[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4927-4928]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  You know, in the midst of talking about immigration reform, which I 
think is something that we're going to be addressing very shortly and 
something we ought to address very shortly, I want to just come forward 
and share an experience I had over the last week.
  I'm still a pilot in the Air National Guard. That's a job I've kept 
while I've been in the Congress and a job I hope to continue to keep. 
Part of what I did last week is I actually went and worked on the 
border with the Air National Guard. We do an ISR--intelligence, 
surveillance, and reconnaissance--looking for people that have crossed 
illegally into our country and, frankly, looking for drugs and things 
along that line. It was a unique trip for me, because most times when 
Congressmen go to the border, they actually probably would go in an 
official capacity as a U.S. Congressman. We've all experienced these 
trips. You see what the administration, frankly, wants you to see. So 
they take you somewhere like El Paso where there's a very effective 
fence in place.
  But where they don't take you is a place called Mac Pump. Mac Pump is 
in McAllen, Texas, one of the areas that I worked in my capacity as an 
Air National Guard pilot, and it really was actually kind of 
disheartening what we would see. You'd see folks cross the Rio Grande, 
that would stand in the United States of America. As we would call 
Border Patrol to come and assess the situation, they would literally 
step back and put their ankles in the water and at that point they are 
unapprehendable. And they would stare, 5 feet away from U.S. Border 
Patrol, and maybe a hundred yards away then another group, knowing that 
our Border Patrol agent was tied up, would then cross the Rio Grande 
and make it free. Or they'd outlast the Border Patrol agent and then 
they'd step back onto U.S. territory and then the agent would come 
back. They'd play this cat and mouse game. It could easily be solved 
with a border fence. It could easily be solved with actually real 
border security.
  This isn't border security that we're going to do because we're 
upset, because we're angry, but because I believe that we have to have 
real immigration reform in this country. Things like high-skill visas 
are very important, but allowing people who want an opportunity to come 
to the United States to do so through a legal process.
  The problem that we have set up now, though, and really frankly the 
sad part about it is a lot of these immigrants believe that the second 
they set foot in the United States of America, everything's going to be 
good. Everything's going to be all right. And we agree. This is the 
greatest country in the world. The problem is once many of these 
immigrants step into the United States of America, their journey has

[[Page 4928]]

just begun, because the other part of where I worked in this mission 
over the last week was about 50 to 100 miles inland in Texas, as we 
would find people hunkered down in moss, very thick brush, as they 
would try to wade and rely on their guides. In many cases their guides 
would vacate when they'd hear Border Patrol, and they'd run away from 
these groups of people hiding in the brush and would leave them 
stranded in the middle of the Texas plains without water, without food, 
without any knowledge of where they're going. In fact, in this sector I 
was working last year, there were 200 dead bodies found, and that's 
only a fraction of those that actually die on this journey.
  So I believe that border security is important so that we can set up 
a situation in which those that want to come here legally can do so and 
can go through the legal process of living in the United States or 
eventually becoming a United States citizen, and we're not creating a 
situation in which many of these immigrants are coming and frankly 
losing their lives.
  I've talked to Border Patrol, and the interesting thing is now I did 
it out of the capacity as a U.S. Congressman, although of course they 
knew what I did in my other job, and I said, if I could take one thing 
back to Washington, what would it be? And they said, if you take back 
one thing to Washington, tell them that even though the Secretary is 
saying that the border is secure, even though the administration is 
saying the border is secure, it is not secure. Take that back. We need 
more border patrol agents, we need the fence, we need the ability to do 
our job. They're prevented from doing legal things that are humane to 
apprehend in many cases folks running with dope and trying to escape, 
giving them the opportunity to do what they need to do.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I agree with those that are saying we need 
immigration reform in this country, and I'm a believer in that. I 
believe it's time that we understand and talk about the fact that 
America is a nation built of immigrants. My third or fourth generation 
ahead of me came over from Germany. I respect that and I appreciate it, 
and I think it's a tradition we need to continue. But I believe the 
first step to real immigration reform is border security. And I will 
tell you, Mr. Speaker, my trip to the border for a week as a pilot in 
the Guard opened my eyes to the fact that we are continually exposing 
ourselves not just to dope and drugs being run into this country but 
into a potential of a terrorist attack on the United States and a 
weapon that was run through the border of Mexico, because it's done 
every day.

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