[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16157-16162]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Thank you very much, Mr. 
Speaker.
  I take to the floor at this time to talk about an issue that is of 
the utmost importance to this country, one that I have worked on for 
several decades, and one that has an urgency to it that cannot be 
denied, and that is the issue of immigration.
  It is a multifaceted issue, one that has a number of subtexts to it 
but, nonetheless, is one that will not be confronted. The challenges 
will not be met unless or until we recognize the problem or the 
challenges as they truly exist.
  And what I mean by that is this: immigration, in all its aspects, is 
a part of the heritage of this country. Immigration is one of the 
cornerstones of this Nation. It has been said--and I think it is true--
that this is a Nation of immigrants. And what that means is that most 
of us, with the exception of those who are Native Americans, trace our 
ancestry to some foreign country, some foreign shore.

                              {time}  1530

  The rate of immigration has gone up and down over the two-plus 
centuries of the existence of this country. It has varied in terms of 
where the greatest numbers come from over the centuries. It has 
resulted from and has been altered by decisions made by previous 
Congresses and Presidents in terms of the laws that prevail with 
respect to immigration. But the fact of the matter is that we now are 
facing a question of immigration policy that has not, in fact, worked 
for some period of time to the extent that is necessary.
  There are several aspects of it, as I mentioned before. One is the 
area of legal immigration. This country has a glorious history in terms 
of inviting and accepting and embracing peoples from all over the 
world. I think I can say without contradiction that this country has 
had the most open policy with respect to immigration over the

[[Page 16158]]

years of any country in the world. We had restrictions at times, some 
that, as we look back now, appear to have been at least misguided. We 
have had some discriminatory practices in the past with respect to 
people from certain parts of the world, certain parts of Asia at times. 
There was, in fact, a bias, if you will, towards Europe, and 
particularly Western Europe, over a number of years.
  But in the 1960s, there was a decision made in this country by way of 
our laws that moved us towards a worldwide quota system, meaning that 
the chances for peoples around the world were to be in some ways viewed 
as equal, meaning that we did not have a bias towards Europe, we did 
not have a bias towards some other part of the world. The idea was that 
we would try and make our immigration policy work such that someone who 
wished to come to the United States from a country in Africa or a 
country in Asia would have a similar chance as existed for someone in 
Europe. So that was a major change in our overall policy.
  When I came to Congress in 1979, that was essentially where we were, 
but we also realized that there had been a lack of enforcement of the 
laws with respect to legal immigration such that we had a significant 
number of people who had come to the United States without the benefit 
of papers, or to say it another way, who had come into this country 
illegally or had overstayed their legal status in this country and were 
now here illegally.
  One of the consequences of a lack of proper enforcement, one of the 
consequences of having large-scale immigration is that it overrides, in 
a significant way, the law that would look out and say no matter where 
you are from in the world, you would have approximately an equal chance 
of coming to the United States. And if you had illegal immigration from 
particular areas of the country, that would, in a sense, create a bias 
under the practice, if not the actual law, for that part of the world.
  We found, interestingly enough, that the largest number of people who 
had come to this country or were in this country without proper 
documentation came from Central and South America, the largest number 
of them from a single country, that is Mexico, which is not altogether 
surprising when you realize we have a common border with Mexico that 
ranges from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific coast and is 
approximately 1,960 miles long. If you have visited it, if you have 
traveled along its entire length as I did back in the early 1980s as a 
member of the Immigration Subcommittee, you will find the topography 
such that it is difficult at times to actually have a border that is 
marked and a border that is controlled. Nonetheless, that does not 
excuse us for not exercising the control that we should have.
  Because of the fact that we had this dilemma of a large number of 
people who had come to this country illegally and at the same time 
we're attempting to enforce the law such that a worldwide quota system 
would still, in fact, be worked, in the 1980s there was an effort to 
try and reform our immigration laws. I was a part of that as a member 
of the Immigration Subcommittee. We were, as Republicans, the minority 
at the time. So as the top Republican on the subcommittee, I was not 
the chairman. I was, in fact, the ranking member.
  I am pleased to say that at that time I had a great working 
relationship with the then-chairman of the subcommittee, Ron Mazzoli, a 
Democrat from Louisville, Kentucky. Perhaps the fact that we both were 
graduates from the University of Notre Dame and shared an affinity for 
our alma mater assisted us in working closely together. And also, 
consequently, there had been a bipartisan commission established in the 
first instance by President Carter and continued on by President Ronald 
Reagan. It was cochaired by Father Theodore Hesburgh, the former 
President of the University of Notre Dame, a person much admired and 
someone that I had known for most of my life and Ron Mazzoli had known, 
as well. In a very interesting way, we worked together acknowledging 
the proper roles of the commission and the Congress and shared 
information, and I think we shared the same hope that we could come up 
with legislation that would reform our laws.
  In 1984, we passed an immigration reform law here in the House of 
Representatives, and there was a similar law passed in the United 
States Senate. There was a call for a conference. And in a practice 
that is somewhat different from what you observe today in the Congress, 
at least for the last several Congresses, at that time you actually had 
a physical conference where you had Members from the Senate and the 
House representing those two sides of the Capitol meeting in public 
session attempting to try and work out a conference report.
  I recall meeting in a large room where the table, as it was set up in 
a rectangular fashion, was very large to accommodate all of the Members 
of the House and all the Members of the Senate who were there 
attempting to try and deal with the issue, and our staffs assisting us. 
We spent, I think, actually an entire month in conference attempting to 
work out a conference report. We were unsuccessful.
  We came back in 1985 in the new Congress and began working both in 
the Senate and the House. At that time, the common name of the bill 
changed from Simpson-Rodino to Simpson-Mazzoli, recognizing the 
tremendous effort made by the chairman of the subcommittee, Ron 
Mazzoli. And I recall being at this position on the floor of the House, 
when this was the minority leadership table, being the Republican floor 
manager of the Simpson-Mazzoli bill.
  We spent well over a week on the floor debating. As I recall, we had 
well over 200 amendments that were in order, most of which actually got 
debate on the floor of the House. And there was consideration of some 
issues within the overall issue of immigration reform that I think went 
from liberal to conservative, from issues of legal immigration to 
illegal immigration, agricultural work, seasonal workers. Just about 
everything was considered on this floor in almost totally open debate.
  I was proud to be a part of that debate. I was proud to have garnered 
the sufficient number of votes on the Republican side to join with 
those on the Democratic side so that we passed that bill.

