[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6290-6291]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               PASS COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM NOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, over this weekend, the 
Governor of Arizona raised up the idea of prayer, and in her remarks, 
she indicated that she prayed for strength and that she prayed for our 
State.
  I rise today to pray for Arizona, for this Nation, and for those who 
would think a law that was signed by the Arizona Governor raises any 
level of constitutionality. Yet I agree with the Governor of Arizona. 
They have been waiting very long, and there is a crisis that is 
necessary to address.
  Madam Speaker, many of us on this side of the aisle have tried over 
and over again. Former President George Bush, in the last 
administration, tried, but that's where reasonable minds will disagree.
  So I'd ask the Governor to ask her own party:
  Why do they fail to stand up and be counted on a fair, comprehensive 
immigration reform proposal that, in

[[Page 6291]]

years past, included border security as well as the opportunity for 
access to legalization?
  So the actions this past week are a travesty, hypocritical, and not 
sincere because you'd ask the question: What is a legal contact? What 
are the law enforcement authorities of the State of Arizona to do in 
the midst of the work that they have in protecting the community from 
the array of criminal acts by anyone regardless of their background? 
There are burglaries, thefts, and rapes, robberies and actions that 
require the intervention of State and local law enforcement.
  What is a legal contact? Is it a person who is rushing his pregnant 
wife to the hospital and who is stopping to ask a police officer, Will 
you lead me through the lights to the hospital? Is that a legal 
contact?
  What is a determination of reasonable probability? Is it brown skin? 
Is it someone who is dressed in yard clothes? What is the determination 
of reasonableness? There is no answer to that other than it is patently 
unconstitutional.
  Yes, I want comprehensive immigration reform, which is a term that 
many have demonized--you have to run away from it now--but we in Texas 
have lived with this for a very long time, the men and women of all 
economic levels--the business community, the nonprofit community, the 
faith community. The Houston-Galveston Diocese, our cardinal, the 
cardinal in the Houston area, has raised his voice, along with many 
faith leaders, to say that now is the time for real comprehensive 
immigration reform.
  I am ashamed of the law that was written and signed, because it bears 
no fruit. Of course, there are law enforcement officers in the region, 
and certainly, I'm not from the area whose only voice is to claim 
airtime and to shout ridiculous comments: I can lock them up. Anybody, 
I can lock up. This is not to say that there is not empathy and 
sympathy for the borders in Arizona. There is a need now for 
comprehensive immigration reform for Arizona, for New Mexico, for 
California, for Texas--for all of America.
  Though, I will tell you, Madam Speaker, if a young person comes to me 
in my district who came here from a foreign country--in this instance, 
France--who has been in our school system, who did not know the process 
and who is now unstatus but who has never been in trouble and who is 
going through school--he is an immigrant, but unfortunately, status--
then he is no less than the immigrants from Ireland, than the 
immigrants from Italy and the immigrants from places elsewhere who came 
to this country and who helped to build it and to make it a better 
place. Maybe he is no better than the immigrants who came in shackles, 
like myself, and their ancestors, who came in the bottom of the belly 
of a slave boat; but we found a way to regularize them. This Congress 
must find a way to regularize this process and all of the families who 
are huddled in fear, who have never perpetrated a crime.
  I want to thank the leadership of this House and the leadership of 
the Senate, both of which are courageous enough to take the battering 
and the abuse of those who misuse the Constitution and who believe they 
are doing something. They are not.
  Should they be responded to? Madam Speaker, they should. My answer is 
that we pass right now comprehensive immigration reform to save 
America, to save our dignity, to save the Constitution, and to stand 
for the values we believe in.

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