[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11516-11520]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy) is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Speaker, tonight, we want to have a conversation about 
immigration and immigration reform

[[Page 11517]]

because we recognize that in 1986, when Congress and the President came 
together for immigration reform, it didn't work. It didn't work for 
immigrants; it didn't work for our border; and it didn't work for 
America. Just recently, we've seen that our Senate has come forward 
with proposed legislation, and that too doesn't work. It's a proposal 
that doesn't secure our border. It's a proposal that won't work long 
term for America.
  We're here to address the problems that we face in this country with 
real solutions that work for people and work for our country. We're 
here to say that we're with you. If you want to work hard and you want 
to contribute to our American economy, we're with you. If you want to 
obey our laws and if you want a shot at our free enterprise system, 
we're with you. If you believe that America has a right to secure her 
borders, to know who's coming in and out of our country, we're with 
you. If you want to pay taxes and pledge allegiance to America, we're 
with you. And if you want your shot at the American Dream, we're with 
you.
  We're a party that looks at the big problems in our country, and we 
come out with big solutions to fix those problems. We're not a party of 
``no.'' We are a party of solutions. That's why I'm honored to be here 
tonight with a few of my fellow colleagues to talk about the solutions 
in regard to immigration, solutions that are going to work. And that' 
why I'm honored right now to yield to the gentleman from Illinois for 
his thoughts on immigration.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Wisconsin for organizing the time and bringing us all together. This is 
an important discussion.
  When I think back to somebody who's a big hero of mine, Ronald 
Reagan, I think back to the eighties, of course, and I think of what 
Ronald Reagan talked about. He discussed America as a shining city on a 
hill, a city that everybody around the globe looks at and says ``I want 
to live there.'' Or they look at the United States and say, ``that is a 
country that I want my country to look like.'' That's frankly the 
Republican Party.
  And I understand that over the last few years, the Republican Party 
hasn't necessarily done a great job of messaging that. That's our 
fault. But I look at somebody like Ronald Reagan, and I look at the 
vision he has put out for America and I say, You know what? That is the 
Republican party that I joined. That's the Republican party that I 
believe in, the party that believes that a kid in the inner city of 
Chicago should have the same opportunity as a kid raised in the best 
suburbs of Chicago. That's what we believe.
  So when we talk about this really controversial issue of 
immigration--you have Americans on both sides of the issue, and 
Americans that have gotten ginned up on either side of this issue that 
are speaking to this with anger--I think something we have to do as a 
Nation and something that I think we need to do here right now is to 
say, Let's have this conversation about immigration, but let's do it in 
a way where we can discuss what America wants to be and what America is 
about and how to give most people around the world the opportunity to 
be in America.
  I think most Americans would agree that the first thing we have to do 
is ensure that we have a safe border, not only just because of the idea 
of immigration and ensuring that we have a system that works for 
everybody, but because--look, on a porous border you have an 
opportunity for terrorists to come through with weapons that we don't 
want in the United States of America. We've seen in our schools--I 
visited a place called Rosecrance the other day in Rockford, Illinois, 
that has teenagers that are suffering from drug addiction. Do you know 
what the cheapest drug they can get a hold of is now? You'd think maybe 
marijuana, right? It's actually heroin. Do you know where most of the 
heroin is coming through? It's coming through the border of Mexico.
  So I think when we talk about border security, we're not talking 
about it in an angry way. We're just saying as a sovereign Nation, we 
have a right to determine our immigration policy, and you can't 
determine immigration policy with a porous border. Once we do that, 
once we have honest border security and we're honest with the American 
people, then we have to have this discussion about how do we 
passionately and compassionately deal with folks that want the American 
way, as well.
  That's a conversation I'm looking forward to having tonight over the 
next few minutes. And as we move on, I'd like to yield to the gentleman 
from Colorado, a great Member of Congress, Mr. Cory Gardner.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. Speaker, we're all together on the same issue tonight on the 
House floor as we discuss the important issue of immigration inform. 
Many of us elected in 2010 and elected in 2012, we came to Congress 
because we wanted to find ways to make America work, to get this 
country working again, to find ways to get government out of the way 
and create an economy that's strong and growing so people can find the 
jobs that they want to help feed their families, to send their kids to 
school without putting themselves into bankruptcy, and to make sure 
that we do indeed have a better tomorrow than we do today.
  So it is starting with those fundamental beliefs that we all came 
here to achieve, to build a stronger country, to make life work for the 
American families, that we recognize a Nation of immigrants, a Nation 
that provides an opportunity for people around the world, that beacon 
of hope to be a place for families to succeed, to achieve their dreams 
about the American Dream and indeed the American spirit.
  So it is through those very values of compassion for the poor, 
compassion for people who want to build a stronger Nation here at home, 
and the fairness that we know we can do it with to build a system of 
laws that will stand strong not just for 1 year or 10 years or 20 
years, but moving forward beyond that, a system of laws that we know 
will make sure that people who want to be a great part of a healthy 
American economy indeed have that very opportunity.
  Tonight, as we kick off a discussion on immigration and we join 
people around the country who have differing opinions, as the gentleman 
from Illinois recognized, differing opinions on what to do, how to do 
it, when to do it, recognizing, though, that indeed we must do 
something to address a system that is broken in a way that meets those 
objectives of American values: compassion, fairness, and maintaining 
the rule of law in this country.
  I look forward to our conversation tonight, and I look forward to 
solutions for the American people that we can all be proud of, knowing 
that this is not going to be an easy task, but one that we will address 
with all due and necessary urgency.
  We are joined tonight by our colleague from North Carolina (Mr. 
Hudson).
  Mr. HUDSON. I thank my colleague, Mr. Speaker. It's an honor to be 
here tonight.
  I'm a new Member of Congress. I was elected just last year. I ran for 
Congress the first time I had ever run for office because I want to 
come up here and fight for people, because there are folks back home 
that are frustrated, they feel like their government is not being 
responsive to their needs. So I'm here to represent them and be a voice 
for those people.
  I think of the homebuilder in Monroe, North Carolina, who told me 
he's just struggling to keep his head above water and he'll take any 
kind of work just to keep his crew intact so he can keep them together. 
He'll do remodeling work or anything. He's not even worried about 
profit so much as being able to keep afloat.
  I think about the families across the Eighth District of North 
Carolina who are looking to us for solutions. That's why I'm here 
tonight to join this conversation, to talk about immigration reform. 
The key to immigration reform, as far as I'm concerned is, we've got to 
look at compassion and we've got to look at fairness.

