Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Point of inquiry.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. Fidel Castro sent torturers to torture American POWs half way around the world because he hates the United States of America. Everyone who has ever got into serious conversations with this man over his 40 years of rules has come away understanding this man has a visceral hatred for the United States of America. At this time when we are threatened by international terrorism, we should not be doing anything to strengthen his regime, whether it is permitting millions of people to go down there and spend money and bail him out or whether it is increasing the amount of money that Americans can send to Cuba.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman will be closing now, I guess I should take my extra 1\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Let us take a look at what is really going on in the world today. Why are we concerned about Fidel Castro? Yes, he is a petty little thug down in Cuba. They say how weak he is. Fidel Castro is demonstrably stronger than Saddam Hussein in terms of his ability to hurt the United States of America. But Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro both share something. They share a blood grudge against the United States of America. And you might have some weak guy like bin Laden over there who looks very weak; but both of those fellows, both Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro, have a blood grudge and can kill thousands, if not millions, of Americans in this day and age in which we live. It behooves us to do everything we can to get rid of Fidel Castro and get rid of the Saddam Husseins of this world before they decide to kill thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Americans. They have a blood grudge, and no one should ignore that. You ignore it and if something happens, we are having to take the responsibility for not acting on this. What is this all about? $1,200? Fidel Castro is broke. And by taking off all of these restrictions on the remittances, by just taking off the lid on the $1,250 in remittances, we will be bailing out Castro, just at a time when Castro as we have seen over and over again as was demonstrate earlier by what was presented to us, his regime is almost in collapse. This has nothing to do with the well-being of the Cuban people. If it would, the Cuban-Americans in this body would be rising up and saying, my goodness, you are doing something to hurt the Cuban people. What we are doing here is to limit the power and strength of the Saddam Husseins and Fidel Castros of this world to hurt the United States of America. Our President knows that. When those buildings went down in New York, who would have guessed that some weakling named bin Laden would have been able to do that? Fidel Castro has a much greater grudge than bin Laden had against the United States of America. He has from his very first moments put Robert Vesco in a position to organize the drug trade throughout this hemisphere. He has over his 43 years of power had one of the worst repressive regimes and anti-American regimes in the world. And when we talked about POWs in Vietnam, this man hates the United States so badly that he sent torturers over to Vietnam to torture our POWs.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, there are some true champions of human freedom in this body and none has a stronger voice and has been active as long as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) to whom I yield 1 minute. (Mr. SMITH of New Jersey asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. We have heard over and over again that there has been progress made in Vietnam, but there has been no progress, obviously no progress, on human rights. They have gone the opposite direction. We have heard there has been progress in POWs. That is not true. Again, let me reaffirm that they have never given the reports that we have been begging for for the records for the places where they kept our POWs so we could determine how many POWs were kept afterwards. And there is never an excuse because of the lack of human rights in Vietnam for us to subsidize the building of factories with American tax dollars, putting our own people out of work in a Communist dictatorship. I call on my colleagues to support my resolution in denying this waiver of normal trade relations with this Communist dictatorship. Let us not throw our people out of work to give the chance for subsidized loans to our big businessmen to build factories in Vietnam.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. As this debate goes on, let me again stress what we are talking about, and I do agree with my colleague, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez), that the legal essence of what is being talked about today is whether or not we should grant normal trade relations and whether or not, and this should be based on emigration policy. As she said, even in the emigration area, the Communist dictatorship in Vietnam has not measured up to what it should and, in fact, I cannot believe, and I am sure she agrees, that those Vietnamese who are being victimized by the extortion of this dictatorship, that this extortion is not going on without the knowledge of the dictatorship, without the acknowledgment and probably the profiteering of the very people that we want to make this great relationship with. This is not a debate about whether or not we should have a good relationship with the Vietnamese people. It is what kind of relationship we will have with the government of Vietnam, a government which is a Communist dictatorship, which arrests anyone who speaks up against it, a government that extorts, as we have heard on the floor today, extorts money from would-be immigrants, a government that plays games and continues to play games with our POWs and the bodies of our brave soldiers and airmen and Marines from 20 years ago. What type of relationship do we want to have with them? Do we want to treat them the way we do Italy, England, or even Thailand, even more democratic governments? I do not think so. I think we should have free trade and good relations with the people of the world and the governments of the world if they have a free and democratic government. We should have free and open trade. But if those governments are dictatorships that terrorize their own populations, we should not have the same type of trade relations. We should not have a Jackson-Vanik waiver. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) who has been involved personally in almost every human rights fight in the Congress since I got here 14 years ago and whom I deeply respect.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, this has nothing to do with isolating Vietnam, and everybody in this debate should understand that. It has nothing to do with whether or not Americans should be able to sell their products in Vietnam. People can sell whether we grant them this waiver or normal trade relations status. They can still go over and build factories and sell products. We certainly are not going to isolate Vietnam. What this is about, in essence, unless Vietnam gets this normal trade relations, gets this Presidential waiver, what is happening, American businessmen will be denied subsidies given to them through international and our national financial institutions. They will be denied the subsidies for their investment in building factories in Vietnam. That is what is really going on here. Yet no one else addresses that. I mentioned that in the beginning. None of the other Members participating in the debate say that. Let us address this. Why should we be subsidizing with our tax dollars the building of factories in Vietnam, a communist dictatorship, so that some of our profiteers, our businessmen who would like to make profit off labor that does not have a right to quit, does not have a right to complain or unionize, does not have any competition, we are going to have slave labor basically over there manufacturing in companies and in plants that have been built by the American taxpayers' subsidy. Mr. Speaker, that is what this is all about. That is wrong in communist China. It is wrong in Vietnam. It is something that we should not be doing in China. It has not opened up the society. And for 8 years it has not opened up the society in Vietnam. This is profiteering at the expense of slave labor. This is wrong. That is the central issue at hand. They have been playing games with us about our POWs. Let me just suggest this. Last year during this debate I remember our good friend and former colleague, Mr. Peterson was here, and when I said the Vietnamese had not been forthcoming with the records on the prisons where they held our POWs during the war, the word was spread, oh, no, they have given us all of the records, and that came from Mr. Peterson, who was then our ambassador. Guess what, after the debate and I talked to him, oh, no, he had been mistaken. They have not given us those records. They have not been forthcoming on that, and we have seen no progress on human rights. We should not be giving them credits and subsidizing our businessmen to build factories there. