Ted Poe

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood).

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, as a former criminal court judge, I always thought it was necessary and important at sentencing to let the defendant know and the victim know what society thought of the criminal behavior. I know the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) who is here and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) also did the same thing when they sentenced individuals. Judge William Young of the United States District Court sentenced the so-called shoe bomber who took a shoe and made a bomb out of it and got on an airplane. He sentenced this terrorist and did a similar thing, letting the defendant know what society thought of his criminal behavior. Prior to sentencing, as all judges do, Judge Young asked Richard Reid if he had anything to say. First he admitted his guilt and then, for the record, he pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam and to the religion of Allah, and defiantly stated in open court, ``I think I will not apologize for my actions,'' and told the Court, ``I am at war with this country.'' Judge Young then delivered the following statement. ``Mr. Richard Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes on you. Court has found you guilty of all crimes committed and sentences you to first, 3 life sentences, 4, 20 year sentences stacked, which means that is 80 years, 1 30-year sentence and one $2 million.'' He also ordered restitution to the victim and to American Airlines. Then he told the defendant the following: The life sentences are real life sentences, so I need to go no further. These are fair and just sentences. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain to you this, Mr. Reid. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co- conspirators. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. Here in court we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings we reach out for justice. You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are just a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature in this court. If you think you are a soldier, you are not. You are just a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice. You are a big fellow now but you are not that big. You are no warrior. I have known warriors. You are just a terrorist, a species of criminal that is guilty of multiple murders or attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you were first taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press was and where the TV cameras were and he said to you, you are no big deal. Well, sir, you are no big deal. I have listened respectfully to what you have had to say and I ask you to search in your heart and ask yourself what sort of hate led you to do what you are guilty of and that you admit to being guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as far as I am concerned, in this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know. It seems to me you hate the one thing that is most precious to me and to our country. You hate freedom. You hate our freedom, our individual freedom, our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come as we go, to believe or not to believe. And here in this society the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea and even across the seas. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed these appeals. We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that this is the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, it is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we bear any burden, pay any price to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten, but this however will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States, through his officers will have to come into the courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather and judge all individuals. And finally, Mr. Reid, you see that flag? That is the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. It stands for justice. It always has, it always will. Mr. Officer, that has the defendant in custody, take him away. Judge Young, you are to be commended for such words.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, the Sabine-Neches Riverway between Texas and Louisiana is the main shipping channel for two Texas ports in Beaumont and Port Arthur. These are energy ports and military displacement ports. One-third of the military cargo going to and from Iraq and Afghanistan goes through this channel. The port of Beaumont has already loaded or unloaded more pieces of military cargo than any other commercial port in the United States. The port also is lined with numerous petrochemical plants and refineries. Shipments of oil, jet fuel, and liquified natural gas enter the United States through this channel. Eleven percent of the Nation's gasoline goes through this port. But there is a problem. The Corps of Engineers does not have enough money to keep the channel dredged, so silt is creeping into the channel, ships are now having to travel the riverway without being fully loaded or they will drag bottom. To keep from dragging bottom, ships are now being loaded with one foot less amount of energy or fuel. One foot difference costs Americans $30 million a year in gasoline prices, or 3 cents a gallon more. The channel must be dredged or our energy situation will suffer and the consumer will pay more for gasoline. The channel must be dredged for strategic reasons so that we can get our troops the military equipment they deserve. Congress just authorized $23 billion of foreign aid. Maybe the Sabine-Neches Riverway Authority needs to apply for this foreign aid to get the more than $13 million it needs to maintain this American channel. Mr. Speaker, this ought not to be.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa yielding, and I appreciate his passion for the Constitution. The gentleman is very familiar with that sacred document and the history of the document, and the gentleman, as he does always, carries a copy of it in his pocket in case somebody wants to read it. As a former judge, I appreciate the fact that the gentleman is beholden to the Constitution. I was just counting up the years of judicial service between the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) and myself. The three of us have been on the bench with over 50 years of judicial experience. Having served in Houston for over 22 years, I tried only criminal cases. I tried about 25,000 felony cases, numerous death penalty cases, and they were all criminal cases. I say that because the PATRIOT Act deals with crime, it deals with international terrorists. As judges, we dealt with local terrorists. The Constitution is that sacred document that we have always been sworn to uphold. I think my record, as well as these two judges' records, speaks pretty clearly that we are strong law-and-order judges, if we can use that phrase. People that were convicted in my court, they were held to a high standard and there were consequences for those actions. Some of them are serving long sentences even tonight. But also I, too, am a very strong supporter of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. Some people think that a former law-and- order judge or a law-and-order judge is not a person who supports the Constitution. That is just not true. The first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, make us really a unique type of country because we show the worth of the individual. The PATRIOT Act, some have been concerned about the allegations in the PATRIOT Act, whether or not it puts a dent in those Bill of Rights. I have studied the document, including the amendments tonight that were passed. I think all of those amendments and the document itself proves a point, that in this country we can have civil rights, individual liberty, and we can have security. We can have both. History has always shown that people, all people throughout the world, were willing to give up freedom in the name of security, democratic countries and non-democratic countries. But in this country, we, through the PATRIOT Act, are continuing to show we can have both, we can have security and we can have civil liberties. The PATRIOT Act does support that. I do not believe there has been one provision of the PATRIOT Act that has gone to court for judicial review that has been found unconstitutional. I think that is worth noting, that not one section has been found unconstitutional. The PATRIOT Act calls for judicial review, as all of our laws should call for judicial review, and to make sure that judges throughout the land review the action of law enforcement. That is the standard of conduct in this country, it always has been and it always will be. The PATRIOT Act supports that. So I am quite a supporter of the PATRIOT Act, especially as it has passed the House, as the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) says, with bipartisan support. It is something that is necessary. There has been a lot of scare tactics that have been used and rhetoric about the PATRIOT Act, but the bottom line is the people who commit crimes against us need to fear the rule of law, need to fear the consequences for violating our safety and our freedom. In this country we do have a lot of freedom, but yet we take a lot of precautions. Most folks tonight are doing the same thing before they went into their homes. Wherever they are in the United States, they probably locked the doors. They probably put chains on the front door and deadbolts. Some people sleep with bars on their windows. We do that because of crime, of local criminals, outlaws and terrorists. That is a way that we have chosen to live because of the nature of criminal conduct in this country. I think the PATRIOT Act is a statement that we are not going to live in fear, we are not going to live in terror, and we are not going to be afraid of those people who threaten us in remote portions of the world and come to try to make us continue to be imprisoned in our own homes, in our actions each day. So I think this act goes a long way in making sure that we have freedom in this country and that we have liberty in this country and that we have security in this country, to let people know, woe be to you if you choose to commit a crime against the people of the United States, because this act gives law enforcement the ability to track those people down, hunt those people down and bring them to justice. That is really what the Constitution is about. So I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding, and I will yield back to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my special order at this time.