[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5137-5140]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         GOVERNMENT IS NOT GOD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Georgia, Rob 
Woodall, so much. What clarity.

[[Page 5138]]

  We lost a good man when John Linder didn't run again, and we gained a 
good man when Rob Woodall ran for that seat. So it is a good day.
  Well, there is a matter of concern. Let me just say this:

       We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand 
     which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and 
     strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the 
     deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were 
     produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. 
     Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-
     sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving 
     grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
       It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended 
     Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency 
     and forgiveness.

  Now, there are some people these days that say it is not appropriate 
to mention God, that that has no place in government. Yet the very God 
that I speak of and those very words that I spoke are not from me; they 
are from 152 years ago.
  Abraham Lincoln didn't just say those words. He made that his 
Presidential proclamation. On March 30, 1863, he called for the Nation 
to have a national day--and these are his words--of ``humiliation, 
fasting, and prayer.'' So he made that official proclamation.
  Sometimes my office starts getting calls if I mention the three-
letter word that some find to be such a heinous word to use on the 
House floor, even though it was one of the most used and most called-
upon names, certainly, in our Congress for the first 150, 175 years or 
so. The Bible was the most quoted book for most of our history.
  So the problem is those people that will call and email irate about a 
Member of the United States Congress saying we have forgotten God.

       We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in 
     peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and 
     we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, 
     that all these blessings were produced by some superior 
     wisdom and virtue of our own.

  That was Abraham Lincoln who said those words. And he didn't just say 
them; it was an official proclamation of the United States of America. 
So at this day and time it is more popular to issue executive orders, 
as if one person in our government were God, but Abraham Lincoln knew 
better.
  Two years later, he was assassinated. He could have done so much to 
bring this country together after the worst war the country had ever 
faced, yet his life was cut short 150 years ago.
  He was an extraordinary man. It was an extraordinary time. But he 
tells us with his written word that we have forgotten God.
  He said: We are too proud to pray to the God that made us. Some find 
that offensive. Some think the government should be god; that the 
government should tell people: You can see this doctor, but you can't 
see this doctor. This doctor may be able to heal you, but you can't see 
this doctor. Why? Because we are the government, and we are the new 
god. Seniors, look, we know you had plans for health care to last 
longer, but, sorry, you don't get as good health care as you did 5 
years ago.
  In my own family, my dad is not going to get the same health care 
that my mother did, which kept her alive 15 more years after her tumor 
was discovered. As Dad told me last week: I am not going to be able to 
have the health care your mother got because of Medicare and all these 
cuts. I can't even have the option to do what we did for your mother.
  Well, that is what happens when the government becomes god. 
Unfortunately, if we were going to have the government become the god 
of the United States, it would be nice if the government were a little 
more truthful, a little more honest, a little more just.
  One of the major problems that has been revealed recently is the fact 
that the Department of Homeland Security has lied to a United States 
district judge in Texas. He was told that because he was going to issue 
an injunction, and was issuing an injunction, that there would be no 3-
year amnesty provided that the President spoke into being, and after he 
spoke into being the new law overriding with his very oral words, the 
laws that were passed by the House and Senate, signed into law by other 
Presidents, disregard those.
  Then the Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson wrote memos--
memos--overriding laws that were worked on in subcommittee, committee, 
brought to the floor of the House, debated, fussed over, eventually 
voted on, and approved in the House; debated, fussed over, eventually 
passed in the Senate, signed into law by another President. We 
disregard that, because the government is god now. We don't need to 
pray to anybody except Washington these days.
  Well, some of us believe the government is not god. Nobody wants a 
dishonest god. And we have had too much of that from Washington.
  So with recent revelations about the Department of Homeland Security 
and its failures, many Americans have become gravely concerned that 
their actions and performance are causing additional 
misrepresentations, and that is why it was critically important that we 
have a thorough investigation of the Department of Homeland Security.
  I know there were misrepresentations by the prior Director of 
Homeland Security before our committee. I talked about those 
previously.
  But the American people deserve to be protected by their government--
not spied on, not lied to, not pay to have the Department of Homeland 
Security ignore the law. So there were 22 of us that just signed a 
letter going to the Comptroller General of the United States.
  Some pronounce it ``comptroller'' because that is how it is spelled. 
As my late English teacher mother told me many years ago, that may be 
the way it is spelled. If you look in the dictionary, which I was 
forced to do, then you will see that the number one pronunciation is 
``controller,'' but because of usage--I don't know. I haven't looked 
recently. Maybe number one now is ``comptroller,'' but it didn't used 
to be.
  To the Comptroller General Dodaro, here is the letter that 22 of us 
sent yesterday: ``As you know, on November 20, 2014, the Secretary of 
the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, issued a series of 
memoranda affecting federal immigration law. Included in the new DHS 
policy directives was an order to extend and expand the existing 
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as well as an order to 
establish a new program that provides work authorization permits to an 
estimated five million undocumented immigrants residing in the United 
States. This new program was termed, `Deferred Action for Parents of 
Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents,' or DAPA.
  ``U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is the federal agency 
that adjudicates applications for immigration benefits. This agency's 
website claims a workforce of 19,000 people operating throughout 223 
offices worldwide with an annual operating budget of $4 billion. This 
agency is very unique from many other agencies. According to its own 
FY16 USCIS Budget Request, 96.8% of the agency's annual operating 
budget comes from fees collected from applicants for most types of 
immigration benefits, from petitions to sponsor relatives or employees, 
to replacement green cards, to naturalization applications. These fee-
based revenues appear to be considered `permanently appropriated' 
mandatory funds compared to annual discretionary appropriations which 
apply to federal agencies. As a result, this permanently appropriated 
mandatory spending allotment for USCIS falls outside the annual 
appropriations process.