[[Page 11518]]

  When it comes to fairness, we are a Nation of immigrants, but we're 
also a Nation of laws. So we've got to make sure we're enforcing the 
law in this country and we're respecting the rule of law when we're 
looking at making changes to immigration policy.
  We also need to look with compassion on those who have come here to 
the United States seeking that American Dream when we try to determine 
what we're going to do going down the road.
  But I think the key to this is the approach we're taking here in the 
House of Representatives. The Senate has passed an immigration bill. 
It's a bill that was cobbled together behind closed doors. It was a 
bill that in my opinion went too far too fast. We're taking a much more 
thoughtful approach here in the House. We're going to go through the 
committee process. We're going to bring legislation to the floor so 
that we can debate these key issues affecting immigration as single 
issues and let the American people take part in this conversation and 
tell us what they think about issues like border security.
  Now, the key to immigration reform in my opinion is we've got to 
secure the borders first, and any legislation that we pass out of this 
Chamber, any agreement we make with the Senate on immigration, we've 
got to have a trigger so that no other pieces of this immigration 
puzzle fall into place until we've got that border secure. So we're 
going to work hard to make sure that's part of our solution.
  There are actually five pieces of legislation that have already 
passed out of the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees. I serve 
on the Homeland Security Committee. We passed the Border Security 
Results Act of 2013.