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, the United States tracks cattle from where they are born as calves on ranches in Wyoming, Montana, and Texas to the slaughterhouses of the Midwest, to the butcher shops of the Northeast, to our supper tables where they end up as steaks. We have even tracked a mad cow born in Canada 3 years ago to some remote barn in Washington. We have not only tracked this mad cow, but all her calves in their different locations in the United States. Mr. Speaker, we know where the cattle are, but why is it that we can track one mad cow but the Federal Government cannot seem to locate 10 to 14 million illegal people living in the United States, people who have invaded our land and disrespected our rule of law. Someone has suggested that we give all people illegally coming across our borders a cow, and then let the Agricultural Department keep up with them and do the job the immigration people refuse to do. Our Federal Government needs to be just as concerned about the illegal people coming into the United States as we are about some sick cow coming from Canada. Mr. Speaker, this ought not to be.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, I want to speak today about how to come to America. Millions of people apply for visas every year, and 90 percent of the people that legally come to this country do so through an immediate family member. If someone has a mother, father, brother, sister or spouse in the United States, they may apply for immigrant visas. They go to the United States consulate, fill out the appropriate paperwork, and then they wait, and continue to wait. It is a long process even when they are fully eligible. According to the State Department, unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens that are in Mexico or some other foreign country that applied in 1983 are just now being considered for immigration status. Twenty years is too long to make people wait to enter the United States legally. So while thousands of immigrants patiently wait, millions are sneaking in illegally and exploiting and disregarding American laws every day. Madam Speaker, I would like to bring to your attention the illegal way to come to America. An illegal can walk to the local Mexican flea market, purchase a combination of fake documents. For $100 or $200, an illegal can purchase a fake green card as well as a fake Social Security card with the number picked at random. They can borrow someone else's Social Security number, and the next step is crossing the border. This does not seem to be too difficult, especially since the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations has made available to Mexican migrants that want to come to the United States this extensive book on how to come to America, even illegally. The cover of this book, Guide for the Mexican Migrant. Throughout this book it shows possible scenarios that could occur to the migrant. First of all, it shows how to cross the border. You run across. If you come across an American border agent, how you handle that situation. It discusses how some places are not as safe as others to cross the border, and it talks about coyotes, those people who are bringing illegal individuals into the United States, and how to deal with those individuals. This book is extensive on how to come to America the illegal way published by the Mexican government. Once they get into the United States, it is simple to visit their local consular, and for $26 they can purchase a matricula consular card, which is a so-called identification card issued by the Mexican consulate to prove an illegal immigrant's identity. This card has been pushed onto the United States Federal Government. The Mexican government wants the Federal Government to use these identification cards, but the Federal Government refuses to do so. So Mexican consulates are going to local communities, local governments and trying to get them and businesses to use this document. The card resembles a driver's license and is becoming widely accepted as a form of identification at many of the Nation's banks, car dealerships, insurance companies, and even in some States they are allowing individuals to purchase or get driver's licenses based upon this document. It is so widely accepted that many companies are spending millions of dollars marketing directly to these migrant card holders. It is a total lack of enforcement of our immigration law by the Federal Government that puts businesses in the United States in this precarious position. It seems to me to come to the United States is not that difficult. In May of this year, the Department of Homeland Security arrested 60 illegal immigrants who worked in 12 critical infrastructure sites in six States, including my home State of Texas. Illegal immigrants were working as subcontractors at seven petrochemical refineries, three electric power plants, and a pipeline facility. They were said to have presented phony documents and some of them had entered the country after being deported once before. Although this may sound distressing, it is not shocking considering that we require employers to accept 94 different documents to verify an employee's legal status. The United States policy makes businesses in the United States do the police work that the Federal Government ought to be doing. There seems to be a growing amount of fraud associated with Social Security cards as well. Illegal immigrants use fake Social Security cards, they buy legitimate Social Security cards from migrants, and some of them use the same Social Security card at different times. In 1986, the United States offered amnesty to millions of illegal individuals, and we are still suffering from that policy because it is estimated that 3 million of those immigrants received resident papers and went directly back to their homeland where they made a profit from loaning out those papers to other individuals in their homeland, and then they came to the United States and used them. Most of this is taking place unbeknownst to the employer that unknowingly accepted the fraudulent document in the first place. Not only is this widespread use of fake documents deplorable, it is also detrimental to homeland security. Eighteen of the 19 hijackers possessed either a State-issued or counterfeit driver's license or ID, and all 19 of them had obtained some sort of Social Security number. And the word has gotten out. Due to the widespread acceptance of the matricula consular card, other countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, and even Poland are preparing to issue similar cards for their own citizens that come to the United States illegally; and why not? Clearly we are not punishing those that continue to break the law and exploit America's compassion to other foreign citizens. Madam Speaker, if the United States expects to solve the immigrant problem, we must come up with a plan to stop the widespread use of fraudulent documents. If we are truly, as ``Business Week'' puts it, ``embracing illegals,'' then our homeland is at risk.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today to offer an amendment which would clarify congressional intent regarding the medical clearance process for people wishing to work in the Foreign Service as a Foreign Service officer at one of our 263 embassy posts throughout the world. If someone wants to work in one of our embassies, they must have worldwide availability. This means that someone must be able to work in any region of the world without having medical conditions that would put them at risk. Many of the areas where these Foreign Service officers are placed do not have hospitals or medical facilities to treat many types of conditions that are treated here in the United States, including Type I diabetes, severe hypertension, cancer and various psychiatric disorders. These people would have to have several emergency medical evacuations per year from the region in which they are located back to the States. Each evacuation would cost an average of about $6,000. Hiring people that do not meet this worldwide availability requirement is irresponsible. It puts that person's life at risk and it costs several tens of thousands of dollars extra to facilitate emergency treatments. This amendment then would clarify the conditions for worldwide availability, create a new appeals process to ensure that every applicant is given fair consideration. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, I want to say as one of the new Members of Congress and serving on the International Relations Committee, I appreciate the example that the chairman of the committee and ranking member set for all members of the International Relations Committee on how both sides of the committee can work together to achieve goals that are best for the United States. It would be my hope that other committees would work so well in getting the job done. A brutal campaign of village burnings, destruction of rice supplies and killings by Burma's military regime has resulted in the forcible displacement of between 500,000 and 1 million innocent civilians in Eastern Burma. Hundreds of thousands of these internal refugees that are called internally displaced peoples, or IDPs, they are persecuted for their strong commitment to democracy and their fervent belief in human rights. Regardless of what their religion may be, all of the IDP victims are being systematically hunted down by the evil military regime. The Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, which passed the United States Congress overwhelmingly, found that these acts add up to ethnic cleansing. Secretary of State Rice has rightfully called Burma one of the six outposts of tyranny in the world. My fellow colleagues on both sides of the aisle have echoed this sentiment. With all this said, virtually no humanitarian aid reaches those who have been driven from their homes in Eastern Burma. The Burmese military regime blocks all assistance. Shockingly, as a result of attacks and blocking this aid, child mortality and malnutrition rates are comparable to those recorded among the internally displaced population in the Horn of Africa. Even worse, maternal mortality rates are well above emergency levels. Acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, malaria, anemia are serious problems in this region. This is a bona fide humanitarian crisis which we in the United States need to address. I would like to thank the chairman and the ranking member of the International Relations Committee for their strong and bipartisan support of this amendment. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. POE. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. POE. Madam Chairman, following the encouragement and example of the chairman of the committee to be brief, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POE. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. POE. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, Cary Ann Medlin, 8, Tennessee; Nicole Parker, 8, California; Chris Byers, 8, Arkansas; Sherrice Iverson, 7, Nevada; Amanda Brown, 7, Florida; Christina Long, 13, Connecticut; Michelle Vick, 14, Washington; Samantha Runnion, 5, California; Maryann Measles, 13, Connecticut; Polly Klaas, 12, California; Amber Hagerman, 9, Texas; Adam Walsh, 6, Florida; Megan Kanka, 7, New Jersey; JonBenet Ramsey, 6, Colorado; Sarah Lundy, 13, Florida; Danielle Van Dam, 7, California. Carlie Brucia, 11, Florida; Jessica Lunsford, 9, Florida; Dylan Groene, 9, Idaho. Madam Speaker, unfortunately, this list of abducted and ultimately murdered children goes on and on and on. And if the sadness of their stolen lives is not enough, many of these precious young people were also brutally raped and sexually assaulted before they were murdered. Madam Speaker, these are some of their stories. Dru Sjoden: Dru was a happy, happy child. Her cheerful personality was evident from the day she entered this world. As a child, she was dedicated to being a good student. She was active in gymnastics, swimming, track and skiing. She was artistic from a very young age, and art was her number one love. Through her creativity, her passion for art, she was always creating handmade cards and crafts for her friends and sent them to members of her family. She enjoyed the outdoors and fishing. She constantly thought of other people. She was nominated and won Homecoming Queen during her senior year at high school. She attended college at the University of North Dakota and was just as popular among her college friends as she was among her high school friends. Madam Speaker, this is a photograph of Dru shortly before this 22- year-old University of North Dakota student was murdered. She left her job at the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, North Dakota, at 4 p.m. on November 22, 2003, and she was never seen alive again. Her body was found in April of 2004, thrown in a ravine in Minnesota. She was talking with her boyfriend on her cell phone when he heard her say, ``Oh, my God.'' Then her phone went dead. Chris Lang, her boyfriend, received another call from Drew's phone a few hours later, but there was only static on the other end of the line. On December 1, 2003, although her body had yet to be found, Alfonzo Rodriguez, Jr., a registered sex offender from Minnesota who had recently completed a 23-year prison term, was charged with abducting Dru Sjoden. After Drew's body was discovered on April 17, 2004, near where Rodriguez lived, a Federal Grand Jury charged Rodriguez with kidnapping and murder. Because the victim was transported from North Dakota to Minnesota, it was a Federal crime under the old Lindburgh baby kidnapping case. The defendant will be tried in Fargo, North Dakota, next March. Madam Speaker, the indictment alleges that the murder was done ``in an especially cruel and harmful and depraved manner, including torture and constant abuse.'' The defendant, two previous convictions in Minnesota for sexual assault and rape, once at knife point, has also another conviction after he left the penitentiary for kidnapping. Dru was 22 when she was murdered. Dru is the same age as my youngest daughter, Kellee Lyn. You know, daughters are special to fathers, and to lose a child by any means, especially violence, is a tragedy to any family. The government in this case is seeking the death penalty against the offender, and rightfully so. Dru Sojun, 22. Carlie Brucia is remembered best by some of the things her grandmother said about her. ``She has been described as blond and bubbly. Carlie was affectionate, a great hugger, and when she was in New York, she loved to go to the movies with her dad, go shopping and go out for ice cream, things little kids like to do. Her favorite ice cream was mint chocolate chip. Her grandmother says, I always had that in the House for her when she visited me. ``When she came to our house, we would shoot baskets in the driveway. She would shoot those with Aunt Jeannie; play softball in the back yard with her other Aunt Katelyn, and the rest of the family. We would have barbecues, and she loved to roast marshmallows. It's a beautiful memory thinking about Carlie with her sticky fingers and marshmallows all around her mouth. What a cutey. ``She liked music. She especially liked Jennifer Lopez; knew all the words to every song, and would sing on the radio when Jennifer Lopez would come on. ``Carlie liked to help her dad out at home, especially when her dad had the family over for dinner. She pitched right in, helped him with all the chores, serving, and cleaning up after supper. I can picture her loading up the dishwasher,'' says her grandmother. She was a good student. Voted most popular, best math whiz at McIntosh Middle School. Carlie Brucia, 11: She was a real person, Madam Speaker, like all of the people I will be talking about tonight. This is who she was, before life was stolen from her by an offender, a sexual predator. Carlie Brucia, 11, disappeared on February 1, 2004. She was walking home from a friend's house in Sarasota, Florida. A surveillance camera behind a car wash taped Carlie's abduction by a man. This sixth grader may have walked through the car wash parking lot as a shortcut to go home. Friends described her as a beautiful girl who loved watching Jennifer Lopez. She liked to go the mall, greet friends with a warm hug, and she was headed home from a slumber party when she was abducted. Carlie's remains were discovered 5 days later, a few miles from the car wash where a surveillance camera captured the image of her abduction. The defendant, Joseph Smith: The Sarasota police questioned Joseph Smith who had been in their custody since the day after Carlie was abducted on an unrelated parole violation. A woman who said that she lived with Smith was one of the tipsters who contacted the police. Of course, the defendant refused to admit anything and refused to admit his involvement with Carlie Brucia's disappearance until February 5, when he finally told investigators where he had dumped her body. On February 6, it was announced that Carlie Brucia's body had been found. She had been murdered and left in a church parking lot just miles from her home. Joseph Smith, 37-year-old car mechanic, father of three, had been arrested 13 times in Florida since 1993, had been charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, and he is the main suspect, of course, in this brutal murder. On