[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11834-11837]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             STATES' RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, the World English Dictionary defines 
``invasion.'' Among the definitions is: invading with Armed Forces; but 
it is: any encroachment or intrusion; the onset or advent of something 
harmful, as in a disease; pathologically, the spread of cancer from its 
point of origin into surrounding tissues.
  Under Random House Dictionary, the definitions include: the entrance 
or advent of anything troublesome or harmful, as disease; entrance, as 
if to take possession or overrun--and it gives the example, the annual 
invasion of the resort by tourists--and also, infringement by 
intrusion.
  It comes from Middle English from the 1400s. That is where we get our 
word ``invasion'' in the English language.
  It is important because, in the Constitution, under article I, 
section 8, it says that Congress has the authority to call for the 
military during times of invasion. That is the Congress has that power. 
That is why it is in article I.
  Then, as I mentioned yesterday, you have article I, section 10, which 
the third clause--there are three little clauses or sections there. 
They are not a numbered section, but the third sentence says:

       No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any 
     duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of 
     peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another 
     State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless 
     actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not 
     admit of delay.

  We know that the invasion into France by the Allied Forces consisted 
of about 150,000 troops, about 150,000 people, was the biggest invasion 
in history.

[[Page 11835]]

  Since then, we come up to the year 2014, and The New York Times 
reported that just in recent months we have had 240,000 adults and 
52,000 children--now it is being reported that it is closer to 60,000 
children. Initially, as I understand, the article said since April, 
just 2 months, we have had nearly 300,000 people invade the United 
States through Texas. Then it is now being reported that there are 
300,000 people making their way up from Central America to the United 
States.
  Now, the administration and some of my friends on the other side of 
the aisle say, well, they are coming because of this massive violence 
that they have been facing. Well, there is more violence there than 
there is in much of the United States. Perhaps it is comparable to 
Chicago. So, if they are wanting to come to a country where there is 
less violence, maybe they don't want to come to a country that includes 
Chicago. Perhaps if Chicago maybe had more gun control laws, maybe it 
wouldn't be so violent. That is my first thought. Then I realize, wait 
a minute, Chicago has more gun control laws than about anywhere else in 
the country, yet massive murders.
  So, obviously, if people are coming to America from Central America, 
they don't want to be sent to Chicago. They don't want to be sent to a 
place where there is more violence than where they have been living. 
But we are told that is why they are coming.
  Well, actually, when I was on the border a couple of weeks ago, and I 
will be there this evening, the people that I saw interviewed, the 
people that were there that I talked to with the help of an 
interpreter, they said nothing about violence they were coming from. 
They had gotten word that this President, this administration, was 
going to allow them to stay and not send them back.
  That is why those who had parents who had been illegally in the 
country--like one little girl, her mother had been here since she was 1 
year old. But now that they have gotten word in Central America that if 
you come illegally into the United States, the Department of Homeland 
Security is not providing security to the United States. No, they are 
providing security involved in human trafficking, becoming complicit in 
the criminal and illegal activity going on.
  They actually have given up their role there on the border of 
homeland security and now they are involved in destroying our security. 
They are transporting, along with Health and Human Services--forget the 
word ``health.'' Do you really want people in charge of your health 
that right now, as I speak here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives, involved in transporting people all over our country 
with disease like tuberculosis, H1N1, which can be fatal, who knows how 
many kinds of flu that people may not have been inoculated for, 
scabies, lice, all kinds of disease that the Department, formerly 
called ``Health and Human Services,'' is now engaged in spreading bad 
health and disease around the country. Thank you so much Health and 
Human Services.
  So we are in a time when the administration in charge is engaged in 
more lawlessness than any time in my lifetime. They are engaged in 
actually violating the hippocratic oath if the national leaders were 
doctors and took that oath.

