Tom Tancredo

Mr. TANCREDO

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

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is another amendment that intends to encourage a Federal agency, in this case the USDA, to comply with an existing law. I find myself up here oftentimes with amendments of this nature because there are a number of issues that we have on the books, there are a number of laws we have on the books, but we have, unfortunately, a problem with compliance. This is one of those kinds of situations. The amendment essentially says that none of the funds provided in the bill under the heading Food Stamp Program will be expended in contravention of 8 U.S.C. 1183(a). Now 8 U.S.C. 1183(a) does a couple of things. First of all, it says that an affidavit of support must be filed by a sponsor on behalf of certain aliens. The affidavit of support is a legally binding guarantee on the part of the sponsor that the immigrant they are sponsoring will not become a ``public charge,'' that is, dependent on welfare programs for 10 years or up to a point in time that they become a citizen, whichever happens first. This public charge requirement is nothing new. The requirement has been the cornerstone of immigration policy since the 1880s. Even inspectors at Ellis Island during the heyday of legal immigration when the vast majority of those seeking entry were allowed to stay did not admit immigrants liable to become a public charge. Second, the law makes the affidavit enforceable against the sponsor by ``the Federal Government, any State (or any political subdivision of such State), or by any other entity that provides any means-tested public benefit.'' Meaning the sponsors, and not the taxpayer, are to be the people on the hook for this cost. It also requires providers of these benefits to seek reimbursement from the sponsors and even allows the government to sue these deadbeat sponsors to recover these costs. Interestingly, another law, 8 U.S.C. 1227, makes it clear that aliens who become a public charge within 5 years of their entry are, in some cases, deportable. Reasonable people can disagree about issues revolving around immigration, but I think everyone should agree we should not be in the business of admitting people into the country for the purpose of allowing them to become a drain on the public Treasury. The fact is that we have a law on the books. It is not being upheld. It is not being enforced. In fact, we actually wrote a letter to the Justice Department last year asking about this, and they said, to the best of their knowledge, there had not been a case enforced in over 10 years of anyone, anyone here. No one has actually gone to the extent of going to the affidavit that I have right here in front of me that says I will sponsor this person who is in the country; I will take responsibility for their costs should they become a public charge. Many do, in fact, become a public charge. It was happened in my State. It is happening in every State in the Nation. We should, in fact, encourage the enforcement of the law. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. TANCREDO. It does not.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Blumenauer- Tancredo amendment. I am proud, once again, to join forces with my colleague from Oregon on this important issue. This amendment would provide $1,200,000 to the Office of Inspector General, the chief law enforcement arm of USDA, to focus on animal fighting cases, working closely with state and local law enforcement personnel to complement their efforts. Last year we were successful in offering an amendment that secured $800,000 for the Office of Inspector General to combat animal fighting. This year, we are taking the funds that are already going to the Office of Inspector General and ensuring that $1.2 million goes into enforcing the law. This is a small investment to avoid further very costly disease outbreaks spread by illegal cockfighters. According to a letter that Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman sent on May 24th to the Appropriations Committee, ``fighting birds have been implicated in the introduction and spread of exotic Newcastle disease in California in 2002-2003, which cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $200 million to eradicate, and cost to the U.S. poultry industry many millions more in lost export markets.'' Secretary Veneman also notes that illegal cockfighting poses risks of spreading other diseases such as avian influenza, which has the potential to directly harm people. It's not a lot of money. It will help send a signal to those engaged in illegal dogfighting and cockfighting activities across state lines that there is some threat of federal prosecution. Given the USDA's history of non-enforcement in this area, we think it's important for Congress to take the opportunity to send a signal that we want their continued attention on this. With your help last year, we were able to help the United States Department of Agriculture enforce the law. This year, we continue to ask you to help us give the USDA the tools they need to accomplish this goal.