                              {time}  1400

  ``While Congress determines the categories of aliens that are to be 
admitted into the United States, it does not always set the fees USCIS 
charges or constructively control how USCIS allocates its resources. 
This fee-generated portion of its annual budget, translating to $3.874 
billion in FY16, appears to be completely fungible. That is, this 
money, raised for one purpose can perhaps be used for other purposes. 
This arrangement creates the potential for USCIS to, in effect, create 
slush funds and skim off congressionally authorized fees imposed on 
legal immigrants

[[Page 5139]]

and their sponsors in order to fund programs that may not be 
specifically authorized by Congress. Mr. Joseph Moore, the Chief 
Financial Officer of USCIS, testified in a Senate hearing on March 3, 
2015, that the agency determines the fees it charges based on a 
practice known as activity-based costing. Thus, transaction fees are 
proportional to the amount of time and resources to fulfill that 
transaction. However, records indicate that USCIS has a carry-over 
balance from excess revenues at the end of FY14 of approximately $1.27 
billion. Mr. Moore claimed that he seeks to maintain a rolling reserve 
balance of about $600 million to cover unexpected costs and surge 
activity. He further stated that funds from this account helped USCIS 
handle early spending in response to the executive actions. Eventually, 
new fees paid by illegal immigrant applicants are intended to replenish 
that account, plus cover all the new costs. What is not clear is why or 
how this agency has built up reserves of more than twice the amount it 
says it aims to keep for contingency requirements. This draws scrutiny 
as to how long this practice has occurred, for what reasons, what can 
or cannot be done with that money and, ultimately, how Congress can 
effectively conduct oversight.
  ``Experts refer to this arrangement where an agency can skim off, or 
`tax,' certain types of applications in order to fund others as `cross-
subsidization.' Currently, fees from legal immigrants and their 
sponsors subsidize refugee and asylum applications, military 
naturalizations, the anti-fraud division, and other activities--with 
`other activities' being very broadly defined.''
  So we go on and ask for the Comptroller General to audit the 
Department of Homeland Security because we haven't gotten truthful 
answers, and we haven't gotten complete answers.
  It appears we have a shadow government in existence that can go 
across the river and lease or purchase, spend tens or hundreds of 
thousands of dollars, millions of dollars--we don't know--without any 
accountability to anybody.
  It moves toward being like a Kafka novel of just a completely 
unaccountable mammoth government that no individual can ever take on. 
That was never the intention of the Founders, nor those who have given 
their lives throughout the history of this, the greatest country in the 
history of the world.
  We are calling for an audit. We are asking the GAO to audit USCIS and 
find out critically needed answers. Homeland security agencies continue 
to be hindered by leadership that breaks the law and ignores the 
Constitution while using highly suspect spending practices. It has got 
to stop, and we have to know exactly what they are doing so that we can 
get them back with acting within the constitutional requisites.
  The Department of Homeland Security has been so obsessed, as directed 
by the President, with having open borders and bringing in illegal 
immigrants. As one border patrolman told me: We, in homeland security, 
are called logistics by the drug cartels, the gangs, all those people 
that bring in illegal aliens into the United States.
  Like the commercial that is widely seen on television, the logistics 
they are referring to are the fact that they can bring people into the 
United States illegally, the drug cartels and the gangs, for a huge, 
whopping fee.
  Once they get them in to the United States, they can count on 
Homeland Security to spend this money that many trying to do things the 
right way, the legal way, are paying to have their immigration, their 
visa application, expedited.
  We don't know where those expedited fees are going, but their visas, 
their applications are not really being expedited, so it would appear 
