missing out.
  Now, we have something like a 13 percent high school dropout rate 
that would reflect my area, the region of the country that I'm in. The 
numbers go higher in different parts of the country. The numbers go up 
to 30 percent and more in inner cities. What's there for opportunities, 
Mr. Speaker, for those low-skilled Americans, American born or 
naturalized American citizens who are low skilled? What is there for 
them when the highest unemployment are in the lowest skilled jobs?
  And so the question is, can we accept at face value the statement 
that an American economy can't function without the illegal labor 
that's here, without undocumented workers, to use their vernacular, Mr. 
Speaker? And I will argue that the American economy would function 
better if it had 100 percent legal workers that are here. Some 
immigrants, many naturalized, many naturally born American citizens, 
all of that put together, legal people in America working, are going to 
make this economy function better than opening up our borders for tens 
of millions of people who come in here without skills, without 
language, without the first indicators that they will be able to 
assimilate.
  Here are some of the statistics that tell us why: We have 300 million 
people in America. That's a lot more than I thought we would have at 
this stage in my life. The administration won't answer the question of 
how many are too many; what do you think the population of America 
should be by the year 2050, or 2100 for that matter?
  Three hundred million people in America, about 142 million people 
that are in the workforce. Now, if you look at that and you realize 
that those that are working in America, that are working unlawfully 
here, are about 6.9 million and, in fact, the testimony on the Flake-
Gutierrez bill of the Judiciary Committee a couple of weeks ago, they 
said 7 million. So we're in there real close. We don't disagree. But 
let's just say my number, 6.9 million, I think they rounded their 
number up, 6.9 million working illegals in America. Well, that's a lot 
of folks. That's twice the population of the State of Iowa, for 
example. But as a percentage of the workforce, it amounts to about 4.7 
percent of the overall workforce. And so 6.9 million people working, 
and that's out of their number of about 12 million altogether, and you 
can extrapolate that up to the 20 million or more that I think it is, 
but 6.9 million people working representing 4.7 percent of the 
workforce. But here's the catch, Mr. Speaker. They're doing 2.2 percent 
of the work. And they're working awfully hard to do that. I don't 
diminish the effort and the work ethic that's there. But we measure our 
gross domestic product by the overall production of the individuals 
that we have. Highly skilled, highly trained professional individuals 
command a high price, Mr. Speaker. The reason they do is because 
they're worth a lot, and they're worth a lot more. I have to pay a 
lawyer more than I get paid most of the time. We pay doctors more than 
we pay carpenters. We pay carpenters sometimes more than we pay taxi 
drivers. The list goes on because the value of the skills are also 
established in this society by supply and demand in the marketplace. 
That's the spectrum of the commodity that I defined as labor a little 
bit earlier, Mr. Speaker.
  So 6.9 million illegals working out of the workforce here of 142 
million, representing 4.7 percent of the workforce, producing 2.2 
percent of the gross domestic product. Now, we're not going to pull the 
plug on that overnight. That's another one of those red herrings that 
get drug across the path of this debate. I don't know anyone who says 
we're going to go out here and in a single day round up 12 or 20 
million people and put them on some transportation units and take them 
back where they came from. In fact, the Representative from Minnesota 
(Mr. Ellison) in the Judiciary Committee asked this question of a 
witness, how many trains and boats and planes would it take to send 
them all back? I quite enjoyed the answer of the witness who said, 
Well, they got here somehow. They can get back somehow. They can take 
their own transportation and go back for the most part.
  It's not the question of whether we're going to round everybody up 
and deport them. No one that is debating this policy is advocating that 
we actually do that. But let me just say, suppose, Mr. Speaker, suppose 
a magic wand were waved and the fairy dust came and sprinkled across 
all 50 States in America, and the sun went down, and

[[Page 24796]]