Mr. TANCREDO

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

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I have one issue that brings me to the floor tonight and that I hope to get to in a moment. As I listened, however, to my colleagues, it does come to mind that there would undoubtedly be a new vision for America if the ticket that they were extolling the virtues of actually becomes the leadership of the country as President and Vice President. It is true that there would be a difference in the way we look at life, the way we look at government in particular. It is certainly true that for those people who believe that the government is the primary focus of all of our activity and strength as a Nation, those people who believe that taxation can be euphemistically described as investment; those people who believe that the Constitution is really nothing more than a document that deserves to be interpreted, restructured, and changed by courts and judges; those people who believe that America's best days are behind us, those folks will indeed be happy if, in fact, the Kerry-Edwards ticket prevails. Good men, I think, all good men are running for the office of President and Vice President of the United States. Certainly good things can be said about all. But it is undeniably true that we can also talk about the fact that incredible differences exist between the ways in which these people view their responsibilities as chief executive, as Commander in Chief; the way they look at the role of the United States in the world. One sees the United States as being subservient in many ways to international bodies, world courts, United Nations, other international organizations that I believe Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards think should have priority in terms of deciding how America actually goes about its business and determines its own policies. Or President Bush, Vice President Cheney, who recognize that although interaction with the world community is important, America must be strong enough and resilient enough to actually establish its own set of goals and purposes, and then act to achieve them, hopefully with the agreement of a large part of the world community; but even if that agreement were not to be reached, to understand that our goals may be unique to us, and that, therefore, we may have the responsibility of trying to achieve them, even by ourselves. So there are certainly differences, undeniably true. That is the one thing with which I can totally agree with what our colleagues on the other side were talking about for the last hour, the differences that exist. But I believe that when the final tally is made, that most Americans will decide that the person who will decide who, for instance, is on the Supreme Court of the United States and will be making laws, interpreting laws for the next generation or two, because that is really how much of an effect it will eventually have if two or three members of that Supreme Court have to be, or actually end up being, changed. And when people think about the fact that we are in a war that does threaten our very existence, even if it is not described on the front pages every day as a war between armies and one moving and advancing, but one retreating, but nevertheless an understanding that we are in a clash of civilizations; when one thinks about these things, one will come to the conclusion that it is better to have people in charge who think about the Constitution as strict constructionists do, that it is a document to be adhered to because it was divinely inspired. They will think about the fact that those folks who they want making a decision about their national security are people who are desirous of having the support of the international community, but not willing to be subservient to it; and, I think, of course, they will come to the conclusion that they will keep the President, the present President and Vice President on for the next 4 years. But that really was not the main purpose of my coming down to the floor tonight. When I came to this Congress in 1998, I determined that there were a number of issues that I wanted to focus on. One of them dealt with a situation that was developing in a land far, far away, a land that very few people really knew much about. I had become acquainted with it mostly through discussions at my church about the persecuted Christians throughout the world. This land is known as Sudan. It is one of the largest countries in Africa. It is the poorest country in Africa. It has suffered through an enormous amount of pain. It has sustained itself after 27 years of internal strife. Two million, at least 2 million, are dead; four million, at least, displaced in this civil war that has been ongoing, as I say, for over 25 years. Little is known about it. Certainly, in 1998, very few people thought much about Sudan or, frankly, almost any other country on the African continent. But certainly, Sudan was not on the top of anyone's list as a nation that we should be concerned about, a nation that had any relevance for us in the United States or really anywhere else in the world. Yes, it was just another one of those countries that was involved with internal strife. Many people died, but that is just the way it is over there, and that was the thought. That was, to the extent that anybody gave it any thought, to the extent that Sudan mattered to anyone, it was just another place on the African continent where people were dying and were dying because of the internal conflicts that we thought we had nothing to say about. Well, in fact, several Members, including myself, Senator Brownback, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) talked about this issue at great length every time we had the opportunity. Anyone who would listen, we would talk about what was happening in Sudan. We would talk about this incredible tragedy that was evolving in front of our eyes. And we would ask people to be concerned, because it was a human tragedy of enormous proportion. And we found ourselves, frankly, in this strange sort of situation where the focus of the world was always taken away to a different place, to a different set of circumstances. Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia. Mr. Milosevic, a name that most people in this body and certainly many Americans will recognize, Mr. Milosevic was the head of a country that was, as we determined, as this body determined, conducting genocide, that it was involved with ethnic cleansing, where thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people were being killed. And we spent a great deal of time and we debated in this body at great length exactly what actions should be taken by the West, by the United States in particular, and by NATO, if the United Nations would not get involved. And the United Nations chose not to get involved, but the United States led the way with NATO to go in to Yugoslavia and to, in fact, change the situation there. And we did so at the cost of a significant amount of our treasure and, certainly, many lives were lost in the process. But there was a general agreement that that was the right thing to do because something terrible was going on in the country at the time in Serbia. And so there was a debate on the floor and the permission was given and we went to war, essentially, with the United Nations and eventually overturned the regime, and the United Nations is now involved with trying to do some sort of rebuilding