Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer a simple but crucial amendment to the THRIVE Act to ensure that local governments have a say in which sober living homes are able to participate in this demonstration program. My amendment would require the nonprofits who apply for funding under this bill to prove that the Federal dollars they receive are distributed only to facilities that have permission from the relevant local government to operate in that location. The proliferation of unlicensed sober living homes in residential communities in my district and throughout our country has had a deleterious impact on local residents and has not well-served the drug and alcohol addicts the program is supposed to help. Many--not all, but many--of these facilities are owned and operated by unscrupulous actors. These bad actors totally disregard the impact on local residents of the neighborhoods as well as those who reside in the sober living homes themselves. The Federal Government must not subsidize this. It is not only the surrounding neighborhood that suffers in these circumstances, but also recovering addicts whose treatment facility has no oversight and sometimes no actual personal program for recovery. This bill with my amendment produces a balanced first step toward helping the victims of the opioid epidemic while safeguarding the rights of families, homeowners, and local communities. I am grateful for the support of my friend and colleague Congressman Barr, and I am grateful for his support through this amendment. I urge the rest of my colleagues to join with us and vote in favor of this amendment. I would also note that it is the Federal Fair Housing Act that shields the bad actors and prevents local governments from doing anything meaningful about the problems associated with sober living homes. Municipalities face costly litigation for trying to address their transient nature, and local residents often experience an increase in crime in their neighborhoods, not to mention other threats to their quality of life. The THRIVE Act does not address the Fair Housing Act, but I have authored a bill that would do this. I encourage a serious consideration of H.R. 5724, the Restoring Community Oversight of Sober Living Homes Act. My bill would narrowly amend the Fair Housing Act to return to local governments their proper zoning authority to manage sober living homes in a manner acceptable to the local people and something that will help those drug addicts as well as the local community. So I gladly offer this amendment and ask my colleagues to consider both this amendment as well as the bill that I will submit on this issue. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this legislation and especially this part of the bill, which includes a provision that declares Dr. Afridi an international hero. For those who don't remember Dr. Afridi, who now languishes in a Pakistani prison, this was the brave soul who helped us identify Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the slaughter of 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Pakistan arrested him on trumped up charges, and he now lingers in a dungeon, ignored by us, ignored by the world. This is an international hero. This is a man with courage. It is a disgrace that our country still has relations, when Pakistan rubs this in our face. I would hope that this Congress--and, Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for putting this in the bill that we are declaring to the world Dr. Afridi must be freed, and he is a hero, an international hero to all of humankind.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 4053, and I thank Chairman Shimkus for the great leadership he has provided on this bill on this really significant issue. This bill authorizes the construction of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste storage site, which would alleviate the burden of incredible risk that is now borne by communities throughout the country, such as in my district, where homes are not far located from the closed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. That, and many other plants throughout the Nation, have closed their doors in decades. Yet, Congress has yet to agree how to safely store that waste, and what is really important is we must store the waste. But while we develop new nuclear energy technologies, that we are capable of doing, that are safe, and produce less of their own waste, and can consume the waste of older plants, I reminded Secretary of Energy Perry of that yesterday; but, in the meantime, until that technology--by the way, it is sinful that we have not developed that technology, which we are capable of, that could eat this waste. But until we do, having safe storage at Yucca Mountain makes all the sense to me and is safe for my constituents.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Restoring Community Oversight of Sober Living Homes Act of 2018. This bill addresses Federal policies that have resulted in the proliferation of sober living homes in residential neighborhoods. These so-called homes, which are really businesses in all but name, house drug and alcohol addicts in single-family residences. This infusion of drug addicts and alcoholics into residential communities has had a deleterious impact on the quality of life of local families who now suffer increases in police activity, transient residences next door, and a decline of property values. Federal law has shielded unscrupulous owners, operators, and inhabitants of these so-called sober living homes from meaningful oversight. The well-being of the neighbors that surround them has been ignored. This is a travesty. My bill will empower the communities and the States to prohibit such facilities in residential areas if that is the will of the local people. I now submit this legislation and ask my colleagues to cosponsor the bill, which is based on the principle of federalism, protecting local residential communities across our land.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Congressman DeFazio and, of course, Chairman Shuster for their hard work that they put into this. Unfortunately, my amendment, as it indicates, is that a large part of the job that I would have hoped that would have been accomplished by the FAA reauthorization was not done in a way that handles what is, in my area, the most significant problem. There are a great many provisions there. But my amendment today, which I am advocating today, seeks to correct one area that has been given underwhelmingly little treatment in this legislation, and that is called: correcting the problems of air noise over our neighborhoods. My amendment, the amendment we are discussing at this point, will ensure that aircraft transitioning from flight over ocean to flight over land be no lower than is absolutely necessary for safety. Many times over our coastal communities, planes are flying much lower on approach, after taking off, and briefly climbing back over the ocean and then over the land. There is no reason that some aircraft need to be at 1,600 feet when other aircraft can safely fly at 3,500 feet. This amendment will correct that problem. It will require those aircraft that are coming over the ocean and onto land and into some flight pattern in our local airports and nationally in those airports, that they fly at the highest altitude that is safe in this situation. Unfortunately, I have had four amendments that were not permitted that would have corrected the noise problem altogether and it would have said that we would have then been able to address it. The reason it wasn't addressed as the bill was being prepared is that this legislation and the regulations of the FAA say that safety will be the first priority, efficiency will be the second priority, and then community impact on those communities below have third priority. Well, the fact is there is no reason why--number one, safety does have to be first, we know that--but there is no reason why