tomorrow morning when it came up everyone who was here in this country 
illegally woke up in their home country magically, without angst, 
without trauma. Just suppose hypothetically everyone woke up tomorrow 
morning in a country that they were lawfully present, where they could 
lawfully work and lawfully contribute to the society and reform the 
countries that need it, we would be out, well, the 12 to 20 million 
people that are here today. The workforce, though, the point that is 
being argued, there would be 6.9 million jobs out there tomorrow 
morning at 8 o'clock, if everybody is going to clock in at the same 
time, 6.9 million jobs. Let's just say all those people worked on the 
same shift, 8 to 5, with an hour off for lunch, and they're all gone, 
and they represented 2.2 percent of your production and you had a 
factory that had a delivery deadline that said you're going to have to 
get your quota out that door and loaded on trucks and gone, and that 
day between 8 and 5, you've got to produce your daily quota. You get 
the notice at 7:30 in the morning that the fairy dust has been 
sprinkled and you're going to be missing 2.2 percent of your production 
that day. Well, as a CEO, that isn't a very tough question. If we're 
all a factory here, if I were the CEO, I would put out a memo, and it 
would take me about 5 minutes to figure out what to do, and that would 
be a memo that went out to everyone. When they punched in that day, 
there would be a little notice above the time clock: Punch in, you're 
coming to work at 8 o'clock, and your 15-minute coffee break, I'm sorry 
for this inconvenience, has to be ratcheted back to 9\1/2\ minutes this 
morning. It's got to be ratcheted back to 9\1/2\ minutes this afternoon 
because we've got 11 minutes of our 8-hour day here that will be lost 
in our production because 2.2 percent of the production didn't show up 
for work today. That's the magnitude on the American economy that we're 
dependent upon right now. The magnitude of 11 minutes out of an 8-hour 
day is the production that's being done by illegal work in America. 
Now, would anybody actually argue that we couldn't get by with 7 hours 
and 49 minutes of production instead of a full 8 hours of production?
  There are a lot of other ways to solve the problem or skin the cat. 
You can shorten the lunch hour by 11 minutes. You could work 11 minutes 
past 5 o'clock. You could do any combination of those things. You could 
skip a coffee break and actually pick up production that day. It's not 
the equivalent even of one single coffee break on an 8-hour day if we 
did all of the American GDP in one-third of our 24 hours. But, of 
course, we know it's spread across all 24 hours and 24/7. That's the 
reality of it.
  So 6.9 million people out of a workforce of 142 million, representing 
4.7 percent of the workforce, doing 2.2 percent of work, representing 
11 minutes out of an 8-hour day, and you could divide that by three if 
you wanted to spread it around. So it would be 3\2/3\ minutes, 3 
minutes and 40 seconds out of each 8-hour shift, if you wanted to take 
it down that way, Mr. Speaker. Hardly something that this country can't 
adjust to or couldn't deal with, even if it were abrupt, let alone 
something that will only be incremental in its scope.
  This is a red herring that has been drug across the path by the 
people on the other side. They have their reasons and their 
motivations, but a rational approach to an economic situation in 
America isn't something that they bring to the table, Mr. Speaker.
  As a matter of fairness, I would also make the point that there are 
significant industries in this country that have become ever more 
dependent on illegal labor. That exists in the packing plant industry. 
It exists in the agriculture industry. It exists where there is a 
requirement for very low skills or trainable skills, and people that 
aren't required to have language skills often fit into that category as 
well.
  But the lower skilled environments that have become more dependent 
upon illegal labor have done so incrementally. It's been an 
evolutionary process. In speaking, Mr. Speaker, to the organized blue 
collar workers in America, in some cases management has come in and 
broken the union and replaced the union with illegal labor, or let's 
say a mix of illegal labor. And as this flow began, the recruitment in 
foreign countries also opened up. While that was going on, the Federal 
Government was turning a blind eye to enforcement of immigration. And 
the people living in the communities didn't actually see it in its 
broader magnitude. And the resentment came a little bit at a time and 
the realization came a little bit at a time.
  I have spoken at significant length here, Mr. Speaker, about the 
responsibility of what happens when foreign countries set our 
immigration policy, when illegal immigrants from foreign countries come 
in here and take a slot that a legal immigrant could have, that takes 
away our ability to set an immigration policy.
  But the largest responsibility has been and the first blame has been 
on the administration's lack of enforcement. This takes us back to 
1986, to that amnesty bill that at least President Reagan had enough 
frank intuition to declare it an amnesty bill. The distinctions between 
the 1986 bill and the legislation that's before this Congress today and 
the Senate this week are really not significant in their scope. Amnesty 
in '86 is amnesty today.
  But when the '86 bill was passed, it was billed as an amnesty to end 
all amnesties, Mr. Speaker. And I, sitting out there in the 
countryside, running a construction company, struggling through the 
farm crisis, absorbed the statements that were made here on the floor 
of Congress by the leadership here in Congress, by the President of the 
United States when the '86 amnesty bill was passed. I knew that I had 
to collect I-9s from job applicants, and I had to take a good look at 
their driver's license and their other documentation and make sure that 
it was a credible representation of who they were. I did so diligently. 
Those I-9s are still in my files and they're covered with dust. Nobody 
ever came and checked on that. They probably didn't need to check a 
little construction company, but they needed to check some large 
companies. They needed to have a presence out there that they were 
enforcing immigration law. And from 1986, the great threat that the 
Federal Government would be out there aggressively enforcing that new 
immigration law that was an amnesty to end all amnesties was a huge 
threat, a cloud that hung over all of us. We wanted to make sure that 
we dotted the I's and crossed the T's. And we lived in fear that the 
Federal government would shut us down, fine us or imprison us for not 
following Federal law. That was 1986.
  But every month that went by, the threat diminished because the 
enforcement didn't materialize to the extent that we anticipated at 
least. And every year that went by, the enforcement got less. And as we 
went through the Reagan years, it diminished. And as we went through 
the first Bush presidency, it diminished. And as it went through the 
Clinton presidency, I was full of frustration because I was honoring 
immigration law, and I was competing against my competitors who 
sometimes did not honor immigration law. And I had two choices: I could 
adhere to the law and hope for enforcement when that competition had 
cheaper labor because they violated the law. I could do that, or I 
could throw up my hands and say, Well, if he can do it, I can do it. 
Well, I was raised in a family that revered that central pillar of 
American exceptionalism, the rule of law, and respected it. I still 
revere it and respect it, even more so today, Mr. Speaker. So that 
option of ``if you can't lick 'em, join them'' wasn't an option for me 
because the rule of law and respect for it prevented me from going down 
that path.

