Steve King

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I believe every life is a precious creation and that suicide is a tragic and terrible way to lose a family member or friend. One would automatically assume if you are against suicide, you will vote in favor of this bill; however, nothing could be further from the truth. We all want to stop suicide. Some of our most precious resources are our young people, and that resource must be preserved and promoted. Our children and teenagers are too valuable to be used as guinea pigs on this issue. The gentleman from New Jersey spoke of the movie Nobody's Useless, and I will not reiterate that here now, but that will not be the only case across this country where exposure to suicide discussion has actually brought on suicide. While this legislation does not fund suicide education for children under the age of 10, it did start out younger than the age of 10. I do not think we need to take chances with our young people. Awareness could put ideas into the heads of children and teenagers that are already at an awkward time in their lives. I would point out what happens when we do sex education and antidrug education. It is hard to find a program that resulted in less drug use or less sexual activity on the part of young people because they are made aware of something they may be afraid of. The more they talk about something, the more comfortable they get with it, the more likely they are to experiment. Research at Columbia University has suggested that encouraging suicidal students to identify themselves or to teach other students or teachers how to identify the suicidal teenager is not effective and in some instances may even undermine protective attitudes about suicide. In other words, the creation of this program can actually be harmful to our youth. In addition, we should also be asking ourselves is this really the role of the Federal Government. Federal money usually has strings attached to it. We do not know enough about how the grants will be distributed to know what these strings will be, but this legislation is just one more way that the government is encroaching on the lives and health care of private citizens and the parental role. Suicide prevention is best done through private counseling, faith-based groups, and within the nucleus of the family unit. I know of no successful suicide prevention programs. We should be able to find at least one successful model program somewhere in this world before we invest $82 million in a new, untried program. In conclusion, while I believe this bill is offered with good will and absolutely with the best intentions, and with broken hearts as well, we need to take a step back and realize that suicide is based on emotion, and it was from emotion that this bill was created. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones to suicide, and for that reason I ask my colleagues to vote no on this bill.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I sit here and listen to this debate, and it is one of many debates on this issue that we have had, and it is one of many we will have into the future. And as I listened to the gentleman talk about the civil rights, I harkened back to a time when I sat in the Iowa Senate, where I heard a senator stand and say the next great civil rights crusade is homosexual rights. Something about how true that rang to me, it caused me to pay attention and understand that was the message. There will always be another civil rights crusade. We will never get this right. There will always be people that see the glass of rights as half full, like us, and some that will say it is half empty, like others. I will tell you that this is not a civil right. You can look in title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and there it says race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Those things are all immutable characteristics, with the exception of religion, which is constitutionally protected. Immutable characteristics are characteristics that cannot be self- identified, but can be independently verified, and cannot be changed. That is not the case with homosexual marriage. I hear other statements. The gentleman from Maryland, ``risk undermining public faith in the courts.'' It is the courts that risk undermining public faith in the courts. We are establishing public faith in the process. And the statement made by the gentlewoman from California, ``this is nothing more than a back door attempt to amend the Constitution by simple majority.'' No, the courts have been continually amending the Constitution by the will of a bare majority of appointed courts. The transfer of the will of four judges from Massachusetts against the will of the people of the United States of America is protected by the Constitution, and that responsibility lies with us and we must step up to that responsibility. So I would ask, and, as we heard from the minority witness in hearings, the bottom line of that testimony was that the Congress can grant authority to the courts, and we can create courts and that courts can grasp authority by decisions that they make; but we can only limit the courts by allowing the courts to limit themselves. Now, how ridiculous is that? How far-reaching is the power of the judicial branch if we will take this position that Congress cannot limit the courts when it specifically is in the constitution? We are charged not with just the right or the privilege, but the duty and obligation, when we swore to uphold this Constitution, to defend the separation of powers. There is no civil right for marriage, there is a license for marriage, and a license is by definition a permit to do something which is otherwise illegal. We grant that to marriages for those reasons that you have heard some of my colleagues speak to, because the family, the father, the mother, the children and the home, is the essential building block, not just of this culture and this society and this civilization, but every civilization for the last 6,000 years. That is what is at stake here, and it is our obligation; and I think this is the most essential issue of our time. There is no issue more important than defending marriage, because it is the essential building block of this society, this civilization, and every civilization. We have the duty and obligation.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, on July 13, 2004, I mistakenly voted ``aye'' on rollcall 368, the Chabot Amendment to H.R. 4766. I intended to vote ``no.''