effort of the country. By the way, it was not very successful. The economy is disastrous. There are now signs of ethnic controversy and conflict starting all over again. This time it is the Albanian Muslims against the Christian Serbians, but the United Nations seems helpless to try and do anything about it. And so we did that, and that was where all of our attention and resources were focused, at a time when, as I say, another part of the world was suffering far more, under any criteria you want to establish as to why anybody else should be concerned. If you look at the Sudan, you will see a nation tormented, and you will see a level of human sacrifice, a level of human rights violations that is unprecedented since the Second World War. And yet no focus. Nobody cared. And we talked and we talked about it, and finally I remember I got a call from Senator Brownback's office, and I had only been in Congress for a couple of months. His staff person called our staff person and said, ``I understand your boss is interested in Sudan. Well, so is mine, and we are going over there in May, and does he want to come?'' And I said, ``Gee whiz, the Sudan? I have only been in Congress a couple of months, and I am really not sure. I always thought that our first trips were, like, Paris or Rome or someplace like that.'' That is what everybody always told me, that we were going to head out on these really exciting and cosmopolitan places, but in fact I said, okay, and I went with Senator Brownback and with Congressman Payne to Sudan. And what I saw was, with my own eyes, the pictures of what many have seen of strife and horror and degradation of the human spirit, but I saw it with my own eyes, and it was a very moving experience, of course. It was one of those life-altering experiences. I will never forget. There was a town called Yei, and it was a town that had been bombed often. And I remember there were a lot of chickens that the people would be watching, and people would talk about the fact that if the chickens started to run, because they could hear the engine of planes coming before the people, that the chickens ran, then the children ran, and then the adults ran, because they knew that was their early warning system, was the chickens who heard the actual planes coming. And all these kids came around me and Senator Brownback and others, and they gathered so close, you could hardly move. And they were shouting and they were looking up and they were pointing at the sky, and I asked the interpreter who was with us, I said, ``What are they saying?'' He said they are saying that they are going to stay as close to you as possible, because they do not think that they will be bombed. They do not think they will bomb an American Congressman. So they stand as close as they possibly can so they will not be hurt.'' I said, ``Well, you know, I hope they are right, but I don't think that anybody knows that I am here, but I hope they are right, of course.'' And I could see in their eyes the terror that they live through every single day. Most of them had lost parents, brothers and sisters. Many, many thousands and thousands were homeless, thousands were orphaned, and what they looked for was some degree of hope. Now that was the situation in 1998, and we came back here and worked very hard, and we passed something. I introduced a bill, and it passed, and it is called the Sudan Peace Act. And it established certain criteria that had to be met by both the north and the south in terms of good-faith bargaining to come to some sort of peace agreement. And if they did not have that kind of good-faith bargaining, then there would be certain sanctions that we would apply. Eventually, and just a few months ago, really, peace did come to that part of the Sudan that was afflicted by the civil war, and we are, of course, happy. A peace agreement was reached. The details now have to be worked out, but the fighting between the north and the south stopped. Now I have explained that part of this, well, that the world was told that the civil war in Sudan started because you have an Arabic Muslim north and a black Christian south, and really the cultures were in conflict. Certainly true. And that the north where the government exists in Khartoum was always oppressive, acted oppressively against the south, and that is certainly true. In fact, the north sponsored raids, actual slave raids. Sudan is one of the countries left in this world that actually has institutionalized slavery, and slave raids were encouraged by the government of the north in Khartoum. The Arab Muslims would come down, raid villages, take people away, back into both sexual slavery and just slavery for the labor that could be obtained. But this was the conflict, Arabic Muslim, black Christian. Well, because of the enormous amount of international pressure that eventually developed after years, literally years of pressing every government we could think of, including our own, to force some sort of peace in this war-torn area of the world, peace finally occurred of a sort. But then, almost I guess because it was too good to believe, there was too much hope that in fact some degree of tranquility could overtake this troubled land, another problem, another conflict began to develop, and this is in the Darfur region, western region of Sudan, mostly in the north, where again Arabs were confronting black Africans. This time, however, there was no difference of religion. This is the very interesting aspect of this particular conflict, because it really does go to the heart of the entire conflict that has been there for 27 years, yet really is not Muslim against Christian. It is Arab against black. It is genocide. Yes, the word is genocide. They have talked about this for a long time, the north, about how they wanted to essentially cleanse the south, but they certainly wanted to move everyone out of the north that was in fact black African. They have now embarked upon a genocidal war in this province of Darfur. So far, around 50,000 dead, 200,000 displaced, and the numbers are growing every single day. The government of Sudan in Khartoum is aiding and abetting the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed, they are Arabs, traders, Arab militiamen, essentially, who raid, kill and rape, and they are given the arms and the go-ahead by the government of Khartoum to pursue this. Of course, the Khartoum government tells us and the rest of the world they have nothing to do with it, they will try their best to stop this, but the only thing that they have stopped so far is the transportation of any resources, the transportation through Sudan into this particular area of any of the foodstuffs that USAID or other NGOs, nongovernment organizations, are trying to deliver. They have done everything possible to halt any humanitarian effort to the region. They have done everything possible to aid the activities of the Janjaweed and to encourage them in this bloodbath. Rape has become a tactic to advance the strategy of genocide. The women are told at the time of rape that they are impregnating them with lighter-skinned children and that they should leave once the child is born of that rape, that they could leave and leave the child, because the child would be of lighter skin. The camps that have been established in and around the interior in Darfur, camps because, of course, people have been driven out of their villages and into these camps, the camps are surrounded by the Janjaweed. They patrol