F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I strongly urge defeat of the motion to recommit and passage of the bill.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, securing our Nation's borders is an imperative, and this bill does it. Turning off the magnet that brings people into the United States to work illegally is an imperative. This bill does it. This 149-page motion to recommit, which we received a couple of minutes before the author made his motion, we have been able to look at enough of this 150 pages to see that it does not provide one bit of enhancement to the employment verification system. That is the big hole in this bill. So there is no way that employers will be able. There are no enhancements to employer verification. Mr. Speaker, throughout this debate, both yesterday and today, my friends on the minority side have been doing their best to try to make this bill unworkable, one of which was their almost unanimous support for keeping the penalties for illegal presence in the United States as a felony. Let me tell you that even though my amendment to reduce those penalties was voted down largely by people on the other side of the aisle, when this bill gets to conference, those penalties will be made workable. You can count on that. Keep immigration reform on track. To secure our borders and to have a secure employer verification system, pass this bill. Vote against the motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. The amendment acknowledges that immigration fraud has become endemic and, even more seriously, that internal corruption at U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services threatens the national security and erodes the integrity of our immigration system. The extent and seriousness of the problem was brought to light in a closed bipartisan session of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims of the Judiciary Committee earlier this year. Although the serious allegations and investigations discussed there cannot be discussed in the open, I urge my colleagues in the strongest terms to pass this important amendment. The ease with which unscrupulous immigration officials can be tempted to issue visas or benefits in return for money, goods, or favors was brought to light a month ago with the issuance of a Government Accountability Office report on consular malfeasance. In that report, it was revealed that the Diplomatic Security Service had investigated 28 cases of visa selling by State Department employees in the last few years. Those were only the cases that were discovered in the some 200 consular sections located abroad. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducts its application processing in the United States, and yet thousands of allegations of misconduct, some involving criminal acts and foreign influence, have yet to be investigated because of lack of focus, resources, and confusion of sub-agency jurisdiction. This amendment would ensure that an internal law enforcement division within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would receive, process, and investigate allegations of misconduct and internal corruption in a timely manner. To fund this office, a $10 fee will be charged to all visa applicants. The amendment would also provide that the Director of the division would have the authority to subpoena documents, reports, and data, and to appoint such officers as necessary to carry out the internal affairs functions. I urge my colleagues to support this very important amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, I described that this amendment is unworkable. We will have a reallocation of resources. I would not want this bill to cost thousands of people in the northern border communities, legitimate, honest, hardworking American citizens as well as their counterparts on the Canadian side of the border to lose their jobs simply because goods cannot get across the border. I appreciate the thought behind the gentleman's amendment, but it really is not a workable one, and it should be rejected as a result of that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of H.R. 4437, the Clerk be authorized to make technical and clerical changes to reflect the actions of the House.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition, even though I support the amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I support this amendment, and I want to commend the gentlewoman from New York for offering it. One can ask all 435 Members of the House of Representatives what is the principal area of constituent complaints that caseworkers in our local offices deal with, and they will all say immigration complaints, because the immigration service legacy, as well as the component parts that it has been split into, has not been dealing with these issues properly. This is an issue that deals with immigration benefits that legal aliens are entitled to receive. And it seems to me that if we are the welcoming country to legal aliens that we claim to be, we ought to deal with their petitions promptly and professionally. That is not being done, and we owe it to our present constituents and future constituents, as many of these people are eligible for permanent resident status and will eventually become citizens of the United States, to solve the problems of the backlog in dealing with immigration benefits. The Government Accountability Office is about to issue a report that will deal with the effects of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to reduce the immigration application backlog that has plagued the system for years. This report will confirm that this new agency, created under the Homeland Security Act and transformed from the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, has made significant strides in reducing application backlogs since its creation in 2003. Nevertheless, more progress needs to be made. The current backlog stands at about 1 million applications for immigration benefits. Although this figure was reduced from over 3 million applications when the new agency was formed, much of this came from definitional changes which I have publicly questioned. We must do more to challenge the Department of Homeland Security to improve. This will mean a more professional and prompt resolution of dealing with the documents that legal immigrants need to integrate themselves into American society. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, under current law, illegal entry into the United States makes an alien subject to a Federal criminal misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison. However, unlawful presence itself, such as by overstaying a visa, is not a criminal offense, but only a civil ground of inadmissibility. Forty percent of the current illegal alien population entered legally, but overstayed their visas. The other 60 percent of the illegal alien population came here by illegal means and are therefore already subject to criminal penalties for committing a Federal criminal offense. At the administration's request, the base bill makes unlawful presence a crime, such as unlawful entry already is. This change makes sense. Aliens who have disregarded our laws by overstaying their visas to remain in the United States illegally should be just as culpable as aliens who have broken our laws to enter and remain here illegally. In the base bill, the maximum penalty for illegal entry was increased to a year and a day, and the same penalty was set for unlawful presence, to make the enhancements for these offenses consistent with the other penalty enhancements of the bill. The administration subsequently requested the penalty for these crimes be lowered to 6 months. Making the first offense a felony, as the base bill would do, would require a grand jury indictment, a trial before a district court judge and a jury trial. Also because it is a felony, the defendant would be able to get a lawyer at public expense if the defendant could not afford the lawyer. These requirements would mean that the government would seldom if ever actually use the new penalties. By leaving these offenses as misdemeanors, more prosecutions are likely to be brought against those aliens whose cases merit criminal prosecution. For this reason, the amendment returns the sentence for illegal entry to its current 6 months and sets the penalty for unlawful presence at the same level. Some have argued that this provision would require 11 million prosecutions. That is not true. Prosecutorial resources are limited, and authorities would rather quickly deport an alien whose only offense is to be here unlawfully rather than to prosecute and have to detain that alien pending trial. Even if an alien were prosecuted under this provision, a conviction of unlawful presence would not prevent an alien from some day attaining legal status or even citizenship if the alien would otherwise qualify. Making unlawful presence a crime, however, would serve as a greater deterrence to aliens overstaying their visas. For these reasons, I ask that the Members support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. This amendment has been triggered by a recent IG report of the Department of Homeland Security that not all applicants for immigration benefits undertake an IBIS check. The excuse that was given is that not all U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service employees have a high enough security clearance to conduct the proper checks, and some of the problems stem from simple lax management. Neither of these excuses is valid. I am amazed that this has not always been a requirement of the law. We should conduct a thorough background check of anybody who seeks immigration benefits. The necessity of these checks was demonstrated by the fact that at least six of the 9/11 hijackers, murderers, ended up slipping through the cracks. I think this amendment plugs an important loophole in the current law, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I regret to say, the gentlewoman from California, whom I greatly respect, is wrong. Under the Federal juvenile statute, children cannot be prosecuted for any Federal crime, felony or misdemeanor, if it is not a crime of violence or a drug trafficking crime. So her entire argument about making children subjected to Federal criminal prosecution simply by being here is not valid. They can be subjected if it is a crime of violence or a drug trafficking crime. What this amendment does is reduce the penalties for this type of immigration violation from a felony in the base bill to a misdemeanor. That is all the amendment does. And what it does do is criminalize the presence of the people here who have overstayed their visas. Now those who have entered the United States illegally, not through a port of entry and not submitting themselves to inspection by U.S. Immigration and Customs authorities commit a crime. That is a crime now. It is a Federal misdemeanor. But if you do go through inspection and do not go home when you are supposed to, then it becomes a civil ground of inadmissibility. So we are treating illegal aliens differently. You are a potential misdemeanant if convicted if you entered the United States illegally. But if you overstayed your visa and did not go home, then you do not subject yourself to criminal prosecution. The bill takes care of this anomaly. But it makes both offenses felonies. What this amendment does, it makes it misdemeanors. So if you are against the amendment, you want to keep it as felonies because that is in the base bill. You should be for the amendment to make it a misdemeanor for the reasons that I have stated. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. First, on the hypothetical the gentleman from California raised, there is this thing called prosecutorial discretion. It seems to me we should have more faith in our prosecutors not to prosecute genuine refugees, but continue the law on the books as proposed in the manager's amendment that will get at the people who use passport fraud to cover the transportation of a lot of people who are not refugees and who should not enter the United States.