                              {time}  1915

  Today, we have watched the enforcement decline incrementally. I went 
through the Reagan administration from 1986 until the completion of 
Ronald Reagan's term. George Bush, the first President Bush, his lack 
of enforcement diminished it. The Reagan years, by comparison, were 
pretty good. The first President Bush diminished from there.

[[Page 24797]]

  When Bill Clinton came to office, I began to really watch closely the 
lack of enforcement in the Clinton administration. I was full of 
frustration, as a construction company owner, that I was competing 
against that lack of enforcement. Yet when I look back at the 
statistics of the companies that were sanctioned during the Clinton 
administration, I see that, on the graph, it continued its decline of 
enforcement through these years that we are in today with a little 
uptick in the last year. I am not yet convinced that that uptick in 
enforcement from this administration is an uptick that comes from 
conviction on the rule of law or whether it is an uptick in increase 
and enforcement of immigration law to send a message to us that there 
will be enforcement if you just give us the comprehensive amnesty plan 
that we have asked for. You can choose your opinion on that, Mr. 
Speaker. I choose not to come down on either side of that argument for 
the sake of this discussion here.
  I will say that this country has not been well served over the last 
20 years due to lack of enforcement of immigration law. The country has 
been flooded with people that came in here illegally because we haven't 
enforced our laws and part of the things that came with that. Now, I 
will make the point, and it is a point that the opponents would 
continually make. I will make the point that most who come here do 
break the law to come here. But their goal is to provide for their 
family. At some point you make that decision, however hard the decision 
is, to provide for your family. But all who come here are not coming 
here to provide for their family. All who come here are not coming here 
with the goal of getting a job and finding a better way and finding a 
path through legalization and then bringing the rest of their family 
members here. That all happens. I admire the family network. I admire 
the faith network. I admire the work ethic that is within a significant 
majority of those who come here both legally and illegally. But I have 
a charge. I have a responsibility. I took an oath to uphold the 
Constitution. The complication of that oath is that I uphold the rule 
of law, as well. So I look into the statistical data that tells us what 
happens when we don't enforce the rule of law.
  I listened to the immigration hearings over the last 5 years of 
constant immigration hearings, not every week, but sometimes multiple 
times a week, averaging every week at least, Mr. Speaker. The testimony 
constantly came. We are losing 250, 300 and then on up to 450 and more 
people who died in the desert in an effort to come into the United 
States. That is sad. It is tragic. I have seen the pictures. It is a 
hard thing to look at. But I began to think, Mr. Speaker, about that 
other responsibility, that responsibility that we all here in the 
Chamber have to the American people, the responsibility that is part of 
our oath to uphold the Constitution. The implication is we uphold also 
the rule of law.
  So I began to ask the witnesses that were testifying as to the loss 
of life in the Arizona desert. But what has happened to the people that 
did make it into the United States? What has happened to the American 
citizens who fell victim to the hand of some of those who came in here 
that are criminals, recognizing that $65 billion worth of illegal drugs 
pours across our southern border every year? That is all a crime.
  By the way, for the point of record, Mr. Speaker, anyone who alleges 
that it is not a crime to illegally enter the United States is wrong, 
that it is a criminal misdemeanor to cross the United States border in 
violation of U.S. law. So sneaking across the border in the middle of 
the night makes that person a criminal. One of the Presidential 
candidates said otherwise. He might be a district attorney or 
prosecuting attorney. Federal law says it is a criminal misdemeanor to 
enter the United States illegally. So those who do so, and among them 
are those who are smuggling in illegal drugs, among them are those who 
are trafficking in illegal humanity, among them are those who are 
trafficking in prostitution and victimizing small girls and children. 
In this huge human wave, we have contraband. We have criminals. They 
commit crimes here in the United States.
  So, one of the questions is, what would happen to the drug 
distribution chain if the fairy dust were sprinkled across America and 
tomorrow morning everyone woke up legally? It would shut town the 
distribution of illegal drugs in America if magically tomorrow morning 
everyone woke up in a country that they were lawfully present in. It 
would shut it down literally, virtually, any way you want to describe 
it, Mr. Speaker, because the links in the chain of the distribution 
that start in places like Colombia, China, Mexico, 90 percent of the 
illegal drugs coming across our southern border, those links in the 
chain are links that are built within the stream of humanity which is 
the illegal humanity that is here in this country today. That is the 
path of their fellow travelers, however good their virtues are, however 
high their ideals of providing for their family, getting a job and 
creating a home, they still also provide a conduit within a culture 
that is the distribution of illegal drugs.
  With those illegal drugs comes the massive damage to human potential, 
especially to our young people in America. Yes, we have a 
responsibility here to shut down that demand. That is ours. We need to 
take that on. I can't look the Mexican Government in the eye and say, 
``You need to help us shut down the illegal drugs in America and that 
will solve the problem.'' It will not. We need to shut down the demand 
in America. That is an American problem. It is a problem that causes 
problems in Mexico as well. That is a different subject, Mr. Speaker, 
and I will take that up perhaps another time. But this conduit for 
illegal drugs is a conduit that flows within illegal populations in 
America, and there are links to every distribution chain in America 
that go through that illegal population. So, that is one thing that 
would happen.
  Another thing that would happen is there is a high crime rate, a 
higher crime rate in all the donor countries that send us people across 
at least our southern border and probably all of our borders, a higher 
crime rate than we have here in America. For example, violent death in 
America, 4.28 per 100,000 people. That is a statistic. Mexico, 13.2 per 
100,000. That is three times the violent death rate in Mexico to that 
of the United States. So one could presume that out of every 100,000 
people you would bring in, you would have three times more murderers 
than you would have within a typical population of the United States. 
That is not, when you look at the broader scheme, Mr. Speaker, as 
surprising or shocking as when you realize that Mexico has a lower 
crime rate than most, I will say, all of its neighbors with the 
exception of the United States, and most of the countries that are 
south of Mexico have a higher crime rate.
  For example, the violent death rate in Honduras is nine times that of 
the United States. El Salvador can't find any statistics on. I can tell 
you in Colombia the rate is 63 violent deaths per 100,000. It works out 
to be 15.4 times more violent deaths per 100,000 than there are in the 
United States. Out of there comes a lot of cocaine, drug network, and 
drug trafficking.
  My point is, Mr. Speaker, that American people die at the hands of 
criminal aliens here in the United States at a rate that we can't 
quantify nor comprehend at this point. I have a responsibility to 
protect the American people. This immigration policy that we have here 
in America, Mr. Speaker, is not a policy to accommodate any country in 
the world. It is a policy designed to enhance the economic, social and 
cultural well-being of the United States of America.
  Every immigration policy for every sovereign state in the world 
should be established with the interests of that sovereign state, 
whether it would be Mexico, the United States, Holland, Norway, Russia, 
you name it. Every sovereign state needs to set an immigration policy 
that strengthens them. I support that we first seal the border, build a 
fence, build a wall, shut off automatic citizenship to babies that are 
born here to illegal mothers, workplace enforcement, pass the New Idea

