[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5221-5224]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2000
                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rothfus). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my privilege to be 
recognized by you to address you here on the floor of the United States 
House of Representatives.
  On this tragic day, as we watch the events unfold in Boston, each of 
our hearts go out and our prayers go out to the victims, the victims' 
families, and all of those who are doing so much to put back together 
the great city of Boston while our hearts bleed for the whole country. 
I am, I think, optimistic since the President--at least his Office--has 
declared this to be an act of terror. It clearly is--the timing, the 
planning, the strategy. I believe we will bring those perpetrators to 
justice. Many of us fear that this is another episode in a long series 
of episodes of terrorist attacks against Americans in the United 
States. And it troubles us more when it happens here rather than when 
Americans are attacked anywhere else in the world.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I add to this point that we are a resilient people. 
We are proud, self-confident, tenacious people. And if anyone attacks 
Americans, thinking somehow that it weakens our resolve, it has the 
exact opposite effect. It strengthens our resolve, it brings us to 
action, it galvanizes us to action. Even though as years go by and we 
look back on some of these attacks on Americans and that our vigor 
might diminish because we may think we have resolved some of the issues 
with regard to the terrorists that are attacking us, Mr. Speaker, I 
announce here to you tonight that the American people are going to 
stand together. We stand with the people in Boston, we stand with the 
Massachusetts delegation, we stand with the Northeast, we stand with 
the 50 States. We stand together in defiance of the kind of terrorism 
that attacks Americans.
  We stand for some things here, Mr. Speaker, and there are a series of 
components of what it takes to be an American or become an American. It 
starts with the list of the pillars of American exceptionalism, which 
along the line of that list, Mr. Speaker, are freedom of speech, 
religion, the press, freedom of assembly, keep and bear arms. They're 
the property rights. In our judicial branch there's no double jeopardy. 
You are tried by a jury of your peers. You can face your accuser. The 
powers that are not delineated in the Constitution, enumerated in the 
Constitution, are devolved to the States or the people, respectively. 
All of these are components of American exceptionalism.
  Along with that, there's another component: free enterprise 
capitalism. And there's a piece to this also, which is the rule of law. 
It says in the Constitution ``the supreme law of the land.'' And we 
must abide by the Constitution and the language in it. The language in 
the Constitution isn't something that can be redefined away from us, 
but instead, Mr. Speaker, it is a written contract. It's a contract 
from the generations that ratified the Constitution and the subsequent 
amendments to the succeeding generations.
  Our charge is to preserve, protect, and defend this Constitution of 
the United States. And if we find that the wisdom of our predecessors 
didn't foresee circumstances in the current area where we are, we have 
an obligation not to redefine the Constitution, defend always the 
language of the Constitution and the understanding of the meaning of 
that language at the time of ratification, but instead have enough 
courage to use the tools to amend the Constitution if we need to. The 
supreme law of the land.
  The rule of law is an essential pillar of American exceptionalism. 
Without it, we wouldn't have a reason to uphold the Constitution. It 
could be defined away from us. And I often speak to groups of people 
and inform them that the Constitution guarantees us these rights but it 
can't be guaranteed and upheld generation after generation unless each 
generation defends the language that's in the Constitution, the 
original understanding of the language in the Constitution, and 
exercises those constitutional rights.
  Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, if our society decided at some point 
we're not going to any longer exercise our freedom of assembly? And so 
for some reason if the stigma of society would discourage assembly, for 
us to come together and talk about the issues that we want to have our 
dialogue and exchange on, if we didn't exercise that, the next 
generation could hardly get out the Constitution and look at it and 
say, Well, in here it says we have freedom of assembly, and reinstall 
it. Or, for example, if we gave up our Second Amendment right to keep 
and bear arms, can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, our children, our 
grandchildren, and our great grandchildren after a generation or two or 
three going without any right to keep or bear arms, opening up

[[Page 5222]]