the excessive noise and the impact of noise and pollution on the cities below a landing area or a taking-off area should not have more consideration than simply the efficiency of the airlines to save a few minutes. I am very upset that those amendments that would have corrected this problem--number one, all we have to do is make sure that we are mandating the right priorities for the FAA; that efficiency is less important than the communities that are being flown over, because every day, those people have to experience noise and pollution due to the fact that they live near an airport. So those amendments, however, were not made in order, and I would officially hope that we can deal with that later, but that is a great disservice to those people around the country who are suffering excessive noise that didn't need to happen. So this amendment goes far enough in terms of an issue like that, but we should be solving the problem by changing the priorities and mandating that all airplanes, when they are flying over populated areas, the people who they are flying over have to be given consideration by making sure that that plane is flying at the highest altitude that is safe. Unfortunately, as I say, the amendments that I offered that would have mandated that actually were not made in order. This amendment will come to grips a little bit on this issue, but we had an opportunity here to change and to solve one of the basic complaints that are being made throughout our country by American citizens when dealing with air traffic. When we are here, our job isn't just to watch out for the airliners. That is not it. We have to be considerate about the American people, and especially those people whose homes are there underneath the flight patterns. That is not what has happened in this legislation, and I am very disturbed about it, because I had five amendments that would have solved this problem once and for all, would have been fair to the airlines, would have made sure we were safe, that people were safe, but at the same time, we would see that the American people who live underneath these flight paths were treated fairly and that their families were not put at risk by excessive noise and by pollution that comes from airlines flying overhead. Mr. Chair, I ask for my amendment to be accepted, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as a cosponsor of H. Res. 774.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2809. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Smith for the great job that he has been doing, and also to Subcommittee Chairman Babin and Subcommittee Ranking Member Bera. This is truly a bipartisan piece of legislation, and I believe under Chairman Smith's leadership, we have had a bipartisan committee in the Science, Space and Technology Committee. H.R. 2809, the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act, clears up the doubt around commercial space activities. Which agency is responsible? Who will give me the answers? It is hard enough to create a new technology and develop new markets without having to get five different answers about which bureaucrat needs to sign off on what form. This uncertainty, this confusion, has forced companies overseas, much in the same way that companies were forced overseas before the Commercial Space Act of 2004, of which I was the author. Now, as then, it is the fault of Congress for not keeping up with the industry. Now, as then, we choose to enable American cutting-edge space companies by providing the framework in which they can build, test, and create. Now, as then, we choose to lead the world, and we are making this a better world through our space enterprise. Do you remember when long-distance telephone calls cost a fortune? Ordinary people could not make phone calls to their loved ones. So in a way, by bringing down the cost and enhancing the quality of that type of communication through space-based enterprise, we have expanded the goodwill of people towards each other and their families throughout the world. We have made sure, for example, that with space-based assets, even farmers know when to plant, thus we have more food production at a cheaper price, and space-based assets have made America safer. Mr. Speaker, it has been an honor to work with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) on these space-related issues, and I would hope that we continue to work together in cooperation, showing America's young people that we believe in the future, and whether it is Republican or Democrat, we are going to work together to make sure they have that future they deserve.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, Corona Del Mar resident Ronald Loutherback passed on April 5, 2018 from heart failure. Ron was a deeply religious person, a kind and outgoing man who was an American patriot to the core and actively supported conservative events. He leaves his wife Therese Loutherback, children Lonnie and Debra, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Ron is best known for being the founder and president of THE WINE CLUB, premium discount wine retail stores that earned the honor by Southern Wine and Spirits magazine as being the best premier wine shops in the United States. His shops were located in Santa Ana, San Francisco, and Santa Clara since 1985, and were sold in 2000. Ron had belonged to the Sunny Hills Tennis Club, the Newport Beach Tennis Club, and the Santa Ana Country Club. He lived life to the fullest and was loved by all. He will be truly missed.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, the shutdown is over, at least temporarily. The American people should pay attention to what this was all about, how come the government shut down. The issue at hand which made sure that there was a separation, an opinion, that shut down the government was the following: should we be legalizing the status of 850,000 young people who were brought here illegally and came here illegally. The bottom line is we are talking about not tens, but hundreds, of millions, even billions, of dollars that would be siphoned away from that fund that we have here in Washington aimed at helping the American people. That money, the money that we have available for the veterans, available for seniors, available for our own young people, would be drained in order to give, yes, hundreds of millions of dollars to people who have come here illegally. Of course, 850,000 young people would then be given the right to bring in their relatives; so we are talking about millions of people being brought here because of 850,000 illegal young people here. The American people, whose side are we on? That was the question about this shutdown. Pay attention. The American people, will they have to have all of their resources drained away in order to take care of people who have come here illegally? No. I hope the American people pay close attention to who is siding with the American people versus who is siding with foreigners who have come here illegally and letting them suck up scarce funds here in Washington.