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We need the time as well, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time I may consume. After hearing the gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Levin) description of how human rights has not been improved and how things are still just as repressive, it seems to me that he has just provided enough arguments for us to say why are we doing the same old policy if it is not working and the Vietnamese, that the Vietnamese Communist have just signed another agreement, as my friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) has just said, big deal, they have signed agreements for 20 years and broken all of them. This is no reason we should continue down a path that has kept the Vietnamese people in chains and in slavery and in abject poverty. During the last 12 months, despite the Presidential waiver that we are debating today, the Communist regime has actually increased its brutal repression as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) suggested in his comments. Religious clergy, advocates of democracy, ethnic tribal leaders and members of the tribes in the central highlands, these are the people who were the most loyal to American forces during the war. All have been victimized, and the victimization continues at a higher pace. By voting yes on H.J. Res. 101, thus denying normal trade relations for Vietnam, we send a message to the gang of thugs that rule Vietnam that they must once and for all not just make agreements but start some real political reform. Let us see something happening rather than just talk before we normalize relations with them. Only this will allow the Vietnamese people to enjoy some prosperity, some peace and some liberty, but they have been denied this by the regime that holds them in its grip. The sad truth is that there will be no democracy, no human rights and none of these other things that we hold dear in the United States, no prosperity, no freedom for these people in Vietnam unless their own government starts to reform, and it has not done so under the rules that we have been playing with. We have been treating them as we treat free governments, which is insane. Hanoi has recently, in fact, initiated a new campaign of censorship. They have even outlawed the watching of satellite TV. Give me a break, and we are going to treat them like we do democratic societies? The primary cause for the fact that their country is making any headway economically is their lack of democracy and freedom and the fact that it is a Communist dictatorship that we are talking about. If we wish Vietnam to succeed, we have got to do more than just wink and nod when they make another agreement, yet they will then violate again and again. What we are talking about today, by the way, is not whether or not we should engage with Vietnam. It is not whether we should isolate Vietnam. It is one thing and one thing only, and that is, whether or not those businessmen who are free already to sell their products or to build their factories, whether or not those businessmen for the United States will be subsidized by the American taxpayer in building factories, manufacturing units in Vietnam in order to exploit their slave labor, their labor that is not permitted to join a union, is not permitted to quit their jobs. This is what this debate is all about. The debate is not about whether we can sell our products. American businessmen can sell the products and will continue to or can build factories at their own risk, but is whether, as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) calls it, financing will be available. What we are talking about is financing that is subsidized by the American taxpayer through international and national financial institutions like the Export-Import Bank. There is no reason whatsoever we should be financing the building of factories, even in democratic societies overseas, but for countries like Communist China, Vietnam, this is a sin not only against their people because we are permitting a few people here to exploit their labor, but it is a sin against our people because we are putting them out of work. So let us not ignore the central issue today. Two central issues, freedom in Vietnam and subsidies for American businessmen to build factories and put our own people out of work, and let us not ignore that. We will see if that even comes up on the other side during the debate. While extending these subsidies has not made Vietnam any freer in these last few years, it has not been going in the right direction. If it had been, we would be able to report all of this stuff. Instead, what we see are American businessmen that are leaving Vietnam. These are the guys who do not have the subsidies because of the level of corruption and repression that goes along with a Communist dictatorship. In that country, trade data, for example, remains a State secret. Journalists and public officials continue to be jailed on charges of treason for merely discussing trade and economic issues. In fact, the Communist regime has imprisoned business executives locally and of several major and private corporations simply for criticizing the government or when their company has been too successful outside of the corrupt system. I urge my colleagues to stand up for American values and international freedom by voting yes on H.J. Res. 101. Why subsidize the building of factories in Communist Vietnam, costing jobs at home and putting our people out of work to help a Communist regime. This globalist dream is not just a nightmare for America. It demoralizes those around the world who believe in liberty and justice and see America as their only hope. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor to join with my colleagues tonight on a matter of principle. And my colleague who just spoke certainly has spoken for all of us in the points that she has made, and I hope that the words that I am going to utter now also maintain what one would say is bipartisan. But it is not actually a bipartisan spirit; it is an American spirit. It has nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with anything but a belief in human beings and a belief that we care and a demonstration that we care about people. Mr. Speaker, the Falun Gong, if anyone has ever met anybody in the Falun Gong, they know how easy it is to really care about these people, because they have such wonderful hearts. Here we have people who practice meditation and yoga, and they have committed themselves to treating other people with kindness and trying to be honest. For that, they have made themselves a target of one of the most brutal regimes on this planet. How could anyone do anything other than sympathize with people like the Falun Gong? They are so demonstrative, and they are so exemplary of the oppressed people of the world. Not all oppressed people in the world have such good hearts and are kind and practice yoga and meditation, but they are all oppressed. And the fact that we have a regime that can be so brutal with these pacifists indicates just how immoral and horrifying the Communist regime in Beijing actually is. As we have heard, tens of thousands of these pacifistic people, these spiritual people, have been arrested. Thousands of them have been tortured. Hundreds have died in captivity. Let us think about it: hundreds of these people, people with good souls, kindhearted people who are dedicated pacifists have died in captivity, thousands have been tortured; and tens of thousands have been thrown into jail. This is not, however, unique for Communist China. Let us remember what has been going on in Tibet for these last few decades. In fact, one of the Dalai Lama's religious followers was just let out, I think after 19 years in prison. Again, tens of thousands of people in Tibet have been thrown into prison and tortured, if not hundreds of thousands. These are horrendous crimes against civilization that have been committed against the people of Tibet, like the Falun Gong. And how about Christian churches in China? The People's Republic of China says if you do not register, if you are a religious organization, you must register and let us know exactly the names of everyone involved in your organization. Sounds like what the Nazis did to the Jews prior to World War II. And guess what? If you refuse to register, then those people, in what they call underground churches, are rounded up and they too are put into the laogai prison system along with the Tibetans, along with the Falun Gong representatives. And what happens in the laogai prison system? What happens in the laogai prison system is that people are used as slave labor, and we end up having products sent to the United States that, oh yes, we can be guaranteed that none of them come from that prison camp; but what we cannot be guaranteed of is that the parts that are made in the laogai prison system do not end up in the factories that make the products that give us such a great deal at the supermarket and at the Wal-Mart stores throughout our country. No. What has happened, unfortunately, while all this repression and bloodshed and brutality, and I might add a massive build up in their military has been going on, America has been conducting business as usual with the Communist regime in Beijing. Business as usual. And that is the United States Congress has passed time and time again bills providing Most Favored Nation Status, or as they call it, normal trade relations, for the same Communist China that is committing these violent crimes, these ugly crimes against humanity. I do not think we should have business as usual with any thug regime, whether it be Fidel Castro, which our colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), knows the brutality of that regime firsthand, or whether it be Communist China or whether it be Kazakhstan, which I read in the paper today that we have developed a close relationship with the gangster thug that runs that country. Let us not have business as usual with countries that are run by gangsters. Yes, let us have free trade, but let us have free trade between free people. What happens instead, what controls the agenda here in our relationships with these regimes around the world? Instead, it is our big business community, with their dreams of huge profits in dealing with someone who has a monopoly control of a country, like these gangster regimes have; cutting one deal, and thus they can have all the profit they want because they have no labor problems and they have no competition. No, that dream is not the dream of the American people. The American people's dreams come on July 4, when we talk about individual rights being granted by God to all of God's children throughout the world. We, as free people, should be siding with the oppressed people of the world and not those gangster regimes that stand for everything that America is supposed to be against. But, of course, our big businessmen are over there making a huge profit. They are making a big profit by setting up companies over there, I might add, manufacturing units. What is ironic about all of this is that I talked to a big business company the other day, a pharmaceutical industry; and I said, by the way, I remember when you built your plant over in China 10 years ago. How are you doing over there? And he said, well, we are not doing too good; but we are not losing as much