this Constitution, dusting off this document and pointing to it and 
saying, There is a right here to keep and bear arms?
  You cannot reestablish these rights that are there in this 
Constitution if we once stop exercising them. That's why we exercise 
freedom of speech, we must exercise freedom of religion, and we must 
exercise freedom of the press. All of these rights are rights that we 
have to utilize. They are rights that define for us in this 
Constitution, within it, the supreme law of the land, the rule of law.
  There's another component of American exceptionalism as well, aside 
from these rights that are in the Constitution and the free enterprise 
piece, which is something that gives our economy its utmost vigor. I 
would advise people that are preparing to take the naturalization test 
to become an American citizen by choice rather than birth, that's a 
choice by the educational foundation that they understand our history, 
our language. One of the questions that will be there is: what's the 
economic system of the United States?
  Mr. Speaker, the answer to that is free enterprise capitalism. That's 
what gives our economy its vigor. And when we move away from free 
enterprise capitalism, when we move towards government management of 
our economy, government bailouts, government deciding who's too big to 
be allowed to fail, eventually so much of our private sector economy 
gets co-opted by government that we lose the vigor of free enterprise 
capitalism and we lose some of the promise of the ascendancy of the 
great American civilization.
  There's another piece of this also that I speak to relatively often, 
Mr. Speaker, and that's American vigor. That's the last component of 
the American exceptionalism that I'll list here tonight.
  American vigor. Now where does that come from? Well, we have natural-
born American citizens that are part of this civilization and culture. 
These natural-born American citizens are the descendants of those who 
came here willingly with a dream. When they came here with a dream, 
they saw the promise of the Statue of Liberty. And in the image of the 
Statue of Liberty are the list of American exceptionalism components, 
the pillars of exceptionalism that I talked about, most of them within 
the Bill of Rights. But our forefathers were inspired to come here in 
order to realize their dream. They saw that they couldn't make it in 
their home country where they hoped to be able to do that and they 
couldn't realize their potential in their home country. They knew there 
were challenges here. They came here to rise to the level of their 
potential. Because of that, there's been a natural filter that has been 
built. And it's the willing legal immigrants that came to America who 
were inspired by these pillars of American exceptionalism which are 
embodied within the image of the Statue of Liberty, and they decided 
they would find a way to get on a trip or travel, whatever way they 
could to come to the United States, get in line to become a legal 
immigrant to the United States. And so many of them have dynamically 
and dramatically contributed to our economy, our society, our culture, 
and our civilization. We are that kind of an America.
  But there's a unique American character, a unique American spirit, a 
unique American vigor that comes from those who came here in a legal 
way that have contributed to our society and our culture and the things 
that they have taught their children and the things that their children 
have taught their children and each succeeding generation on down. 
We're a unique character and quality here. We're not just the 
descendants of Western Europe or Latin America or wherever it might be. 
We are the cream of the crop of every donor civilization on the planet 
that has sent people here to become Americans. That's a special charge. 
It's a special responsibility. It's distinct from any other Nation in 
the world. We're the only Nation in the world where people can come 
here and become American. It doesn't work to go to Norway to become 
Norwegian or Holland to become Dutch. But it does work to come to the 
United States of America, embrace the civilization, embrace this 
culture, embrace this Constitution, take the test to qualify for 
naturalization, become an American citizen.

                              {time}  2010

  I remember going to a naturalization ceremony in the old Executive 
Office Building. I remember the speaker that day--as there were maybe 
125 new American citizens naturalized that day--and he said: Look out 
that window. When you look out the window of the Indian room at the Old 
Executive Office Building, you see into the South Lawn and the White 
House from the side. He said: From this day, the person who lives in 
this house next door--pointing to the White House--is no more American 
than you are.
  Now, that's a profound statement. It's true in the United States, and 
I don't believe it's true anywhere else.
  So we have a special mission, Mr. Speaker. We have a special 
responsibility, a responsibility to promote God-given liberty and 
freedom throughout the world, a responsibility to hold free enterprise 
capitalism together, a responsibility to exercise our freedom of 
speech, religion, the press and assembly, and our right to keep and 
bear arms--all of these things are in the Bill of Rights.
  But I fear that too many in this Congress and too many across this 
country have lost touch, lost contact with what that means. And so, 
because of political purposes, it seems to me there are a number of 
them that are trying to devise a way to make accommodations out of 
political expediency that in the end undermine one of the most 
essential pillars of American exceptionalism, the rule of law.
  Now I take you back to 1986. In 1986, there was a long debate--it was 
months long; in fact it may have been nearly 2 years long--a debate 
about what to do about 800,000 people who were in the United States 
unlawfully. Through that debate, they worked out an accommodation. The 
800,000 was more or less generally understood to be 1 million people; 
and Ronald Reagan, in his honest way, was reluctantly persuaded to sign 
the 1986 Amnesty Act. When he did that, the promise was that we would 
get enforcement, that immigration law would be enforced with the utmost 
vigor of the executive branch of the United States Government. That was 
the promise that was made by this Congress. It was a promise that was 
made by the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, who was as 
trustworthy as any President in my lifetime, as principled, and one 
whom I've long admired and, as I said, only let me down twice in 8 
years of the Presidency of the United States. But he made a commitment 
to enforce the 1986 Amnesty Act.
  He was honest with us; he called it amnesty. The definition of 
amnesty then is the definition that we have of amnesty today. To grant 
amnesty is to pardon immigration lawbreakers and reward them with the 
objective of their crime.
  Now, what happened back in 1986? The people that were unlawfully 
present in the United States were pardoned, with some exceptions--those 
that had felony records, for example, those that were violent 
criminals, and some others--but generally they were pardoned. They were 
given an instantaneous legalization. The exchange was that those that 
were in the United States at the time of--there would be a cut off--and 
those who came after would be faced with the full enforcement of the 
law.
  This, in 1986, was going to be the last amnesty ever. The rule of law 
was to be restored, and there would never be the promise of an amnesty 
again. Well, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that didn't hold up. History 
knows that. History notes that. There have actually been six or seven 
less significant amnesties along the way since that period of time, 
each one of them drip, drip, drip, making another promise and another 
promise to people that if they could just get into the United States, 
if they could just live in the shadows, eventually there would be 
another amnesty that would come along. By the way, the 1986 amnesty, 
that 800,000 to 1 million people became 3 million people.