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to participate in this message to the Iranian people tonight and also a message that we will deliver to the American people as well. To those brave souls who are now in the streets to oppose the mullah dictatorship that now governs Iran, we send you this message: We are with you. We are thinking of you. You are within our vision. We are siding with you against tyranny. Do not think you are alone. The American people, our hearts and our souls, are with you; and, yes, we are proud of our President for making sure the world knows that we are officially on the side of those people who are struggling in the streets of Tehran, as we speak, to make sure that the mullah dictatorship is overthrown and replaced by a democratic government. These people have a right to democratic government just the same as anyone else. We talked about it in our Declaration of Independence. We talked about rights that are given by God to every individual, and that government only has those powers that are granted to it by the consent of the governed. Yes, we had our own revolution. Remember, the French helped us in that revolution. The French helped us win our freedom. We owe that to people who have helped us win our freedom to side with people who are struggling in Iran today and against other radical Islamic dictatorships today to help them create a more democratic society. In fact, as I look around in this Hall tonight, I see that there are only two pictures on the floor of the House. One is George Washington, and one is Marquis de Lafayette. Look into Lafayette's eyes. This is a picture of a man who came to us 50 years after our revolution and was the ultimate American hero for helping us win our freedom. Are there tears in his eyes tonight? No. But there were tears in his eyes in the picture of Lafayette when we sided with the mullah regime during the last administration when we actually cut a deal with the mullahs keeping them in power, not giving any support to those who were struggling for democracy in order to give them $1 billion to get them to go along and sign up for a bogus arms treaty. Now, this President of the United States today has left those policies behind. We are proud of this President for what he is doing, and we send this message to the American people: We will stand for freedom, and we will be safe. If we cower and we don't support those people struggling for freedom throughout the world, we will not be safe. Nowhere is that more evident than in the streets of Tehran tonight. People of Iran, we are with you, just as the French were with us when we won our freedom. We will make this a better world, we will make it a safer world for all people who believe in any type of democratic, open government. The mullah regime must be overthrown but by its own people, and we must be true to those patriots who established our own country by supporting those who are struggling for freedom in Iran.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I also want to thank Mr. Gohmert for the great courage that he has had on this issue, the fact that he has been willing to speak up for something that the establishment in this country is trying to shut us up about, trying to put blinders on the American people about what is going on and how we are losing our country. I was there with Ronald Reagan, and, yes, he was sold a bill of goods in 1986. He was told there were 3 million illegals in the country; and that is what we are going to do, we are going to legalize their status. He had a good heart, Reagan had a wonderful heart, and he saw these people were being exploited and living in the shadows. Three million people, you could take care of that, but the agreement has to be that we are now going to control our borders. Of course, back then, there was never even any question about whether someone who is here illegally should be getting a government benefit or be able to be treated just like a U.S. citizen, that wasn't even in the works, but Ronald Reagan said: Okay. We will secure the border, and then we will make sure that we take these 3 million people and save them. Instead, how did it end up? The border security was done not even halfheartedly. We ended up, when all was said and done, with not 3 million people, but 11 million people who eventually came here based on that amnesty program. Well, today, it is a lot worse what we are facing. Today, the American people are being told a lie. Maybe someone is not just lying directly to them, but they are feeding them a false image of what the issue is today. How many people have heard about the DREAMers, these wonderful young people, yes, who came here at an early age? The American people are not being told what we are talking about when we talk about the DREAMers. Most Americans think we are talking about 25,000 or 30,000 kids at the most. That is what most Americans think we are talking about. What we are talking about is 850,000 young people, who, yes, have dreams, and most of them are fine young people, I am sure, but they are here illegally, they have been brought here illegally by their parents, and they want their status legalized. What will that do? 850,000 young people, not 25,000, almost a million young people, and all right, what will happen when they are legalized? Well, what we are not being told is, as soon as they are legalized, they then have the rights of everybody else, as anyone who is residing here legally should, and, thus, they are eligible for family reunification, and their families that are now being brought in from other countries then have the right to bring in their families. So we have a family reunification that creates a snowball effect and millions and millions more. Then, of course, we also have, with the legalization, the eligibility for government benefits, which, as I say, during Reagan's time, there wasn't any question you are not going to give benefits to illegal immigrants. Well, now we find illegal immigrants receiving education and healthcare benefits just as if they were American citizens. In California, they have even treated criminals as if they are citizens, setting up sanctuary cities and sanctuary States. Let me note that, with free education and free healthcare, there is no limit to the number of people around the world who will want to come here. By the way, there is no securing the border as long as we are giving education and healthcare benefits to people who have come here illegally. In fact, what we are talking about now is basically opening up major, major expenditures in our budget, that right now we can't afford even to take care of our own people, yet we are going to have an obligation not just for these 850,000 young people, but all of the people whom they will bring in as well, not to mention the millions of other young people throughout the world who will say: My gosh, if I could get there. And mothers and fathers throughout the world: We have got to get our child there so they can get the education and healthcare that is being provided to young people even when they come there illegally. Now, let us note, for funds for our education system, our own young people are suffering from a lack of funds for their education; we lack money to have a very good healthcare plan for our people, yet the millions of other people who have come here illegally, we are going to let them drain that money and invite millions more people to come here from overseas. This is the most dishonest debate that we have had. That whole concept of having millions and millions more coming in because of DACA, the DREAMers? No, no. This is being kept out of the debate; this isn't going to be part of America's vision of what is going on. The idea that we now have veterans whom we cannot afford to take care of, we have children of our own people whom we cannot afford to educate, we have seniors whom we are trying to take care of, all of these are expenses that we have, and we are already in the hole, yet we are going to take care of millions of other people who have come here illegally, starting with the DREAMers? There are not just 10 million, by the way, 11 million people here illegally. Let me be clear. We have got, I am guesstimating, 20 million, but I bet there are other people who are much more sophisticated in their analysis than I am on this who say it is even more than 20 million people who have come here illegally. So what happens? We are draining our resources for people who have come here illegally. What does that mean? We don't care enough about our own people. That is what we are really saying. Those people are more important than our own people. Then, of course, you have the fact that people are coming here, and, yes, they are able-bodied, yet they still get education and healthcare, but they get jobs, and, yes, they bid down the wages of people at the lowest end of our spectrum. I used to be an ice cream scooper at Marineland