[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11448]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS A WORLD CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, France has a new President, Nicolas Sarkozy. 
While the world waits to see if he will give vigor and energy and 
leadership to his complex and sometimes difficult French people, his 
position on illegal immigration is quite clear.
  Europe has its influx of illegals, not unlike the United States. 
Northern Africans are fleeing their native lands for Europe. They go 
mostly to Spain, where French President-elect Sarkozy accuses Spain of 
promoting amnesty in that Nation. Of course, once in Spain, it seems 
these illegals can roam Europe with ease.
  Mr. Sarkozy claims Spain wants to give amnesty to now 600,000 
illegals in its Nation. Mr. Sarkozy wants to ban European Nations from 
offering amnesty. He wants to bolster the EU border agency, the group 
that parols the African coast, with more police forces and use of the 
military to prevent the illegal landings in Europe.
  It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that Morocco, one of the 
Nations where people illegally flee to Europe from, wants the illegal 
flight to stop from its Nation. Almost 40 percent of the Africans that 
go to Europe by sea die in the process. This is a world crisis. Morocco 
wants to develop its native lands with European aid to keep people 
home, change the despair to hope by economic development, quit sending 
its problem to Europe but solve its problem. African Nations see the 
answer to solving their economic problems is not sending their 
populations to the north to Europe.
  Mr. Sarkozy wants the European Union to have an EU-wide policy on 
illegal immigration and deal with this issue head-on instead of ignore 
the obvious. We shall see if this cooperation with the EU and France 
and the African countries works to stop the illegal entry, and we wish 
Mr. Sarkozy well in his presidency of France.
  Meanwhile, back at home, here in the United States, our borders seem 
to be as open as ever because our government does not have the moral 
will to enforce the rule of law.
  And that's just the way it is.

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