                              {time}  1540

  We went to conference. We completed action on that. We sent the bill 
to the President. I can recall driving back to the residence I had here 
in this area on an afternoon when I was listening to the radio and 
hearing the report that the White House had announced that President 
Reagan was going to sign the bill. I almost drove off the road at that 
time. I recall that I had worked with the administration but that it 
was not a perfect bill--I've never found a perfect bill here--and there 
were many naysayers. So you were never sure until the President made 
the decision that he would sign it, and I was pleased to be at the 
White House when the President signed that bill. It was a true 
compromise.
  It did result in the largest legalization that we'd ever had in the 
United States. I don't believe it was total amnesty--I would reject 
that notion--but it was, in fact, a legalization. The genius of that 
compromise was that there would be legalization on the one hand and 
that there would be enhanced enforcement going forward on the other. If 
one would look at the reports of illegal immigration that followed the 
signing of that bill into law by President Ronald Reagan, one would see 
an interesting thing: the numbers coming across our southern border 
dramatically dropped immediately after that law was passed. In large 
measure, it was because of the widely held belief that, in fact, we 
would enforce the law, that there was enhanced enforcement, and that we 
were going to be serious about it.
  I haven't looked at those numbers in a long time, but it seems to me, 
as I recall, that for a period of, maybe, 12 to 18 months we saw a 
significant drop in illegal migration into this country. Then it became 
evident that enforcement was going to be slow, if at all.