snack bar. That is what I did when I was in high school. I scooped ice cream. You know what, those jobs now, what we have got are people who have gone into those jobs so that in order to get people to work for them, they haven't had to increase the wages of the people at that level. And if they have increased wages, they haven't increased the wages as much as they would have had to had they not had groups of people there who say: I will do that work at half the price. Something else I was, I was a janitor in college. I was a janitor, and I cleaned toilets. There is nothing wrong with anybody, whatever work they have got. We know that we respect every working person in this country. Yes, I cleaned toilets, and guess what? I looked back a few years ago and found that the salary, the wages, of people who clean toilets has not gone up, the janitors are not making more money. Now, why is that? Are we saying that people who work at lowly jobs aren't worthy of having a pay raise, they shouldn't benefit? The income of our Nation now is three or four times higher than it was, yet those people in the lower scale have not been going up with that. The main reason is those lowly jobs that they get, they have been bid down, the salaries have been bid down by this massive flow of illegals. Now, if we care about our people, we have to ask: What is America? America is not one race, not one religion, not one ethnic group. America is a country in which we believe in freedom and we have come from every ethnic group and race in the world. What makes us Americans, then, is that we have to care for each other. We are an American family, but that being an American family means we must take care of those people who are less fortunate in our country before we spend and even borrow more money in order to take care of the needs of people who have come here illegally. Let us just note the worst part of this whole debate is that Republicans and others who are concerned about this are being labeled like we are anti-immigrant. Well, in fact, we know that immigration is an important part of our country. But this is the greatest lie of all because we believe that our country has been prospered by having a legal immigration system. We, in fact, take in a million legal immigrants a year. So anyone who is thinking about this should think about it. That represents more legal immigration into our country than all the other countries of the world combined, allowing people to immigrate into their country, all the other countries of the world. Yet, because we don't want to destroy this system, we don't want it to go out of control, we are being labeled as anti-immigrant, even though we sing praises for those people who have come here legally. In fact, the people who are the most anti-immigrant are the ones who mix the title ``illegal'' and ``legal'' together. And what we have got now is the worst possible outcome in that we have limited resources being drained away from our own people of every race, religion, and ethnic group, and jobs that are being bid down by illegals; and everyone, including legal immigrants, are being hurt. But what we have now is a recognition that we cannot even enforce the law. We have sanctuary cities in which criminals are being kept from being arrested by Federal agents. What is that all about? Who do we care for? Now we are saying our police can't even protect our families; and that if there is some criminal gang from another country that comes here, that we are going to have a sanctuary State or a sanctuary city for these people. This is absolutely ridiculous. It is a horror story, and it is up to us to alert the American people that we are losing our country. We are losing our country. And when I say ``our country,'' us, United States is us, every race, every religion, every ethnic group. Let us care for each other. Let anybody who is saying we care more about someone who is coming here illegally from another country, I don't care how old they are, their children, yes, are less important than our children. Those people's well-being, yes, are less important than the well-being of all Americans, whatever their status in this society. We need to make sure we make that clear. And DACA, if we bring in 850,000 young people and encourage millions more to come in by doing that, we have betrayed the interests of our own people, and they are looking to us to protect them.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I believe that there are people who, with sinister motives, are trying to destroy the United States of America. They are there. There are people out there who hate us for what we stand for. They have always hated America. We have been what stood between the forces of evil on this planet for 200 years now. If it wasn't for our guys--my mom and dad left North Dakota, these small farms--out to fight in World War II, we saved the world from Nazism and from Japanese militarism. And then during the Cold War, we stood firm until communism--that evil that wanted to create atheistic dictatorships throughout the world, thinking that that is going to cleanse us from our profit motive, the idea that we are going to change human nature but we are going to establish dictators and dictatorships and murder millions and millions of people, we defeated that evil. We held firm until it had a chance to collapse on its own. Now we face radical Islam, which is not a force, by the way, that--it is a powerful force. There are Muslims who hate us. There are Muslims who love us as well. But there are Muslims who hate us, who have lots of money and lots of oil. We cut deals with them, so they have lots of money and resources. And what did they do? They have financed terrorism to try to terrorize us into retreat. They hate America. They hate America. These are forces. And there are still forces in the world today that hate us, and that group is applauding when we lose control of our borders. And you know darn well the terrorists of this world have seen those open borders to the South, and the terrorists are among us. But we also have lost control of what you are talking about; that loss of control will destroy our chance to have an economic activity that succeeds in establishing a currency and a system in which prosperity and a good life for ordinary people can exist. No, it is going to go down unless we stop this massive flow. And the massive flow is already gone, but it will become a flood of people if we send the message: Kids who get here get free education, free healthcare, legalized status, and they will bring their parents in. We will have tens of millions of more people flooding our country. I can't agree to that.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, establishing the rule of law here will not only protect our own people, will not only make sure that our own less fortunate people are bid into low-paying jobs so that people who work as janitors, as I did, and as decent people are doing now, that their wages aren't bid down; they can live a decent life so their families can live with some security here. So by doing that, we will also take away this major instability that we are creating throughout the world by not obeying the rule of law.