it, and they wait for people to walk outside. And the women come out in the morning, and they try to get out earlier and earlier to avoid attack, but the women are raped. The men are killed the minute they get outside of this camp. So there is no sustenance, there is no food, and now the rains are starting in Sudan in this part. We have camps now with, as I say, a couple of hundred thousand people and more arriving every single day. There is no sanitation. There is very little food. All of them have been walking for some times hundreds of miles to get there. They are weak. They are starving. The rains are coming. Disease will spread and hundreds of thousands will die and it is planned. This is not just an accident. It is not just what is going to happen simply because of the forces of nature. It is going to happen because the government of Khartoum, the government of Sudan in Khartoum has designed this plan, to kill or move out the black people who inhabit this part of their country. This is amazing. This is incredible that this could be happening in the world today, and again, relatively few people care. Now, to the government's credit, Secretary Powell has gone to this area, just returned I think last week. He said that something like, well, I do not think we should argue about what it is called, whether it is genocide or something else. We have to do something. But the reality is we have to argue about what it is called because what it is called matters. If you say it is genocide, then there is a course of action that must be taken. There is a 1948 agreement. It was signed by many nations of the world, including the United States. It is called The Genocide Treaty, and it sets up some criteria. And it says if this criteria are met, then in fact genocide is what is happening and you have to do certain things, including eventually maybe even military intervention. And that is what scares everybody off, and it certainly scares us because, God knows, we are spread thin, it is true. But I nonetheless believe that we must go to the United Nations, and we must ask them for a declaration of genocide, because everything that is happening in Darfur, in the Sudan meets those criteria. It is purposeful. It is designed to actually eliminate a certain specific group of people. They are black. That is their crime. They are Muslims. But they are being killed by Muslims who are Arabic. It is racism. It is the most virulent form of racism we can possibly imagine. The world has to focus on this even though there are things that pull us away, I know. It is interesting, there is an article in the Guardian Review, ``Human Rights on Trial'' by Nick Cohen, May 16, 2004. It says, we choose to ignore atrocities committed in the third world when it is politically expedient as in Sudan. It goes on to say that ``there is a bell curve in the international appreciation of atrocity. Safe countries receive no coverage for the obvious reason that there is no atrocities to cover in, say, Denmark or Belgium. The curve begins to climb from these dull lowlands and hits its peak in countries which are dangerous but not too dangerous to make reporting to them impossible, today's Iraq and the former Yugoslavia in the age of Milosevic. ``From here the curve slithers down again until it reaches countries at the furthest extreme from civilized life which are either too dangerous or too tyrannical for free investigation to be an option for anyone but the recklessly brave, the Congo and North Korea today or Iraq before the war. The lesson for tyrants is they risk becoming the objects of global outrage when they are not tyrannical enough.'' Is that not just great? Is that not an absolutely perfect description of what is happening in the world? There is this range or atrocity that we will cover because it is safe enough to do it, but then once it gets beyond that, no coverage, nobody pays attention to the worst of all. ``The rulers of Sudan know this well,'' Mr. Cohen goes on to say. ``Foreign journalists are not murdered there but pretty much everyone else is. An extraordinary Islamists regime filled with apocalyptic fervor of the fundamentalist revival has enslaved Christians and animist tribes in the black African south, as it prosecuted a civil war which has claimed the lives of 2 million since the early 1980s. Two million is the provisional estimate of the number killed by the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia. But while every politically sentient person has heard of Pol Pot and the killing fields, I doubt if many know of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Hassan al-Turabi, a cleric who provided the ideological justification for the terror until he fell out with his murderous patron. ``If the names ring a bell, my guess is that you are active in one of the Christian or human rights campaigns which has doggedly monitored the extermination campaigns. The killings have subsided,'' the peace act is in force, ``and there is now a faint hope of peace agreement but this seemingly happy prospect has only made the randomness of global compassion more unhinged and unprincipled. ``This year is the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. It has seen Kofi Annan apologize for ignoring warnings that a mass slaughter was about to begin. And every Western government except those that were guilty of sins of omission, except, inevitably, the French, whose despicable role in Rwanda came close to the sin of commission. As the air was filled with the drumming of chests being beaten and the cries of 'never again' being bellowed in languages except French, another African disaster was being ignored. Since the autumn of last year, Arab militias have driven 1 million people from their homes of the Darfur province of Sudan. Government forces have overseen and participated in massacres, the summary execution of civilians, and the burning of towns and villages. Those who escape now face the risk of famine.'' Atrocities must be allowed to flourish so other atrocities can be prevented. That is one of the strange sorts of anomalies of foreign policy that we are dealing with. I think this article was fascinating for its insight into how we handle issues of this nature and how difficulty it is to get the world to go act in situations like this. Is it does seem odd, does it not, that we are willing to do so much more in other places of far less significance in terms of human rights tragedies? But we are all God's children. We are all made in his imagine and likeness, be we black, or brown or white or yellow. And for that reason we have to show compassion to those who are being persecuted. And we should act as vigorously in Sudan as we have in other parts of the world. The Secretary of State should go to the United Nations tomorrow and demand a genocide statement be accepted and that the world, therefore, take action in Sudan. The government, every single time they have been pushed to the end, have retreated. They need to be pushed to the end again here. I hope and pray that we will do what is the right thing to do, what is expected of us as those occupying the moral high ground in the world, which we are. But in order to maintain that position, in order to keep the moral high ground, it is imperative that we pay attention to places like Sudan, even though I know our attention is being pulled in so many other places. And it is difficult because I do not know that there were any votes that anybody can count on if they champion this