[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 13340]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    INTRODUCTION OF H.R. 5729, THE STOP THE DROP HOUSES ACT OF 2010

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. HARRY E. MITCHELL

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 19, 2010

  Mr. MITCHELL. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of bipartisan 
legislation I introduced earlier today with my colleague Rep. Brian 
Bilbray of California: the Stop the Drop Houses Act.
  Border States continue to pay a heavy price for the Federal 
Government's failure to secure the border and fix our broken 
immigration system. Arizona has been especially hard hit. More than 
half the illegal crossings across the U.S.-Mexico border happen in our 
State.
  But this isn't just a crisis for communities along the border. This 
is a crisis in the interior--in places like Phoenix, where smugglers 
and Mexican cartels have set up vast networks of drop houses, which 
operate as way stations for criminal smuggling enterprises.
  It has been estimated that there may be as many as 1,000 such drop 
houses in the Phoenix metropolitan area alone.
  The crime associated with these drop houses is brutal and alarming. 
Phoenix now experiences upwards of 300 kidnappings a year.
  I had the opportunity to visit a drop house in Phoenix yesterday, and 
I saw where smugglers had kept victims behind barred doors and windows 
while they extorted money for their release. I also visited another 
home in the same neighborhood, the site of a drug-cartel kidnapping, 
where smugglers had begun digging a grave for one of their captives, 
right there inside the house.
  These violent thugs put innocent, law-abiding citizens at risk as 
well, when fights between rival cartels over smuggled cargo devolve 
into gunfire.
  And these drop houses are everywhere. Living in an upscale 
neighborhood doesn't immunize you from their threat.
  If there is anything more disturbing than these drop houses, it is 
the fact that we still have a loophole in Federal law that stops 
Federal authorities from using civil forfeiture to seize homes that are 
used as drop houses.
  Under current law, civil forfeiture can be used to seize all kinds of 
other property used to facilitate smuggling crimes, such as vehicles or 
even airplanes. However, civil forfeiture cannot be used against the 
actual drop house, itself.
  This just doesn't make sense.
  That is why Rep. Bilbray and I have introduced bipartisan legislation 
to fix this. Our bill would close this loophole, and allow Federal 
prosecutors to use civil forfeiture to seize homes used as drop houses.
  This is, of course, no substitute for the kind of comprehensive fix 
we need for border security and our broken immigration system. But this 
is one obvious, and vitally important step that Congress can take, 
right now, to make our communities safer.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass the Stop the 
Drop Houses Act.

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