probably the Homeland Security Department is taking fees that are being 
paid for one thing by people wanting to do things the right way, the 
legal way, the constitutional way, and Homeland Security is subverting 
the law and the Constitution and spending it on people who keep coming 
in, pouring in naturally, illegally, because they are taken care of.
  Homeland Security will ship them around the country. All you have to 
do is come in, we will give you a hearing date some years in the 
future, ship you off, and don't worry about showing up for your 
hearings.
  How long can a country last doing these kinds of absurd governmental 
actions? It is insane. The book that will be written about the rise and 
fall of the United States will be very easy to write. These things are 
not new.
  They are very predictable that, when a country starts ignoring the 
law, then it becomes lawless, and it is not long before the people take 
up that position and the country becomes a terrible place to live.
  This country became the greatest country in the history of the 
world--more freedoms, more personal assets. Now, we see that being 
frittered away by a government that is being allowed to do so, and at 
the same time, the head of the government still may have around 50 
percent approval rating.
  It is, once again, making very clear the old adage is true: democracy 
ensures a people are governed no better than they deserve.
  America, as at least 50 percent sits on their hands, they are okay 
with total disregard of the Constitution. One survey found there were 
more, I believe, college students that could name the Three Stooges but 
could not name the three branches of government, and they are eligible 
to vote.
  Well, if that is the way you educate the generations coming up to 
vote, then you will, once again, get the government you deserve.
  Well, because the Department of Homeland Security has been taking 
funds paid by people trying to do things legally, do them the right 
way, and subverting them for uses for those who are wanting to act 
illegally or have acted illegally. They haven't been able to pay enough 
attention to securing our homeland, which was originally their charter.
  I didn't think we needed a Department of Homeland Security. I thought 
it was another huge bureaucracy that was created before I got to 
Congress in the name of, Gee, let's help all these agencies work 
together. Well, it hasn't done that. It has just added another level of 
bureaucracy.
  We get this report. This is from The Washington Times, dated Tuesday, 
April 14, that:
  ``The Islamic State terror group is operating a camp in the northern 
Mexican state of Chihuahua, just eight miles from the U.S. border, 
Judicial Watch reported Tuesday.
  ``Citing sources that include a `Mexican Army field grade officer and 
a Mexican Federal Police Inspector,' the conservative watchdog group 
reported that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is 
organizing only a few miles from El Paso, Texas, in the Anapra 
neighborhood of Juarez and in Puerto Palomas.
  ``Judicial Watch sources said `coyotes' working for the notorious 
Juarez Cartel are smuggling Islamic State terrorists across the U.S. 
border between the New Mexico cities of Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, 
as well as `through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, 
Texas.'
  ```These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS 
because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and 
the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-
scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing,' Judicial Watch 
reported.
  ``Mexican intelligence sources say the Islamic State intends to 
exploit the railways and airport facilities in the vicinity of Santa 
Teresa, New Mexico.
  ```The sources also say that ISIS has ``spotters'' located in the 
East Potrillo Mountains of New Mexico (largely managed by the Bureau of 
Land Management)'''--I would submit mismanaged--```to assist with 
terrorist border crossing operations,' Judicial Watch reported. `ISIS 
is conducting reconnaissance of regional universities; the White Sands 
Missile Range; government facilities in Alamogordo, NM; Ft. Bliss; and 
the electrical power facilities near Anapra and Chaparral, NM.'''
  There were some reports then that: Oh, Judicial Watch had it wrong. 
There is really nobody from ISIS in Mexico.