[[Page 16159]]

The fact of the matter is that there was not enforcement. There was not 
enhanced enforcement as there wasn't enforcement. There wasn't a 
serious effort. That was a combined result of a failure to follow 
through on the part of the Congresses and the administrations. As a 
result, after a significant drop for a short period of time following 
the passage of and the signing into law of Simpson-Mazzoli, we saw a 
ratcheting up of illegal immigration into this country. That was in 
1986.
  Fast-forward to the present time. We have had the result of that 
ratcheting up of illegal immigration into this country. We have had a 
situation in which, since people saw that we weren't going to enforce 
the law, there was an encouragement, in essence, to come to this 
country in any way one could. There was, as the sociologists called it, 
the magnet that caused people to come to this country or invited people 
to come to this country or attracted people to come to this country; 
and that magnet, otherwise known by sociologists as the ``pull 
factor,'' was called the prospect of jobs.
  I had argued on the floor of this House back in the 1980s that, in 
fact, we had to recognize the reality of the reliance of American 
agriculture on foreign workers to a significant degree. Now, I'd come 
from the Southwest. I'd come from southern California. I had seen that 
close up. I had gone to the fields. I had seen the conditions in which 
people would live just for the possibility of coming to the United 
States for a job. Since we--the people through our government--didn't 
control it in a fashion in which the government actually determined the 
number of jobs that would be available, determined who would come in, 
how long they would stay, under what circumstances they would work, and 
in what areas of the country they would work, it happened anyway, 
without any controls whatsoever, and the problem was exacerbated.
  One of the fundamental changes I've seen or differences that I've 
observed in being in the Congress these last 8 years, as opposed to the 
10 years I was from '79 to '89, is that the problem, as I saw it in the 
Southwest, is not nearly confined to the Southwest now; it is, in fact, 
a national problem. You will find the presence of those who are here 
illegally who are working in agriculture all over this country. You'll 
see the increase in seasonal work because you'll see the increase in 
the demand for ``local produce,'' for locally grown crops. As you see 
that, you see the demand for seasonal agricultural workers expanding to 
other parts of the country, and we don't control it.
  We don't have a workable system. Some people say, well, we have the 
guest worker program under the Labor Department, the H-2A program. It, 
frankly, doesn't work. It works for about 4 percent of the agricultural 
industry in the United States. I say that as someone who helped draft 
the legislation as a part of Simpson-Mazzoli, not because that's what I 
thought was the best we could do, but that it was the best that was 
able to be accomplished in any legislation that was going forward. So 
we now are confronted with a situation in which we have had large-scale 
illegal immigration into this country after the passage of Simpson-
Mazzoli and the failure to implement the enforcement side of that.
  We also are confronted with the question of legal immigration and the 
fact that, right now, I believe, we set aside too many visas for those 
folks who have particular skills that we believe might help this 
country at the present time. I'm not in any way denigrating unskilled 
workers, and I'm not in any way denigrating those people who come to 
this country without skills and then develop them once they're here. 
Our history is replete with those who have accomplished great things in 
having come to this country with nothing more than a desire to do well, 
a commitment to hard work, and using the intelligence and the other 
skill capacities given them by God.
  I do say it makes no sense when we have a situation in which we take 
peoples from around the world who come to this country because we have 
the greatest colleges in the world and who develop expertise in 
science, technology, engineering, mathematics--and in areas that might 
have an immediate impact on some of the most important growth 
industries as we look to the future--and we say to them, if you get 
your degree here, you've got to go to your home country for several 
years and then apply to come back to this country in order to work here 
but that Canada will allow you in right away or that many other 
countries will allow you in right away; or go back to your home country 
and, thereby, compete with the United States' economy amidst emerging 
economic growth in your home country.
  I saw this very, very closely at hand when I saw one of our major 
technology companies actually build a plant just over the border in 
Canada, utilizing a core of those people who had graduated from 
American colleges, who had come from foreign countries, and who were 
immediately accepted into Canada. Then Canada was able to build a 
workforce of about 1,000 people around a core of probably no more than 
100 people who would have been required to go back to their home 
countries from the United States. They basically said, Hey, you don't 
have to go there. You can come to Canada--and we lost the potential for 
1,000 jobs going right across the border because of a policy which 
doesn't fully understand the appropriateness of our matching up with 
those people who have particular skills and wish to stay in this 
country after they've been trained in this country: their skills and 
our needs. Now, we did vote on the STEM Act here this past week, which 
was one attempt at dealing with that question, but it was only one 
attempt at dealing with that question.
  In some ways, in my judgment, the changes we need to make in legal 
immigration have been--I don't know if I'd use the term ``held 
hostage,'' but they certainly have been put on the back burner because 
of the desire for us to deal with a true problem that is more 
prominent, and that is illegal immigration. So why am I talking about 
this? Well, I'm not going to have the chance to work on this after 
January 2. While I devoutly desired the opportunity to do that, there 
has been a decision made otherwise. I still have the passion for 
dealing with this issue, because I think it's so important to this 
Nation. I think it goes to the identity of this country, and I think it 
goes to the future of this country. I reject the notion that we either 
have to be a Nation of immigrants or a Nation of laws.

