[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 12082-12086]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE VIOLENCE IN ISRAEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rodney Davis of Illinois). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Gohmert) is recognized until 10 p.m. as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate that recognition.
  First of all, I would like to direct attention to the Middle East, to 
our dear friend and ally, Israel, and the fact that I pointed out to 
Prime Minister Netanyahu twice, a few years apart, that going back to 
the very inception of Israel as a nation more than 3,000 years ago, 
there has never been a time when Israel gave away land trying to buy 
peace, that that land was not ultimately used as a staging area from 
which to attack it.
  It has been true all those years, the original founding of Israel, 
the promised land, going through the division of Israel into two 
kingdoms, northern and southern, and then the rejuvenation really of 
that nation in the late 1940s.
  No matter which President, no matter which party the President was 
from, no matter which Secretary of State was pushing to get a Nobel 
Peace Prize by trying to bring people together, anyone that pushed and 
forced Israel to give away land ended up bringing about attacks on 
Israel because they gave away land that should have been Israel's.
  Southern Lebanon has been the source of so many attacks and 
kidnappings, intrusions into Israel. The Gaza Strip had so many Israeli 
families living peacefully, greenhouses, methods of taking care of 
themselves.
  In an act--a unilateral act by Israel to attempt to secure a bit of 
peace, Israel gave away the Gaza Strip, now governed by Hamas, a 
terrorist organization that the United States through this 
administration is funding because we are funding the Palestinians and 
they have the relationship now with Hamas.
  So we are taking American tax dollars from many people in the United 
States who do not believe it is a good idea to curse Israel and to 
supply money to its enemy, so Israel can be attacked, and yet, that 
money is being taken and given to them.
  They can say because money is fungible, where we are not actually 
using the money you give us to attack Israel, and they can also claim 
they are not actually using the money that we give them to teach hatred 
in textbooks and all kinds of ways actually, including the naming of 
holidays after barbarians who have committed attacks on innocent people 
and killed innocent people. They name holidays after them. They name 
streets after them.
  Here in the United States, we tend to name holidays or streets after 
people like Martin Luther King, Jr., who subscribed to peaceful means 
of protest, who would never encourage killing or attacks to achieve 
what Hamas and the PLO have utilized.
  It is time to cut off the money. Until they quit teaching hatred, 
they quit utilizing funds to attack Israel, you cut off their funds. 
You cut off the teaching of hatred, and you have got a shot at some 
semblance of peace in the Middle East.
  In the meantime, Israel is being attacked--every day, the rockets 
flying, hoping--the Palestinians hoping that maybe they will kill some 
innocent Israeli people.
  Wouldn't that be great, they are thinking, if we could just kill 
maybe some children, maybe blow off some legs and arms? What a great 
accomplishment Hamas and the PLO can be thrilled about.
  Of course, Hamas took over from the PLO in governing, but the area is 
no more peaceable, and it is time to cut off all American funding to 
any area that subscribes to the shooting of rockets to kill innocent 
people, as is going on in the Middle East, enemies of Israel attempting 
to kill innocent Israelis.
  There was an attempt by Israel to enter into an Egyptian-brokered 
cease-fire with Hamas, but according to The Jerusalem Post story, by 
Yaakov Lappin, that collapsed Tuesday when Gazan terrorists continued 
to fire rocket barrages on the south, center, and north of Israel.
  A fragment from a mortar shell killed an Israeli man, Dor Chanin, 37. 
Chanin had come as a civilian volunteer to distribute food to soldiers 
at Erez.