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today I call on my colleagues to join me in recognizing the visit of the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to the United States and Kazakhstan's assumption of the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council. Over the past 26 years, Kazakhstan and the United States have built a strategic partnership based on mutual trust and friendship. Additionally, Kazakhstan has been and remains a vital partner in the fight against violent Islamic extremists--which is a threat to both of our countries--and Astana is an advocate of religious freedom and tolerance. Since declaring its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has built a market-oriented economy continuing to be a valued partner of the United States. I congratulate the people of Kazakhstan on that achievement. Despite its vast mineral wealth, Kazakhstan is committed to diversifying its economy, in line with the Strategy-2050, its national vision for future development. The strategy calls for widespread economic, social and political reforms with the goal of positioning Kazakhstan as one of the top 30 global economies by 2050. Since its independence, Kazakhstan has attracted $260 billion in foreign direct investment, with another $100 billion forecast for the next decade. The United States is a large contributor, with foreign direct investment worth billions of US dollars entering the Kazakh economy. This makes the US one of the largest investors in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan hosted an EXPO in 2017 with a theme of ``Future Energy,'' which showcased successful US-Kazakhstan collaboration. Kazakhstan seeks to become a leader in promoting renewable energy. Kazakhstan remains a reliable and trusted partner in the region, and I look forward to our work together to improve human rights, economic freedom and security inside Kazakhstan and across the region.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 676, which puts America squarely on the side of courageous Iranians who risk their lives in opposition to the corruption and oppression of the mullah regime in Tehran. Iran is a country made up of oppressed minorities. It is a country made up of Kurds--there are more Kurds in Iran than there are in Iraq-- Balochis, Azerias, Arabs, and yes, anticlerical Persians. These people have lived under a regime that terrorizes their population into submission and supports terrorist attacks on other nations. Unlike our last President, who closed his ears to the pleas of the Iranian oppressed and brutalized people--and also, I might add, facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars to that regime in the name of an arms control agreement--that President is gone, and our new President is making us proud today by endorsing the rights of those who are struggling for freedom and putting our country and people squarely on the side of those people who share our values in freedom and justice throughout the world.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to the American people to information that is being kept from them. So often the good will and good-heartedness of the American people is manipulated to achieve goals that sometimes are detrimental to our people and detrimental to our country as well. Today, the American people are being told that there are young people who are here illegally, brought by their parents at an early age--they call them DREAMers--and that we must be concerned about them, as we are. Of course, we are concerned about them. Our sympathy is with young people anywhere who want a better life. But what the American people are not being told is that there are 850,000 of these young people. That is being left out of the discussion. They are looking to be legalized. When they are legalized, that means they can apply for family reunification, which means that they then will receive government benefits and even more people will come in under their platform. I suggest that we take a look to see what 850,000 more young people and the millions more who will come will do to the American people.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to surf legend and filmmaker Bruce Brown, who, at 80 years of age, died this week. Bruce Brown challenged a generation of Americans to follow our dream and to find our perfect wave. He reached out to introduce us to the magic experience of being propelled by the power of nature on an ocean wave. Adventure and a rush of excitement was only as far away as a local beach. Bruce Brown made movies about surfing. ``Endless Summer'' was his best known. But his films were more than entertainment. He spoke to our soul and our spirit of adventure. He inspired us to go for it, to take on towering waves, just as other Americans scaled the tallest mountain peaks and even journeyed to the Moon. Isn't that what America was all about? Isn't that what America is all about? My first surfboard was a large, single-fin Velzy. Dale Velzy owned a surf shop in San Clemente and financed Bruce Brown's first film, ``Slippery When Wet.'' The surf culture Bruce Brown helped get born is still here. Outsiders are intrigued by it. You know when you are part of it. Bruce Brown showed us the way. A few days ago, he passed on and is paddling into the distant sunset. He followed his dream, he found his perfect wave, and he rode it as far as it would take him.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution, and I compliment both our chairman and our ranking member for how they have ensured that our committee remains a bulwark of support for human rights throughout the world. It has been 16 years since 3,000 Americans were slaughtered before our eyes by a global terrorist movement, using Islam as an excuse for the cowardly murder of innocent people, people of every faith who were butchered in order to terrorize the rest of us in the world into submission to their fanaticism. Crucial to our ability to defeat this evil force has been our commitment to ensure that the battle did not evolve into a war between Islam itself and the rest of us, which would then, of course, pit Muslims against all Christians as well as people of other faiths. George W. Bush, President of the United States, reached out at that moment after 9/11 to ensure that the plot by these radical terrorists did not succeed in polarizing the world as such. Our greatest success has been preventing that polarization that would have put all the people of the world against Islam and all Muslims against all the rest of the people of the world. That battle to make sure that does not happen must continue. It is essential to keep open the ties with those people in the Muslim world who are appalled by the terror and brutality of these fanatics who commit such monstrous crimes. It is vital for our own security that we aggressively condemn terrorism and human rights abuses when it is against Muslim people. The Muslim people are the victims, and they need to know that we are on their side, just as we expect good Muslim people to be on our side when we confront this terrorism in the world. We did that, of course, when the Serbian Christians were killing, ethnically cleansing, Muslim people in Kosovo. Today we reaffirm to the Muslim people of the world and to ourselves that we loudly proclaim that we are condemning the slaughter of the Rohingya people who reside in the southern states of Burma. If these attacks by the Burmese military continue, we must follow this strong condemnation today with sanctions. In the meantime, not one bullet or weapon should ever be made available to the Burmese military. And, in the meantime, the Burmese military officers and the government officials who are engaged in this particular policy of genocide against the Rohingya people must know they will be held accountable for their crimes against the Rohingyas, because it is not a crime just against Rohingyas, it is a crime against humanity. So, again, I commend the leadership of our committee, both the ranking member and the chairman, for making this an important issue for this Congress.