[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 21]
[House]
[Page 29778]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         POLITICS AND PASSPORTS

  (Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, with all the discussion about protecting our 
vulnerable borders from illegal intrusion by smugglers, criminals and 
fortune hunters, Homeland Security is missing the obvious.
  Legal ports of entry are as easy for illegals to cross as the remote 
areas of America's porous borders. Media sources report that the 
Government Accountability Office did a study that showed at least 10 
percent of the illegals who try to unlawfully enter the U.S. at ports 
of entry are successful.
  These failures to detect include drug and weapons smugglers and one 
individual who had an incurable type of TB who was allowed to illegally 
enter the United States 76 times. Homeland Security doesn't argue with 
the results of the GAO but simply makes excuses.
  One solution, however, is to require all people entering the United 
States at ports of entry to have a valid passport where the U.S. can 
record who enters and who leaves our country. The 
9/11 Commission recommended the passport, but politics and the 
governments of Mexico and Canada and the open borders crowd seem to 
keep this common sense idea from becoming a reality. The security of 
this Nation deserves better. We need to use passports.
  And that's just the way it is.

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