                              {time}  1550

  I think we can be both a Nation that welcomes immigrants and a Nation 
of laws. I think we have to understand that there is nothing wrong with 
this country as a sovereign Nation making decisions with respect to 
immigration law that are in the best interest of America. Sometimes I 
think when we're talking about international law, we're talking about 
international relations, and we're talking about the work of the United 
Nations, and we're talking about working with other people in the 
world; and we lose sight of the fact that the first obligation of the 
Federal Government is to have the interest of the people of this 
country at heart, that the obligation of the State Department, for 
instance, is to represent the national interest of the United States.
  And so I make no apologies for the United States asserting that it 
has a right to make decisions in the area of immigration that are in 
the best interest of the United States. I guess the tough question is 
what is in the best interest of the United States. Again, I would say 
it is to show that we can be both a Nation of immigrants and a Nation 
of laws.
  So I refrain from using the phrase ``comprehensive immigration 
reform'' because that has become a watchword or a watch-phrase for 
amnesty, and I understand that. I avoid using the term ``pathway to 
citizenship'' for those who have been here illegally because that, in 
fact, is defined as amnesty--and for good reason, in many 
circumstances.
  But I do think we have to apply a multifaceted response to a 
multifaceted challenge or problem. So, first,

[[Page 16160]]

in order to gain the confidence of the American people, we have to 
admit that when we did the last major immigration reform, and we've had 
some bills since then, but I'm talking about the major immigration 
reform Simpson-Mazzoli, we did fail to implement the enforcement side 
of things. The American people understand that. They think they were 
shortchanged; I think they were shortchanged. We have to admit that 
readily. That is part of the context in which we have to deal with the 
issue; and I think we have to, therefore, accept it, acknowledge it, 
and learn from those mistakes.
  So we need to have a commitment towards enforcement. We need to have 
borders that are controlled, not just because of the issue of 
immigration or illegal immigration, but because of the threat in a 
period of asymmetric warfare or an asymmetric threat where those who 
are committed to do us harm are not just nation states but maybe 
transnational terrorist organizations or maybe those that have been 
known as lone wolves who are incited by, inspired by, and committed to 
the values that have been expressed by those terrorist organizations 
who spread their venom around the world seeing who might be attracted 
to it.
  And if, in fact, you have a situation like that, you ought to be even 
more cautious than before about those entering into this country with 
terrorist thoughts and terrorist desires against this country.
  So for any number of reasons, we need to have a commitment to 
controlling our borders, number one; and, number two, we have to 
acknowledge that one of the magnets, or one of the pull factors, 
causing people to come to the United States or inviting people to come 
to the United States is the prospect of employment that does not 
consider the legal status of those who seek that employment. And so 
that's why I think an E-verify system or something very much like that 
has to be a part of what we do.
  Third, we have to acknowledge that in the area of agriculture, there 
is a proven need for foreign workers. People can argue about it, but I 
would just say look at the example of the State of California, my home 
State. We've seen that for well over 100 years we've relied greatly on 
foreign workers for agriculture. They've been legal or illegal 
depending on whether or not we've had a program.
  I have for many years looked back at the bracero program to see both 
its positives and its negatives. Its positives were basically 
categorized as a government-sponsored, regulated program that allowed 
people to come into this country to seek work in the area of 
agriculture and give them legal status while they did. That's the 
positive. The negatives are that in many ways there weren't protections 
for the workers and because one who came under the bracero program was 
tied to a specific employer, if he or she had a complaint about that 
particular employer, they often found themselves back in their home 
country before they ever had any adjudication of that complaint.
  So I think you have to devise a program that would determine the 
number of people that come here, determine under what circumstances 
they come here, determine in what areas of the country they can be 
