Elton Gallegly

Mr. GALLEGLY

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to respond to the gentleman from Texas. First of all, this is not antieducation, it is proeducation. It is proeducation for the students that have a legal right to be in this country, that are either legal residents or citizens. This is the most proeducation bill we have had in a long time. And on the issue of law enforcement, as the gentleman from Texas knows, it is broadly supported by more law enforcement people across this country than it is opposed. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher].

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs]. (Mr. RIGGS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons the Sheriffs Association of the State of California, the largest sheriffs association in the Nation, supports this legislation is the cost of education far exceeds the cost of enforcing the law.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Deal].

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. It is my understanding that the Governor of the State, George Bush, supported the Gallegly amendment in its original form. However, he did support his right to continue to provide a free public education and said he would probably continue that policy, but he did like the idea of having the option, which is all this amendment is about.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself whatever amount of time I shall consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4134. This is a modified version of the original Gallegly amendment which passed this House by a vote of 257 to 163 during the debate of the immigration reform bill just this past March. I might remind my colleagues that the entire immigration bill, which at the time contained the original Gallegly amendment, passed this body by a strong bipartisan vote of 333 to 87. Like the original amendment, today's bill does nothing more than ensure that the Federal Government will no longer be able to force the States to educate those who are in this country illegally. This legislation will allow all States full discretion in the way they want to handle public education and illegal immigration. However, unlike the original Gallegly amendment, this bill has been modified to ensure that it impacts only prospective illegal immigrants. In other words, all we are trying to do through this legislation is stop an entitlement that would otherwise exist in perpetuity. This modified version of my amendment does not kick one child out of school, but it does serve notice to those who have not yet come to this country illegally, using education as a magnet, that public school may not be available. It does not offer the States the option of closing the school door to those who have arrived there currently. Today this education represents an enormous unfunded mandate the Federal Government imposes on the States. California alone spends an estimated $2 billion annually providing education to illegal immigrants. That is enough to hire 51,000 new teachers or put 1 million new computers in every classroom. If we fail to act, States will be forced to provide a free public education to illegal immigrants until the end of time, and that is not right. As the primary funders of public education, State lawmakers and the State taxpayers they represent should have the ability to decide whether illegal immigrants should continue to receive a free public education. This Congress must continue to dismantle the system of public benefits that convinces those in foreign lands to come here illegally. It must also continue to decentralize the Federal Government and shift the power to the States. The revised version of the Gallegly amendment accomplishes both of these critical objectives, and I urge passage of H.R. 4134. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 4134.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 530, I call the bill (H.R. 4134), to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to authorize States to deny public education benefits to aliens not lawfully present in the United States who are not enrolled in public schools during the period beginning September 1, 1996, and ending July 1, 1997, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding this time to me. I would just like to respond to my good friend's, the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra], comments, and he is a good friend. We agree to disagree on many things, and this happens to be one of them. He mentioned the list of people that were opposing this provision. Let me give my colleagues a list of some of those, a partial list, that are supporting it: Fraternal Law Enforcement, California, Arizona chapters; Law Enforcement Alliance of America, the largest law enforcement organization in the Nation; Hispanic Business Round Table; Republican Governors Association; National Taxpayers Union; Americans for Tax Reform; Traditional Values Coalition; Eagle Forum; the Congressional Task Force on California; and on and on and on.

Mr. GALLEGLY. If the gentleman would yield, we did not want to give our President an excuse to kill a very important bill.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, when the gentleman said we have not had an opportunity to debate this, I would remind the gentleman that we debated this for 2 hours on the floor of this House, which is a bigger committee and a broader committee than any individual committee. It was debated; it was included in the bill; it passed by a 100-vote margin on a bipartisan level; it was taken out at the conference committee level. So with all due respect to my good friend from California, this bill has had the attention, and for the sake of expediting the overall bill, I suggested that we have it as a stand alone. That is the reason it came. This is where it should be.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GALLEGLY. To yield for a parliamentary inquiry?

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding----

Mr. GALLEGLY. Absolutely. One point I think is very important to further note. This does not turn any school teacher into a border patrol agent or a law enforcement person. All it does is provide the person that enrolls students at the beginning of the year the same right of asking to verify what their status is in this country as they verify immunization records, as they verify residency, and so on, to determine whether they live on the right side of the street as to whether they go to this school or that school. This does not turn anybody into removing anybody from school now or in the future.

Mr. GALLEGLY. It allows the States to continue to educate anyone they want, legal or other wise. The only thing that it does do is after 1997, it puts those illegally entering this country or considering illegally entering this country on notice that they may not be provided a guarantee to a free public education in the State of their choice.