                              {time}  2130

  What this does is it requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to 
develop a comprehensive strategy to secure the border. What a radical 
concept: let's actually have a plan. And so what we're saying in the 
House is: give us a plan. We want the Department of Homeland Security 
to work with the border sheriffs to come up with a plan to secure that 
border and come back to Congress and say, here's what we need. Here's 
the sections where we need fences. Here's the other types of 
technology, whether it be drones or other types of technological 
monitoring. These are the pieces of the puzzle we need to secure the 
border.
  And a key to this is we have to have a metrics so we can measure 
whether the border is secure or not. Currently, we know the numerator, 
but we don't know the denominator. We know how many folks we're 
stopping coming across the border, but we don't know how many we aren't 
rounding up. And if you talk to any of the border sheriffs, you'll know 
that we're not anywhere close to being secure. So that's a key 
component of this legislation.
  I look forward to talking more about some of the legislation that 
came out of the Judiciary Committee, some of the pieces of this 
immigration reform puzzle that we need to discuss.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I thank the gentleman for your statements 
and everybody here for your statements. I am a member of the 
International Guard. Just 2\1/2\ months ago, I actually did missions on 
the border between Mexico and Texas. I fly a reconnaissance airplane, 
and the goal was to look for folks who had crossed illegally. In most 
cases, we were looking 60 miles into Texas. We were finding dozens of 
people. Each time we would look somewhere, we'd catch 60 to 100 a 
night.
  I felt bad for the folks who were hunkered down, who had crossed the 
border that were told by some coyote that they paid their entire life's 
saving to, told by some coyote that ushered them over that once you 
step foot in America, you'll be just fine. And then they realize that 
the journey actually begins. What you'd see in many cases was the 
Border Patrol, who do very tough, hard work, would apprehend most of 
these folks. In some cases, a couple of them would scatter, and they'd 
be left alone. They'd be left 15 miles away from the nearest town, with 
no water, with no food, and with no idea where to go.
  I think of that, and I think of the administration saying the border 
is already secure. I think what that leads to is there is an epic lack 
of trust in Washington right now. That's why actually the four of us 
came to Washington, because we recognize there's a huge lack of trust 
in D.C.
  So this idea that we're going to say from on high in Washington, 
we're going to just deem the border secure at some point, when the 
administration has already deemed it secure, is I think where the lack 
of trust is and why there's so much emotion tied into this. I think 
this is a beginning step in having a great discussion about how to 
actually tackle this problem in a way that both sides can agree with 
and that is fair to the American people and to folks who want to live 
the American life.
  Mr. DUFFY. It is that very point. It is that lack of trust with the 
American people and Washington, D.C. That's why we want to go through a 
step-by-step approach, analyzing immigration and immigration reform.
  The gentleman from North Carolina said we're here to fight for 
people. We're here to fix a broken system, and we're here to make it 
work. We want to have a reform bill that is going to actually be fair--
be fair to those who have come to participate in our economy, but be 
fair to people who are Americans that say we are a country of laws, and 
we also are a country of immigrants.
  I think the key first step is border security. We have to debate, 
negotiate, discuss what does border security mean. Once we agree on 
what border security is, and once we secure the border, we can go to 
the next phase, which is to say we have millions of people who have 
come into our country, what's the fair way to treat them. In my 
opinion, and I am open to hearing feedback from all kinds of people as 
we have this conversation and debate, I haven't dug my heels in. But, 
number one, we have to say, do you get to go to the head of the line 
and become a U.S. citizen when you've come here without documentation? 
I don't know that that's the first step after border security. But what 
I do think we have to say is if you've come here and you've 
participated in our economy, we can offer some kind of legal status, a 
legal status that isn't citizenship, but it's a legal status that says 
we're not going to arrest you in the middle of the night. We're not 
going to separate you from your grandparents or your kids. You can stay 
in our country because the border is secure. We're not going to have to 
address this problem 10 years from now or 20 years from now or 25 years 
from now. We've addressed the border, which means that we've addressed 
the inflow of people coming to our country illegally.
  When that happens, we can offer those without documentation a status 
that says you can stay here and you can work; but if you want to become 
a citizen, you're going to have to get to the back of the line. You 
don't get a special pathway into the front of the line. You can go to 
the back and you can become a citizen, but you can stay here legally. 
And by staying here legally, you can pay your taxes, but that doesn't 
mean you can vote. And it also doesn't mean that you can collect off 
the entitlement system that we have here in America.
  I think as we have that conversation with those who are here without 
documentation and those who care about the laws in America, we can have 
a conversation that actually works for everybody and everybody can 
agree to. I look forward to that conversation, on finding a pathway and 
a consensus forward that works for everybody.
  With that, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. The gentleman from Wisconsin brought up a great point, 
and that is the issue of a step-by-step process. That is exactly what 
the House is undertaking. There are at least four bills right now that 
are working their way through the Judiciary Committee, dealing with 
everything from an E-Verify system that can actually work and be used 
by employers around this country to know

