[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1815-1816]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                THE JAILS ARE FULL OF FOREIGN CRIMINALS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, I bring you news from the war on our 
third front, the southern border with Mexico.
  Last Saturday, two American teenagers were brutally shot and killed 
in Mexico in the Mexican border town of Juarez, Mexico. That is right 
across the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas. On Thursday, drug 
cartels gunned down eight people at a bar in Juarez. On Sunday, Homero 
Salcido, the head of security and intelligence for the state of Nuevo 
Leon in Mexico, was shot in the head and his car was set ablaze. Nuevo 
Leon is close to the U.S. border and once was considered one of the 
safest towns in all of Mexico. These murders are evidence that the 
narcoterrorists are continuing to expand their control with our 
neighbors to the south in Mexico.
  There are portions of Mexico that are under the control of the drug 
bandits, and honest law enforcement is nonexistent. However, Secretary 
of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has said that the situation on 
the border has been ``mischaracterized'' by lawmakers for political 
reasons.
  Well, the same can be said of Homeland Security Director Napolitano. 
She mischaracterizes the border region, claiming it is safe. This is 
either for political reasons or because she refuses to admit the 
Federal Government is unwilling or incapable of securing the border.
  More than 34,000 people have been murdered in our neighboring country 
of Mexico since the drug cartels began their reign of terror in 2006. 
In my opinion, neither the United States nor Mexico has operational 
control of some border regions. Drugs and people are smuggled into the 
U.S. and guns and money are smuggled to the south into Mexico.

[[Page 1816]]

  And this is just not a Mexican problem. For example, 27 percent of 
the inmates in United States prisons are not U.S. citizens: 17.5 
percent are from the nation of Mexico, and a whopping 37 percent of 
Texas border jails contain foreign nationals. If the border is so 
secure, Ms. Napolitano, how come so many thousands of illegals are 
pouring into our country committing serious crimes and filling up our 
prisons? How can any reasonable person say our borders are secure when 
27 percent of America's prisons are the home to foreign nationals? They 
wouldn't be in prison if they didn't cross the border in the first 
place.
  There is more. Jose Oswaldo Reyes Alfaro, an illegal immigrant from 
El Salvador, went on a killing rampage in Manassas on Wednesday. He 
shot and killed three people and injured another. Alfaro had been 
ordered to be deported in 2002, but he just never left the country. 
These murders could have been prevented if our border security plan, 
Ms. Napolitano, was working.
  An 8-year-old girl in Fairfax, Virginia, was raped by an illegal in 
her own home. Her rapist was Salvador Portillo-Saravia, a known 
criminal who was living in the United States illegally.

                              {time}  1010

  In 2003, Portillo-Saravia, an MS-13 gang member, was arrested and 
deported to El Salvador. But since we have open borders, the child 
rapist was able to sneak back into the United States unnoticed and 
under the radar. He was even arrested in November of 2010, but rather 
than be held in jail for deportation, he was released back on the 
streets because no one was able to check his illegal status. And 1 
month later, Salvador Portillo-Saravia raped an innocent 8-year-old 
girl in her own home.
  This disgusting crime could have been prevented if we secured our 
borders, deported illegals that were in this country, and kept them 
from returning. Tell the parents of this 8-year-old girl, Madam 
Secretary, that our border crisis is just ``mischaracterized.'' Our 
system is flawed and Homeland Security better understand that it is the 
duty of the Federal Government to protect the people of this Nation and 
quit making excuses.
  It's way past time to put more National Guard troops on the border. I 
have introduced legislation to put 10,000 National Guard troops on the 
southern border to be paid for by the Federal Government but supervised 
by the four State Governors. We protect the borders of other nations. 
It's about time we protect our own.
  Meanwhile, it appears Homeland Security is living in never-never land 
or blissfully unaware of the real world on the southern border--or 
mischaracterizes the situation for political reasons.
  And that's just the way it is.

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