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment which adds distribution of fraudulent immigration documents to the list of criminal offenses. Document fraud is a serious offense that enables our immigration laws to be violated and creates a national security threat. Controlling the production and distribution of false immigration documents is a critical component to effective immigration reform. Currently, the criminal code provides stiff penalties for those who forge, counterfeit, or alter visas, border-crossing cards, or other similar types of documents. However, the statute does not currently mention distribution of fraudulent documents among the enumerated offenses. This amendment would help prosecutors go after those who are not necessarily producing the fake documents, but those who are making them available on the black market. Those who distribute or sell false documents deserve the same harsh penalties as those who forge or counterfeit the documents. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Madam Chairman, since I have the right to close, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, for purposes of clarification, before I summarize the provisions within the manager's amendment, I will highlight what the amendment does not contain. The amendment does not contain a sense of Congress on foreign workers; nor does it decrease the criminal penalties for illegal entry and illegal presence. The latter issue will be addressed in a separate amendment I will soon offer. I will now summarize the provisions of the manager's amendment within the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee. First, the amendment contains a provision drafted by the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) that will prohibit localities from requiring businesses to set up day labor sites as a condition for conducting or expanding a business. No business should be compelled to facilitate the hiring of illegal aliens by establishing labor sites on or near their premises, and this amendment will prohibit this practice. The amendment also contains a provision drafted by the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) that requires the Attorney General to report on the status of criminal alien prosecutions, including prosecutions of smugglers. Mr. Issa is rightly concerned about the lack of sufficient prosecutions of alien smugglers who prey upon the most vulnerable. The amendment also includes a number of important provisions that will facilitate the ability of the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to combat illegal immigration. Specifically, the amendment sets mandatory minimum sentences for repeated marriage fraud; improved sentencing enhancements for aliens who enter illegally after criminal convictions; clarifies that the Board of Immigration Appeals' decisions on motions to reopen removal proceedings are not subject to judicial review; increases penalties for passport and immigration fraud and penalizes fraud against aliens applying for immigration benefits; makes criminal defendants' immigration status an express consideration in determining whether they should be released on bond; extends the statute of limitations for all immigration-related fraud; makes passport fraud a ground of inadmissibility and deportability; and abolishes attorneys' fee awards to removable aliens under the Equal Access to Justice Act. Madam Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. I wanted to make a couple of points. First of all, the visa lottery system has been susceptible to fraud. Doing away with it would do away with fraud. Secondly, the visa lottery system does not give visas to people from ``over-represented countries,'' and that includes Mexico. So no Mexican is eligible to get a visa on the visa lottery system. I think that is discriminatory. Also, the visa lottery system is unfair because the winners go ahead of spouses and children of lawful permanent residents, including Mexicans, and married sons and daughters of citizens who have waited for visas, in some instances for years. It also is used as a potential for aliens who pose a danger to Americans. I think that with all these problems in the visa lottery system, the best thing to do is pass this amendment and get rid of it.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, two of the 9/11 hijackers overstayed their visas. Under the current law, that is just a civil ground of inadmissibility. I think that that should be some type of a crime so that at least they can be detained. The businessperson who inadvertently overstays their visa because the flight is canceled, no problem; no prosecutor is going to prosecute that person because of it. I see some games being played here. The people who are saying that this bill is too harsh want to keep these penalties as felonies. I do not know why that is. I think it will be much better to make them misdemeanors, because at least, that way, we do not have to have the taxpayers pay for a lawyer to defend them if they do not have any money. And we do not have to have the space to incarcerate them in Federal penitentiaries. This amendment makes the bill workable. I believe it is a good amendment. I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment, and I think we ought to talk about what operational control means. Under the amendment, it means the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including by terrorists and illegal aliens, and including all narcotics shipments. The amendment also provides that, within 90 days of enactment, the Department of Homeland Security provides the Congress a comprehensive plan for border surveillance and, within 180 days, DHS provides to Congress a national strategy for border security and a report on progress made. Now these goals are obviously ambitious and the Department of Homeland Security has not been ambitious on anything, in my opinion; but it seems to me by setting deadlines, and then the two committees in their oversight functions can be on the back of the Department of Homeland Security, and we might shame them into doing the right thing.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4437 to be considered shortly.