[[Page 11519]]

that they are hiring people who are legally eligible for employment in 
this country. But we also have the opportunity to address one of the 
other concerns that I hear at town meetings and in private 
conversations in grocery stores across my district, and that's so many 
people who say, Do we need to do anything other than just enforcing 
existing laws? Do we really need new laws?
  We have to give serious consideration to that question because the 
answer is, yes, we do need immigration reform. Because of the 11 
million people in this country who we believe are undocumented today, 
42 percent of them are here, they came here legally, entered the 
country legally, but overstayed their visa. So how do we reform the 
visa system to actually make it work so we know the integrity of the 
process is what it needs to be?
  How do we create a system for those in agriculture to know that they 
have a workforce that is readily available to harvest that fall's 
crops? Or if you're a dairy farmer, there's no one season for a dairy 
farmer, it's year round, so the availability of a workforce with the 
skills that they need, but the certainty that they need. It's those 
laws that we have to reform to enforce and rebuild the trust of the 
American people in a step-by-step process. Because if we do this, we 
can actually create a system of laws that avoids the mistakes of the 
1986 law through enforcement first, border security first, and making 
sure then that we deal with the situation at hand and the people who do 
want to be a part of a healthy American economy.
  Mr. HUDSON. I appreciate my colleague pointing out some of the 
legislation that the Judiciary Committee has already passed because I 
think it is important to understand that the House of Representatives 
is taking a different approach when it comes to immigration reform. So 
we passed the Border Security Results Act out of Homeland Security. We 
have also passed the Legal Workforce Act, which is the bill that 
reforms the E-Verify system, which gives us a much more workable E-
Verify program, that gives our employers the certainty and the 
assurance that they can verify the citizenship of potential employees.
  The second piece of legislation that came out of the Judiciary 
Committee already is the Skills Visa Act. This has to do with what's 
called the H-1B visas. These are for your high-skilled workers. These 
are for folks in math, science, and technology who may come to the 
United States to go to university to learn these skills and get on this 
career path, but then they don't have a visa to stay here. Most 
industrialized nations in the world, 80 percent of the visas they give 
out are based on work skills and needs of the workforce. Here in the 
United States, it's about 12 percent of the visas we give out. We have 
a lottery to give out visas; and to me, that's ridiculous. We need to 
reform the system so we're giving out visas to the type of people that 
we want to attract to this country. So the Skills Visa Act is 
legislation we're considering here in the House that will do that.
  The third piece of legislation is called the SAFE Act. One of the 
issues we've talked about, we have to enforce the rule of law. Frankly, 
we don't have enough Federal agents enforcing the law. So what we need 
to do is empower States and municipalities, local governments that want 
to enforce the immigration law to be able to do that. That's what the 
SAFE Act does.
  And then the fourth piece is the agriculture guest worker, AG Act. 
That is a critical piece for our economy. There are at least 11 million 
undocumented workers here in this country that we know of. Many of 
those folks don't want citizenship. What they want is the ability to 
work here legally. If we have an ag worker program that actually works, 
this is the H-2A program. Frankly, when I'm home, and I go home every 
weekend and meet with our local folks and I see farmers across our my 
district, I ask them, How many of you are using H-2A program? You'd be 
amazed how few use the program, because it's not workable.
  And so as my colleague from Colorado asked the question that he hears 