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, on his recent trip to Asia, President Trump reminded us and our international trading partners that our commercial agreements must be honest, fair, and reciprocal. With this admonition, he called on our Asian friends to build automobile plants that would employ American workers. Three cheers for him for doing that. The United States already has experienced the benefits and the liabilities of foreign-controlled multinational automobile companies manufacturing in our country. These companies have provided good jobs for America's working people, but having these foreign companies here hasn't always worked. A few years ago, we discovered that one of the world's preeminent car manufacturers, Volkswagen Group of America, had engaged in an illegal and clandestine strategy to circumvent U.S. emissions laws. Volkswagen has a longstanding relationship with the American people. Like so many young people in my generation, my first car was a Volkswagen Beetle, so Volkswagen enjoyed an enormous goodwill in our country. Despite that, Volkswagen Group of America intentionally did us wrong. Volkswagen intentionally violated our emissions regulations and, by many accounts, they even engineered their systems to falsely indicate that they were complying with the emissions standards. This was nothing more than pure arrogance and a hostile intent and an egregious violation of our best legislative efforts to regulate our way to clean air. Unfortunately, this issue with Volkswagen has not been totally dealt with and put behind us. The deal with the German Government that got them off the hook remains cloaked in mystery and left many questions unanswered. We do not know yet, for example, whether Volkswagen will compensate Americans in a full and just manner. Those uncompensated Americans may include the owners of the bogusly engineered cars, as well as auto importers, as well as, perhaps, service stations who officially were authorized to repair Volkswagens. Mr. Speaker, the VW deal between the Obama administration and the Merkel government needs to be revisited with a full airing of the details. We need to know if Volkswagen has complied fully and if the settlement was demonstrably fair to Americans who relied on their good faith. Wolfgang Porsche, the family who owns 52 percent of Volkswagen, he was the chairman during this time of the emissions scandal; as well as Matthias Mueller, the CEO of Volkswagen Group, they need to be put on the record about what the details of this subterfuge of American law was all about. We need to send a message also. By putting them on the record, we need to send a message to all the multinational corporation executives who, when they do business in the United States of America, have to play by our rules. I applaud the President for trying to encourage people to invest in building factories here, but that means all of us must make sure that that works out for the best for the American people.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, our American way of life and our Judeo- Christian values are under attack as never before. People understand that there is the threat out there, but perhaps the magnitude keeps coming home of how bad and what a great threat it really is. Radical Islamic terrorists with a backward, evil, 7th century view of the world are out to destroy and kill us. They seek to terrorize Western countries and Americans, in particular, into retreat. Well, instead, we must stand tall. We must have the courage to do what is necessary because it does depend on us, as it always has been. As when Nazism and Japanese militarism threatened the world, it was the United States that carried the day for the decent people of the world. When communism threatened to establish atheistic dictatorships throughout the world and was on the march, yes, it was the American people who stood strong and had those policies necessary to hold off the communist menace until it collapsed, basically, of its own inconsistencies and its own evil nature. Well, we had great leadership at those other battles, and I say, thank goodness that today we now have a President who actually can speak the words against and condemn this horrible force that threatens our country and the people of the world. Yes, we have a President who can actually say those words, ``radical Islamic terrorism.'' For 8 years, we had a President who couldn't use those words, much less do those things that were necessary to defeat this threat and to make sure our people were secure. Some, if not many, of our leaders have been afraid to confront the basic nature of those who have made repeated terrorist attacks and assaults. Anyone who is not signing on to their fanatical religious agenda becomes a terrorist target, not only Christians, but Jews and other Muslims. President Trump is, at long last, providing the courageous leadership in this historic battle. Congress needs to support our President. We need to stand with him and to stand united against this evil, and yes, defend ourselves. We must not be afraid, and we must not only defend ourselves but also do what is necessary to defeat and extinguish this ghoulish adversary and end his bloody assault on Western civilization, and yes, on moderate Islam. Words are not enough. Our homeland is under attack; people are in danger; our families, our country, and our way of life are under attack. These attackers come from many countries, both men and women. But in common--these people who have been murdering people and the mayhem they have been creating throughout the Western world, whether it is in France or in the United States or elsewhere, these men and women who participate in these evil acts of terrorism have something that they have in common. They all pledge allegiance to radical Islam. That is our enemy, not Islam, not Islam itself, but the radical fanaticism that terrorists and the Islamic psychopaths that are out there murdering in the worst possible and ghoulish ways, people, in order to--yes, in order to have--to shock us and in order to intimidate the West into retreat. This week, a 29-year-old Uzbek immigrant plowed a truck into people walking and cycling in a New York City pathway. He killed 8 people, and he proclaimed that he was inspired by Islam. In fact, he said he was proud of what he had done and even requested the display of his Islamic state flag in his hospital room. We need to ask ourselves: Why are we allowing Islamic terrorists like this into our country in the first place? How much longer will we close our eyes and bury our heads in the sand? We have even witnessed horrendous terrorist attacks even in my home State. We know that. We have seen it. On December 2, 2015, in San Bernardino, 14 innocent and wonderful people were brutally slaughtered and 22 seriously injured by an immigrant from Pakistan--a hotbed of radicalism. And yes, his motive was his fanatic belief in what he considers to be Islam. It was truly one of the most evil attacks in our State's history. In Orlando, on June 12, 2016, 49 nightclubbers out having a good time, enjoying themselves as Americans--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--they were having a good time, and 49 of these nightclubbers were brutally murdered and mowed down. All of these innocent lives were slaughtered. Americans who were blown apart at the Boston marathon is no different. We have American victims staring us in the face saying: What are you going to do to bring justice and to protect the Americans that we left behind, our families? These horrific crimes of cowards mirrors what has happened to innocent people throughout the world. Yes, we Americans are suffering. And as I say, we have seen it in France, we have seen it in Europe, we have seen it in Muslim countries where these fanatics take Christians out and behead them. But they also, of course, attack moderate Muslims. They are out to try to topple the government of el-Sisi and Egypt and all the other governments there that are not committed to the fanatic view of Islam that they hold. The most recent attacks in New York should, at least, open our eyes to things that we can do here. Maybe we can't stop it all over the world, but the least we can do is to take steps to protect our own citizens from this type of fanatical threat that hangs over us. Well, we need to take specific steps that can and should be done to help deal with this danger. I have, in fact, discussed a plan with the President--and this is a few months ago--and we have had a lot of work and a lot of things under the bridge since then, but his commitment to border security includes placing a wall on the