issue. I certainly cannot say that is true. There are things that we should do here simply because they are the right thing to do, not because there are any votes connected to it, not because there are any lobbying groups that are pressuring us, not because anybody's giving us money in order to champion a cause, but simply because it is the right thing to do. It is what we are asked to do as human beings of conscience, which is what I want to believe the United States still is, and I do believe it. It just needs to have its attention drawn to the areas of the world that command it. So I do hope, Madam Speaker, that we will encourage our government to take every action possible, as I say, including any action that is designed to influence a decision by the United Nations that would lead to a declaration stating that genocide is actually what is happening. Yes, the word matters. It is not the seeds of genocide. It is not a potential genocide. It is, in fact, genocide. Say it, let the chips fall where they may, and we can all rest easier because we have done what we can do, and that is all really God expects of any of us.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is a difficult issue, because I want to respond to my friend, my colleague's advice and his willingness to work on this issue, and that is a strong allure, because number one, I know he is a gentleman of great integrity, and I do want to do more than just simply make a statement to, as he said, be a Don Quixote. I do want to in fact move this issue forward; and if that is the best way to do it, then perhaps what I will do is withdraw this amendment, but I will do so only after I once again state that it is important for this body to make laws and then enforce them. We call ourselves a Nation of laws ruled by law. There is only one way we can actually prove that. It is to stop this ridiculous winking at the laws we make. Enforce them or repeal them. That is all I ask, and that is what I hope that we will do. And I will work with the gentleman and take him up on his offer. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my amendment. amendment no. 6 offered by Mr. Farr

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Once again I keep thinking when I hear these arguments that somehow we have not gotten the point across of what exactly this is doing. I wish we had a big sign that said: This is the law and this is my amendment. This is the law that is on the books. This is not debatable at this point, or at least it is not part of my amendment. If the gentleman does not like the fact that we have a law on the books saying that the people of the cities and counties should help, or let me put it this way, there is a law that says that they should not actively oppose our attempts to actually enforce immigration law, that is what it is. It does not require anything. It does not require deputization of more people or to get them involved with the actual immigration enforcement. It just says you cannot take an action that prevents the flow of information or the acceptance of information. That is it. That is the law that is on the books. What we are trying to do is assess a penalty. The idea that local law enforcement, they do not want this because somehow people will not come forward, the reality is this, their task is to enforce the law also. They take an oath to do that, just as we do. Here we sit debating as to whether or not we should enforce a law we have already passed. That is the bizarre nature of this debate. It has nothing to do with immigrant bashing or any of the other stuff that gets brought up in this discussion. It has to do with whether or not the law on the books should be enforced. It is a simple measure that should not be clouded with all of the kind of rhetoric and epithets that are thrown around every time we start to debate this. It is the law. Should we have it? If we should not, let us repeal it. As long as it is there, let us enforce it. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise once again this evening to propose an amendment similar in some respects to one I have proposed in the past and different in others, that is to say, it is similar in that it does this: It says we have a law on the books, it was passed in 1996, and the law says that all States and localities therein are prevented from impeding the flow of information to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The successor agency is, of course, BICE. They are also prevented by the law from actually stopping any information from coming from the old INS and now BICE. That is what the law says. It is there, on the books, and every single time I offer this amendment the other side gets up and starts arguing the law as to whether or not we should have the law, why it should be in place, would we not be better off without a law? But that is not the purpose of my amendment, of course, to repeal the law. It is to enforce the law. That is all I ask. We are a body that makes laws. We should, of course, also encourage the enforcement of those laws or we should repeal them. That is what we should be doing here. It is, I suggest, quite inappropriate in a way for us to pass laws and then essentially tell the country and the people out there that we should wink at them; pretend they do not exist; pretend they are really not on the books, because enforcing them would be problematic from certain standpoints, especially politically. Now, what kind of message does that send every time we do this? But every time there is a vote against my amendment, that is essentially what we are saying, that even though we have laws on the books, we will ignore them. My amendment is designed to prevent those local governments from obtaining SCAAP funding if they violate the law. That is it. If they are in line with the law, doing what the law requires of them to do, no problem. Presently, the law does not have any sort of mechanism that would suggest we are enforcing it. There is no penalty, and so we have got cities, counties, that are in fact violating the law. They are doing that with impunity. We should not allow that to continue. We should either repeal the law if we do not like it, or we should have some sort of mechanism to enforce it. I have proposed time and time again that we should try and enforce the law. That is all this amendment does. If State and local governments violate the Federal law and pass sanctuary policies that encourage illegal aliens to come here, why should any American taxpayer be asked to absorb these costs? That is what we are doing. SCAAP funds are funds that we provide to cities and counties for the purpose of reimbursing them for the costs of keeping people in their prisons who are here illegally. They are illegal aliens, and there are costs involved. On the one hand, we have counties submitting bills to the Federal Government for the incarceration of some of these folks, but on the other hand refusing to provide that information to the Bureau of Immigration Control and Enforcement, BICE. They want the money for what they say they are putting out for enforcement of the law, but then they refuse to actually give that information to BICE. It is not a situation that is sustainable and certainly not one that we should countenance. We should at least say if you are not going to abide by the law of the land that requires you to provide this information, you cannot get the money from the SCAAP funds. That is all it is. Again, I know we are going to