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House tonight and the opportunity to discuss the issue that is in the front of the American consciousness, and that is the issue of the United Nations and the involvement of the members of the United Nations with the world policy and how things have evolved from the United Nations world policy with regard to Iraq and the Iraqi Oil-for- Food program that has been going on now since about the middle 1990s. As the Speaker will remember, and the people in this country will remember, the sanctions that were against the United Nations that were established after Desert Storm were lifted, to some degree, to allow the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein to trade existing oil production that they had for humanitarian supplies, which included food and medicine, into Iraq, and the structure of the Oil-for-Food program that was established there and the bureaucracy of the United Nations and the $10.1 billion that we believe has been scooped out of that program and gone into the pockets of bureaucrats at the expense of the Iraqi people and of course the expense of the credibility of the United Nations themselves. Now, I would first like to back up a little bit and describe who the United Nations really are, and there is a misconception in this country that the United Nations, since there is someone seated there from every member nation and each nation has a voice and each nation has a vote and we have five members of the permanent Security Council and we have a total of five members of the Security Council, the other members which rotate, we get the perception and we make the mistake that the United Nations somehow represents the will of the people of the world, that its democratic governments, or I should say in my preference is constitutional republican governments, that send their representatives there that are the voice of the people that now speak at the United Nations. And in fact, that is quite a ways from the truth. Some nations do do that. Free nations do that, but there are nations there and many of them are represented by dictators, who, if they are not speaking for themselves, their representative speaks for them. The people in those countries do not have the ability or do not have the right to speak up for themselves. They do not have the chance to go to the polls and vote nor direct their national destiny or determine who their leader will be that directs their national destiny. So the United Nations has become, over the years, an organization that I term to be a third-world class and debate society, and the structure of the United Nations is not democratic. It is not representative. It is simply the voices of the nations of the world rather than the voices of the people of the world. Well, then enter the Oil-for-Food program. Yes, we had humanitarian interests in Iraq, and there is no nation on this globe that has more commitment towards the people of Iraq than the United States of America, but we went along with and supported the concept of an Oil- for-Food program, and what we got was a program that enriched the bureaucrats, enriched the Saddam Hussein regime to the tune of $10.1 billion. And here is a little bit of the structure of how that works on this easel to my left. This red represents the greatest recipient nation of the scoop of oil for food. Now, that is Russia, and then the rest of this colored spectrum here are these other nations along the way, all in differing degrees. France, a major player, of course. We would expect that. China a major player. This is just a sample of some of the money that has gone to these nations. I took a look at the resistance to America's interests in going into the nation of Iraq prior to our invasion and occupation there, and I wondered why was it that the resonance of the resistance to American policy was so strong and so great. And I asked at the time, do they have financial interests there? What are their interests? Well, one of the things, is oil for food. Some of these countries stood to profit a great deal from the Oil-for-Food program. This gives a little better perspective on where these interests came from. This is broken down by continent. The big blue is Europe, and that does include Russia, Germany, and France. Eighty-seven percent of the Oil-for-Food scoop that we know at this point, or we believe allegedly at this point, that came out of that program that should have gone to the benefit of the Iraqi people really went to Europe itself; and these are the countries, by the way, that stood up and opposed our policy in Iraq. So I took the Security Council itself, and I broke it down into five nations, Russia, France, China, Great Britain and the United States, and asked the question, what percentage then of the Oil-for-Food profits that were going out of that program off the tables of the Iraqi people was going into these countries of the Security Council, the permanent members of the Security Council, those five members? Three of those nations collected 99.1 percent of that money that should have gone to the Iraqi people, at least by the numbers that we have in front of us today; 99.1 percent went to Russia, France and China together. None of those nations supported our policy in Iraq. All of them opposed us in differing degrees of disagreement and aggressiveness, but I think that tells us that the decibels of their resistance were indexed to the Oil-for-Food program in some part. And in another part, and I do not have the chart here tonight, how many oil development contracts did they have prepared that would give them an opportunity to develop that if Saddam would have stayed in power in Iraq? We will index that another time. And additionally, I am just going to quickly show this policy here. This is the flowchart of some of the Oil-for-Food scam that went on and this Congress needs to look into this, and we need to get the answers, and we need to do a full investigation within the United Nations. This is far too complicated to explain. This is simply a commercial so that I can come up another time and explain it to you. Madam Speaker, I will bring this back another night.