here, but in a sense allow them to be free players in a free market 
that is defined by the job, that is, agriculture. And particularly 
because of the seasonal-worker nature of much of agriculture that they 
engage in, allow them to go from employer to employer.
  There are enforcement mechanisms that can be put in place to ensure 
that they stay in agriculture, and there are significant penalties that 
you can apply if they fail to get a job or get a job in agriculture.
  One of the things that I've had as part of any proposal that I've 
presented is that you take the amount of money that would go into 
Social Security, the employer and the employee contribution, and that 
goes into a fund that first is responsible for paying for the 
administration of the program so there's no burden to the taxpayer. 
Secondly, that money would go into a fund that would pay for any cost 
incurred by local jurisdictions for emergency medical care that was 
rendered to those individuals. And, third, that which would be 
remaining would go into a fund that would--that is for the contribution 
by the employer and the employee for that particular individual--be 
dedicated to that individual but would be redeemable only if they 
returned to their home country and were physically present there. If 
they weren't during the period of time they were supposed to be home, 
they would not have that fund. That money would be forfeited. If they 
did, they would be able to redeem that money back in their home 
country.
  My idea would be that they would be able to work in this country for 
10 months out of any calendar year, and they'd be able to go back and 
forth during that period of time. One of the things that we have 
discovered is that as we've increased our ability to enforce our 
control of the border, if someone successfully gets across the border 
to work in the United States, they now have a great incentive not to 
return home for fear they won't be able to make it back.
  So in a very perverse way, the very success of our increased 
enforcement has made it more likely that they will stay here 
permanently rather than return home. So we need to develop a program 
that is based on the facts as they exist. And participation in the 
program doesn't put them on the road to citizenship. It doesn't grant 
them any rights with respect to citizenship or permanent resident 
status. It is a temporary worker program.
  I do not think that other industries have proven the case that they 
need those kinds of foreign workers. I really don't. In terms of 
construction, for goodness sake, why do we have the high unemployment 
rate among African Americans in this country and among Hispanics who 
are here legally in this country when the construction trade is a great 
trade to learn, is a wonderful way to be able to earn one's living, and 
has an opportunity for people to move from just someone working at the 
job site up to learning their trade and becoming a contractor or 
subcontractor in some ways.

                              {time}  1600

  So I would not suggest that we expand the Guest Worker Program that 
I'm suggesting beyond agriculture, but I do believe it is appropriate 
in the area of agriculture.
  Probably the most difficult thing to deal with in this entire arena 
is the question of those who have been here for a substantial period of 
time in illegal status, illegal immigrants who have been here for a 
long period of time, those that have put down roots in the community.
  There are those that say, look, the best way to do this is just take 
care of the problem by putting them on the road to citizenship. And 
there are those who have suggested things such as voluntary departure 
or enforcement of some other mechanism. And while I appreciate the 
sincerity and the thinking that goes into both those positions, my 
belief, after being involved in this for over 30 years, is that neither 
one of those positions is going to ultimately succeed.
  So what do we do?
  In baseball we have something, when a ball is pitched to the batter 
the batter wants to get the wood on the ball. He wants to hit it in the 
sweet spot, right?
  He wants to be able to maximize the energy that is generated by his 
swing against the ball. And one of the best ways to do that is to hit 
that sweet spot in the bat. So I've been looking for the sweet spot on 
this issue. Some people call it the midway; some people call it the 
compromise. I call it the sweet spot.
  It seems to me that we could do this. And I've proposed this in 
legislation, and I would hope that at least it would be considered in 
the next Congress by those who will remain. And the idea is that you 
would identify those individuals who've been here for a significant 
amount of time. And of course that's up to a decision by the future 
Congresses as to what that time is. Is it 5 years? Is it 10 years? I 
mean, what is it?