get into this argument about whether or not we should have the law on the books. That is a different argument. Let us just argue whether or not once we have the law on the books we should not try to enforce it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, we have had an interesting discussion for the last hour on the issue of security of the homeland and whether or not our efforts in Iraq are on track, whether or not we are doing the right thing. It is intriguing to me to listen to this discussion for a variety of reasons because, regardless of whether or not anyone believes that our efforts in Iraq are right and honorable and good, I have yet to meet anyone who believes that the need to defend the homeland from terrorist attack is not greater than it has ever been. One may disagree entirely with whether the decisions made by the President have been appropriate; but no one says, no one has dared to say that we should do anything but aggressively pursue policies that are designed to make us more secure from terrorists who we know are out there, whether or not they conspired with the Iraqi Government, with Saddam Hussein, or whether or not our efforts in Iraq will lessen that particular threat. The reality is we know we have a threat and we know that we should be doing everything possible to, in fact, defend ourselves against that threat. That is a given. No one argued it. Now, amazingly, Mr. Speaker, a couple of days ago I brought forward to the floor of the House an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, and I have to give just a little bit of background to help explain exactly what the amendment was all about because there are people who are perhaps viewing this tonight who really are not sure. But let me explain that Members of the Congress knew exactly what this was all about. There are, in fact, a number of cities and States around the country that are pursuing policies that we describe as sanctuary city policies. In the case of a State, the State of Maine is contemplating and actually has proposed that they become a sanctuary State. What does that mean? Sanctuary from what? Sanctuary from investigation by the Bureau of Immigration Control and Enforcement. Because there are cities, there are localities that are saying that they will not allow their police forces, for instance, to, in fact, report the arrest or the detention of anyone who is here illegally. They will not allow their police force to report that to the Bureau of Immigration Control and Enforcement because there is a desire to eliminate the category of illegal immigrant from the whole lexicon. And so this is happening throughout the country. Why is this significant? In 1994, the Congress of the United States passed a law, and the law said that no city or State could, in fact, impede the flow of information to the Bureau, which then it was INS, or from the INS so that we could be helped, the Federal Government could be aided, in our efforts to try to control illegal immigration. That is on the books. I was not even in the Congress of the United States when that particular proposal was accepted and passed into law. But it is the law. That is the given. We have a law that says that they cannot hide these people, that no State or city can provide sanctuary for people who are living here illegally; but, of course ,the unfortunate aspect of that particular law is that it did not include any penalty provision. So cities and States are doing it. They are doing it all over the country, and they are doing it to the detriment not just to the security of the United States of America but to the security of their own people in cities and States where these things are in place because we have seen cases where people who are here illegally and who had been arrested in the past for being here illegally, but not turned into the Bureau of Immigration Control and Enforcement, were then allowed to go back on to the streets and commit other crimes, some of them heinous crimes. In New York, four people raped, brutally raped, a woman. And at least two of the four, perhaps three, were actually people who had been in the past detained, found out to be here illegally, but not given over to the INS and therefore not deported. So there are people being affected by this in the most horrible ways. The story I just told is replicated hundreds, if not thousands, of times across this country. There was a march in Los Angeles about a month ago, 2,000 people participated. It was a march to protest the policies of the government that have allowed illegal immigrants to come into this country and perpetrate horrendous crimes and then essentially escape punishment. Not only, as I say, is this practice of sanctuary cities and sanctuary States, not only is it a threat to the peace and security of the people who live in those cities and States; it is also a threat to the security of the United States of America. There are people who have come into this country illegally not just for the purpose of obtaining a job that no one else would take. I guess one could say maybe some of these people came in to do a crime that no American would do because there are plenty of them that are committing crimes. Four hundred thousand people are here in this country, having come into this country, having actually gone to a court of law, an immigration law court, and been ordered to be deported because of some violation of our law even beyond the fact that they were here illegally. They had done something else. They had murdered, raped, robbed, done some other thing. They have walked out and walked into American society, and we have not the foggiest idea where they are. Four hundred thousand people in that category. Among those people who come into this country illegally just for the purpose of taking a job that no one else would take, as we hear so often, are people who are coming here for very, very bad things, to do bad things, bad reasons. Some of them are coming in to kill every single person here who does not agree with their perverted view of the world and because their religion tells them that they cannot live in a world in which free people can accept or, in fact, turn down the opportunity to join their religious perspective. And so, therefore, when we do things like allow sanctuary city policies to exist, we do a lot of bad things. First of all, of course, we create literally hundreds of different immigration policies around the country. So it is not just the United States of America that has a policy about immigration, which, by the way, is one of the few powers given to this Federal Government by the Constitution. We have, of course, usurped many other powers and duties and responsibilities that the Constitution does not provide, but this one is truly a Federal Government responsibility. And we do not do a very good job of enforcing the law or accepting our responsibility. It is true. But we do not need the problems created by cities and States that are captivated by the cult of multiculturalism and who have passed these bizarre laws. We do not need that. So I proposed an amendment to the Homeland Security appropriations bill, and it simply said that no city or State that does this, that actually puts in place a proposal of this kind, can receive funding from the Homeland Security Act. Again, I have said oftentimes that I often wonder what would happen if we were to actually just put that amendment out, and many others that deal with immigration, but if we were just