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 357, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would just point out that the Attorney General enforces the laws of the United States, and enforcement of this section would be under the Department of Justice and Attorney General. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I do.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, the agency that this amendment transfers to is the Department of Justice.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. KING of Iowa asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today to enforce existing Federal law that prohibits localities from refusing to allow their officers to report aliens who commit crimes to the immigration authorities. My amendment would provide funding for the Department of Justice to enforce section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996. Section 642 of the act forbids localities from preventing their police officers from reporting immigration information to the Federal Government. However, some cities and counties have continued to refuse to allow their officers to provide information to the Federal Government, and that is in violation of Federal law. Without this information, the Federal immigration authorities cannot take steps to remove these criminal illegal aliens from American streets. Under these so-called ``sanctuary policies'' in certain cities and counties, the police cannot report the illegal aliens who commit crimes to the immigration authorities for deportation. As a result, taxpayers pay to incarcerate illegal alien prisoners who are later released back on to the street. These sanctuary policies have disastrous consequence for future victims. Repeat offenses by criminal illegal aliens are preventable crimes. These offenders should have been removed from the United Nations as soon as their first crimes were discovered. Their prompt removal prevents future crimes. We can act to prevent crime by funding enforcement of section 462 by the Department of Justice. The Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims held an oversight hearing on the public safety consequences of local immigration sanctuary policies on February 27, 2003. But despite that February 2003 hearing, sanctuary policies remain in place with disastrous consequences. Less than 4 months after that hearing in June of 2003, a 9-year-old girl was dragged from her San Jose home in broad daylight and was kidnapped, tortured, and raped over 3 days before finally being released by her assailant. According to press reports, the man arrested and charged with nine felony counts related to the terrifying abduction and sexual assault was an illegal alien who had already admitted a crime. Originally, the suspect was arraigned under the name Enrique Sosa Alvarez, but a fingerprint check identified him as David Montiel Cruz. Under the name Cruz, this man was previously convicted of auto theft. According to the San Jose Police Department's policy, section L7911 of the Line and Operations Procedure, officers may not ``initiate police action when the primary objective is directed towards discovering the alien status of a person.'' Because the officer who investigated the previous auto theft could not ask about Mr. Cruz's immigration status, his hands were tied and he could not verify with the Federal Government whether Mr. Cruz was allowed in the United States. We will never know if this crime against this 9-year-old girl could have been prevented if Federal law were enforced. My amendment would fund enforcement of section 642. This section does not require local authorities to report all immigration information they would uncover to the Federal immigration authorities, but rather it simply prohibits local authorities from having a blanket policy to refuse to communicate this information with the Federal Government. This is essential because in the example I just spoke of, the accused kidnapper and rapist never should have been in this country in the first place. We must not allow illegal aliens whose presence was never reported to Federal immigration authorities due to illegal sanctuary policies to continue to commit brutal crimes. We must not provide sanctuary to criminals. I look forward to working with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), and I appreciate his work on this entire bill and other Members to encourage the Department of Justice to enforce the Federal law which prohibits localities from having sanctuary policies. I urge support for my amendment which funds enforcement of section 642. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today to enforce existing Federal law that prohibits localities from refusing to allow their officers to report aliens who commit crimes to the immigration authorities. My amendment would provide funding for the Department of Justice to enforce current law, which is section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996. Section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 does not allow localities to prevent their police officers from reporting immigration information to the Federal Government. However, some cities have continued to refuse to allow their officers to provide information to the Federal Government. Without this information, the Federal immigration authorities cannot take steps to remove these criminal illegal aliens from American streets. Under these so-called sanctuary policies in certain cities, the police cannot report the illegal aliens who commit crimes to the immigration authorities for deportation. As a result, taxpayers pay to incarcerate illegal alien prisoners who are later released back on to the streets rather than being deported. This sanctuary policy has disastrous consequences for future victims. Repeat offenses by criminal illegal aliens are preventable crimes. These offenders should