Mr. GALLEGLY. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, the bill H.R. 4134 is a modified version of the Gallegly amendment which passed by a margin of almost 100 votes on this House floor during a debate on immigration reform just last March. Like the Gallegly amendment which was passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan majority, H.R. 4134 does nothing more than remove the Federal Government's ability to force States to provide a free public education to persons who are not legally in this country. This legislation would allow all States full discretion in the way they want to handle the public education of illegal immigrants. However, unlike the original Gallegly amendment, this bill has been modified to ensure that it impacts only prospectively illegal immigrant students. This grandfathered provision provides that all illegal aliens currently enrolled in any public school at any time during the current year up to July 1, 1997, a State could not deny a free public education through grade 12. It only ends the current policy by which the Federal Government guarantees all future illegal immigrants in every State a free public education at the expense of the taxpayers in perpetuity. In other words, even if a State determined that they would like to deny free public education to illegals, they would only be permitted to deny future entrants or future illegal entries to be enrolled. Those currently enrolled would be exempt. Let me make one other important point. For instance, if my friends from the State of Texas, Oregon or New Jersey decide they want to provide a free public education to all illegal immigrants, even those that arrive here illegally in the future, they would be still perfectly entitled to do so under this legislation. Mr. Speaker, this bill is good for California and it is good for the Nation. We must end a policy that encourages future illegal immigration which further depletes our funds for public education and results in overcrowded classrooms. There has been a lot of debate about the children. But we have forgotten about the children that have a legal right in this country, whether they are legal residents or citizens. In California our State continues to spend millions and millions of dollars every year, more than the previous year, and we have gone from number 4 or 5 in the Nation based on scholastic scores and the quality of education to number 43 in the Nation. Let me remind my fellow colleagues, we cannot forget these children either. This Congress must continue to dismantle the system of public benefits that convinces people to come here illegally. It must continue to decentralize the Federal Government and shift the power to States. This revised version of my amendment accomplishes both of these critical objectives. The only thing that this amendment does not do is provide an entitlement in perpetuity that guarantees that anyone that might come here illegally in the future, the Federal Government would force the States to provide them with a free public education. It eliminates that guarantee after July 1997.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], the Speaker of the House.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I have only one speaker remaining, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GALLEGLY

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this is truly a humbling moment for me because this conference report is something that truly I wondered if we would ever see in this body. I came to Congress nearly a decade ago, and since that time my overwhelming focus has been on two things: to stop the unchecked flow of illegal immigration in this country and to find a way to convince those that are already illegally in this country that it is time to go home. This conference report goes a long way toward accomplishing both of those objectives. For many years many of us in California, Texas, and other States that have been disproportionately impacted by illegal immigration have been walking through the halls and through this body ringing alarm bells. We have been urging this Congress to wake up to the fact that our country is, in effect, under a full-scale invasion by those that have no legal right to be here yet who come by the thousands every day and consume precious social benefits that are denied every day to legal residents who are truly entitled to those benefits. Today this is a different bell ringing in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, and the bell is a bell of change. The passage of this conference report finally signals the willingness of this Congress to seriously address the issue of illegal immigration. Mr. Speaker, we are a generous Nation, by far the most generous Nation on the face of the Earth. This legislation does not endanger or threaten that generosity but, in fact, it does nothing more than to preserve it. The simple fact is that the greatest potential threat to legal immigration is illegal immigration. There are many who would see us close the front door to legal immigration because the back door to illegal immigration is off the hinges. We simply cannot allow this to happen. I believe this conference report goes a long way toward ensuring that it never will happen. I urge its passage.

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise today in strong support of this rule. For the better part of the past decade I have been working to bring badly needed reforms to our Nation's immigration laws. Unfortunately, for far too long I have felt like I was talking to myself. That is clearly no longer the case. Immigration reform is an issue on the minds of nearly all Americans, and nearly all express deep dissatisfaction with our current system and the strong desire for change. Today we are delivering that change. I truly believe that this conference report that we will be hearing shortly represents the most serious and comprehensive reform of our Nation's immigration law in modern times. It also closely follows the recommendations of both the Speaker's Task Force on Immigration Reform, which I chaired, and those of the Jordan Commission. Approximately 60 percent of the recommendations made by the Speaker's Task Force have been included in this conference report. They include, in part, provisions to double the number of Border Patrol agents stationed at our borders to 10,000 agents; expanded preinspection at foreign airports to more easily identify and deny entry to those persons with fraudulent documents or criminal backgrounds; tough new penalties for those who use or distribute fake documents, bringing the penalty for that offense in line with the use or production of counterfeit currency. Mr. Speaker, the primary responsibilities of any sovereign nation are the protection of its borders and enforcement of its laws. For too long in the area of immigration policy, we at the Federal Government have shirked both those duties. It may have taken a long time, but policy makers in Washington are finally ready to acknowledge the devastating effects of illegal immigration on our cities and towns. Finally, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith], who chairs the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims for all the effort that he has put into this, putting his heart and soul into this legislation. I would also like to thank him for welcoming the input of myself and other members of the task force in crafting this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this rule and let us pass immigration reform that this Nation sorely needs.