Southern border. Yes, making sure that we have border security, and yes, if it takes a wall on our Southern border, the President is right on target. A wall and beefing up our border will, of course, be expensive. That is why I laid out a plan to the President and have since offered legislation that would pay for President Trump's proposed border wall. The car attack in New York has altered many Americans and alerted many Americans to something they didn't know about before, and that is that we have an immigration system, an immigration law that permits 50,000 people to immigrate into our country every year--50,000 people who are chosen by lottery, not by some really looking at them, some examination of their credentials, seeing what they could contribute, no. A lottery. And, of course, Senator Schumer in the Senate, I guess, was the man who actually insisted on this. Well, I am sure he was well-intended, but what we have now are people--instead of bringing in the people who can most contribute to our country, he has insisted we leave 50,000 of them up to a lottery system. This is insanity. It is forced onto us and has been forced into policy by liberal left politicians who would flood our country with illegals, which is something they are doing besides just this threat that we are talking about, because these people who win the lottery, of course, are not coming here illegally. At the same time, the same people who are pushing that type of system are pushing for policies that would flood our country with illegals and has flooded our country with illegals, that has brought down our healthcare system, our education system. We brought criminals into our country, and we have had an uncontrolled border. Yes, the people who are responsible for that have also been responsible for policy that just permitted 50,000 people legally to come here; and those 50,000 people are people not selected by a rational process but instead by a lottery. The terrorist murderers in New York, of course, were here. That terrorist murderer, and maybe murderers, they were here on the lottery visa. They weren't here because they had been selected. In fact, the lottery selected this Uzbeki fanatic Muslim, and he didn't have the skills and the education necessary to live a decent life, and he ended up killing a lot of people in New York. Surprise, surprise. We should know about these people who are coming into our country, period, whether those people are coming illegally. We have had millions of people pouring into our country illegally, and then what do our liberal left politicians on the other side say? ``Oh, we need sanctuary cities to protect them, the ones who are here illegally and have come here illegally,'' which, of course, does nothing but encourage more people to come here illegally. And the more who are here illegally are people who we don't know what they are all about. Do you think the fanatic Islamic terrorists that I am referring to today didn't notice that our border was porous and that people were pouring across our border from our Southern border? Well, we should know about everybody who is coming into the country, and we should choose the very best people who can contribute to our country. I have no problem with a very robust legal immigration into our country, no problem at all, and neither do the Republicans that I know. What we have a problem with is a flood of illegals coming in, bidding down the wages of our own citizens, some of them criminals attacking and killing the citizens like we saw in San Francisco--a young lady who was killed by an illegal who had been sent home. But also, even within the system that is legal immigrants, we need to know who those people are and select the very best people to come here. The plan that I offered the President, which will make it easier for him to accomplish this mission, is a plan that would take that slot in our lottery, 50,000 people who now come in under a lottery like the guy who just killed those people in New York, instead, let's use that slot, those 50,000 places in our legal immigration system and offer it to foreigners who are very wealthy, who can be given the privilege of paying $1 million each to come here and eventually become a citizen. If we can do that, that $1 million and those 50,000 slots will give us all the money we need to build that wall, and it is fitting that we build that wall and we secure our borders and beef up our system of immigration to protect our citizens, and that we actually have people who want to come here and immigrate here pay for that reform. We need to implement immigration policies that serve the American people. That is what should be first and foremost, not some crazy notion that we are going to, oh, build--get some kind of better spirit by opening up the immigration into our country to anybody who can get here, and let's let a lottery decide, let's not do it rationally. No. We need to make sure everybody who comes here is going to contribute, and they are good people. Unless we can all stand together--and the most important thing is they are coming here because they want to be Americans, like almost all the legal immigrants who come here, people who want to be Americans, and we will open our arms, as we have, and as Republicans who are opposed to illegal immigration have said over and over again. Well, I have proposed H.R. 2724, and I call on President Trump to pay attention to this. I call all of my colleagues to pay attention to this. I urge my colleagues to take a look at that legislation. That will offer us the financial resources we need to bolster our borders, to make sure that there is a wall, but, also, to make sure that we are not bringing into this country people who are associated with radical Islamic fanaticism that would do us harm. I am asking my colleagues to look at that legislation. I am asking anyone who is reading the Congressional Record or listening to this, perhaps, to talk to their Congressman on this issue. Now, in the past 2 weeks, we have been provided information on another issue that I would like to bring up. Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time I have left.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I will try to bring up something that we have heard, and we need to discuss this as Americans, because it also is about a very major flaw in our system that is apparent, things that have been not right for the last 2 years. In the past 2 weeks, however, information has been provided to the American people that has exposed the hypocrisy and misinformation, forced down our throats, for months concerning the allegation that President Trump colluded with the Russians in order to steal the last election. Over and over again, fake news filled the airwaves and, of course, the newspapers, suggesting that there was a sinister plot that kept Hillary from becoming President of the United States. The core accusation was the Russians had hacked into the Democratic National Committee computers. Emails between the Democratic leaders were taken and handed over to Julian Assange, who is the head of WikiLeaks, and that they were released to the public by WikiLeaks. The skulduggery of the Democrat leadership and the Clinton campaign was, thus, exposed by these emails. Yes, that exposure to this skulduggery and this unconscionable activity between the Clinton leadership, and also the Democratic Party leadership, these emails, yes, did have an impact on the election, as many Democrats who supported Bernie Sanders felt that they had been cheated by their own party because the proof was being offered to them by these WikiLeaks emails that had been taken from the Democratic National Committee. Now, we heard over and over again that Trump stole the election because he was in collusion with the Russians. The lib-left media, which is most of them, found every which way, any little thing that any member of the Trump team did, as sinister proof that there was collusion with the Russians, thus, they stole the