to put that out to the public and see how they would vote on it. Mr. Speaker, I guarantee the Members that the response would be overwhelmingly supportive. In this Congress, regardless of all the rhetoric we heard from the other side tonight about their intent to support national security, they just disagree with Iraq, regardless of all that rhetoric, the fact is that all but two Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against the amendment. Sixty-eight Republicans voted against it. We had 148 Members voting in support. This is not a tough issue. It is not complicated. It is very, very upfront. And we had 148 Members. This is, by the way, about 20 Members more than we had last year on the amendment; and we will do this again, by the way, in a short time on the Commerce, Justice, and State bill. I am going to propose a similar amendment, and I will propose an amendment of this nature for as long as I am able to, as long as I am a Member of the House and until it passes. And I will propose a variety of other amendments, and I will propose legislation dealing with immigration and immigration reform regardless of the fact that we are, as I say, facing this cult of multiculturalism and the bloc that it represents that prevent us from doing anything significant in terms of immigration reform. Of course, that group of people who are here, who are captivated by this concept of radical multiculturalism and refuse to think about the possibility that America's own identity is at stake in this debate over immigration, they are allies of other groups in the Congress, other very powerful interest groups. One, of course, is the Democratic Party that sees massive immigration of legal and illegal aliens into this country as a terrific source of voters, both present and future, because many people who are here illegally go ahead and vote. So the Democratic Party knows that they vote mostly for them; and therefore they will not do anything to restrict the flow of immigration, either legal or illegal, into the country. On our side, unfortunately, there are too many people who are committed to the allure of cheap labor. So the Republican side listens to the political interest groups that rely on cheap labor, and they say to us, do not stop that flow. So we put all those things together, the sort of radical multiculturalists, the political opportunists, and the cheap labor lobby; and we realize that we are here essentially unable to do anything significant in terms of immigration reform. And I want to say that I am so proud of the 148 people that stood with me on this issue and will certainly face the wrath of these particular interest groups. But it is, again, ironic that we sat here and listened to all this talk about national security and the need to have it, just not to be pursuing the war in Iraq. Okay. Again, whatever side one is on on that policy, that is fine; and we can certainly argue it. But it is amazing to me that we could find only two Democrats that would actually support a proposal to make our country more secure by simply enforcing the law. Is that not incredible when you think about it? It is a law this body passed. How hypocritical, to have passed this law thinking, hoping, that it would never be enforced, and that any attempt to do so would be a threat to the philosophy of radical multi- culturalism, cheap labor and political opportunity. But that is the way it is. As the commentator said, that is the way it is here, and it is something we are going to have to deal with. I assure you, I will continue to propose these kinds of measures, to try to put people on record so that constituents can see exactly what happened. Now, everything can be spun in a variety of ways, and I have seen attempts by people who voted against this amendment to say they were really voting for national security because they wanted the money for their communities, and even if their communities had declared themselves to be sanctuary cities that would not report illegal aliens that they had come in contact with, that that is okay; it is more important to get the money. Well, do you know what? We should not reward people or cities or States for violating the law. There is not a Member of this House that can I think in good faith can say they believe we should reward people for breaking the law, but that is exactly what we are doing. Every single grant that we hand out, every single tax break that we give, anything that we provide for cities that are in fact violating the Federal law is an advantage to them. It is amazing. Again, I say, it is amazing, and I surely hope that anyone who is observing this tonight will check and see exactly how their representative voted. If they agree with it, tell them, and if they do not, I hope they do that too, Mr. Speaker. There will be a number of other proposals that I will put forward in the near future. One will deal with the issue of remittances. Again, this takes a bit of explanation. Remittances. What are remittances? Well, it turns out that millions and millions of people who are here in this country, most of whom are here illegally, are employed, and they take part of the salary they make at their job, and sometimes I have seen estimates of up to 50 percent of the people who are here illegally are employed off the books. That is to say, we are not getting any tax dollars from them. They are not paying into workman's comp, Social Security or anything else of that nature. But they take the dollars that they are making and they send them home to relatives in other countries. A report just came out not too long ago saying that about $30 billion a year flows out of the United States just to Latin America in the form of remittances. There are seven or eight countries in the world that have more than 10 percent of their gross domestic product coming to them in the form of remittances from the United States or countries outside their boundaries, but primarily from the United States; $30 billion alone to Latin America. Where does this money come from? It comes, of course, from the people who work here; who, if they were not sending that money home, they would be investing it in the communities in which they live. But since they are not, those communities are denied the benefits of that multiplier effect. The jobs are not being created, the economy is not being stimulated in these communities, and the money is going primarily south. So, I have been thinking about this for a while, and when I saw this report I felt that maybe something could be done in the following manner: We every year send billions of dollars overseas to many countries in the form of foreign aid. Much of this money, as everyone knows, ends up in the hands of corrupt dictators or corrupt governments, even if they call themselves democratically-elected, and it oftentimes never, ever, ever gets to the most worthy recipient. So I am going to propose an amendment to the foreign operations bill that says that every dollar that we send in the form of a remittance to some other country will be deducted from the money we send them in the form of foreign aid. Now, this will be quite controversial, of course. It should not be controversial to any Member of the Congress of the United States. It will certainly be opposed by the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Jordan and Haiti. All of these countries will be furious at the possibility that their check will be reduced by the amount of money that their nationals are sending