[[Page 5140]]

There is no threat. Then this report came out today from our friends at 
Judicial Watch, April 16, 2015:
  ``Responding to Judicial Watch's report earlier this week of ISIS 
activity along the Mexican border, Federal Bureau of Investigation 
supervisors called a `special' meeting at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad 
Juarez.
  ``A high-level intelligence source, who must remain anonymous for 
safety reasons''--let me insert parenthetically, what that means is, if 
you don't get that--and I sure do because I have people tell me about 
problems in the executive branch and Homeland Security, Justice, and 
Intelligence.
  What we find is this administration has prosecuted more people they 
called whistleblowers than every administration put together in the 
history of the country. What I know is if you have information that 
exposes corruption or illegal or improper action by leaders in this 
administration, they are coming after you and calling you a 
whistleblower, and they will convene a grand jury, as they have done, 
and one is right now in Atlanta going on. They are coming after you if 
you can expose impropriety in this government, so that is why this says 
what it does in the article.
  ``The meeting was convened specifically to address a press strategy 
to deny Judicial Watch's accurate reporting and identify who is 
providing information to JW. FBI supervisory personnel met with Mexican 
Army officers and Mexican Federal Police officials, according to JW's 
intelligence source. The FBI liaison officers regularly assigned to 
Mexico were not present at the meeting and conspicuously absent were 
representatives from the Department of Homeland Security. It is not 
clear why DHS did not participate.''
  Again, parenthetically to the article, since I have known of the 
sector of Homeland Security not being truthful in testifying before our 
Judiciary Committee, then if I were the FBI and I were trying to get to 
the bottom of something, the last people I would tell are people at 
Homeland Security at the top, I trust the ones I know at the bottom, 
but not the ones at the top.
  So perhaps the head of the FBI is realizing we have such big problems 
in Homeland Security.

                              {time}  1415

  For example, when I complained to Homeland Security Secretary Janet 
Napolitano, You have given a secret security clearance to a person who 
was a featured speaker about the Ayatollah Khomeini being the man of 
vision for the 20th century, a man that thinks the Holy Land 
Foundation, convicted of over 100 counts of supporting terrorism, was 
improperly prosecuted, who ended up tweeting last August that the 
caliphate was going to happen, so you might as well get used to it.
  Well, I wouldn't trust them either. The FBI apparently doesn't. 
Publicly, U.S. and Mexico have denied that Islamic terrorists are 
operating in the southern border region, but the rapid deployment of 
FBI brass in the aftermath of Judicial Watch's report seems to indicate 
otherwise.
  A Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal police 
inspector were among the sources that confirmed to Judicial Watch that 
ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas. The base 
is around 8 miles from the United States border in an area known as 
Anapra, situated just west of Ciudad Juarez, in the Mexican State of 
Chihuahua.

       Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juarez, in Puerto 
     Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming 
     for easy access to the United States, the same knowledgeable 
     sources confirm.
       During the course of a joint operation last week, Mexican 
     Army and Federal law enforcement officials discovered 
     documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as plans of Fort Bliss, 
     the sprawling military installation that houses the U.S. 
     Army's 1st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were 
     recovered with the documents during the operation.

  The administration can deny and they can say, Oh, this is these crazy 
people in Congress or Judicial Watch, when the truth is that the more 
time that goes on, the more we are proved right on everything Judicial 
Watch has been claiming, the things that we have been asserting, the 
things that we have been saying we have to wake up about because this 
is a time of danger.
  Mr. Speaker, going back to the original point, this is the danger 
that arises when government begins to think of itself as God and 
infallible, and it is time for those who think that to fall, it is time 
for the people to wake up and demand better because, the minute a 
majority of American people demand better government, they will get it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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