                              {time}  2115

  It is time to quit aiding and abetting the attacks on our friend 
Israel. It is time to start helping them.
  And when it comes to the disastrous effort to negotiate with 
terrorist leaders in Iran--they are developing nuclear weapons. They 
are developing the ability to develop nuclear weapons because they have 
their centrifuges spinning. And I think those who say they want enough 
nuclear material to produce several nuclear weapons at the same time, 
they are not going to just do one. They are going to wait until they 
have enough to do several so that they can spread out, be difficult to 
track and be difficult to stop before they utilize them to destroy 
Israel, as the Little Satan, as they see it, and the United States, as 
the Great Satan.
  It has been described in one of Joel Rosenberg's novels far too 
accurately: Even though Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic 
missiles that could carry nuclear warheads to the United States--``the 
Great Satan'' they call us--they really don't even need

[[Page 12083]]

those. They could put them on a cargo ship, a yacht, whatever, and 
bring them over--have one in New York, have one in Chicago, have one up 
the Potomac. And they could pretty well devastate American economic 
powerhouse cities. If they put one in New Orleans, the Houston ship 
channel, there goes most of our refined gasoline.
  It is time for America to wake up. This administration is not 
adequately protecting us, and that is why our Attorney General has now 
finally admitted this month, in an ABC interview, that, in effect, he 
is extremely concerned and in fear more now of a terrorist attack than 
he has been at most any time in his time as Attorney General. And this 
is a guy that knows terrorism. I mean, he has helped terrorists in his 
role prior to working for this administration. He is quite familiar 
with what they are capable of doing. So for him to say that, people 
ought to take notice.
  Of course we have our Secretary of State, John Kerry, in an article 
of July 15 from The Weekly Standard by Jeryl Bier. The headline, 
``Kerry: I Get `A Little Uptight When I Hear Politicians Say How 
Exceptional We Are.'''
  Heaven forbid that we should realize the capability of America and 
that there is no other nation in the history of the world that has 
fought, has lost lives of our military, has spent tremendous amounts of 
our treasure not to create an empire, but simply to bring liberty and 
freedom to people we don't even share languages with, we don't share 
religions so much with. Nations haven't done that. America is an 
exceptional nation, and we are losing that exceptional status.
  So perhaps I will make our Secretary of State feel much better and be 
much prouder as I say that under this administration--as has been 
pointed out to me by Africans in Nigeria, by Africans in Togo--the 
United States has gotten much weaker in world opinion under this 
President. So that should make our Secretary of State feel very, very 
pleased because a Member of Congress is not claiming to be exceptional. 
We are. But really, I am claiming that Nigerians and others who were so 
pleased, as they told me, that you elected your first Black President 
have now grown scared as they have watched America, under this 
President, get weaker and weaker and become far less exceptional in the 
eyes of the world as we once were.
  One of the problems has been that this country has been under 
assault, has been under an invasion through our southern border. As 
border patrolmen will attest, the Tucson sector of our 2,000-or-so-mile 
border on the south had traditionally been where there were more people 
coming into this country illegally.
  We have an area in Arizona where there is a national park on the 
American side, where the sign has been seen--and I have had a picture 
of it here on the floor--during the Obama Presidency that simply 
directs American citizens, warns them not to use this area because 
there are criminals and drug activity in the national park. So American 
citizens are encouraged to use an area north of the interstate because 
this administration has just pretty well relegated that area to 
criminals from outside of this country. That would mean that is a 
failure to adequately provide for our common defense, and it might be 
support for Andrew McCarthy's book title, ``Faithless Execution.''
  Now, I feel like the appropriate thing to do is to pass the 
resolution that I filed a year ago here in this House that goes through 
explaining how the President has failed to secure our country, has 