money as the rest of those people who invested over there. The irony of this is that we have big business, with their dreams of huge profits, directing our policy, while they themselves are getting taken to the cleaners for investing in a regime that has no respect for the rule of law. And they also know that without the IMF loan guarantees and subsidies that we provide them by granting Most Favored Nation Status, without that they would not have invested over there in the first place. Now we see a Frankenstein monster that has been created by the actions of our own government, by kowtowing to business interests that are being totally unrealistic about the threat of Communist China and a business community that has no respect for our traditions of liberty and justice. Unfortunately, this administration, as I read today, to top it all off, as we are talking about the Falun Gong, this administration is considering closer military ties to the People's Republic of China. What a disgrace that is. When we talk about bipartisanship here in Congress, let us note that I attacked the last administration for trying to do that. Not trying to, but implementing a policy of closer military ties, and I cannot stand silently while this administration goes down that same path. Mr. Speaker, America should side with those in China who long for freedom. We should side with the good-hearted people of China who want to have yoga and meditation and treat people kindly. Those are our allies, not those who carry guns and building the weapons systems, and putting their boots in the face of their fellow Chinese. We need to let the people of the world know that the United States is not the friend of totalitarian regimes, of gangsters who beat people up and slaughter them and refuse to allow the people of their country to control their destiny through the ballot box. Many people of the world think that is what they think the United States is all about, because that is what they see in their own country. Our only hope is that the young people of China, Burma, Kazakhstan or Cuba, that they understand that we are on their side and that the United States of America is a country that believes in treating people decently, and those people who are treating them in such a harsh manner and destroying their families and torturing them, that has nothing to do with the United States of America. When they see our flag, they should think this is not for repression. Those people who see our flag should think, they are on our side. Mr. Speaker, let us pass this resolution siding with the Falun Gong, and help those who are suffering so much in China and throughout the world. We should let them know that our world stands for freedom and liberty and justice, and that we have made mistakes. We have not gone so far and it is not past time for us to reclaim our proper role in this world, which is the role of the champion of the oppressed and the hope for all mankind. We can make it real when we talk about the Falun Gong and the oppression in Tibet, the repression in Cuba and Kazakhstan and elsewhere, by making sure that the business community does not dictate to us the short term profit goals as being the goals of the United States of America. Our goals are much, much higher than that. Our goals are a united humanity, united behind the principles that were laid down in 1776. We fell short of those goals for a long time, but now we must stand together on both sides of the aisle to see that we stand for those higher values.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, sometimes it is very perplexing to be a Member of Congress to note the way this body sometimes will simply go with the trends, what is trendy, especially when it comes to issues of science and energy. I am perplexed as much as I ever have been about this particular issue. I, as most of you know and as many people in the public may know, am an avid surfer. I am in the ocean water every weekend. Less than 4 days ago, I was out surfing. I am also a scuba diver. I am someone who loves the ocean. We have had offshore oil drilling in my district for almost 50 years and there has never been not only not a major problem but not even a significant problem with any type of spillage or any other type of threat to our environment. What did happen during that time period, however, was a major spill, and guess where it came from? A tanker. Yes, a tanker that was delivering oil. Let us also remember the Exxon Valdez was headed toward southern California. If it would have had its accident down there, we would still be cleaning up that mess. The tanker accident off of my district was when a tanker inadvertently ran over its own anchor, spilling a huge amount of oil onto our coastline. What we hear being suggested today by people claiming to be concerned about the environment and the ocean is to make our coastline perhaps 10, perhaps a hundred times more likely to suffer from an oil spill because every drop of oil that we do not get from these offshore oil rigs will come to us by tanker. We can philosophize that, oh, we shouldn't be so dependent on oil in the first place. Okay, I will listen to that. I will listen to we should try to develop other alternative resources, but in reality, everyone in here knows that if we do not develop the actual oil resources, we are going to get that oil from someone who will deliver it to us by tanker, which is perhaps 10 to 100 times more likely to spill that oil on our coastline. This bill is an antienvironmental bill. This proposition is against cleanliness in the ocean, but it is trendy, it is happy; we do not have to explain ourselves because everybody knows that one has to be against actual oil drilling to be for the environment. Let me note that this also has a bad effect on the environment. I can tell my colleagues, I have gone as a scuba diver and taken dives off the offshore oil rigs and found that is where all the fish are because they know it is safe for them to be around those rigs. They are not in the other places, they are near those rigs. But what else does it do for us? It is better for the environment not to be dependent on these oil tankers, but it is also better for our country not to be dependent on hostile powers. Why is it that we have people in this body who will vote against any type of energy development when it comes to oil or natural gas? Why is that, when they realize we have people overseas at this minute risking their lives because our country is dependent on potentially hostile powers for our oil. Again, we could philosophize and say, oh, well, we should not be so dependent on oil, we should develop wind and solar and the rest of it, and I am for that. But we know that if we do not develop our oil resources, we are going to have the Saudi Arabians, the Iraqis, all the others who we are going to be more dependent on. So we cannot even drill in Alaska, one of the most God-forsaken areas of the world. So we cannot drill there and we cannot drill offshore, and what does that do to our economy? By the way, the local offshore rigs in my district have been providing revenue to our State and our local areas all of this time. Mr. Chairman, let me say, why is it that we are doing this? Number one, it is trendy. It is very trendy to be against offshore oil drilling and, number two, we have some very wealthy people who are concerned about their view, and that is it; very wealthy people concerned about their view. We are making our country more likely to have oil spills. We are putting ourselves in jeopardy by being dependent on these overseas powers to give us the oil, and we are hurting ourselves by eliminating that resource in terms of tax resources. And, by the way, when we talk about the balance of payments, if we are concerned about our economy, and it is wavering now, this is a major cause of unbalanced payments. We are not going to do anything to try and help those things, but we are going to help the rich people so they do not have to see an ugly oil well. Well, I would support anything that says let us make those oil wells not ugly. But I will not say we should not have oil. We can build those oil wells offshore that are safe and are beautiful, but let us not say we are not going to utilize what God gave us as these natural resources when it is safer to do so.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, let me draw Members' attention to the job that the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) is doing for these noble Americans. He did not have to do this, but he has put enormous energy into this bill to bring justice to the survivors of the Bataan Death March. He has my respect, and I am very, very proud to be working with the gentleman on this issue. I could not help but think as he read the definition of what is an American, that the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) himself represents the essence of what he was reading: an American is someone who stands for justice first and foremost. Thank goodness we have people who are taking time to care about those people who defended our country. Eisenhower once said that any country that forgets its defenders will itself soon be forgotten. Mr. Speaker, there are no greater heroes that we have today than those heroes that survived the Bataan Death March. There is no group of survivors of any war to whom we owe a greater thanks; but yet who we have done a great injustice through our inaction, through our unwillingness as a government to step up to do what was right by them. There are many such causes around, good causes. This is one good cause. I got personally involved in this because this issue happens to touch my family. My wife's father passed away about 10 years ago, and when we were married 5 years ago, at our wedding my wife was given away by Uncle Lou, now the great male patriarch of our family, because my father has passed away as well. Uncle Lou is a survivor of the Bataan Death March. What he told me surprised me. I was totally surprised when I heard about what had happened. First of all, and I went to several of the reunions they have of the Mukden survivors. The Mukden survivors are the people who survived the Bataan Death March and then were sent on to Manchuria where, I might add, they not only were worked as slave laborers, but many times used