                              {time}  1245

  It says, First do no harm. Yet harm is being done by this 
administration as they are spreading people around the country that are 
coming here in massive, invasive ways.
  And our heart goes out to them. When I see these children down on the 
border in the middle of the night, what kind of parent sends their 
child, or even sends word back home, Hey, I've got a good job. I've 
been working here illegally for a number of years. And even though I 
haven't done anything for my child over the last several years, now 
that the U.S. is giving benefits like feeding, providing health care, 
giving lawyers to people that come in--especially children--bring them 
on up.
  We may bring in lots of people.
  There is story today from The Washington Times, ``Obama Seeks Brisk 
Passage of Border Children Funding Bill.'' Of course, he wants to do 
that, because it would subsidize lawyers for illegal immigrants.
  People are fond of referring to the Constitution and saying, Well, we 
have got to make sure people have their constitutional rights. Well, 
guess what? The Constitution does not guarantee the same rights to 
everyone. It does not guarantee the same rights to immigrants who come 
in legally. For sure, it does not provide the same rights to those who 
come into our country in violation of our law from the beginning.
  It does not provide all of the same freedoms and liberties to our 
members of the military. As a former member of the United States Army, 
4 years on Active Duty, I find it extremely offensive that an 
administration will seek to coddle terrorists who have killed Americans 
in cold blood--and been thrilled that they did so--and have written 
that they were thrilled that they did so, and they hope they have a 
chance to kill many more Americans. They coddle them and give them more 
rights than we do our own United States military members who are 
willing to lay down their lives to save this country.
  That's right. Under our Constitution, article 1, section 8 gives 
Congress the power to provide what rights the military will have and 
what discipline will be utilized. That is how it was constitutional for 
Congress to pass the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
  I can assure you that in the military you do not have the right to 
freedom of assembly when and where you want to. Otherwise, I would have 
indicated that to my commanding officer at 4 in the morning when he 
wanted me to be out there to go 20 miles at 5.
  I would have indicated a lot of things if I were able to have freedom 
of speech in the Army, because there were times when my superior 
commissioned officer gave orders that I thought were absolutely stupid, 
but you don't have all those same constitutional rights everybody else 
does. It depends on who you are and where you fall under the 
Constitution.
  When it comes to immigration and naturalization, that is a power 
reserved for the United States Congress. As my old constitutional law 
professor David Guinn says, there is only one court in the entire 
Constitution that is created. Every other court owes its entire 
existence, jurisdiction, and actually, ability to remain in existence 
to the United States Congress.
  That is why it is actually amusing when I hear people who are fairly 
smart, some of them educated in the Ivy League--despite perhaps the 
education that they missed out on getting as good as they might have 
gotten from somewhere else, like Texas A&M--and they think under the 
Constitution everybody gets the same rights. They do not.
  I have heard people even from the holy Ivy League schools who say 
that everybody has the right to be in a U.S. District Court. Well, that 
is interesting because there is no right to even have a United States 
District Court. If Congress decided to eliminate all District Courts 
and create some other kind of court system, we could do that. That is 
totally up to us. We get to set up whatever tribunals--the word that is 
in the Constitution--underneath the Supreme Court that we care to, or 
not set it up. It is up to Congress. That is the authority of Congress.
  So the President thinks we need to provide lawyers for illegal 
immigrants, and that is so interesting. I am sure that it is the 
perspective he gets. I know from Ed Klein's book there were indications 
that his able adviser, Valerie Jarrett, according to the book, is quite 
concerned about who is going to be the last person to give our 
President advice, because he is so easily swayed. So they try to make 
sure that he is not last advised by someone that disagrees with Valerie 
Jarrett or Michelle Obama's position.
  Well, unfortunately, he was just at a big fundraiser in Dallas held 
for him by lawyers. Lo and behold, he says he wants lawyers to be paid 
for out of this $3.7 billion. Isn't that something? There are lawyers 
that are providing their services for free to illegal immigrants.