failed to secure our borders. We don't want our borders closed. I 
certainly don't. Immigration is a wonderful thing. There is no country 
in the world where they have five times our population, or less--no 
country allows 1 million people or more to come into their country 
legally. We do.
  We love immigration. It is a great thing. ``E pluribus unum,'' the 
Latin phrase meaning, out of many, one, has been a part of the Great 
Seal since the 1770s. It is on the ribbon that runs through the beak in 
the eagle's mouth on one side of the Great Seal.
  I was taught, growing up, that our melting pot is one of the many 
things that has made us so great. People come here, assimilate, speak 
the same language, love the same country, and become Americans.
  Well, we have seen hyphenated Americans become the order of the day 
in recent years. And I so look forward to the day, if it ever arrives--
and I hope and pray it does--when, once again, we are Americans.
  I know on 9/12/2001, as I looked around our courthouse square, the 
hundreds of people there--all races, both genders, lots of national 
origins--but that day, we were all Americans. There were no hyphenated 
Americans, not on 9/12. Through the tragedy and the hate and the death 
and the sorrow of 9/11/2001, on 9/12, we saw our Nation shine, a 
compassionate nation, a caring nation, but also a nation committed that 
we would not be struck again.
  And now--I mean right now--our Attorney General, under this 
administration, refused to prosecute what a Federal district court said 
were the named coconspirators of those convicted of supporting 
terrorism, which was echoed by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. 
These were front organizations for the Muslim Brotherhood. There was 
plenty of evidence to support that they were coconspirators with the 
convicted defendants in supporting terrorism, and this administration, 
this Attorney General, refused to prosecute them.
  Under this administration, they even got a heads-up from Russia, you 
have a Muslim coming back in named Tsarnaev who has been to a terrorist 
area. He has been radicalized. And Russia warned not once, but twice. 
And this administration that has removed information about radical 
Islam from its training materials for the different departments--and I 
have reviewed some of it that they have removed.
  We were told that most of it that they removed from the FBI training 
materials. Well, people who have not been allowed to fully see and be 
trained on what radical Islam is were sent out to the mosque where 
Tsarnaev went regularly, not to ask questions about has Tsarnaev talked 
about Qutb that wrote ``Milestones'' that Osama bin Laden credits with 
having brought him along the road to terrorism, to violence. They 
didn't know the questions to ask. So the only reason we had the FBI 
sent out under this administration was for the outreach program.
  They were so ignorant that while the outreach program was going on, 
what was really happening and what had happened at that mosque and who 
had been radicalized and who had not, that the Director of the FBI did 
not even know that the founder of the two Muslim mosques there in the 
Boston area were founded by a man named al-Amoudi, who had helped the 
Clinton administration and then helped the Bush administration until he 
was found to be supporting terrorist activity. He was arrested just 
right out here at Dulles International Airport, and he is now doing 
over 20 years in Federal prison for supporting terrorism. He was the 
founder of the Islamic Society of Boston, which founded those mosques.
  The FBI Director didn't even know. They didn't go out there and talk 
to anybody about whether or not Tsarnaev had been radicalized. But lo 
and behold, they said, hey, we talked to Tsarnaev himself, and he 
didn't admit that he was radicalized. And we talked to his mom, and she 
didn't admit that he was radicalized. So apparently they thought he was 
good. And people died and lost limbs in Boston.
  Instead, we have seen spying on American citizens to an extent that 
it is hard to believe we have reached here in America, where you have 
the NSA getting everybody's phone logs of all calls they make--and this 
is all reported in public formats, in the public media--where you have 
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was established to 
protect us from unscrupulous banks and banking habits and practices. 
That was done when we had a majority of Democrats in the House and 
Senate. They set it up where that Bureau would never have to be 
responsible to Congress at all. We could never have oversight. They 
would get their money from the Federal Reserve so