for experiments and many of them were brutally murdered by their Japanese guards. What he told me is that originally, of course, they felt that they had been betrayed by their countrymen, or at least had been hung out to dry, as you say, by our fellow Americans who they believed in. My Uncle Lou was unfortunate enough, like these other Bataan Death March victims and survivors, to be stationed in the Philippines just prior to the Japanese attack in December of 1941. They fought hard and they retreated back to the Bataan Peninsula, where they were able to hold out for months against overwhelming odds. And their relief never came. It just never came. They were supposed to hold out until the Americans came forward. Now, could we have saved them? We had a tremendous attack on Pearl Harbor that eliminated much of our strength in the Pacific. Maybe we were not able to. Maybe with the ships and planes we had available, if we tried a rescue mission, we would not have succeeded. Maybe that was the right decision to make by our military, not to go there to rescue these men. Then as they went through this horrific death march and captivity, which we will discuss in a moment, and then sent off to work as slave labor, those who were fit for slave labor duty in Japan and Manchuria. After the war again they believe they were hung out to dry, because again, rather than coming to their assistance and their aid, the United States decided to cut a deal, and that is what the treaty with Japan in 1951, the peace treaty, represents, a deal that was cut with the leadership in Japan and of the way we would handle ourselves in a peaceful world. It was a peace treaty. But instead of including in the peace treaty a consideration for these brave heroes, who had never been compensated by the Japanese or given an apology, not even an official apology issued for the way they were treated, instead of holding out for at least letting them have some modicum of justice, we cut the deal. The deal in the treaty says that they would not be able to sue. They would not be able to sue for compensation for the crimes committed against them. This was part of an overall thing, that nobody is going to be able to sue. Well, guess what? There is another portion of the treaty, because that portion that I just mentioned of the treaty is always held up by the State Department and they say, oh, we cannot let these Bataan Death March survivors sue the Japanese corporations that worked them as slave labor because that would violate the treaty. All of a sudden it would open up a Pandora's box. It would just destabilize the entire relationship we have with Japan. But, no, there is another part of the treaty, and that part of the treaty says, and I do not have the quote right here in front of me, but it says that if any rights are given to the people of any other country by Japan that are not included in this treaty as rights of Americans, then those rights that Japan has given to the other people automatically also become the rights of the Americans. Well, guess what? Japan has permitted their companies in their country to be sued by others who were victimized during the Second World War. The Dutch and most recently Chinese citizens are able to sue, and I believe they received $85,000 apiece in compensation. This clearly then suggests by this section of the treaty that the Americans should have a right to sue for those crimes and those losses and to compensate them for those losses and crimes against them during the war. But instead, our State Department continues, continues, to hold that, no, this would destabilize our relationship with Japan, ignoring that portion of the treaty that permits Americans to have the very same rights, legal rights, that other citizens are granted by the Japanese. So what we have is a travesty. America's greatest war heroes, and their greatest adversary is not the Japanese, but, instead, their own government. Yesterday in a court in California these Bataan Death March survivors again attempted to state their case and to bring their case against a Japanese corporation which had worked them during the Second World War. It is a travesty that representatives of their government, of us, of us, the United States of America, U.S., our representatives, paid for by our tax dollars, were in that court, not to pay homage to these great Americans who sacrificed so much for our freedom, but instead to offer a brief to the court, to offer their own testimony to the court, of why the court should not even consider the case of these brave Americans. Talking about adding insult to injury. The movie Saving Private Ryan and The Code Talkers and all these other movies that are now at last coming forward to show not just action-adventure type movies we had in the '50s or '60s, but instead to demonstrate the true heroism of that generation of Americans that saved us during the Second World War, we have those movies, and the American people feel that we owe that generation a great debt, and we do. But what kind of debt do we have when we sit and let our government, our government, using our tax dollars, thwart the efforts of the greatest of the heroes of that war to receive some sort of justice for the crimes that were committed against them? Do not tell me about Saving Private Ryan. Do not tell me about The Code Talkers and the rest of these, how they made you cry, when we have got people who are our heroes and went through that savagery and took the blows for us, who are now being thwarted in their attempt for justice by our own government. The gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) and I have tried to do our best to put at least the legislative branch of government on record, to be on the side of these Bataan Death March survivors. We have tried our best. I will have to say that the President, I do not know if he even knows about this issue, but I will say that he should, and if he hears about it tonight, he should intervene and make sure that his State Department, the people who he has appointed there, do not continue on this insult and this attack on the dignity and honor of the Bataan Death March survivors. But at least we have tried here in the legislative branch. We have 227 bipartisan cosponsors of this legislation, of H.R. 1198. The gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) has worked hard on this, as I say, and I have worked hard, and we have done our best on this legislation, and that is that over half the Members of Congress are cosponsors of this bill to bring justice to the Bataan Death March survivors. Who can stand against it, you ask? Well, we have not yet been able to get a hearing on this bill. We have yet to get the committee chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), I might add, to agree to have a hearing on this bill. There is always a reason, of course. There is an excuse. But the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) could have a hearing on this bill, if he so chooses. But we do not. I would suggest that the leadership of the House has not stepped forward to try to put pressure on those that are getting in the way of this bill, to make sure we get a hearing on this bill. I would think that those people who are reading the Congressional Record or listening tonight might want to call the White House and ask the President to make sure that we do right by the Bataan Death March survivors and we quit assigning members of the State Department to go into court to undercut their efforts to sue the people who tortured them and worked them as slave labor in World War II. I would suggest even calls to the leadership of the House, or to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) might be an appropriate thing to see if we can move this legislation forward. But we did not wait just for this legislation. There was another attempt that the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) and I worked out of how we might be able to get a vote on this, even though we were being thwarted in getting this bill to the floor. Last year when the appropriations bills were going through, we wrote an amendment to the Commerce, State and Justice appropriations bill that stated that no one in the State Department could use the funds in that bill in order to thwart the efforts of American citizens to sue the Japanese corporations that had worked them as slave labor during the war for compensation for that slave labor. So we basically were putting the essence of H.R. 1198 into the appropriations bill as a limitation so that no money could be used for that, meaning they could not pay the salary of anybody, they could not send them out, because that was using money, appropriated money, for that end. That amendment caused a great deal of stir in this body, because we had at last got something on the floor. Some people thought that it was going to be ruled out of order. In fact, I believe the leadership felt it was going to be ruled out of order. But the person who was occupying the Chair when someone was asked to rule whether or not the amendment was in order, the person in the Chair took a look at it and said no, that is in order, and the shock waves could be felt all over the world. Of course, it did not come up for a few days, and during that time period, the Japanese lobby went into full gear, and I am sorry to say that many Americans who you would never believe would take money to undercut America's heroes, people who, yes, it does bring tears to their eyes when they see movies like Saving Private Ryan, people who have made their whole lives helping the veterans, signed on to the effort of the Japanese companies to undermine that effort on our part to amend the appropriations bill, and, I might add, to undercut the bill of the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) and myself, H.R. 1198. There was enormous pressure brought, but when the bill came to the floor in the House, we won overwhelmingly. It was an overwhelming vote. Only 33 votes were against us. Well, it also passed the United States Senate, the appropriations vote in the United States Senate. Senator Bob Smith from New Hampshire put forward the very same amendment, exact wording; so we had on both sides, the United States Senate by a majority and in the House by a huge majority, voted for that very same