at town hall meetings, Do we really need to do immigration reform, yes, 
we do. We can't just secure the border with a fence and technology if 
we still have that attraction, that need for illegal workers to fill 
jobs in this country. We've got to have a pathway to bring in legal 
workers, whether it's in agriculture or home-building, or some of the 
more high-skilled types of jobs. We need a legal pathway to fill those 
positions; otherwise there's going to be this tug of illegals that will 
continue to happen.
  So we can build a 10-foot wall, but someone is going to invent an 11-
foot ladder. So it has to be a comprehensive approach. That's why we 
need the ag guest worker program, as well. So as you can see, we in the 
House are looking at this step by step. We are looking at what are the 
actual problems so we can address them in a very thoughtful way so that 
we aren't just rushing to get a big bill, as was once said by a former 
Speaker of this House, Let's pass this bill so we know what's in it. 
Well, we don't want to make that mistake again. We don't need a big, 
huge, comprehensive bill. We need to look at these issues in a very 
thoughtful, comprehensive way.
  Mr. DUFFY. I appreciate the gentleman from North Carolina's comments. 
And you look around at immigrants that come to America, why do they 
come? They've come for the American Dream. They've come for a better 
life for themselves. They've come for a better life for their children. 
They've come to the land of opportunity because they want that 
opportunity. They want to work hard.
  I'm from Wisconsin. Many people may not want to recognize this, but 
if you look at our dairy farms around Wisconsin, there are a lot of 
immigrants who have come here without documentation that work on our 
farms. And it's hard, tough work; and they do it because they want an 
opportunity.
  I travel around and do a lot of town halls, and I know my colleagues 
do town halls and coffees. I would ask the gentlemen from Colorado and 
Illinois what you guys hear in your town halls, what people think about 
immigration and the problems and the solutions you face in your 
communities.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. The conversations 
I hear are from all angles. So whether it's from somebody whose family 
came here when they were very young--I know of an instance of a young 
woman who came into this country with her family when she was a baby. 
She has gone to school in the same class, same school system for 12 
years, eventually graduating as a senior, number one in her class. She 
was brought here as a child. When she asked me about what we were going 
to do, I said, Your situation is an example of why we need immigration 
reform, so have secure borders and we know the laws are being enforced 
and to avoid putting you in this situation.
  Years later, that conversation is repeating. We don't have the reform 
yet, and we are still looking for that reform. And how many years have 
to go by before we can actually say we have secured the border, we are 
enforcing the law? And we know in 10, 20, 30 years, the visa program is 
solved, the E-Verify system is working. That labor needs, whether it is 
housing construction, agriculture, are being met in a system that 
encourages compliance with the law as part of a healthy American 
economy instead of an underground or a way that does it in a law-
breaking fashion.
  I will tell you one other story. There's a doctor in the eastern 
plains of Colorado who was here with all of his proper documentation. 
Unfortunately, his mother was ill and he needed to leave the country or 
was hoping to leave the country to say good-bye to her. But under our 
system of laws, if he left this Nation, he couldn't come back. The only 
doctor in the county, but he couldn't go away to say good-bye to his 
mom because he couldn't return. We need some common sense.
  Mr. DUFFY. That's a powerful story.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. That's a great story. I just had a town 
hall meeting in Rockford, Illinois, yesterday. You get folks from all 
ends of the