[[Page 11836]]

  There is no constitutional requirement for someone coming into this 
country illegally to get a lawyer. It is not there. It is not even in 
the shadow of a penumbra. It is just not there.
  Well, the President wants money for that. And when you break down 
what the President's wants money for, there is even money in his $3.7 
billion--not for the military so that we can provide for the common 
defense--for leadership training for those who have come into our 
country illegally.
  Yes, that is right. We need to train them for leadership so they can 
be good community organizers. And maybe if they learn well at these 
leadership training courses and they really pick it up well, maybe 
they, too, can be a worker at a place like ACORN, a place where they 
can train people how to vote Democrat, a place where they can make sure 
that they take voter registration forms out to other people who came in 
illegally.
  Madam Speaker, what is happening in this country is outrageous beyond 
measure.
  There are those who say, Well, sure, it is a certainty that these 
people--we are told about 78 or 80 percent of the people coming are 
adults and 20 percent or less are actually children--are coming to 
avoid violence, yet there has been no big spike in violence. So why all 
of a sudden this huge influx?
  And though the administration officials say with a straight face, 
Well, we are just totally surprised, then we see from January they were 
requesting transportation in the near months for tens of thousands of 
children that would be coming in.
  So forget what is said orally. Look what they have done. They have 
induced, lured, encouraged people to flood into our country in an 
invasion, and then they have prepared for the invasion, and now they 
say if you don't give us $3.7 billion, we are going to let it keep 
happening.
  They don't use those words, but they might as well, when there is a 
far simpler solution.
  If you want to really get down to the bottom of what is going on, 
Madam Speaker, you can look at a map of Central America. These 
countries where most people are coming from, over a thousand miles up 
through Mexico, risking life and limb to travel that far--so-called 
unaccompanied children that couldn't possibly come that far without 
help--right on their borders you have Costa Rica, you have Panama, you 
have Nicaragua.
  You don't have to go 500 miles to reach one of these countries. There 
are some places of violence in those countries, but there are also some 
places of peace in those countries.
  So if this were really all about escaping violence, and you really 
cared about a child, the last thing you would do is send them over a 
thousand miles and put them in the hands of drug cartels that may 
sexually abuse them, sell them into sex trafficking, or use them as 
drug carriers. They could just send those kids to a neighboring country 
where they speak the same language and where they could be cared for.
  This is not about people running to America to get away from 
violence.
  Also, we shouldn't be granting asylum to people that are lawfully in 
Mexico. We saw the article this week where Mexico has worked out an 
arrangement with Guatemala where they will have legal passage through 
Mexico in order to come into the United States illegally. That would 
mean that Mexico and Guatemala are conspiring to violate United States 
law.
  Well, if they were in the United States, that would allow pursuit of 
those countries through RICO, but since they are countries, it is a 
different situation. But that is a criminal enterprise when you 
conspire with another to help violate United States law.
  An article here from The Washington Free Beacon says, as of July 10, 
``Unaccompanied Alien Children Program Cost $263 Million.''
  For the 57,000 children that are here, you could take the $3.7 
billion and give them each $67,000, and we would be a lot better off. 
Because that $3.7 billion, if we do what the President wants, doesn't 
actually stop the invasion that is going on. We are going to have to be 
spending that over and over and over again.
  So I am not advocating we give everybody that comes in $67,000. I am 
just pointing out it would be cheaper to do that than what the 
President is proposing.
  A story from Breitbart says, ``Health and Human Services Secretary: 
Beds for Illegals Can Cost Feds Up to 1K.'' Well, I am staying at a 
cheap motel in McAllen tonight, and I know it doesn't cost me a 
thousand dollars for the bed I am staying in.
  There is a time for Congress to say, Enough is enough, Mr. President.
  Initially, we didn't want to believe that anybody would intentionally 
lure people into the United States. We hoped that it was a reckless or 
a negligent act and not intentional. But look at the evidence. It 
hasn't been stopped. Even with $3.7 billion that is requested, there is 
no way, for what that is being called for, that it is going to stop the 
invasion that is occurring.