language to make sure that our tax dollars were not being used to undermine the rights of the Bataan Death March survivors. And guess what happened? We have a process here, which is if there is any difference between the Senate appropriations bill and a House appropriations bill, they meet in a conference committee. The rules are supposed to be that they only make changes in those parts of the bills that have a difference. Those are the rules. But, of course, who cares for the rules when they have lobbyists paying millions of dollars in order to make just one point, or when they are going to have some argument: Oh, we have to protect the stability of the relationship between Japan and the United States, because everything will just go to pieces if we permit these Americans, these heroes, to sue the Japanese corporations that worked them as slave labor. Of course, the Japanese relations with the Chinese and with the Dutch have not gone to pot. No, only with Americans would that be considered an insult, for us to stand up for our people over these Japanese companies, huge multinational companies, huge Japanese corporations worth billions of dollars. Yes, they cannot afford to do justice by these people whom they treated like animals during the Second World War. So behind the scenes in a conference committee where we are only supposed to change the things that are different between the House and the Senate, someone stepped forward to take out this provision. These were provisions that passed on the floor of both Houses. Now, somebody is negating the democratic process here. Somebody, I do not know who, somebody is negating the democratic process on an issue that concerns America's greatest heroes; and we need to step up to the plate and make sure that it does not happen again. Those listening or those reading the Congressional Record should know that the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) and I are planning again to offer this same amendment to the appropriations bill, but this time, we are going to draw the bead of the American people. We are going to focus people's attention on the conference committee so that behind closed doors, we will find out who it is that takes away the rights of the Bataan Death March survivors for their justice. We will find out who intercedes to negate the democratic process and behind closed doors, do this dirty deed to America's greatest heroes. We will find that out, and we will come to this floor, and we will make sure that the American people know exactly who it is that is doing this. Because the American people need to know if the democratic process is going to be thwarted, who it is here who is doing that, especially at the expense of these brave, brave men. That will probably be in the next few months. I am not sure when the appropriations bill will be coming, it probably will be coming sometime in September, but we will be drawing people's attention to it, and I hope that people pay attention to this issue. It is only if we mobilize American opinion that we are going to be able to thwart those who are trying to thwart democracy. Let us take a look at that. Let us take a look at it. How many people are we talking about? After the war, approximately 16,000 POWs returned. These were people that returned, some of them were turned into walking skeletons; most of them had had the most traumatic times in their lives, both physically and mentally. They had seen their friends murdered in front of them, butchered. Sixteen thousand returned, and 11,000 POWs died in the hands of their Japanese corporate employers. These Japanese companies and the Japanese government had the worst record of abuse of their prisoners in World War II, and that is saying a lot. Unfortunately, of the 16,000 that returned, only 2,000 remain alive today. It is up to us to set the record straight and to do what is right and to bring justice to these 2,000 men, if for nothing else, in memory of those many other thousands that have died waiting for justice, and the many thousands who died before them at the hands of these Japanese corporations and the Japanese prison guards. Uncle Lou, my wife's great uncle, told me of his capture in the Bataan Death March at Bataan and details of the Bataan Death March and of the Filipino people who were watching this from the side. By the way, the Bataan Death March had many, many Filipinos as well, not just American soldiers, but Filipino soldiers. We are about to do justice to those Filipino soldiers, by the way, for the first time, thanks to the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) from San Diego, and some others of us; I am sure the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) is on this bill as well. We promised the Filipinos who served with us that they would get veterans' benefits, the same veterans' benefits as the Americans who served in World War II. Mr. Speaker, this is a black mark on our government again. We just betrayed them. We just took them out of the loop. I think it was in 1948 that we reneged on that promise. But these Filipino soldiers who were with us, they died by the thousands as well. The Filipino people, the citizens would see these poor people coming by, these brave Americans and Filipinos who were being treated in this way, by the sword-swirling Japanese who were cutting their heads off if they dropped out of line, and they had no water, and the Americans with the heat; it was a horror story, the Bataan Death March. But the Filipino people would throw little packets of food or little containers of water on them. If they did, they knew that if the Japanese guards saw them, that they would be murdered, but they took that chance to help these brave souls, these heroic people. They did that at such great risk that some of them lost their lives when the Japanese guards would come right over and bayonet them to death. Do we not have the courage to do something? We are not going to lose our lives. Do we not have the courage to step forward, or the caring in our heart to step forward to help these heroes as they march by? This is a black mark on this Congress that we permitted that provision to be taken out behind closed doors in that conference committee. It is a black mark that this bill that the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) and I have worked on, H.R. 1198, has not been brought to the floor. This is a black mark. This is a shameful episode. We can make it right, Mr. Speaker, but we have to have the support of the American people to do so. In the months ahead when we bring this forward and try to put this amendment on the Commerce, State, and Justice appropriations bill, we need to have everyone there focused on this issue. I would hope the veterans' organizations, which they were the last time around, will join us. By the way, one other reason I feel so deeply about this is that my father also served in the Philippines as one of the liberators after the war. He too had a very high opinion of the Filipino people, and he flew DC-3s up and down the battle areas as we liberated the Philippines from the Japanese. And it was a very bloody battle, and many people risked their lives and many people lost their lives. Many people remained. That truly was, that generation truly was the great generation. So we have a chance now to repay that debt. We have now a chance to send the message that we believe in justice and even if it is justice delayed, we will do our part to try to bring this honor, this honor that these men, the survivors of the Bataan Death March who were the heroes of all of those people, like my father who went after them, it was their courage that inspired my father and others to be involved. Let us know this: This is not an anti-Japanese piece of legislation. The gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) would be the last person who would come forward and try to do something anti-Japanese. The fact is that many people in Japan, and I would say if not most of the people in Japan, understand that there were things that were done wrong in World War II. As we know, our own Japanese Americans who joined up in our own military were some of the most decorated war heroes in World War II. Of course, they used them in Italy and in the European theater, but they were heroic. So we know that. This is not against the Japanese Americans and it is not against the Japanese people, because we know that they would like to make it right and move on. After all, the Germans, after World War II and in the decades since, tried to make it right, some of the evil things that they did. And they knew that it was not them, they did not do wrong; it was another generation of Germans that did that. But they have not run away from their history. Mr. Speaker, there are many people in Japan who want to shut the book. Let these Japanese corporations, if they do not want us to go through this, let them step forward and make a settlement with the Bataan Death March survivors. Let them make a settlement. But we are not going to stand by and let them just be tortured with silence after they had been tortured and worked as slave laborers during the war. We will not let the indignity of the crime against them, and the indignities that they had to suffer, we will not let that continue and go without being addressed. As I say, there are many Japanese who would like to see the book closed, and I would plead with the powers in Japan to step forward and just close this book, get it over with. This will not disrupt American-Japanese relations. Those people who are suggesting that, they are just using la-la words, meaningless phrases and words, to try to say something that would justify the insult that they are giving to America's greatest war heroes; or perhaps they have been lobbied by someone, someone who they respect or they owe a special favor to, who told them not to vote for this, or to oppose it in some way. This is not going to disrupt American-Japanese relations. The corporations that we are talking about are worth billions of dollars. They can afford to compensate these men who they treated as animals and dogs, and beat. They can afford it. In fact, it would be money well spent, because it would establish a tie, a bond between all of us, knowing that they were willing to do it. There would be no disruption