February 20, Smith was indicted on first degree murder and separate charges of kidnapping, capital sexual battery and other charges. He has been to the courthouse before, Madam Speaker. Aggravated battery, carrying a knife, possession of heroin with intent to sell, possession of blank prescriptions, possession of drugs without a prescription, intent to obtain controlled substances by fraud, possession of cocaine. All of those resulted in convictions of this sexual predator. November 7th of this year the defendant will see his day in court, where the State of Florida has charged him with capital murder. Carlie Brucia, 11. Madam Speaker, Jessica Lunsford was born in Gastonia, North Carolina. She came to Florida a year ago. She was her grandma's girl. Grandma called her ``my daughter'' from the time she was one. Jessica's mother and dad split up about that time. She and Grandma Ruth loved to go shopping together. They would go to JCPenney's. They would go to the mall, and Jessica Lunsford especially liked Wal-Mart. Jessica wanted to be an Olympic swimmer; a fashion designer. She would cut up old dress-up clothes and make clothes for her dolls. She and her grandma collected dolls together and would make clothes for them. She loved the Disney Channel, and she had a collection of Disney videos. She especially loved, The Princess Diaries. Church was a big part of Jessica's short life, and she was a big part of the Faith Baptist Church in Homosassa, Florida. She attended what is called the King's Kids Wednesday night program. There were 35 kids in this bible school class, and she was one of six who recently memorized the names of all the books of the New Testament. She even had a favorite verse memorized, Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. She was daddy's girl, and she would call her father, Mark Lunsford, as soon as she got home from school each day. She would visit him at work and she liked to play in a sand pile. Just before she disappeared, she had been to the State fair, where Mark had gone with her and bought that now famous pink hat that she has on in a photograph. Jessica did not like hearing about people being harmed and hurt, and she never liked to see anybody cry. Madam Speaker, Jessica Lunsford was a real person. She was a little girl. She was daddy's girl. She is shown in this photograph with that hat she had on that Mark had given her. Nine years old, life stolen from her because of a sexual predator. That person, John Couey, was a convicted sex offender. He was staying down the street in a mobile home, even though he did not use this as his registered address, as he was required by law to do. Where he was staying was near the Lunsford home. And unbeknownst to the Lunsfords, he was on watch of their activities. Here is what he said he did. He said he snuck into Jessica Lunsford's house through an unlocked door at about 3 o'clock in the morning, February 24. He kidnapped Jessica and took her to his place, his bedroom. With Jessica in his custody, Couey said that he watched the sheriff's command center pull up in front of the Lunsford home. He put Jessica in his closet, where he kept her till he was ready to abuse her. He said, after he was through with her, he decided he would bury her after he learned that the Citrus County Sheriff's Department was looking for him. So the weekend after Jessica's disappearance, in rainy weather and fog, he decided to do his dastardly deed of murdering this little girl. After having his way with this 9-year-old for as many times as he wished, keeping her locked up in the closet, he decided it was time to get rid of her. So he took this 9-year-old girl, he tied her hands and feet with stereo wire. He wrapped her inside two large plastic garbage bags. He dug a hole, and he buried her alive. She suffocated to death. Jessica Lunsford, when she was found, was still clutching the tiny blue stuffed dolphin she had taken from her bedroom when she was stolen in the middle of the night by John Couey. The police found where she had poked her fingers through the plastic bag seeking air to breathe. That is the way that Jessica Lunsford died. John Couey. Well, who is he? He is a convicted sex offender with a criminal history a mile long. It includes 24 arrests and goes back over 30 years. Two of the arrests were allegations of home invasions, where he had molested little girls. Madam Speaker, I have talked to Mark Lunsford at length. He is a good guy. He loved his daughter, as all fathers do. Girls are special to those of us who are fathers, and he says he will never get over the fact that he lost his daughter and the way that she was murdered. Of course, he will not get over it. And hopefully, none of us in this United States will get over it. Jessica Lunsford, 9, State of Florida. Madam Speaker, Dylan and Shasta Groene were declared missing May 16 this year after police found the beaten and bound bodies of their mother, their older brother, and their mother's boyfriend. Shasta was discovered on July 2, just a couple of weeks ago, in a local restaurant with Joseph Edward Duncan, III, of course, a registered sex offender who had fled Fargo, North Dakota. Human remains were discovered at a remote western Montana campsite later, and they were identified on July 10, a few days ago, of those of Dylan Groene, 9 years of age. Investigators have not revealed what they believe happened to Dylan or how long they believe the boy was alive after the children's mother, 13-year-old brother, and their mother's boyfriend were beaten to death. Sheriff Rocky Watson has said he believes the motive for the killings was to acquire these two children for sex. Watson also said authorities believe the family was chosen at random, but the attack was carefully planned and executed by the criminal. The police have interviewed Shasta, the daughter, a couple of times, and the details are agonizing and slow in being revealed, but she has provided helpful information. Sheriff Watson does not go into all the facts and say what he believes happened to the girl and to Dylan, but those actions are not good. Dylan, he was 9. Like the others that I have mentioned, he was a real person. He wanted to live like all kids, but he never made it to his 10th birthday because of the criminal, this individual by the name of Duncan. Duncan: By the time he was 16, he had committed 13 rapes. In 1980, Duncan was arrested for breaking into a neighbor's house, stealing guns and then accosting a 14-year-old boy and raping him at gun point. He was convicted of rape and sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in the penitentiary. However, in lieu of prison, somebody sent Duncan to the Sex Offender Treatment Center at Western State Hospital. In 1980, an evaluation at Western State Mental Hospital found that Duncan, who was only 17, met the definition of a sexual psychopath. Western State Hospital had given up on Duncan. He was 19, and he announced that he wanted to leave treatment and serve the rest of the time in prison. So he served 14 years for the rape and three more for parole violations. When he got out of the penitentiary, he moved to Fargo, North Dakota. Duncan, after leaving the penitentiary, he decided to create a blog on the Internet, and many of the entries appear to focus on his own sexual abuse crimes; he seems to be proud of it; and his rage over how sex offenders are treated in our community. Brenda Groene and her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, and 13-year-old Slade Groene were killed in their home some time on May 15 by Joseph Edward Duncan, III. They were beaten to death. Duncan, after kidnapping Shasta, he told her what he did to these other three before he murdered them. He said he had watched the house and specifically had watched her for 2 or 3 days. At night, he would peer inside the home, and he said it was simple. He said he used a night vision goggle set to learn about the family's layout before breaking into the home. Duncan was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in the bludgeoning deaths of this family. He bragged to Shasta about killing her family with a hammer and even taunted her with the hammer after he had kidnapped her. McKenzie, Brenda Groene's boyfriend, took the kids fishing to Wolf Lodge Creek to catch crawdads. The last time Dylan's father, Steve, saw Dylan and Slade alive was about 3 weeks before the murders. They spent the weekend with him. Dylan and Slade liked to play games on PlayStation. Dylan, 4 feet, 60 pounds, blond crewcut, blue eyes, and 9 years of age when he was murdered. Madam Speaker, Sarah Lunde was 13. She led a troubled life because she was abused as a child, so she sought peace with her church group. She was last seen on April 9, 2005, shortly after she returned home from a church trip and about the time a registered sex offender unexpectedly paid a visit to her home. The teen was reported missing Monday when her mother learned she was not at a friend's home and reported that to the police. Investigators found Sarah Lunde's body abandoned in a fish pond on April 16, 2005. Madam Speaker, Sarah Lunde, she was a real person as well, a child in our community of children. David Onstott, he was a convicted sex offender, 35, and he has been arrested for the murder of Sarah Lunde. Onstott has been indicted for first-degree murder, sexual battery. He confessed to choking Sarah to death, dumping