[[Page 16161]]

  But I think you'd have to establish what characteristics of roots in 
the community would identify these individuals. Certainly you wouldn't 
grant this to someone who just got into the country yesterday or last 
week, I don't think, because I think that would then encourage further 
illegal immigration in the future. People say, hey, look, they make it 
fairly easy, they're going to do it down the line.
  So you have to understand about the consequences of the impact on 
those who are looking at it from afar, as well as those who are 
immediately impacted. So you first determine what the period of time 
would be that would establish them as people who have roots in the 
community.
  Secondly, I think you have to make sure that they haven't committed 
crimes of another nature, the crime of coming into this country, 
remaining in this country illegally, but not any other crimes. And 
people say, well, gee, it might be this crime or that crime. Well, you 
know, that's a consequence of your action. I think this would be for 
those people who have not committed other crimes in this country.
  It seems to me there ought to be a requirement that they know English 
or are engaged in the study of English. Why do I say that?
  I'm not opposed to foreign languages. I wish I knew some foreign 
languages. I have enough trouble with English. But if we are a country 
of immigrants, as we profess to be, and as we are, I believe, you have 
to have some unifying, identifying characteristics that bring you 
together. One is the sense of the understanding of the civil 
institutions we have. But certainly, one is the manner in which we 
express ourselves.
  So a common language, I think, is particularly important to a country 
of immigrants. It brings us together. It allows communication. It 
allows us to come together as a community, without giving up or in any 
way disparaging our heritage. So I would have that as the second 
requirement.
  Third, it seems to me, there ought to be a requirement for a study of 
some of those civil institutions of our society. There should be an 
understanding of what the essence of the democratic institutions are 
because people coming from other countries have other traditions, other 
systems.
  I'm reminded of this, when we had large-scale refugee numbers coming 
into this country. I was a young attorney in southern California. I 
remember going down to Camp Pendleton with other attorneys and 
volunteering our time to teach those in the refugee community, and that 
was one of the places that they first came in California, to Camp 
Pendleton, before they then found sponsors and came to other parts of 
our country and the state.
  Giving them simple instructions in the law, and the way the courts 
worked, and what your rights were. Fairly elementary, but nonetheless, 
necessary. And it was indelibly impressed on me that some of the things 
we do in our system are not immediately apparent, and people from 
different backgrounds, different cultures, different countries may not 
appreciate it.
  If they are coming here, one of the great things about this country 
is assimilation. And so that's why I would require a study of civil 
institutions, and our governmental structure among them, for those 
individuals.
  Next, people talk about a particular fine, and I don't know what that 
number would be, but I understand that to be appropriate.
  Now, under those circumstances, what would I say they have?
  Would they go to permanent resident status?
  No. I would create a new category of legal status in this country 
called a blue card or red card, whatever you want to call it, in which 
they would, for a period of time, maybe 3 years, maybe 5 years, but 
they could repeat it, they could re-up this. During that period of time 
they would have legal status in the United States. They could work in 
the United States, live in the United States, go to school in the 
United States, but they would not be on the road to citizenship. In 
order to do that, they would have to have a touch-back in their home 
country, and they would get in line behind everybody else.
  Now, why do I think that's important?
  I think at the base of the objection to amnesty, as I understand it, 
is this idea that it is unfair to cut in line. If you're a kid and 
you're at school and you're waiting in line to get a drink of water, 
you're waiting in line to go to the bathroom, you're waiting in line to 
get your lunch, and you see somebody cut in line, you immediately know 
that's not fair. We all know that's not fair to cut in line.
  So why should someone who didn't follow the law cut in line in front 
of those who have waited in their own country for their opportunity to 
come to the United States?
  So my sweet spot in this particular argument would be that, while you 
have an ability to remain in the United States, in order to get on the 
path to citizenship, and not give you an advantage over somebody else 
from your home country, you must touch back in your home country and 
you must get in line behind everybody else who followed the law.
  I think that is an approach that at least ought to be considered. I'd 
hoped to be here in the next Congress to be able to raise that and to 
fight for it and to see how others would view it, but I won't have that 
opportunity. I hope to be on the outside, and whatever I do, to have a 
chance to continue to influence the debate, following whatever the 
lobbying rules are. I know I can't directly lobby, but hopefully, as an 
American citizen I can talk about those issues in that first year, and 
I can talk about why it's important for us as a country.
  And yes, I've said in our own conference, it's important for us as a 
party, my party, the Republican Party. We have to understand the 
dynamics that are involved there. I've seen it happen in my home State. 
I've seen what the political implications are, and I think we ought to 
pay attention to them.
  But, beyond that, far more important than that, far more fundamental 
than that is the fact that this country has to confront this issue in a 
reasonable fashion, in an intelligent fashion, and in a fashion that 
improves the state of this country.
  So I know there are men and women of goodwill in this House and in 
the Senate who will and can work together. I would make a humble 
request of the President of the United States, that he toss aside 
partisanship, and that he join those Members in the Congress and those 
of us who will be in the public, out in the public, in an effort to try 
and deal with this issue.
  With all due respect, when the President of the United States went 
down--I think it was to El Paso--a couple of years ago and said 
Republicans want to build a fence, and then they want to build a moat, 
and they want to put alligators in it, that is hardly an invitation to 
cooperate.
  That image, in and of itself, when you realize the history of the Rio 
Grande, and when you realize the history of people coming across the 
Rio Grande to this country, that image is devastating. It does not open 
people's hearts to the possibility of reaching a compromise. It drives 
people away.
  And so my hope would be that the President would, as Ronald Reagan 
did in the 1980s, work with those who are in the House and the Senate 
to try and come up with a compromise that deals with the issues of this 
day under the grand rubric of immigration, and that, putting aside 
partisanship and political advantage, work in good faith with Members 
of the House and Senate to accomplish this task.