[[Page 12084]]

they could run independently. And what have they done? Well, they have 
been gathering debit and credit card purchase and use information on 
Americans.
  Some of us think that if they really want to protect us from 
unscrupulous bank practices, they ought to wait until we tell them that 
we have been treated unfairly and then go after the criminal. That is 
really what the Constitution Bill of Rights anticipates. You don't go 
gathering everybody's personal information, except on probable cause. 
You get a warrant.

                              {time}  2130

  But not now. This administration has the CFPB that is gathering 
information in the name of protecting us. I don't want that kind of 
protection. I want them to leave us alone and quit drawing and 
gathering all the personal data on people in America. It is none of 
your business unless there has been a crime, and then, and only then, 
your gathering should be based on probable cause.
  We have got the ability of the United States Government to use 
drones, thermal imaging, and all kinds of technology to spy on American 
citizens like never before. We have the ability, as this administration 
has shown, to be concerned about an American citizen in Yemen who was 
radicalized, who was a terrorist, even though he had met with people in 
this administration, met with people in the prior administration, and 
had led prayers here on Capitol Hill of Muslim staff members. Wouldn't 
it have been interesting if this administration had decided to capture 
him during one of his numerous trips into the United States instead of 
blowing him up in Yemen? It might have been interesting to find out 
what he had to say about the people he worked with in this 
administration and the prior administration on Capitol Hill.
  Well, how, one might wonder, could an American citizen be radicalized 
to hate Americans so well? If you go look at his life, his parents were 
not American citizens. They came into the United States on a visa for 
college. That is when he was born and taken back to Yemen. In Yemen 
growing up he learned to hate America.
  How many people has this happened to? We know the Muslim Brother who 
was leading Egypt and weaponizing the Sinai, which is still an area of 
devastation because of all the weapons Morsi made sure were there. 
Morsi's wife had a daughter here in the United States, an American 
citizen, and obviously he didn't care a whole lot for America.
  So I had a resolution a year ago that just went through all the 
whereases explaining that there is no need to pass any bill through the 
House and Senate to secure our border or to do immigration reform until 
the President actually goes through the effort of securing our borders. 
He has got the money. Some people have already forgotten that Secretary 
of Homeland Security Napolitano just announced one day that even though 
Congress had appropriated $4 billion to provide a virtual fence in 
areas that a fence would be difficult, she just decided that was not 
practical, too expensive. So she would not do a virtual fence. And so 
what happened to the $4 billion? What happened to our security? Well, 
we didn't get secured, and we didn't get the virtual fence. There was 
clearly some wasted money in that area. But we still have got to get 
control of our border.
  But when you have a President who has not done anything significant 
to secure our border but has, in fact, pronounced a new law, the 
initials of which are DACA, he just pronounced a new law that had not 
been passed by Congress but had simply passed the lips of our 
President. Here is the new law. Here is what you can do to get amnesty. 
And he pronounced amnesty in what USCIS has announced has been over 
550,000 cases. Our President pronounced an amnesty law into effect that 
provided amnesty already to over 550,000 people who had come in 
illegally.
  The New York Times and others have said that just in very recent 
months, we have had an additional 300,000 people come into our country 
illegally. And, this week, we get the report that 38 people have been 
deported. Well, if you do the math, that means that those 850,000 who 
came in illegally who had a 100 percent chance of getting to stay here 
because of this administration not enforcing our law and not enforcing 
our border, that 100 percent chance of getting to stay here got 
dramatically reduced. Because of this administration's wonderful 
efforts, it has now been reduced from a 100 percent chance of staying 
here to a 99.9955 percent chance of staying here. And that should 
certainly scare anyone who had started planning a trip into this 
country illegally, that their odds of staying here had dropped from 100 
percent clear down to a 99.995 percent chance of getting to stay here.
  I still come back to the resolution I filed a year ago. Until the 
President shows he is going to secure the border, we shouldn't pass 
anything. As our own Speaker has said, we can't trust this President. 
When the Secretary of Homeland Security can just say, I don't want to 
spend $4 billion you guys appropriated for a fence, I am going to do 
something else. Really? Well, I guess you can do that if you are a bit 
lawless.
  But if we are going to be a nation of laws, then laws that have been 
duly passed by Congress and signed by other Presidents should be 
enforced, otherwise we become like the countries that people are 
fleeing.
  It was rather emotional Saturday night to be down right near the 
river where children and adults were being processed--processed meaning 
they have to ask each one of them numerous questions, normally in 
Spanish. And there are some articles of clothing they are not allowed 
to take in to the detention area. And when she was asked, were you glad 
to leave home, she began to cry. She didn't mention she was so glad to 
get away from all the violence. She didn't mention that things were so 
terrible at home she couldn't stand to stay, she looked so forward to 
coming to America. She cried. She missed her home. She missed her 
relatives that were there. Break your heart. One of the most beautiful 
little girls I have ever seen. It is a wonder she didn't get drawn into 
sex trafficking. She was a gorgeous little girl. And I know beautiful 
girls. My wife and I have had three.
  Border Patrolmen have talked about, and it has been reported, dead 
children. Their bodies have been found, one washed up. As this 
administration continues to lure people into America, that has now been 
admitted by this administration, that the President's own amnesty bill 
that he pronounced into law has been luring people up here. Secretary 
of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson admitted that in an op-ed that he 
wrote for Spanish-language newspapers. It is time to stop luring young 
children and adults into the United States into the arms of human 
traffickers. It is time to stop.
  Of course, I mention there is one way that we could stop very quickly 
the massive invasion that is going on because the ability to stop an 
invasion like we are seeing now was even anticipated by our Founders, 
and they put it in the third clause of section 10 of article I of our 
Constitution. That 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 which another 
     State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless 
     actually invaded.