of American relations. It is ludicrous to say that. So tonight we draw attention to this bill, to this piece of legislation that has not been permitted on the floor, or that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) has not seen fit to have a hearing on. We draw attention to the Japanese people; let us work together and bring justice and close this book. Let us honor these American heroes and recognize that the Japanese people are not the same people who had been brainwashed, as they were; the Japanese had been brainwashed for generations to react the way they did to orders during World War II. But that has to be recognized, that there were crimes in World War II, and acknowledged and forgiven and forgotten, because there are so many things; and we have such close ties with the Japanese people now, and it is a wondrous thing. Certainly Japanese-Americans, again, have proven their patriotism, just with their honor and courage. And the fact that the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) is one of the leaders in this demonstrates again just how willing they are to step up to the plate and be patriotic Americans. Mr. Speaker, I just close with this thought about my father, and the many fathers who fought in the Philippines and who fought in that generation. Some of them are lost to us now. We will do what is right by them, and we will honor them by doing what is right. What is right is not to forget the Bataan Death March survivors while any of them survive. Two thousand survive. Let us not let them pass away until we have done justice by them. In this way, we will do honor by them; but we will make sure that our own country stands for liberty and justice and freedom, and these things that the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) just mentioned a few moments ago. If we are Americans, we are going to stand for these things, and we are going to stand together. Sometimes that means overpowering certain special interest groups that maybe have influence here. But no interest group can stand up to the American people if they are motivated and if they understand what the issues are. So let us join together and let us make sure we do what is right by the survivors, to the survivors of the Bataan Death March, and let us pass H.R. 1198. Let us make sure that bill gets to the floor, and let us make sure that our amendment on the Commerce-State-and-Justice appropriations bill is passed and remains in the bill, and is not taken out behind closed doors this time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, this month marks the end of an era in law enforcement when Bonni Gayle Tischler, the highest ranking woman to ever serve this country in federal law enforcement, leaves the United States Customs Service to pursue other opportunities in private industry. Industry's gain is truly our loss. Ms. Tischler, the Assistant Commissioner for Field Operations at Customs and the first woman to ever hold that position, began her career at the National Republican Congressional Committee. But politics did not quench her thirst for adventure so, in 1971, she became one of the first women to become a United States Sky Marshall. In 1977, Ms. Tischler became one of the very first women to become a federal agent with the Customs Service, working undercover in the Miami based ``Operation Greenback,'' an innovative anti-money laundering program established by the United States Department of Treasury. Playing roles ranging from a crooked executive to the madam of a brothel, Ms. Tischler, by her example, proved that law enforcement and the public were the beneficiaries of strong, smart women cops. During the Administration of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Tischler became the first woman in the federal government to head a law enforcement field office when she took over as Special Agent in Charge in Tampa Florida. While in Tampa she oversaw the investigation into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the largest money laundering investigation of its kind. Her work not only gained her attention in Washington, but also resulted in a contract put out on her life. Named, in 1997 to oversee 4,500 agents and investigative personnel at 152 field offices throughout the world, she became the first woman to become the Assistant Commissioner for Investigations at Customs. During her tenure she had responsibility for the largest money-laundering probe in U.S. history, ``Operation Casablanca,'' and ``Operation Cheshire Cat'', also the largest-ever international child pornography and exploitation case among many others. In June of 2000, Ms. Tischler was tapped to head Customs Office of Field Operations, by far the largest segment of the Customs Service, with over 13,000 employees, a $1 billion dollar budget, 300 Ports of Entry and all Customs Management Centers and Field Laboratories. The National Center for Women and Policing has honored her with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for her work as a mentor to thousands of other women who have followed her footsteps into law enforcement careers. Perhaps, however, her biggest challenge was personal. Bonni Tischler is a breast cancer survivor. Today, the sight of a woman in a police uniform is not at all uncommon. This is partly due to the fact that Bonni Tischler was never an armchair feminist. While other adventuresome young women of her generation pursued careers as lawyers or businesswomen, Bonni Tischler was on the firing range, mastering the use of a gun. She marched on a different road to a different drummer and we are all better off because of it. For thousands of women today, and a countless number in the future, Bonni Tischler not only broke the glass ceiling, she shattered it, and in doing so she changed the face of federal law enforcement forever.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I would like for the record and for anyone who is observing this presentation this evening, to understand the pivotal role that the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is playing in this battle for our Nation's security in terms of the fight against illegal immigration. Now, I may or may not agree with the gentleman about the nature of the terrorist threat to the United States; I tend to think that there are many, many Muslims throughout the world who are as much against terrorism as we are, standing right here in this body today, and that they are horrified that the bin Ladens of the world are being presented to the American people and to others as spokesmen for Islam. They are just horrified by this. But to the degree that there is a threat there, what is important is what the gentleman from Colorado has been doing to make sure that we focus on a major vulnerability of our country, which is the fact that our government is not concerned about the sanctity of our immigration system and the security of our borders, so that the people of the United States of America are being made vulnerable every day in many ways; economically, but also in terms of their own personal safety, as well as the safety of our government and our institutions, by a massive flow of illegal immigration into the United States of America. The gentleman from Colorado has taken it upon himself to try to mobilize public opinion and mobilize the opinion of Members of this body so that the public, as well as this body, will understand the great risk we are putting ourselves in by not controlling the flow of illegal immigrants into our country. It is a risk that has economic ramifications, which the gentleman from Colorado has time and again talked about, and about how the standard of living of the average working person has been going down; and yet, of course, we have the ownership class in America who seems to be able to take advantage of cheap labor. We have also heard from the gentleman from Colorado about the criminal elements that are coming into our country; and now the gentleman from Colorado is also warning us about the potential terrorist implications to not having control over our borders. Now, I have been fighting illegal immigration for as long as I have served, and have been privileged to serve, in this body; and that is why I feel so strongly that the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is playing a role that is just indispensable to the security of our country, because he is carrying much of this load on his own shoulders. But I have been especially concerned over the years about the security risks that illegal aliens pose to our country. We do not need to just make this fundamentalist Muslims, because I happen to believe that there are a lot of fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Jews that say crazy things about other people's religions, and there are radicals who would murder people in every faith. We must make sure that we are opposed to any of this type of radicalism, and it should be denied access to the United States of America. If you have a radical Christian or a radical Buddhist or a radical Communist or a radical Hebrew or a radical Muslim, any one of those who are willing to kill other people because of their faith, should not be permitted in the United States of America, period. Well, since 245(i), which was an amnesty for illegal aliens, was proposed in 1996, I have talked myself hoarse about why this was such a grave matter to our national security. Mr. Speaker, 245(i), as we know, permits people who are in this country illegally not to have to go back to their home countries in order to readjust their status so that they could in some way be here legally. In the past, if someone is here illegally, they have to go back before they can adjust their status. Well, others in this body have openly scoffed, saying that 245(i) is about, what they claim, is about uniting families, or fairness, or economics, or anything else than what it is. Mr. Speaker, 245(i), which is an amnesty for those people who are here illegally so they do not have to go home to adjust their status, they can do it here, is an invitation to criminals and terrorists and anyone else who would overstay their visa to come to this country and break our laws. It is an invitation for everyone who comes here on a visa to overstay their visa because, after all, now that they are here in the United