[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6876-6877]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           BRAZILIAN CRITTERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. I want to bring to the attention of the House a 
serious problem that we have encountered. It seems as though we have 
such a problem on our borders that now, in southeast Texas, in a small 
port city called Port Arthur, three illegal Brazilians have shown up in 
the last couple of days. They have come into the port of Port Arthur 
and they were stowaways on this massive ship that was bringing in 
Brazilian paper pulp. Thirteen thousand tons of this pulp was brought 
in on this ship, and through inspection by Federal authorities, they 
found three stowaways--three illegals from the nation of Brazil.
  Now, you probably assume that I'm talking about people, but I am not. 
Here is one of those stowaways, one that they actually captured and 
gave an identification number. You see, the three stowaways turned out 
to be three grasshoppers. Little bitty critters. Yet our United States 
Agriculture Department was able to investigate and find these three 
little illegal stowaways in this massive amount of paper pulp from 
Brazil.
  So they took the pulp, and it's sitting on the dock. It's going to be 
sprayed down for any disease. They even gave one of these grasshoppers 
an official government ID number. Here it is down here: 234735719. Of 
course, the grasshopper was found in Jefferson County, Texas. The other 
two, apparently, didn't look quite as bad as this one. They thought 
this one might be carrying some type of disease and it has, lo and 
behold, been brought to Washington, D.C., to be examined further by 
Federal authorities to see if it was carrying any type of disease or 
contamination from the nation of Brazil.
  Madam Speaker, I bring this to the House's attention for this reason: 
our United States Department of Agriculture is so good and so intense 
and so competent that they are able to keep out of the United States 
illegal grasshoppers about three inches long. They're able to find them 
on this massive ship in the port of Port Arthur, Texas, carrying 13,000 
tons of paper pulp. They're able to capture these grasshoppers, send 
one to Washington, D.C., to be examined to see if it's carrying 
disease. I commend the Department of Agriculture for their work and 
tenacious activity in making sure illegal Brazilians--that are 
grasshoppers--don't enter the United States without being caught.
  Now it seems to me that if we are so advanced with technology and 
manpower and competence that we can capture illegal grasshoppers from 
Brazil in the holds of ships that are in a little small place in Port 
Arthur, Texas, on the Sabine River--the Sabine River, Madam Speaker, is 
the river that separates Texas from Louisiana--if we're able to do that 
as a country, how come we cannot capture the thousands of people that 
cross the border every day on the border of the United States? They're 
a little bigger than grasshoppers, and they should be able to be 
captured easier.
  Well, maybe it's because the country doesn't have the moral will, the 
government doesn't have the moral will, to protect the borders from 
people coming in. But we sure have the moral will as a Nation to keep 
these grasshopper critters from coming into the United States from 
Brazil. Maybe we

[[Page 6877]]

need to make the guy down there in southeast Texas that captured this 
grasshopper from Brazil, he ought to be in charge of homeland security. 
If he's able to do this with grasshoppers, just think what he can do on 
the southern border of the United States.
  So, Madam Speaker, we have the technology; we have the capability. We 
need the moral will as a Nation to secure the border of the United 
States. That is the responsibility of the Federal Government. The 
Federal Government should take some lessons from the guy that captured 
this grasshopper and make sure that the southern border of the United 
States is protected from people who come here without permission. We 
can do it. Let's have the moral will. Let's send the National Guard, if 
necessary, to the border to protect the dignity of the Nation. Because 
that's the job of the Federal Government.
  And that's just the way it is.

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