her partly clad body in a pond near her home in rural Hillsborough County, Florida. He has a lengthy history of violence against women, sexual deviance and failure to even pay child support. He once beat a man with a baseball bat, and later, he was accused of attacking another with a machete. He once stalked a former girlfriend and scared her so badly she moved to a different city. He was a heavy drinker, and he liked to use cocaine. He was convicted in August 1995 of raping a 25-year-old woman in Florida. During the sentencing phase of that trial, his former wife and step-daughter testified against him. Onstott's ex-wife testified he raped her repeatedly and even fondled the 16-year-old daughter. He was a registered sex offender. In November 1990, Onstott picked up the step-daughter from school, fondled her and even left marks on her chest. In May, David Onstott, the convicted sex offender, was in jail and charged with the murder of Sarah Lunde. While in jail awaiting trial, he was caught trying to dig his way out of the jail. He had stolen some type of metal object and was digging into the concrete floor. He waits for his day in court. Sarah Lunde, 13. Madam Speaker, the assault on children continues. The last example I would like to discuss occurred in Houston, Texas. It happened this year. I want to read and paraphrase from different articles of the Houston Chronicle which relate the events better than I can. According to the Houston Chronicle, on February 4, 2005, a 6-month-old little girl showed up at Texas Children's Hospital severely abused, physically and sexually, and was put on life support by the hospital authorities. She was only able to breathe because she was on a respirator. This 6- month-old little girl had been penetrated and raped vaginally and anally. Her tongue had been severed almost completely off. The baby, mind you, six months of age, was in critical condition at the hospital. The baby's parents were arrested, put in police custody and charges have been filed against them. According to the hospital authorities, one said, ``it is the worst case I have ever seen where a child has suffered such horrific types of injuries and is still alive . . . The pain that this baby girl must have suffered.'' Doctors have found other signs of abuse since the baby's admittance. The parents, who are not married, are in their early 20s. They took this child to Doctor's Parkway Hospital and told the staff she had some problems. The medical staff obviously became suspicious of abuse and transferred the 6-month-old baby and another child, a 15-month-old, the sister of the 6-month-old, to Texas Children's Hospital. Texas Children's Hospital examined both of the kids and noticed that the 15- month-old had an old broken rib and skull fractures. Children's protective services took official legal custody of both girls, and the 15-month-old is now in foster care. When the 15-month-old was a month old, she suffered a fracture to her leg. She also had hemorrhaging in different parts of her body which was indicative of shaken baby syndrome, according to child protective services. They are not sure who did this, so the father was charged with injury of a child in December 2003, but for some reason, the case was dismissed in October. Once again, this is the 15-month-old daughter. The mother had gone to some parenting classes and some therapy and told some officials that she had left the older child with the father and was living with her parents, but for some reason, the toddler was sent home to her mother. These children are vulnerable. They cannot tell anyone, and they do not have anyone to turn to. According to the Houston Chronicle, the 6-month-old was still fighting for her life. She had been physically and sexually abused. She was covered with brutal injuries, according to the police. She has been partly blinded by the injuries, and now, the parents, Ivan Castaneda, 22, and Donna Marie Norman, 19, are each charged with injury to a child and being held without bond. If this 6-month-old dies, they would be charged with capital murder. This little girl, however, is a remarkable person. Even though she had been admitted to the hospital in February, her kidneys ceased functioning, she was put on dialysis, she had skull fractures, injuries to her lungs, liver, kidneys and her eyes, she continues to live and continues to live to this day. I have talked to Lieutenant Stanley of the Houston Police, and he said that the investigators investigating these cases are having difficulty handling the abuse that they personally saw. However, the 6- month-old has defied all odds. The reddish-haired infant, described as the miracle baby, has been released to a family that hopes to adopt her. The baby has been in hospital for some time, but according to a hospital spokesperson, it was a great day because this child survived the most brutal of all attacks. Physically and sexually abused, every part of her body bruised, but some way she survived. So they call her wonder baby, six months. She lived to the age of six months when she was physically and sexually abused, but today she is still alive. She is the only person I will talk about tonight that survived these brutal attacks. Madam Speaker, these are just a few stories of real people, real children in our communities that were preyed on by some sexual predator. There is some hope, however. Things are happening to protect children in the United States. Here in Washington, D.C., we have the National Children's Alliance. It was the idea of the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer) who sits on the other side of the aisle, proof that child abuse, child protection, is a bipartisan issue. What this National Children's Alliance does is protect children that have been abused and sexually assaulted throughout the country. There are some 400 different centers where children who are assaulted sexually can go and be treated. Their medical and emotional needs can be met, and they can be interviewed so criminal prosecution can take place against the perpetrator. We probably have the best one of these centers in Houston, Texas, called the Children's Assessment Center. The reason for these centers is this: It used to be, when I first started prosecuting cases and then when I was a criminal court judge, when a crime was committed against a child, especially a sexual assault crime, the system continued to sometimes commit crimes against the child. The justice system was not really justice for the kid. What I mean is, they would be interviewed by a police officer, then taken to a hospital and interviewed by medical personnel. They would sit in the emergency room with other people, sometimes for hours. Then they would go downtown and be interviewed by the police. And sometimes, the children would be on the elevator at the police station, and who else would be on the elevator? The perpetrator going to be interviewed for the criminal conduct. They would be bounced around all over the city, interviewed by different prosecutors. But now, thankfully, because of the National Children's Alliance and the Children's Assessment Center in Houston, those days are over. When kids are sexually assaulted, they go to one center where all of their needs are met. They are interviewed. Their physical needs are met. When they are continuing to need more physical or mental therapy later, they go back to this same center. The people that are there are experts in child sexual assault cases and those people are available for trial when the perpetrator is caught and his day in court arrives. That is some good news. Unfortunately, we have to have these centers throughout the United States where children go who are sexually abused by the predators in our community. Mr. Speaker, this year before the House and the Senate, it was learned that money that goes to protect victims of crime was being depleted and removed from the budget. Let me explain. In 1994, the President of the United States established what is called VOCA funding, Victims of Crime Act. What that allows is for a person who is convicted of a Federal crime, they contribute moneys into a fund and that money goes to victims of crime for their medical and physical needs. What a wonderful idea, make criminals pay for the system that they have created by establishing this VOCA fund. Once again, this is not money that is obtained from taxpayers. It is obtained from criminals. This year there was about $1.6 billion in the VOCA funding, and there was an attempt and thought to remove this money and put it into the general fund. Thanks to the efforts of numerous victims groups throughout the United States and individuals on both sides of the aisle in not only the House but the Senate, that fund has been restored and victims organizations throughout the United States will be able to get that funding. Where does it go? It goes to domestic violence shelters. It goes to child abuse sexual assault centers like the Children's Assessment Center and numerous organizations that receive funds that criminals have contributed. That is some good news. Mr. Speaker, we have also started this year the Victims Rights Caucus. I, along with the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa) from the other side of the aisle, have started the first-ever Victims Rights Caucus to raise the profile, the plight of victims throughout the United