States, and they can be adjusted. And while 245(i), which we put into place, was supposedly a limited right of these people who are here illegally to adjust their status, it has had already horrible impacts on the safety of our people. Now, the 245(i) amnesty for illegal aliens has claimed the first victims that can be officially proven to be the victims of the action of 245(i) by this Congress, and it is a very prominent case. The INS Congressional Relations Office confirmed to my office that the Egyptian gunman who killed two people at the El Al counter in Los Angeles Airport, at LAX, on July 4, was in this country only due to a 245(i) amnesty. That is that Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, an Egyptian citizen, a man who apparently either was part of a terrorist system which we do not know, he may not have been, but we do know that he lost his composure or perhaps he did it intentionally, but he went to LAX and murdered two people, two innocent people. Think about this. Mr. Hadayet, and I do not know if that is the way you pronounce his name, who was due to be deported, became a resident of this country due to a 245(i) amnesty. What a travesty. Now, this is a case that we can document. I would contend that there are probably many other cases in this country where people have been brutalized or murdered or raped or robbed, or that you have someone who imposes a terrorist threat in our country because of this, but this one we can document. If we had deported him, those two people there at LAX, those beautiful young people, may be alive today, would certainly be alive today, and their families and their friends would have been saved this enormous grief. Estimates from the INS and others are literally several hundred thousand, by the way, in terms of how many illegal aliens have already applied for and received legal permanent status through 245(i). So let us make that clear. Hundreds of thousands of people have received their permanent resident status, even though they were in this country illegally at the time, because of 245(i). Now I might add just for the record that the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), my good friend and colleague, the two of us debated this issue out. I was claiming at the time that hundreds of thousands of people would seek to utilize this loophole if Congress passed the 245(i) extension. The gentleman from California (Mr. Berman) emphatically stated that it would only be 30,000, he could never imagine more than 30,000 or so people claiming this, and this was his official estimate by some, of course, source that either did not know what they were talking about or were intentionally misleading the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman). But I remember him saying, if you have over that many people apply, I will buy you dinner. Well, I say to the gentleman, I am ready for dinner. I am ready for dinner. And I want the gentleman to know that I will not mention over dinner the death of those two poor people at the El Al counter at LAX, because they can be traced right back to that 245(i), and there are not just a few thousand people who applied, there are hundreds of thousands, and it is a gigantic loophole that we do not need to open wider, we need to stop that loophole. We need to plug it so we do not have any more maniacs in our midst who might have been deported; at least they would not have been here. Who knows. I had a person from the INS tell me that the reason why we want them here, if they are here illegally, the reason we want them deported back to their home country to check them out is because that is where the records are. That is where all the authorities in those countries know in their country who has been arrested for unstable behavior. Maybe this man was not a Muslim extremist. He may have just been a very disturbed person. Well, guess what? We do not want a very disturbed person in this country who is here illegally either. And if Congress should pass another extension of 245(i), which is, of course, what we were being pressured to do, and let me add that the vote that they were leading up to, and there is enormous pressure on us to pass 245(i), that vote was supposed to be on what day? 9-11. If those people would not have flown those planes into the World Trade Center, if those terrorists would not have slaughtered thousands of Americans up there in New York, this body would have been in session and we would have been voting for 245(i) that would permit these types of threats to our security and to the personal safety of our people to remain in the United States. Had Congress passed 245(i), there would probably be, and we estimate, another 300,000 illegal aliens permitted to stay here and to start to legalize their citizenship status and their immigration status.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, all 19 of those people who flew the planes into our buildings and murdered our people were Saudi citizens. I think there are some people in Saudi Arabia who are friends of the United States and allies of the United States, but we have to take a look at what is going on in Saudi Arabia. We have to protect ourselves, to make sure that we just do not have an open door, because they have not cleaned up their own house. They have not put their own house in order. Thus, they have made it unsafe. How many other countries are like that?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the gentleman is precisely correct. My staff, when this happened, noticed that there was a discrepancy about why this person was actually in the country after he had been given deportation notices. I talked to them about it and, frankly, several of my staff members worked very diligently to find this information out. Rick Dykema, who is my chief of staff, headed the investigation; and the INS, although they finally confirmed it this evening, right before I came up here, the INS was being very nebulous and it was like, oh, well, they did not want to admit that this was it. How many people around the country are going to hear this? As the gentleman says, how many newspapers are going to report that? I am very grateful, and I thank the gentleman very much for noting that it took a lot of hard work for us to do this. I would just hope that those people who want to extend 245(i) go down and take a look at the blood on the floor of the LAX airport before they do. Take a look at the picture of those poor people who were murdered by this either fanatic or unstable foreigner who was here illegally, whom we could have sent back, but instead, we kept, because our colleagues have bought into this idea that it is in some way a positive thing to permit this loophole to exist. By the way, if there are another 300,000 people who now the INS has to process because of 245(i), let us remember that the INS is already 3 million cases behind in processing people who already have made their application. Why are we adding to their work in processing these applications, and while they are doing it, permitting these people who are here illegally to stay here in this country? If there is a backlog of 3 million people, it is going to take them years to work and to try to find or go over everyone's case like this, and now we are just adding more and more people who are able to stay here without the serious background check that they would get if they were sent home because they were here in this country illegally. With the July 4 attack, we knew that we were in a horrible situation. We must take a look at 245(i) and the entire immigration policy of this country after this attack on July 4, but we should have been doing this after September 11, as well.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to reaffirm something we talked about earlier, and this is for people who may have missed the beginning of this Special Order, that due to research from my office, we have discovered that the murderer who may well be a terrorist or may well be just a very disturbed man or may be a cold-blooded murderer who is in this country illegally, managed to stay in this country through the use of the 245(i) process, this is the murderer who killed those people on July 4 at LAX. So we have confirmed officially for the first time at least, these are known victims of the 245(i). This is outrageous. And hopefully by exposing this, it should wake up some of our colleagues to just how serious it is to not regain control of our borders which are just totally out of control. And, number two, hopefully this will alert our fellow colleagues to the danger of the 245(i) reform, which they call it, which is a gigantic loophole which permits people who should be deported or should not be in this country because they are here illegally, to stay in this country and adjust their status here in the country rather than having to go back to their native country. Had this man who came from Egypt been forced to return to his country as was the law without 245(i), those two people who were murdered on July 4 at LAX at the El Al counter would be alive today. And this grief that we brought upon their families is the grief that can be brought upon any American family. We just heard from our colleague of someone having four DUIs. What does that mean? That person was driving, that person was a threat to killing our families on the street. Now, why are we permitting people who are in this country to pose a risk to the safety of our people and the security of our country? This is ridiculous. I would hope that those listening understand just how serious this issue is and demand that Congress act on this, and watch what Congress does, and, again, that people pay attention to people like the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), who is offering tremendous leadership on this issue and he has taken a lot of personal hits. I can tell you years ago I was called a racist skinhead for suggesting that instead of giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to medical benefits to illegal immigrants, that they should be sent home to their own countries for medical benefits. There was one man in my district who received over $300,000 worth of medical treatment. He had leukemia. Now, I am sorry he had leukemia, but $300,000? What does that do for the amount of money that we have available to take care of our own people? Obviously, America has not been taking the steps necessary to secure our own borders. Obviously, the leaders in America are not putting the safety and security and well-being of the American people first. Who is to care about America unless we do? The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) has been in the forefront of this type of patriotism, caring about his country and watching out for our people. I thank the gentleman very much for letting me participate.