                              {time}  1300

  That is why I am hoping that my Governor will utilize article I, 
section 10, which allows a State that is being invaded--in our case, 
more than twice as many, just in recent months--more than twice as many 
than invaded France on D-day, with a doubling of that coming en route, 
on their way here now.
  Under article I, section 10, the State of Texas would appear to have 
the right to use whatever means, whether it is troops, even using ships 
of war, even exacting a tax on interstate commerce that it wouldn't 
normally be allowed to have or utilize--they would be entitled, in 
order to pay to stop the invasion.
  Texas could, under article I, section 10, engage in agreements with, 
say, Arizona, New Mexico--I don't know that California would agree as 
they are too busy sending jobs to Texas right now. The States could 
enter a compact to work together to stop the invasion.
  Actually, if Texas just simply did what Woodrow Wilson did after 
Pancho Villa's thugs killed a bunch of American families--he crossed 
our border to kill them. One of my least favorite Presidents in our 
history, Woodrow Wilson, sent this new thing called the National Guard 
down.
  You can read all kinds of different versions of how many National 
Guard troops he sent to the border. Whether it was 19,000 or 159,000--
whatever it was--he sent thousands of National Guard troops to our 
border, and it was secured, and nobody came in that President Wilson 
did not want to come in.
  He also sent General Pershing into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa. 
He caught some of the lieutenants. He never caught Pancho Villa. I am 
not advocating an invasion into Mexico. I am advocating strongly that 
we stop the invasion into the United States.
  Do you want to talk about compassion for children? My children have 
now finished college, but I go to schools all over Texas. I look in 
those precious little faces, just as I have looked at the precious 
little faces of people coming in illegally, but those whose parents are 
paying taxes, who are law-abiding, know their schools are having 
trouble, in many places, staying afloat.
  Many school districts are in desperate trouble financially, and now, 
we are going to add hundreds of children in some places whose parents 
are not paying taxes and who are not paying property taxes to support 
the schools in many cases.
  You are going to overwhelm those schools because you refuse to do the 
job the Constitution requires and that an oath was taken to faithfully 
execute.
  We owe this country an obligation to protect it and to protect those 
little children whose educations will be impaired because you have to 
slow them down to bring other students along who don't speak the 
language.
  Right now, in Texas, I am told that, basically, you need to speak 
Spanish. You really do. Why is that? Because the President is allowing 
so many people in the country illegally, without stopping the 
invasion--and we are being forced to educate those folks.

[[Page 11837]]

  When you talk to people, as I have, down around the border--border 
patrolmen, constables, and others who find dead bodies--and 
particularly landowners find dead bodies--one border patrolman tells 
me, when he finds the dead body of a child, he goes home and weeps.
  What are we doing, Mr. President? We are luring people here, and 
children are dying because they think, gee, they are not enforcing the 
law. This President is not enforcing the law. He is not protecting the 
country. The security is down, so we can go rushing in.
  It is not to avoid violence. They might go to a less violent place 
around them. It is to come and get the benefits. The trouble is, now 
that we are a welfare country, more and more people will overwhelm the 
system, and it does move us toward being a Third World country.
  Now, I have taken a lot of abuse for saying that this action also 
includes an effort to turn Texas blue. People have said: How outrageous 
is that, that you might think that a President or an administration 
might actually take action or refuse to take action just for political 
gain?
  Let's see. Here is an article from RedState. A friend there on 
November 12, 2013, points out:

       Headed by a former field director of Obama for America, 
     Battleground Texas' whole aim is to turn Texas from a so-
     called ``red State'' to another California--that is, almost 
     singularly controlled by liberal Democrats.
       According to O'Keefe's video, Enroll America, a ``501(c)(3) 
     organization whose mission is to maximize the number of 
     uninsured Americans who enroll in health coverage made 
     available by the Affordable Care Act,'' is sharing data with 
     Battleground Texas.

  So they are actually using government money to turn Texas into a 
State that votes more for Democratic candidates.
  Another article from a Democratic group says:

       The Lone Star State is changing. From top to bottom of the 
     ballot, we can change the face of Texas politics together.

  It goes on to point out how Texans are carrying this movement and 
that its success could change the face of Presidential politics in this 
country as we know it. With 38 electoral votes at stake, a blue Texas 
would be a surefire road to the White House.
  For the first time that I am aware of, we had a President who didn't 
decide to stop his campaign apparatus after he got elected for a second 
time and who has expressed the intent of turning Texas into a Democrat 
voting State.
  Madam Speaker, the motives have been widely expressed. It is time to 
stop the invasion, and we have the power to do it.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________