States. This is a good start. It is important that judges throughout the United States be on the first line of defense of our children. What I mean by that is when individuals are caught sexually assaulting our children and they come to court and they have their day in court and they are convicted, judges need to understand they have a responsibility to punish those individuals. We need to lock them up. That is why we build prisons. It may be important to prosecute thieves and drug dealers and all those other types of criminals, but we build prisons to house and warehouse people who commit sex crimes against our children. That is why we build those institutions and judges have an obligation to send them there. The cases that I recited earlier, many of them, they had gone to prison, but not for long enough because they got out and did it again. We know the fact that almost everybody who goes to prison gets out eventually. We also know this about sexual predators on our children, that the overwhelming number of them, when they leave the penitentiary, repeat that conduct. So we have an obligation when they get out of the penitentiary to keep up with them, to track them, so they can no longer haunt our schools, our Boy Scouts, our churches and our neighborhoods. That is why I introduced legislation called the Child Predator Act of 2005. This legislation requires registration of sex offenders throughout the United States. When they cross State lines, we lose them. They fall through the cracks. This legislation will require them to register when they move across State lines, they must notify the community; and by failure to notify, they have committed a Federal offense. This act, this bill, has been incorporated in a larger bill sponsored by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), sponsors from both sides of the House, called the Child Safety Act. This bipartisan legislation, when hopefully passed this summer, is a measure that will protect the safety of children. It will allow for the Internet access of parents and law enforcement of those sexual predators that live in their communities. States will be required to notify each other when an individual who is a sex offender crosses State lines. There are numerous other provisions that protect children from sex offenders. But basically we will track these individuals when they leave the penitentiary, and we will track them for the rest of their lives. That is the price they pay when they choose to commit a crime against children. We know this about child predators: they are slick; they are cunning; they are evil. And they continue to repeat their conduct. Most sexual predators that show up at the courthouse that have committed sex crimes against children, it is understood that they have committed several sex crimes against that one victim and that there are at least 10 other victims that they have committed sex crimes against. There is a war on terror going on in this world, and we say it is somewhere else. We have a war on terror not only abroad but we have it at home. The terror here, they are child molesters. They are the bad guys. And they can no longer run and hide, because we are going to keep up with them. We know that they cannot be rehabilitated. All statistics show that. So if we do not keep them in prison, we need to track them when they leave the penitentiaries. It is probably the hope of most of us when we leave this world, when we die, that we want to be surrounded with the most important people in our life, probably our kids. This week I had my third grandchild born 2 days ago, Elizabeth. I have four kids, three girls, a son, and now three grandkids. They are all very special to me. I hope that when I die, I am surrounded by those kids. The worst thing I think that could ever happen to a parent is to lose a child and especially lose a child to a crime of violence. But none of these children that I talked about tonight left this world surrounded by the people that love them. They were found in holes in the ground, dumped on parking lots, thrown in rivers and lakes. Some of their bodies were burned. The last person they saw on Earth was not their mother, their father, their brother, their sister, but a sex offender. That is the last person they saw before they died. We need to be sensitive as a people to our children, not just our own personal kids but the children down the street, our neighbors' kids. We need to watch for them and protect them. We have that obligation. We have that moral and legal obligation as a people. These kids, these children, they had the right to life. They had the right to grow up, play in their backyard, go to school, have a picnic, run through the fields, believe in Santa Claus, play sports, be in the school play, be in the high school prom, find a mate. All these things were stolen from all of the kids that I mentioned to you tonight, and they were stolen by a child predator. We must hold these criminals accountable for their conduct. As a judge, I heard all types of excuses by these sexual predators about why they did what they did. Those comments by those individuals were nothing more than excuses. Some of them said they had a bad childhood. Their mom was not a nice person. They saw too much TV violence. They played video games. They watched the Internet. They continued to blame something or someone else for their own personal choices. Mr. Speaker, we now seem to live in the land of excusable conduct. All of us are responsible for the choices that we make. Every choice we make, we are personally responsible for that choice. We are accountable for making those choices, and those choices must result in consequences, regardless of what that crime is. Our greatest resource in this country is not our oil, it is not the trees in the West, it is not other natural resources, it is not our wealth. The greatest resource we have in the United States is our children. We as a people must realize that. We are not judged by the way we treat the rich, the famous, the influential, the important people in our culture. We are judged by the way we treat the weak, the innocent, the children. Children are our greatest natural resource. We have a legal and moral obligation to protect them. The first duty of government is public safety and providing safety for children should be our primary concern and the duty of government. Mr. Speaker, I close the way I began this comment, because I think the names of these people, these real people, these children, are names that we should not forget. Dru Sjoden, 22, North Dakota. Cary Ann Medlin, 8, Tennessee. Nicole Parker, 8, California. Chris Byers, 8, Arkansas. Sherrice Iverson, 7, Nevada. Amanda Brown, 7, Florida. Christina Long, 13, Connecticut. Michelle Vick, 14, Washington. Samantha Runnion, 5, California. Maryann Measles, 13, Connecticut. Polly Klaas, 12, California. Amber Hagerman, 9, Texas. Adam Walsh, 6, Florida. Megan Kanka 7, New Jersey. JonBenet Ramsey 6, Colorado. Sarah Lundy, 13, Florida. Danielle Van Dam, 7, California. Carlie Brucia, 11, Florida. Jessica Lunsford, 9, Florida. Dylan Groene, 9, Idaho. Wonderbaby, 6 months, Houston, Texas.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, on the hot humid night of July 6, 2005, in Houston, Texas, a police chase occurred. After midnight, a car driven by a criminal was fleeing from the police. His vehicle crashed into the gate of an apartment complex. The suspect, a Justin Doyle, jumped from his car and took off on foot fleeing from the law during the darkness. Deputy Constable Nehemiah Pickens had with others joined the police chase to capture this individual. Eventually, a shootout occurred and Deputy Pickens was killed while assisting in the pursuit of Doyle. Nehemiah Pickens was a member of the Harris County Constable's Unit, Precinct 6. He was 33 years of age. He is remembered as a hardworking family man who worked multiple security jobs in addition to his work as a police officer to support his wife and his three daughters. He was working a part-time security job when he was killed to obtain money for a new home. Tomorrow, he will be buried in Houston, Texas. In the wake of this tragedy, we are reminded that we must never take for granted the police officers of America that work every day to enforce the law. Deputy Pickens died doing what was his duty to protect, serve, and defend the people. As hundreds of police officers and law enforcement personnel, friends and family gather tomorrow for his funeral, our prayers go out to his family for allowing his life to be sacrificed for the rest of us.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, birth is a happy event for all peoples. We rejoice because we hope that child will make the world better. Every time a child is born, the Good Lord is making a bet on the future of mankind. We do not pick our parents, and we do not get to pick the country of our birth. And we who are born in the U.S.A. are the most fortunate of all people in the history of the world. Last night in Waco, Texas, about the time the sun was going down, 8:29 p.m., Elizabeth Lenna Alexander was born, 7 pounds 3 ounces, July 12, 2005. The world she has been born into is full of the good and the not so good. Our country must always be willing to protect the greatest resource, the innocent of our country, the soul of our future, our children. It is my hope that her parents, Kara and Shane Alexander, will raise Elizabeth with a sense of justice and compassion, community, courage, and a deep sense and concern for liberty. So Elizabeth, as your grandfather, I welcome you to the U.S.A. Make it a better place, a place of more freedom.