election. Well, it was pounded into our heads month after month, even after the election was over. But Hillary didn't lose that. That is what we are being told. Hillary lost the election. She didn't want us to believe that it was because she was a rotten candidate running on a miserable track record and a platform that undermined her own candidacy, but, instead, she lost because the GOP had subterfuge and treachery in which they were working with Russians, who helped them out to accomplish this horrible crime of stealing the election. Well, this negative media barrage and this continued attack on President Trump did not stop when the election was over. It went on for months and months. Everybody should remember that. Month after month after the election, in what appeared to be, in my point of view, an effort to disrupt our new President's authority and to exercise powers granted to him by the American voters, that was going to be disrupted, so he could not become a regular President of the United States, as our election process had determined. Talk about not being loyal to the American way of life. After months of these obstructionist tactics, the American people are now learning the whole truth. They are learning that the attack on Trump was a total fraud, a power grab by those who lost the election, and an attempt to distract the American people from this wrongdoing. First and foremost, let's make it clear: the Russians did not hack into and steal the Democratic National Committee's emails. In terms of the collusion with the Russians, it is now coming to light there are far worse things. But the stealing of those emails and then making them public--and, by the way, they were just making public honest emails. We are not talking about giving the public false information. We are talking about giving them information the Democrats didn't want them to have. But in terms of collusion with the Russians, what is coming to light is that the Clinton Foundation--so these other charges that we have heard about President Trump may be something to distract us about something that was being done that was wrong and, of a similar light, that was wrong and being done by Hillary Clinton and her family. In terms of collusion with the Russians, it has come to light that the Clinton Foundation collected more than or around $150 million from Russian oligarchs that Clinton felt was deposited right into the Clinton Foundation coffers. These oligarchs then deposited $500,000 right into the Clinton family's pockets for a speech. Yeah, they are going to give them a speaker's fee of $500,000 for one speech. All of this was happening when Hillary was Secretary of State. It was also happening when our government was making a decision as to whether they should sell 20 percent of America's uranium reserves to Russia. Why we would never seriously consider that, I don't know. But in my research, I have found evidence that, because that did not seem right, the FBI had an informant watching all of this go down, close up, right there in Russia--an informant. Instead of charging Hillary with a crime, which was not done by the FBI, a gag order was placed on this witness who was working as an informer for the FBI. That gag order at the time, who put it on this witness? Well, it was the head of the FBI. Who was the head of the FBI? Robert Mueller. That gag order was kept on by Mueller, the gag order on the informant that had this information about the negotiations for contributions to the Clinton fund of $150 million. This guy was kept, and a gag order, all of this time, even while Mueller was head of the FBI. This is the same Mueller who is now the special prosecutor trying to find anything to charge Trump with collusion with the Russians. That gag order over the witness implicating Hillary was not lifted until last week, when some of us stepped up and said: We have to have a public hearing on this and we need to make sure--not a public hearing on any type of negative or, let's say, illegal collusion with the Russian Government by any American politician, which would have included Hillary, of course, and will include Hillary and anybody else who colluded with them. Yes, I know, that I have advanced the idea of cooperating with the Russians, so this may seem out of place. But I have always felt whatever we do with the Russians needs to be what is in the interest of the people of the United States. Certainly giving away 20 percent of America's uranium reserves, and then gagging one of the witnesses to the discussions that were taking place at the time when, at the same time, oligarchs in Russia were providing the Clintons with $150 million donation to their foundation, and a $500,000 donation right into the personal pockets of Bill Clinton. Now, we need to move forward on this. As we know, the special prosecutor, Mr. Mueller, who kept the gag order on this witness, who didn't charge Hillary in the beginning, now has found someone to indict. Paul Manafort has been indicted. Isn't this interesting? Our special prosecutor was tasked with trying to see if there was Russian collusion in the last election between the Trump people and the Russians in order to steal the election. And what did he come up with? Basically, tax evasion by Paul Manafort, who is a longtime politico in this city. And guess what. The tax evasion he is being charged with happened long before Paul Manafort had anything to do with Donald Trump. That is wrong. That is wrong. There is something really wrong there. We need to get a new special prosecutor or whatever. We need to have these hearings. Our Republicans need to get tough and we need to make sure that we are seeking out this information and documenting it. For example, putting the people under oath. There were a group of people--policymakers--who made the decision of whether or not to sell that uranium to the Russians. They need to be put under oath and asked whether or not anyone representing the Clintons ever talked to them during that process and encouraged them for this deal of selling the Russians this uranium. There are all kinds of avenues that we need to follow through on. Instead, Mr. Mueller ends up with some kind of a tax violation by one of the players that happened long before he was even associated with Donald Trump. Something has gone haywire here. The American people need to see it. Especially when we understand now there is also evidence that during that election, the Clinton campaign paid Russian sources--it went through an intermediary. He was an English intelligence officer--paid millions of dollars to the Russians to get a scurrilous false report and video, or tape, or whatever it was, of President Trump in some type of compromising situation. But we know now that was false and that Hillary Clinton's campaign and these people talking about collusion with the Russians were paying, essentially, the Russians to give them this information. Now, I would hope that this comes out and this becomes something that is explained and the American people understand. When they see this attack on our President by people who have a totally different view of how we should be in the world--remember, our last President could not say the words ``radical Islamic terrorist.'' He had a different approach than Hillary, the Secretary of State. We know what happened in Benghazi and elsewhere. We have a totally different approach to these challenges America faces overseas. It is all right. President Obama was elected. Hillary was not elected. President Trump was elected. These efforts to undermine his authority are the worst kind of repudiation of the American way of life and the American system of government. We Americans must stand firm against radical Islam. We must stand firm and offer an alternative of strength and courage, as compared to the cowardice and nonsense that we have seen in the policies of the last 8 years. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

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