[[Page 5223]]

Three million people were granted amnesty back then because of document 
fraud and underestimations of the numbers of people.
  So we're watching as the Gang of Eight will presumably introduce a 
bill tomorrow in the United States Senate. We don't know with 
confidence what is in that bill, but we do know all of the initiatives 
that have come from the open-borders side of this argument. We know 
what Democrats think--they're politically empowered. They're for any 
kind of amnesty. They'd do instantaneous citizenship. They would mail 
it in if they could because they see a significant political gain. But 
on the Republican side of the aisle, it seems to me that they've 
suspended a full understanding of what goes on in history or what would 
take place contemporarily.
  So what are we trying to accomplish, is the question, Mr. Speaker. 
I'm convinced that the President, who came before the Republican 
Conference, he made a statement to us and he said: Republicans, you 
will never win another national election unless you first pass 
comprehensive immigration reform. I don't know that we should be 
looking to the President of the United States for political advice for 
Republicans in the first place.
  The second part he said was: I'm trying to help you Republicans. Some 
of the people in that room believed that, Mr. Speaker. I did not, and 
neither do thinking Americans believe that the President of the United 
States, who has been charged with attempting to, let me say, 
significantly weaken the Republican Party, would be seriously trying to 
improve the Republican Party.
  What are we trying to accomplish, Mr. Speaker? Well, I'd like to 
restore the rule of law. I hear Members of this House and Senate talk 
to me about, for example, they'll say: Well, the President of the 
United States has refused to enforce immigration law. That's true. He 
has unconstitutionally, lawlessly refused to enforce immigration law. 
He has defined classes of people that will be waived as subjects of 
enforcement. Now, I have people on my side of the aisle come over and 
they say we have de facto amnesty. No, we have literal amnesty. We have 
factual amnesty, not de facto amnesty.
  The President has declared, in a lawless fashion, amnesty for those 
who do not threaten him politically. That's large classes of people, in 
an unconstitutional fashion, he has announced that they are issuing 
work permits, creating a work permit/visa for people that are in the 
country illegally when the law requires that they come out and enforce 
the law rather than grant them a work permit.
  So, de facto amnesty? No. It's real and it's literal amnesty. And now 
it seems as though many people on my side of the aisle have leaped to 
this conclusion that this amnesty exists--call it real, literal, or de 
facto amnesty, it exists--and so the only way we can deal with that is 
to go ahead and officially act and legalize so that we can somehow 
resolve this issue. This is an issue that's been created by many, many 
years of failure to enforce immigration law. But the idea that Congress 
should ratify an unconstitutional lawless act on the part of the 
President is beyond my comprehension as to how that solves the problem.
  I hear one of the voices in this immigration issue say, we will never 
get border security unless we first legalize the people that are here 
illegally. Well, how does that follow? How is that rational, that we'll 
never get border security? We have a President who's not going to 
enforce the law. We know that workplace enforcements are down 70 
percent under this President. Janet Napolitano declares that we have 
fewer interdictions on the border; therefore, that proves that there 
are fewer border crossings. Well, Mr. Speaker, it doesn't prove that. 
If you want to have fewer interdictions, you just slow down the 
enforcement on the border.
  Now, I actually do believe that there are fewer attempted border 
crossings. That's a component of the economics. But we should look and 
see what's the level of illegal drug interdictions. That will tell us 
something about how many illegal border crossings there are and how 
porous our border is. We should look and see how many people end up 
fatalities in the desert trying to come into the United States across 
Arizona, for example, or the other States. That will give you some real 
data on what kind of border crossings we have.
  We have the question of granting people a path to citizenship, and 
the argument, Mr. Speaker, that somehow this is not a path to 
citizenship when it's a path to a green card; the argument that a green 
card is not a path to citizenship. If a green card is not a path to 
citizenship, then there is no path to citizenship here in the United 
States, but of course we know that it is. A green card is a path to 
citizenship, and a path to a green card is just a little bit longer 
path to a path to citizenship. The American people understand that; 
it's not a mystery.
  So some of the proposals are also, well, in this exchange, 
instantaneously--this is a proposal that will come out of the Senate 
tomorrow--they will instantaneously legalize everybody that's here in 
the United States illegally, and then set about, if someone is 
discovered who happens to have a felony on their record, has committed 
a violent crime, perhaps, maybe three serious misdemeanors, they might 
package them up and send them back to where they can wake up legally in 
their home country. They might do that. But meanwhile, you can see that 
there's no will to enforce the law for law breakers. There's no will to 
do that.