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, America has the best public universities in the world. We have some of the best ones in Texas where I am from. Many Americans want to go to college. Parents want to send their kids to our public universities. Parents and students sometimes save for years to attend college. It is expensive, especially for the middle class. The rich can always pay; good for them. And the poor sometimes get grants and go to college, but it is the middle class that struggles, for a lifetime, sometimes, to send their kids to school. Some students decide to go a university in another State. They are penalized by that State and required to pay out-of-State tuition since they are from out of State. Citizens from other countries apply for Visas to come to the United States to go to public universities. If they are accepted, they pay out-of-State tuition since they are from out of State. These are citizens who come here legally and then go back to their native lands. But, Mr. Speaker, if a person is in the United States illegally, they can get admitted to State universities and pay in-State tuition. So if a person is illegally here from, let us say, France, they apply to a State university. If they are admitted, they pay in-State tuition. But they are from out of State, not to mention they should not even be here. They are violating American law by just their presence. So we continue to reward illegal behavior. This policy discriminates against American kids who want to go to, let us say, the University of Kansas from some other State. This policy also discriminates against foreign citizens who come here legally to go to college. It encourages more illegal immigration. College admissions are so competitive now that even allowing illegals to attend our universities may prevent American citizens from being accepted. And who pays for this nonsense? Americans pay. They always pay. We cannot continue to subsidize illegal immigration and the benefits illegals receive. There are several States that provide for in-State tuition for illegal individuals. The State that started this was my home State of Texas. If you go to the University of Texas and you are an in-State resident, you pay about $7,000. If you are from Oklahoma just across the Red River, you pay $10,000 more, about $17,000. Kansas, if you are an in-State resident, you pay about $5,000. Out of State, about $13,000, and the same is true in several other States. State University of New York: In State, $5,250; out of State, $11,200. University of Kansas: In State, $5,413, out of State, $13,865. University of Texas: In State, $7,438; out of State, $17,474. Mr. Speaker, this ought not to be. This penalizes American kids and rewards illegal conduct. This defies common sense.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I question whether the Defense Department in the base closing process has neglected the obvious: homeland security. No place does this appear more evident than Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. It is said that Ellington Air Force base with its F-16 fighters and National Guard units are of little military value. Without agreeing to that, I point out that over 8 million people live in the area. There are three major ports: the port of Houston, second largest in the United States, sixth in the world; Port Arthur; Port of Beaumont, where one third of the military cargo going to Iraq comes out of this one small port. The massive petrochemical and refineries in the region, Houston still is the energy capital of the world. Over one-half of the gasoline refined in the United States comes from this area. Of course, we have the nuclear power plant in southeast Texas, the largest medical center in the world, and then there is NASA. Mr. Speaker, I served in the United States Air Force and was stationed at Ellington Field, and the people of southeast Texas want Ellington. They want to keep those F-16s flying. When 9/11 hit, it was the F-16s at Ellington that flew over the blue skies of Texas on watch. It would defy common sense to take those fighters from this needed area of securing the homeland.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to the issue of illegal immigration that is perhaps the most important concern to my Texas constituents. I want to address just one matter, the cost. Government and academic estimates indicate there are 9 to 11 million illegal people living in the United States. Immigration officials estimate that the illegal population grows by as many as 500,000 a year; some say 4,000 a day cross into Texas from their southern border. Someone pays for this illegal activity, and that somebody is the American public, not the illegal immigrants. There is a tremendous strain on local and State communities because of unrestricted illegal immigration throughout Texas and the entire United States. While it is the Federal Government's responsibility to control immigration, it is the people of the States and local communities that pay the cost. They are the victims of illegal immigration. Those Americans spend millions of tax dollars on education, health care, and criminal justice for those that are here illegally. Donald Huddle, a Rice University economics professor, has done a study that estimated the cost that we pay for illegals in this country. This chart here shows that the American public pays approximately $32 billion a year for the cost of illegal immigrants, such as public education. It is about $5 billion Americans pay. Social security, $3 billion. Medicaid, $3 billion. Total cost to American taxpayers, about $32 billion a year we pay the cost of illegal immigration. When this study was done, the population of illegals in the United States was about 5 million. Now the population has doubled, and the costs have more than doubled. Besides these stunning costs, Americans have to pay for their own health care and their own education of their own kids. Many Americans cannot afford these costs for their own families, but they are made to pay the same costs for illegals. Mr. Speaker, education, public safety and basic health care are the roles provided primarily by our States and local communities. U.S. taxpayer dollars on the local level are used to pay for these services. Yet these communities are continuing to absorb more and more demand for these services while the resources to provide them cannot keep up. I would like to specifically point out some of the costs that citizens must provide: one, health care. Emergency rooms, the most expensive health care system, are used by illegal immigrants because of the compassion of Americans. We do not turn people down at these hospitals. If the immigrants do not pay, Americans pay. Some trauma centers in urban areas have closed because they cannot absorb the costs to pay. People are in the system who do not contribute to it financially. In Michigan, 23 criminal cases were filed alleging that pregnant women from Syria, Lebanon and Yemen flew into the United States, falsified information on Medicaid forms to cover those costs of delivering their babies, and then returned to their native countries within a few months. Americans paid for all of this criminal activity. Also, the quality of health care will diminish because those in the system are not paying their way. Second, education. The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that all kids in the United States would be provided a free education. This cost continues to rise due to the fact that Americans are paying for and educating kids illegally in the United States. Local property taxes continue to rise. And the quality of education will suffer. Why? Because there are people receiving from the education system, but are not contributing to it financially. Those are people that are here illegally. Just last year, California spent over $7 billion a year educating illegal immigrant children. Once again, our compassion for others is to the detriment of our own kids. In the criminal justice system, where I was a judge in Harris County, over 20 percent of the people in jail were illegally in the United States. Americans provided those individuals a defense attorney, a court system, a trial, and they paid for the incarceration if those individuals were convicted. Who pays for this? Americans. Americans always pay. Mr. Speaker, everybody wants to live in the United States, but not everybody can live here. We need rules that are fair, and people must respect our rule of law and our borders. American taxpayers cannot afford to pay for those here illegally who use our health care facilities, our education systems, and go through the criminal justice system. The failure of this Congress to act on correcting our broken immigration system trickles down to the communities which we all represent, especially those of us who represent border States. The American taxpayer is funding illegals, and we must put a stop to the problem sooner rather than later. If we continue to offer free education, health care services and provide a criminal justice system, are we not encouraging more illegals to come to the United States? This just ought not to be. 1996 COSTS TABLE FROM THE HUDDLE STUDY PROGRAMS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Education K-12.............................. $5,850,000,000 Public Higher Education............................ 710,000,000 ESL and Bilingual Education........................ 1,220,000,000 Food Stamps........................................ 850,000,000 AFDC............................................... 500,000,000 Housing............................................ 610,000,000 Social Security.................................... 3,610,000,000 Earned Income Tax Credit........................... 680,000,000 Medicaid........................................... 3,120,000,000 Medicare A and B................................... 58,000,000 Criminal Justice and Corrections................... 76,000,000 Local Government................................... 5,000,000,000 Other Programs..................................... 9,250,000,000