[[Page 11520]]

political spectrum. That is the great thing about our democracy is we 
can have that respectful conversation.
  You have everything from folks who say, Look, all you have to do is 
enforce existing laws, put more people on the border. Then you have a 
lot of people who say, Hey, we need to not have any more border 
enforcement and just allow everybody here to become U.S. citizens.
  I think the answer is, frankly, in the middle of that. When you talk 
to folks, and it doesn't matter if they're on the right or left or 
somewhere in between, everybody has a heart. Everybody cares about 
people. And when you talk about the fact, as Mr. Gardner mentioned, 
there are people here who are 5 years old, through no fault of their 
own, sometimes 12 years old, or now they're getting ready to go to 
college and they realize they're not here legally, this is something we 
ought to have a lot of compassion for and understand.

                              {time}  2145

  And I think we've got to take some of the anger out of it on all 
sides of the aisle and just have a grown-up discussion and say, What do 
we have to do to fix the problem here? What do we have to do to fix the 
issue? Because, frankly, I don't know how long I'll be in politics, but 
I don't ever want to have to address this again. And I think that's the 
thing. And that's what I hear at my town hall meetings is, you know, 
when you really get past kind of the initial arguments, folks say, We 
just really don't trust Washington, but, unfortunately, you're the ones 
that have to solve this problem.
  Mr. DUFFY. And I hear similar things, and that's why people say, Take 
it slow. Talk about it. Talk to us.
  Let's do what's right. Let's do what works for the very people that 
you talked about. Some call them the Dreamers, people who are here at 
17 years old or 14 years old and know no other country, but they're 
here. They're part of our communities, our society, and our schools. 
Let's do what's right by them, but also let's do what's right for our 
next generation by securing this border.
  I want to talk about just one story. I have a good friend back in 
Ashland, Wisconsin. He came here legally, but it goes to the work ethic 
of those who come for opportunity and the American Dream.
  It's Bah Lee. He owns a nail shop in Ashland, Wisconsin, and he was 
raised in an orphanage in Vietnam. And the sister nuns, as he tells the 
story, saved money in the orphanage and they sent him to America. And 
he couldn't speak the language, and I think he was in Texas where he 
got a job in a fast-food restaurant.
  And from fast-food, he got a job as a painter. And all the painters 
got mad at him because he was such a fast painter and they were, like, 
Slow down. You're making us all look bad. He said, No, I'm here to 
paint. In very short order he was the highest-paid painter; doesn't 
speak the language very well, from Vietnam, but man, could he paint.
  He saved money, sent money back to the sister nuns in Vietnam to help 
the orphanage but saved money himself, and he opened up a nail salon. 
And after that nail salon, another nail salon, and he sold them and he 
built them and he sold them.
  Eventually, he said, I don't like the hot weather anymore, so he 
moved up to northern Wisconsin, where he bought a building on Main 
Street, Ashland; right? And he opened up California Nails.
  And during the day, Lee does nails, and at night--it's an old 1900 
building. It was barren up there. He built five apartments, by himself, 
at night, in the upstairs of his office building. And then in the 
downstairs, which was not the nicest location and smelled, he ripped it 
out and built new apartments downstairs.
  But a guy that worked all day and all night for his shot at the 
American Dream, helping his people back at home, but helping our 
community, showing what immigrants do to make America better. And it's 
that story, which is the American story, that I'm fighting for, to have 
a system that actually works for people who are here legally and people 
who want a shot at what we have to offer.
  And with that, I yield back to the gentleman from North Carolina for 
his comments on what he hears in his town halls on where we need to go 
with regard to immigration reform.
  Mr. HUDSON. I appreciate that. And I think it's many of the same 
things.
  First of all, people don't trust Washington to actually address this 
problem. We've got a pretty bad track record here in the Congress.
  I think the other thing, though, I hear from my farmers, from my 
homebuilders, that they need labor, and we've got to have a legal 
pathway to get that done. And so we've just got to do it in a way 
that's fair and respects the rule of law.
  If any of you would like to close, I believe we're getting near the 
end of our time.
  Mr. DUFFY. For a few more moments, I'm going to yield to the 
gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Well, thank you. And as we do wrap up our 
time, I just want to say thank you to those paying attention today and 
to my fellow Members here.
  This is an important issue. This is the very beginning of a long 
discussion that we need to have because this is too important to get 
wrong. This is too important to rush, because America's the greatest 
country in the world and this is something we ought not ever forget. 
And in the process of doing that, we ought to remember that we're an 
America that many of us come from immigrants and an America that, 
frankly, is proud of where we've come from.
  So with that, I want to thank the fellow Members of Congress here 
with me to talk about this. And this is the very beginning of, I'm 
sure, a long discussion about where we go from here.
  Mr. DUFFY. I know our time is short, and I appreciate the discussion, 
and I'm about to yield back to the Speaker. And we may have a few more 
minutes we can actually continue this discussion tonight, but my time 
is done.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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