                              {time}  2020

  So if they pass their legislation--instantaneously 11 million or 
maybe 20 million or more people are legalized--can we imagine that if 
all of these conditions that they write into this bill as far as border 
security are concerned and operational control of the border and an 
Entry/Exit System and an E-Verify system, if all of that goes into 
place, they say then there's going to be a path to citizenship? Can we 
imagine that once people are legalized that they would ever be 
delegalized because of the failure of the executive branch to follow 
through on all these promises that are going to be made of the 
executive branch by the legislative branch of government by presumably 
a President who hasn't followed through on his oath of office to take 
care that the laws be faithfully executed?
  So here's one presumption. They'll want to put E-Verify into this and 
then make E-Verify mandatory. Therefore, that would mean that we would 
have full enforcement and the jobs in the workplace. Well, no, we won't 
have enforcement unless the executive branch enforces.
  They've already told ICE to stand down. I can give you a whole list 
of circumstances by which ICE is prohibited from enforcing existing law 
by this executive branch of government. And who could imagine that E-
Verify, if it passes and becomes mandatory law, is going to be enforced 
to the extent that it's effective?
  I say, instead, just simply clarify that wages and benefits paid to 
people illegally living in the United States are not business expenses. 
When that happens, then you'll see employers make that decision because 
they will not want the tax, the penalty, and the interest liability 
that goes along with a tax violation.
  That's a clear piece. It's not a piece of policy that's being 
discussed by these people because they are not serious about solving 
this problem in the way rule of law people would be.
  E-Verify won't be enforced adequately to be effective. It could be 
passed. I think it could be passed as a condition.
  The next one is, finish the border fence. We have that language in 
place now. We passed 700-mile border fence language called the Secure 
Fence Act. Actually, 854 miles, and that's because the border is 
crooked in some places, and we've got about 40 miles of effective 
fence.
  And so follow through on the existing law that we have is my 
recommendation. We don't have to have a new law to build a fence. Build 
the fence, secure the border and then come back and tell us that you've 
actually accomplished that. Let's watch this thing with

[[Page 5224]]

drones and see if that's taking place, and other security. We know from 
the last drone report that the Border Patrol, even drone assisted, were 
not interdicting half of those that attempted to cross the border, and 
that number in that sector of the border was over 3,000.
  Then the argument about operational control of the border. You would 
hand that over to who? A border commission to be named later. Or hand 
it over to the judgment of Janet Napolitano, who has already declared 
that they have significant operational control of the border. I don't 
know anybody that's buying that particular line.
  And then they would also implement an Entry/Exit program. Well, we 
have that. It's called US-VISIT. It's been in law since about 1996, 
when it first began to be implemented as entry, and then we added the 
exit piece of it, but it's never been implemented. I've stood at the 
border and watched as people come in, swipe their card, they go 
register on a computer that they come into the United States, and an 
hour later the car goes back south again and doesn't have to stop 
because there's no exit system in place. Why not? This administration 
and the previous administration were not determined to complete it.
  So piece after piece of this, Mr. Speaker, says that it's another 
empty promise, and they tell us we are going to fix the immigration 
situation so that we don't have to deal with it again in our lifetime. 
Well, we know better. The 1986 Amnesty Act wasn't the last one; it was 
the promise of the next one. We've had six or seven since then.
  This is a huge promise of amnesty, and it wouldn't be the last one; 
it would be the biggest promise for the next one. And anyone who could 
get into the United States before this is enacted could stay here as 
long as they choose, in the shadows or out. And if those in the shadows 
get to be great enough numbers, then we will have established that 
there will be another amnesty down the line.
  We cannot be a Nation unless we have borders. We cannot declare we 
have borders unless we decide and control who comes in and who goes 
out. That's an important obligation. If there's going to be an America, 
we must preserve the rule of law. And while we're doing it, Mr. 
Speaker, we must also preserve and protect and respect the dignity of 
every human person.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I would yield back the balance of my time.

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