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Florida for allowing me this time and for doing this very important event to recognize the freedom that women have obtained because of the United States and the United States' policy with the world and the sacrifice of American troops. History will record the devil deeds of Saddam Hussein, the tyrant of the desert, especially his crimes against his own people, the women of Iraq. They cry out from their unmarked graves across the wastelands created by Saddam Hussein in the desert sands. Those women were raped and tortured. Some were beheaded in the presence of their own families, and after they were murdered, their bodies were abused. But on January 30, 2005, the women of Iraq spoke out for the living and for the dead. It was their chance to be a part of something that never before ever happened in that part of the world, a free election. The world, civilization, began between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Those civilizations have always had a form of government other than a democracy. They have had monarchies, dictatorships, tyrants, but never a democracy. I was privileged to be in Iraq on January 30, along with the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays). The two of us were there to witness this first free election. The skeptics, the critics, they said it would never happen, that the Iraqi people did not understand democracy, that they would not vote, they would not show up, that they were intimidated by the terrorists. Well, the sceptics, the critics, the cynics, were wrong yet again. Having been in Baghdad and Fallujah and other parts of northern Iraq, I went to those polling places, and when dawn came, the whole country was shut down to vehicular traffic. But, slowly and surely and defiantly, the Iraqi people walked to the polls. They took their families, they took their relatives, their neighbors. They were threatened that, if they voted, they would be killed, and, sure enough, 57 of them were murdered on election day going to or from the polls. One lady was murdered with her 8-year-old son as she left a voting place in northern Iraq, a school. Almost 300 others were wounded because they decided to exercise the right to be free and vote for their own rulers. But yet they voted, in spite of the intimidation. There was almost 60 percent voter turnout on that glorious election day, ``freedom day'' for the Iraqi people. The insurgents tried to intimidate. They tried to harm, they tried to murder those people, but they voted anyway, and, after they voted, they stayed around the polling places to watch this event. They took photographs of family members voting. Then, when they would leave the election polling booths, they would walk down the street with that right forefinger, ink-stained, held high in the air defiant to those terrorists, because the terrorists said, even with that marking, that would mark them to be murdered later. Yet they did not care, because freedom was more important to them. I talked to many Iraqis that day through an interpreter, and I remember one senior citizen, she was a senior-senior citizen, an Iraqi lady, and she told me through an interpreter that she had lost her son to the murderous Saddam Hussein, and she wanted to thank me for the sacrifice of our sons and daughters, American sons and daughters, that they had made it that she and her other Iraqi friends could vote that day. American troops are spreading liberty and freedom. They are liberating enslaved peoples. The best ambassadors for freedom that we have in the United States are our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan liberating those enslaved people. You know, the critics that say we should cut and run from Iraq now should remember that freedom has always cost. It has always cost all people who want to be free. And people in Iraq are free and are fighting continuously for this liberty because of Americans. I hope we all appreciate the sacrifice our troops are making and understand that they have done more for freedom and dignity, the freedom and dignity especially of women, than any sign-carrying protester. We should just ask those noble and brave Iraqi women that held their fingers high. My grandmother used to say, who was really the most influential person in my life, that there is nothing more powerful than a woman that has made up her mind. And I think we have seen in the Iraqi women, and I saw personally, that they have made up their mind to be free, that they will not be enslaved and abused or neglected any longer. And it is all because the United States believes in freedom for all people.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Words of Thomas Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence. As we end this evening tonight, Mr. Speaker, at midnight, and we go into the July Fourth weekend, we must remember these words of the Declaration of Independence and know that liberty has always cost, as we should remember the words of President Kennedy when he said, ``Let every Nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.'' We are involved in a war against terrorism. We have lost over 1,700 Americans in this war; but we must remember, Mr. Speaker, that we must be vigilant. We must remember the words of Ronald Reagan, that ``those people who cry peace, peace, do not understand that there can be no peace as long as there is one American somewhere dying for the rest of us.'' So this July Fourth weekend, we must fly the flag, wear the red, white and blue, and thank the good Lord that there is no place like the United States of America.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court once again has made complex that which is clear. In their decisions regarding placement of the Ten Commandments on public property, an alleged violation of the first amendment, their rulings are inconsistent. They have said that the Ten Commandments must be removed from those courthouses in Kentucky. On the same day, the same Supreme Court said that the Ten Commandments placed on the State Capitol grounds of Texas, that is okay. The Supreme Court, the Ten Commandments police, has created confusion, chaos and calamity. What if folks in Kentucky decide to remove those forbidden Ten Commandments from inside the courtrooms and place them on the courthouse grounds, is that permitted? Well, the chief of police of the Ten Commandments police, Justice David Souter, would be the one to decide because he ruled one way in one case and the opposite way in the other case. Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court ruling should be simple for all Americans to understand. The Ten Commandments are simple to understand. The 10 amendments to the Constitution are simple to understand. It is ironic that the same Supreme Court, policing the Ten Commandments throughout courthouses, in their own courtroom above their head, Moses holding the Ten Commandments. This ought not to be.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Chairman, I want to express my support for the underlying bill. I thank the Chairman for allowing an amendment in committee, by my colleague from Missouri, Ms. Emerson, which reverses the Treasury Department's ruling against the definition of payment of cash in advance--a ruling that hinders rice exports to Cuba. Since this Treasury Department ruling, rice exports to Cuba have been down 66 percent. Since the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act that was passed in 2000, rice sales to Cuba had grown to $64 million a year and last year's rice imports from the U.S. amounted to 160,000 tons. According to the President of Cuba's Food Agency, Cuba expects to import 750,000 tons of rice this year. We need to make sure this is American rice and this amendment went a long way to ensure this. This amendment stops the Treasury Department's roadblocks in shipping American rice to Cuba. The Cuban people will eat rice. If we will not sell it to them, they will get it elsewhere, from countries like Vietnam, Thailand, and China. I appreciate the hard work Ms. Emerson, the U.S. Rice Producers, and the U.S.A. Rice Federation have done toward reversing these trade restrictions. American rice is the best in the world and our Government must encourage rice trade instead of preventing such trade. I encourage my colleagues to support the underlying bill.

Mr. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.