[[Page 24798]]

Act, end Federal deductibility for wages and benefits that are paid to 
illegals, and shut down that jobs magnet. I support all of that. Force 
all traffic, both human, contraband and legal cargo through our ports 
of entry on our southern border. Beef them up. Add more science. Make 
sure that we are effective in the job that we do on our border. I 
support all of that. By doing so, we have shut down the jobs magnet and 
we have shut off the illegal traffic coming into the United States. We 
have really made it difficult to bring illegal drugs into the United 
States at the same time.
  We do all of that, Mr. Speaker, and then what we get out of that 
other side is, now, we have cleared the field so we can establish a 
rational immigration policy for legal people, legal entrance into the 
United States, and we can score them according to their ability to 
contribute to this economy. We can put out a matrix, a point system, 
that says, especially if you are young you have a lot of time to 
contribute to the economy, if you have a high education, you are going 
to make a higher wage and you are going to pay more taxes and you are 
going to be able to fund your own retirement and that of a bunch of 
other people while you are here. We can score this system up so we can 
have an immigration policy that does enhance the economic, the social 
and the cultural well-being of the United States.
  But what we cannot do, Mr. Speaker, is we can't grant amnesty. We 
can't pardon immigration lawbreakers. We can't reward them with the 
objective of their crimes. If we do that, we ultimately destroy the 
central pillar of American exceptionalism called the rule of law. If 
that happens, there is no foundation to build a greater America. There 
is no foundation upon which we can lift this country up to a greater 
destiny. There is only the devolution of a civilization that is great 
today, maybe was greater yesterday, and that would lose its opportunity 
to be greater tomorrow.

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