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of this rule and the underlying resolution. Also, I rise today in outrage and indignation over yet the latest manifestation of an ongoing assault on the rights of Americans who cherish their beliefs and their commitment to God. This is not just about the Pledge of Allegiance, although forcing people to excise God from this voluntary oath is bad enough. A liberal left coalition has been trying to do their best for decades to neuter American traditions that is based on God, beliefs and traditions that Americans have held dear for two centuries. We see it in the attack on the rights of the Boy Scouts to have God in their scout oaths and have a high moral standard. We see it in our schools when they preempt Christmas programs and instead make them holiday programs. We see it at city halls when all of a sudden a manger scene or some recognition of Hanukkah are left out during those holy months. We see it when the courthouse takes down the Ten Commandments; and we see it when the National Endowment for the Arts subsidizes art works, supposed, so-called art work that attacks Christianity but then passes when it comes to religious works. Yes, getting God out of the Pledge of Allegiance is bad; but it is part of an attempt, an overall attempt to use the judicial system to attack our fundamental liberties, especially the liberties of those of us who believe in God. This is one reason why many of us are so concerned about who controls the United States Senate, because it will be the United States Senate who controls who is on the Supreme Court. No one has ever been forced to pray or to acknowledge God, but the liberal coalition that is involved in taking this Pledge and eliminating God from the Pledge are using our courts to attack the freedom of those who do believe in God and attack our rights to our expression. Today, those of us who believe in God, those of us who cherish liberty need to unite to make sure that those who would use our court system, especially on to the Supreme Court, are defeated in their attempts to neuter America of its traditional recognition of God. I for one stand for liberty, and together we will keep God in our Pledge of Allegiance; and we will defeat this war to sever America and Americans from our religious traditions, and we will protect our people's precious rights to have their faith in God and to express it; and at the same time, we will protect those who do not believe in God. This is, as I say, a fundamental attack by atheists as part of a liberal left coalition to attack the rights of us who do believe in God to express that, and we need to unite with believers and nonbelievers together for human liberty, which is what America is all about.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 449. Yes, it will permit us to do the job right because we are committed to doing this job well, but it will also permit us to set the task of doing this job expeditiously, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) noted. Why should it be done expeditiously? Because we are at war. Let us not forget what this is all about. Three thousand of our citizens were slaughtered by a hostile foreign enemy. We are at war. Our military is in action in Afghanistan, in the Philippines, and perhaps in the near future in Iraq. Our intelligence agencies have been mobilized. That is what one expects in war. But as in past wars, especially in this new type of war, what the defense of the homeland is about is about winning that war. It is part of the strategy of victory. And to accomplish the security of our homeland and the safety of our people, we need a restructuring and we need to do it in an expeditious fashion. That is what this effort is all about. But it is more than just redrawing the lines on a flow chart. We must also have a change in attitude, a new sense of vigilance that comes with the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security. I am personally pleased to see, for example, that the INS will reorient their job toward protecting our borders and protecting the security of the United States of America in dealing with the illegal alien problem. Our homeland is in jeopardy, and a restructuring is absolutely necessary; and we have begun today with this effort to provide the restructuring that will be necessary to legal procedures. George Bush is providing the aggressive leadership on the executive end. We are providing this restructuring on the legislative side, and we are working under the aggressive leadership of our President in this wartime situation. And what is necessary for victory is a unity, not just between the executive and legislative branch, but also between the political parties; and that is what this effort is about today. It is a bipartisan effort. It is a team effort. We are proposing a select committee to expedite the creation of a Homeland Security Department. So let the terrorists of the world know we will pursue them overseas and we will protect our homeland and we will win this war against this evil that threatens our people, our homeland, and the world.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment, and let me just say that I have a great deal of fear that the money that is going into science is quite often politicized, and there is evidence of that around. I think the amendment that the gentlewoman is suggesting would lead in that direction and we should be very wary of these types of earmarks. What I think the gentlewoman would actually do is create a situation where money was earmarked for this particular biotechnology type of research and the word would go out that if anyone wants to create scares about biotechnology they should come and get their grant because this is what this money is for. We have seen the same sort of thing happen before. We saw it happen with global warming. My fellow colleague and friend, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), suggested there has been a ``change'' in administration policy on global warming. Well, I am not sure what that change in policy is, but it is very clear that that issue has been so politicized by the introduction of tax dollars through the various National Science Foundation, NASA, et cetera, that the public has not been getting pure science, but it has been getting politicized science. In the early 1980s, there was a consensus, and in fact there were hearings in this Congress, in our committee, reaffirming the great threat that the global climate change posed to humankind. In fact, we had hearings in which the Democratic leaders of the committees at that time, because the Democrats controlled the House, they controlled the committees, made statements about the horrible threat of this global climate change. The only trouble was the climate change they were talking about and the scientists they brought in to verify it were warning us of global cooling. Some of those scientists, I might add, are now on the payroll advocating that we have to fear global warming. Now, all of that in a 20-year time period. They reversed themselves on this important issue in a 20-year period. Now, supposedly the global warming trend and the global cooling trend, whatever it is, has been going on for thousands and thousands of years, yet they reversed themselves in a 20-year period as to what the government had to emphasize in order to save humankind. If we had taken their prescriptions, obviously we would have been going in exactly the wrong direction. And I would predict in about 5 years from now there will be some other major revelation to the scientific community, as government grants are given in this way or that way; and we might find that it is neither global warming nor global cooling, but something to do with the Earth on its axis or something going towards the Moon or the sun, or something else we deserve to spend billions of dollars and direct it towards the scientists who will be able to warn us about it. Let me just note that we have seen the glaciers in our country and other countries receding for about 100,000 years now. There has been climate change in the world, and it has been getting warmer for hundreds of thousands of years. Yet in order to prove that humankind in the last 5,000, or actually the last 500 years is causing this global climate change, we are spending billions and billions of science dollars. We have got to quit politicizing science. This amendment, I believe, goes in exactly the wrong direction. But let me note this. Politicized science is probably the worst threat that we have right now to understanding the actual perils that might face us in the future. I still remember the ``Global 2000 Report,'' and I would recommend that my colleagues read the ``Global 2000 Report'' that was put out in 1980, financed of course by tax dollars. The ``Global 2000 Report,'' I believe, warned us against global cooling, but my colleagues can check into that. I do not remember that precisely, but I do remember they said we would be totally out of oil by the year 2000 and that gasoline would cost about $150 a gallon, or something like that, and all of our natural resources would be depleted. In other words, there was this great threat, this great scare that was put out in the ``Global 2000 Report,'' and every one of their conclusions were wrong, now that we have passed the year 2000. Do my colleagues know why it was wrong? It is because it was politicized science. I think that we have to, and we are dealing with this committee and we are dealing with our expenditures, we have to go out of our way, bend over backwards to ensure that we are not politicizing science; that we are not taking up a trendy issue and asking the scientific community to verify it in order to get government grants. That is why I would oppose the Woolsey amendment.