  Not by a foreign army, it doesn't say that; not by a military, it 
doesn't say that; just invaded. And there is a great law review article 
from a Michigan law journal that discusses this provision. It has not 
been utilized before. There are no cases that we can find that have 
utilized this. But perhaps it is time to use it now.
  But it says, unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as 
will not admit of delay.
  The Attorney General himself has said the threat of another terrorist 
attack is scarier now than it has been. And we know that there is an 
increased number of what are called SIAs, those who would be special 
interest aliens that come from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, and 
Pakistan. They are coming in from nations where there are leaders who 
want to destroy us.

[[Page 12085]]

  It is worth trying to make sure we don't have terrorists coming 
through our southern border because we know there are lots of people 
coming through that don't get caught. Even though, as one of the border 
patrolmen said here when I was down there: It is interesting--we used 
to chase them, and now they chase us. Talking about people coming in 
illegally.
  But not all of them chase the Border Patrol. If someone is paid 
megabucks to be brought into the United States, it can be done, while 
Border Patrol is spending an hour, hour and a half processing a massive 
number of groups coming in, 10, 12, 16, 18, 27, and they are having to 
process all those, and we have such a limited number of border 
patrolmen, plenty of opportunities to bring in anybody the drug cartels 
have been paid to bring in with whatever they are bringing.
  So we have a resolution. It hasn't been filed yet, but it says:

       Whereas this provision in the Constitution, therefore, 
     recognizes the continued right of individual States to use 
     force in self-defense if ``actually invaded, or in such 
     imminent danger as will not admit of delay'';

  And whereas an unprecedented, organized, mass invasion of the United 
States is occurring along our southern border;
  Whereas before this invasion Marine Corps General John Kelly, 
commander of the U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, in testimony 
before committees in each House of Congress, the House Armed Services 
Committee in February, and the Senate Armed Services Committee in 
March, warned of the security threats to the United States from 
criminal networks and terrorist organizations penetrating the United 
States through our southern border and since the invasion he has warned 
that the situation poses ``an existential threat to the United 
States'';

                              {time}  2145

  This general who has been overseeing our military in our southern 
area says that the threat to our country is a threat to our very 
existence. Our continued existence is at risk with what is going on at 
the southern border. This resolution goes on:

       Whereas, credible sources have reported plans for an even 
     larger invasion;
       Whereas, between June of 2012, when the Obama 
     administration unilaterally implemented the Deferred Action 
     For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) through March of 2014, 
     approximately 550,000 illegal aliens received temporary 
     deferred action, according to USCIS;
       Whereas, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh 
     Johnson admitted that DACA was in fact luring people to cross 
     the U.S. border, whether they were eligible for the deferred 
     action or not, in an opinion editorial he wrote for Spanish-
     language newspapers;
       Whereas, a court order signed on December 13, 2013, by U.S. 
     District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the U.S. District Court for 
     the Southern District of Texas found as factual that ``The 
     DHS, instead of enforcing our border security laws, actually 
     assisted the criminal conspiracy in achieving its illegal 
     goals.'' The U.S. Court also found that a private citizen 
     doing the exact things that DHS is doing ``would, and should, 
     be prosecuted for this conduct.'' Additionally, the Court 
     found that ``The DHS has simply chosen not to enforce the 
     United States' borders laws,'' and that the ``DHS is 
     rewarding criminal conduct,'' and that ``these illegal 
     activities help fund the illegal drug cartels which are a 
     very real danger for both citizens of this country and 
     Mexico'';
       Whereas the State of Texas reported it has identified, 
     between October of 2008 and April of 2014, a total of 177,588 
     unique criminal alien defendants booked into Texas county 
     jails who are responsible for at least 611,234 individual 
     criminal charges over their criminal careers, including 2,993 
     homicides and 7,695 sexual assaults;

  Think about that, Mr. Speaker: 177,588 criminal aliens booked for 
crimes in Texas. People are being killed in America and specifically, 
according to these figures, 2,993 that we know of by criminal aliens in 
this country. And they have committed at least 7,695 sexual assaults.
  You want to talk about a war on women, this administration will not 
defend the women of America from criminal aliens by the thousands and 
hundreds of thousands. Well, we know thousands, and we know people are 
coming in by the hundreds of thousands illegally, and this 
administration wants to talk about other people having a war on women 
when they will not defend the women that are being sexually assaulted 
by illegal aliens in this country. In Texas alone, we know of 7,695 
such assaults:

       Whereas the Department of Homeland Security, through the 
     General Services Administration, issued a solicitation in 
     January, 2014, which proves the falsity of statements by 
     officials in that Department, that they had no knowledge that 
     this mass invasion would occur;
       Whereas in 2014 there has occurred a sharp increase in the 
     number of Special Interest Aliens apprehended illegally 
     crossing the United States border, being from terrorist-
     sponsored or affiliated countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, 
     Pakistan, Nigeria, and Somalia;
       Whereas Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged in an ABC 
     news story in July of 2014 that there exists a clear and 
     present danger of imminent terrorist attack from ``a 
     situation that we can see developing'' and ``more frightening 
     than anything I think I have seen as Attorney General'';
       Whereas the Commander in Chief of the United States appears 
     to be either unwilling or unable to exercise his 
     constitutional responsibility to defend this country from 
     imminent danger or invasion;
       Resolved, it is the sense of the House of Representatives 
     that all Governors of the States along the southern border, 
     and other States willing to assist them, are urged to 
     exercise the right of self-defense against invasion or 
     imminent danger as will not admit of delay as provided for in 
     article I, section 10 of the United States Constitution.