have been removed from the United States as soon as their first crime was discovered. Their prompt removal prevents future crimes. We can act to prevent crime by funding enforcement of section 642 by the Department of Justice. An unfortunate situation that occurred in New York City, a crime that could have been prevented by enforcement of section 642, indicates the urgent need for our action. On December 19, 2002, a 42-year-old mother of two was seized and brutally assaulted in a shanty near railroad tracks in Queens. She and her boyfriend were robbed by a group who then took the woman to the woods, leaving her boyfriend unconscious. During the 2-hour attack, she was abused and her life was threatened. A police canine unit rescued her before her attackers could carry out their deadly threats. In response, the New York Police Department arrested five aliens, four of whom had illegally entered the country and three with extensive arrest warrants in New York City. This crime could have been prevented. Four of the five suspects had entered the country illegally. Three of these had prior arrests and convictions, and always they were released. Even so, the INS was never contacted about these individuals prior to the 2002 attack. New York City's sanctuary policy prohibited a New York police officer from contacting information authorities about these attackers when they committed their previous crimes or were discovered to be in the United States illegally. As a result, the immigration authorities could not remove these aliens because they did not know that they were illegally present in the United States. Sanctuary policies tie the hands of local law enforcement officers and keep illegal aliens who commit crimes in our country rather than deporting these criminals according to U.S. law. My amendment will ensure enforcement of the Federal law that can prevent additional heinous crimes by illegal aliens with criminal records. We must not allow criminal illegal aliens whose presence was never reported to Federal immigration authorities due to illegal sanctuary policies to continue to commit brutal crimes. We must not provide sanctuary to criminals. Please support my amendment, which funds enforcement of section 642 and reestablishes and supports current law.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I looked into this argument; and to transfer this authority to Homeland Security, there is no existing precedent for enforcement of this law by Homeland Security. It is a legitimate function of the Department of Justice to enforce Federal law; and, in fact, this would be bringing an action against local government. And that is something that there is a precedent for under the Department of Justice, but no precedent for that under Homeland Security. So if this were all transferred to Homeland Security, we would not have action that could be brought by the Department of Justice in many other cases as well as this. I thank the chairman for yielding to me.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I thank the distinguished chairman for his consideration of this issue.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chairman's willingness to enter into a colloquy and to yield to me on this issue. I would just say to him that Missouri is downstream from where I live. Mr. Chairman, I had authored an amendment to this legislation that would prohibit funds intended for use for endangered species' habitat restoration from being used by the Fish and Wildlife Service and State Departments of Natural Resources. I am not pursuing this amendment because the good gentleman from Ohio has agreed the funding in this act should be used for its intended purposes. As the Members of this body may remember, every year the energy and water development appropriations bill brings to light the issues of the Missouri River, which flows along the border of the district I represent in western Iowa. In the ecosystem of the Missouri River, there are three endangered species, the least tern, the piping plover, and the pallid sturgeon. A dire legal situation involving regulation of the Missouri River flow has resulted in complex reg. issues that impact the entire Missouri River basin. A multiplicity of interests, including agriculture, flood control, river freight transportation, electrical generation, water, recreation, and the environment have been impacted by decisions affecting the flow of the river. Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers is working on a habitat restoration for the two birds and the fish that have created such a problem for people who need the river for economic reasons. As they have been working to reestablish this habitat, we have discovered some of the money that is diverted to Fish and Wildlife and State Departments of Natural Resources to help with this effort is being used for other purposes, such as duck habitat. Mr. Chairman, my father took me to the duck blind when I was two years old. I have been going there ever since, that is half a century or more, and I can tell you there is no endangered species of ducks in my district. As much as I like duck habitat, it should not be at the expense of funds that are directed to priority habitat for endangered species, which can go a long ways towards resolving this Missouri River issue. So not only do I care to see the issues of the Missouri River resolved, as a responsible Member of this body, I also believe it is our responsibility to stop abuse in its tracks. My amendment would have alleviated both of these problems.