                              {time}  1610

  And I would ask this: that those in this House and those in the 
Senate and those in the administration under the direction of the 
President begin working on this early, not late. If the work is done 
early, as we did in 1985, the chances of being able to actually 
accomplish a completed legislative vehicle and have it on the 
President's desk for signature are greatly enhanced. Don't wait until 
it's campaign year politics and certainly don't wait until

[[Page 16162]]

it's the next Presidential election year for politics. Try and work on 
it now.
  This country is lesser for the fact that we haven't dealt with an 
issue of this importance. This country is lesser for the fact that we 
have all the tensions that exist as a result of a failure of the law to 
respond to the realities of the time. And we put ourselves in a 
conundrum where, in just one instance, I would cite men and women in 
the farm community in my home State of California who have farmed for 
generations and have seen the reality of the labor market for 
agriculture--our men and women who are patriotic and love this country 
and want to follow the law, who in fact would support an E-Verify 
system which would allow them the certainty of having legal workers but 
who on the other hand recognize the need for foreign workers--these 
people would be put into a no-win situation, a catch-22, where on the 
one hand they would be forced to follow the letter of the law, knowing 
that they would not have the workers that would allow them to continue 
in the generation's old farming business that they have or, on the 
other hand, as patriotic Americans in their own way, nonetheless be 
forced to break the law in order to retain their livelihood. That's 
unacceptable. That is shortsighted. That is self-defeating. And it is 
something that we should not allow.
  Now it's easy to get up here and do a Special Order and talk about 
how I would solve the problem. It's much more difficult to have a 
completed solution to a problem. And I understand that. I in no way 
suggest that this is easy or it will come quickly. But I do believe we 
have men and women of goodwill, of patriotic hearts, who can and are 
prepared to work on this issue. And I would hope that the President of 
the United States, now almost in his second term, would understand the 
seriousness of the issue, the immenseness of the challenge facing us, 
and would understand that in the best interest of the United States it 
would behoove us to work together to solve the problem. I'm not sure 
what I'm going to do be doing in the next year, but I do know that I 
want to be involved in the debate, and hopefully I can applaud my 
colleagues that remain here as they succeed in dealing with this very 
difficult problem.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for listening to me and I 
encourage my colleagues to deal with this issue in the spirit of 
goodwill that I know they have.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________