  Some would say, How would you pay for that?
  Well, how about for one thing we eliminate the child tax credit for 
people who are here illegally that are getting back much more, many 
thousands more dollars, than they actually pay in?
  How about--and we are told a hundred billion or so is sent by people 
who are illegally in this country to their home country--how about, for 
allowing people to be here illegally, we put a 5 percent tax on that 
$100 billion going out of this country? We could pay for whatever we 
need very quickly.
  Well, we have a bill that has been filed. It has gotten a lot of 
acclaim, and in the remaining minutes I would just like to look at some 
of this bill that my good friend, Senator John Cornyn, and my good 
friend, Henry Cuellar, a fellow House Member, have filed. We have a 
copy of what is being proposed. It has been sent to different folks on 
Capitol Hill. And it does, at page 2, take a shot at changing the 
William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act 
of 2008. It makes a shot at fixing that. How ironic that Wilberforce, 
the champion of ending slavery in all of the British Empire, had this 
bill named for him that was supposed to help stop sexual trafficking, 
but as a result of this bill and the President's Deferred Action for 
Childhood Arrivals, as a result of that bill countless children have 
been lured into sexual slavery.
  We can't even be told a number, but we are told that it is definitely 
happening. As the drug cartels are paid to humanly traffic people up, 
they find people who would make attractive sex slaves, and so an effort 
to stop sexual trafficking has actually helped create more. But anyway, 
the first few pages deal with that.
  It does say on page 4 that such person may not be placed, talking 
about unaccompanied children--which, by the way, having been to the 
border a number of times, it is clear to me there is no child coming 
across the border unaccompanied unless they are teenagers. The children 
you see are accompanied by somebody. And even if the coyote leaves them 
right before they go into the custody of Border Patrol, they were 
accompanied right up until that time. But unaccompanied minors under 
this proposed new bill may not be placed in the custody of a 
nongovernmental sponsor or otherwise released from the custody of the 
United States Government until the child is repatriated unless the 
child is the subject of an order under section 235(b)(1) of the 
Immigration and Nationality Act.
  It goes on, the next section, 102, defines the term ``asylum 
officer,'' which means an immigration officer, and it puts some pretty 
tough conditions, including has had substantial experience adjudicating 
asylum applications. So that means we are going to have to have people 
who have been doing this a

[[Page 12086]]

lot. You couldn't have fair judges sent there if they haven't had 
substantial experience adjudicating asylum applications. That seems a 
little unnecessary.
  Anyway, then it sets deadlines, 7 days and 72 hours shall issue an 
order, but then it does indicate if it is impractical by reason of an 
alien's mental incompetency for the alien to be present, the Attorney 
General shall prescribe safeguards to protect the rights and privileges 
of the alien. The alien shall be given the privilege of being 
represented at no expense to the government, shall have a reasonable 
opportunity to examine evidence, present evidence, and cross-examine 
witnesses.
  On page 8 is Withdrawal of Application for Admission. In the 
discretion of the Attorney General--and that is the guy that hasn't 
been enforcing the law as it is, who is currently in contempt of 
Congress, who has been obfuscating on Fast and Furious and on other 
serious crises in our government, has at least been complicit in 
failing to bring forth evidence and to prosecute people timely, 
including the IRS scandal, and now we are going to give him a lot of 
discretion here, that is a matter of concern.
  Anyway, it says based on a preponderance of the evidence, the judge 
has got to find that the alien is likely to be eligible for any form of 
relief of removal. Anyway, basically what it is saying is that in 
general, an applicant for admission must establish by a preponderance 
of the evidence that the alien is likely to be eligible for any form of 
relief from removal. So if they just say, well, there is a good chance 
we are likely to be eligible, not that we are going to prevail, but it 
is just likely we are going to be eligible, then they get to go around 
that requirement.
  If an immigration judge determines that the unaccompanied alien child 
has not met the burden of proof required under the subsection, the 
judge shall order the alien removed unless the alien claims an 
intention to apply for asylum or that the alien has a fear of 
persecution. So we have some rigorous steps in here in this bill, and 
they will be ordered to be removed, unless, of course, if the alien 
claims an intention to apply for asylum or a fear of persecution. Well, 
that lets him sidestep some of those requirements.
  Page 11, if the officer determines credible fear of persecution, the 
alien shall be held in the custody of the Secretary for Health and 
Human Services. Really, I thought that had been one of the problems 
created by prior law, of giving custody to Health and Human Services. 
For heaven's sake, let's leave custody with the people dealing with the 
immigration issues. Let's leave it in Homeland Security. Let's not be 
transferring people to another department because we have seen what HHS 
does. They transfer them all over the country, and there are 
consequences there because now we find out that under a HUD 
requirement, those people may be eligible for housing which will allow 
the government to rezone your neighborhood.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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