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, first of all I want to congratulate the chairman of the committee and all of the committee members for their hard work on this bill and the many improvements that have been put in for homeland security. We are getting better at this. We are just not as good at it as we need to be. My amendment reduces the appropriation by $895,476,000. That is the President's number, the President's request. I point out that the President has been our lead warrior on the war on terror. He came out and identified our enemy the first week after September 11, he set forward a path on how to go about addressing al Qaeda and the terrorists around the world, he sent troops into Afghanistan, he sent troops into Iraq. We have over 50 million people that are free today. America is a safer place. Our question that is before this Congress today is the question of do you spend your resources on the tip of the spear, or do you spend your resources back here at home? Do you spend your resources on ambulances, fire trucks, metal detectors and do you spend them also on training facilities for emergency responders? Or do you put that money in a proactive way and preempt the terrorists attacks that are bound to come. To find that balance is what we are seeking to do. The waste that is in the budget, I can identify a significant amount of dollars there are tied up in the bureaucratic regions of the Department. It is hard to get to this through a Waste Watchers program. It is hard to identify it and say we are going to ding your budget by $5 billion or $10 billion or $86 million or $895 million, as this amendment does. But the way you do that is you reduce the spending and the bureaucrats have to go and find that. So the question is, are we going to clean up after the disaster, or are we going to spend the money preventing the disaster? Is it going to be the clean up crew that will be the tip of the spear? We have seen this budget grow from 2003 to 2004 by 30 percent. Now we see it grow again from 2004 to 2005 by 9.4 percent. This is the President's budget. The President has been leading us in the war on terror, and I believe we can have confidence that he has the ability to set this budget and provide adequate resources. Mr. Chairman, having made my statement, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw this amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of President Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan leaves an enduring legacy of character and a dedication to the American ideal of liberty. His philosophy and values were not political calculation; they were inscribed in his heart. I recognize Ronald Reagan as a true leader that remained true to American principles of the individual over government, sense of duty toward neighbors, and expansion of freedom. Moreover, Reagan was a man with vision on a grand scale. He knew America's greatest achievement was spreading democracy throughout the world. He was resolute in this endeavor and faced each challenge with both vigilance and grace. No American did more to spread the gift of liberty and respect for human dignity to people who had never enjoyed them. No American did more to persuade our Nation that the contribution of democracy and human rights to all is the proper goal of the United States. Throughout our history, when evil and iniquity has been the common enemy, Americans have displayed a resolve to create a better country and a better world. Ronald Reagan personified that American trait. Reagan's service is considered recent in history's timeline, but his character and deeds are a model of leadership for all time. We need to remember in our hearts the dedication to higher purpose. We are duty- bound to advance each society to Ronald Reagan's shining city on the hill. Thank you Mr. Speaker. I conclude by saying that this week's passing should not be seen as the loss of a man but rather the beginning of a legend.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I wholly support an immigration policy designed to enhance the economic, social and cultural well-being of the United States of America. I am looking forward to working on immigration policy as a member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims. I intend to carry out the responsibility for crafting the immigration and naturalization policy that was delegated to Congress by our Constitution. Immigrants have made, and will continue to make, a valuable contribution to our Nation. I will work to develop an immigration policy that aids in the assimilation of newcomers by ensuring that the United States does not admit more immigrants than it can reasonably accommodate. Assimilation is valuable to immigrants who benefit from our shared American culture of personal responsibility, freedom and patriotism. The values shared by our civilization, founded on a heritage of western civilization, religious freedom and free enterprise capitalism, serve immigrants and native born alike. I am concerned that the recent rise in immigration levels in this country will make it difficult for newcomers to assimilate and find jobs. We must ensure cultural continuity for our great Nation. As Americans, we should promote a naturalization process that promotes American values, the responsibilities of citizenship and our constitutional principles. We must be careful to admit only as many newcomers as we can accommodate with jobs so that our society will not be burdened by unemployed immigrants. Candidates for naturalization should be proficient in the English language. Not only will English proficiency help newcomers attain better paying jobs, it also provides a means of communication with all Americans. For this reason, I have recently introduced the English Language Unity Act of 2003, H.R. 997 to declare English the official language of the United States. Finally, as a sovereign nation, we must control our borders. We must ensure that terrorists do not infiltrate the United States. We must tighten and strengthen border control efforts so that illegal aliens do not enter our country. I support elimination of the visa lottery which gives randomly selected individuals visas, when many law abiding would- be immigrants are waiting to have their applications approved. I am also concerned about the enforcement of immigration laws within our borders. I hope that this Congress will be vigilant in our oversight of the enforcement of existing immigration laws and make necessary changes to existing laws.