back to people in their country. But, after all, Mr. Speaker, if in fact foreign aid is simply the transfer of wealth from one country to another, then why is a remittance not that same thing? In fact, it is going to people who probably really need it, and it is far more efficient, far more efficient than the check we send to corrupt governments in terms of the usage. So I am going to propose that. And we have a couple of other things we will be dealing with. Of course, we have a lot of legislation that we think this body ought to consider that will improve our immigration policy dramatically. There are organizations like NumbersUSA, which people can identify by simply going to that site, NumbersUSA.com, and they are very heavily involved with trying to promote immigration reform efforts. There are people and groups all over the country of this ilk. We hear from them all the time. When I get done on the floor of the House with these special orders and go back to my office, oftentimes the phones are lit up, or the e- mails are coming in from people all over, and 99.9 percent are quite supportive of our efforts, and I know that most Americans are supportive of our efforts. In fact, if we put any of these issues out there for a debate, for a vote, a national plebiscite, if you will, of course, we do not have that in America, but if we did have such a thing as a national election on issues that could be brought by citizens, all of these things would win overwhelmingly. It is only the stubborn reluctance to allow the people of this country to work their will on this issue that prevents us from doing so in this body. But things are changing, Mr. Speaker, and are getting a lot better for our side. The momentum is definitely shifting to us. I have been in this Congress now 6 years, and I assure you if anyone had proposed a guest worker plan that included some sort of amnesty provision for people here illegally, if they proposed this a couple of years ago it would have gone through here without much opposition. I would have, of course, opposed it, but I would have been in the very small minority. Things are changing. There are five or six different bills being proposed by very powerful Members of both the House and the Senate, and these bills all include a provision for amnesty. They are hidden most of the time; they obfuscate, they call it different things, ag-jobs, agricultural jobs. But all of them have that one common theme, except for the bill I have proposed, H.R. 3534; all the rest include some form of amnesty. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that any one of those bills would have passed through this body, as I say, a couple of years ago, just like that. But, do you know what? They are not going to make it this year. I do not think they are going to make it to the floor of either House, either body, and I do not think that if they did, they would actually ever become law, because the people are beginning to have their voices heard here, and it is great to see. It is great to see some of my colleagues, who in the past have come up to me after I have made presentations like this, and said, ``You know, Tom, you were right on this, but I could never support you, because I have this political problem in my district.'' Now that political problem is becoming a problem for them if they do not support us in our efforts to reform immigration. That is the most amazing thing I can say. It is incredible. People's voices are being heard. The faxes, the e-mails and the calls, they are being heard. It takes time to change this body, to change their perspective point of view, but it is happening, and it is just the greatest thing I have seen in a long, long time. The fact that few people are willing to pursue this, even the President of the United States after he made his speech in December has been unwilling to aggressively pursue this issue of amnesty and guest worker. There is no reason to provide amnesty for anyone who has violated the law. There is no reason to do that. It only encourages, of course, more violations of the law. It is pretty logical to understand that. Either we are a Nation that respects the law and will in fact enforce it, or we should repeal it. We should not ignore it. We should not look the other way. We should not pretend that when you bring an amendment to the floor that says we need to enforce the law against cities and States that are violating the law, we need to enforce it, we should not allow our colleagues to obfuscate the issue by saying things like, well, it is really a bad vote because our community would not get the money if they have the sanctuary city law. That is not a good idea. That is not a good idea, to reward illegal behavior. It is not a good idea to reward cities, it is not a good idea to reward people who violate the law. I know that many of the people agree, millions of Americans from whom I hear on this issue and who are good enough to write and e-mail. It is just great, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you. You go back to the office and you get all these great e-mails from people in and out of your district, all over America. ``I am listening to your immigration speech on C-SPAN. Your ideas are being heard. Keep up the good work. We need more people like you,'' blah, blah, blah. ``Respectfully, Diane Furness from Minnetonka, Minnesota,'' and Rome, Georgia, and Weathered Rock Road in Jefferson City, Missouri, and Monroe, New York. All over America. These things come in night after night, day after day, and it is wonderful to see them. It does recharge my battery, certainly, because I stand up here often on the floor of the House often, as I do tonight, by myself, in pursuit of this particular policy change. It is good to know that Americans do in fact watch and do in fact care, and that they will in turn try their best to influence their elected representatives here. That is what the process is all about. It is a good one. It does work. It does take time, and it sometimes seems so incredibly, incredibly slow, but it is happening, and that is the good news. There is another bit of good news I wanted to give the people who are listening to this, Mr. Speaker. The Border Patrol and interior enforcement efforts help yield positive results, by the way, also increasing the ire of Mexican diplomats. Here is what is happening. More than 150 suspected illegal aliens have been arrested by the Border Patrol in a sweep of newly created ``interior checkpoints'' in several Southern California communities, signaling a change in enforcement strategy. The sweeps, which began last week and are scheduled to continues indefinitely, targeted illegal aliens at public locations in communities as far as 100 miles north of the border. The order followed the August 2 arrest by the Border Patrol of five members of a Mexican family outside the Mexican consulate near downtown San Diego, all of whom were returned to Mexico. The five who were en route to the consulate to apply for their matricula consular cards. I will explain what that is in a minute. Deputy Consul General Javier Diaz met with Chief Veal to protest the arrests, while Mexican Consul General Rodulfo Figueroa issued a statement saying he was astonished by the arrests because of their proximity to his office. Oh, my goodness. Could it possibly be that people who are here illegally are going to the Mexican consulate to get their matricula card? How can this be? I am shocked, as the line goes in the movie ``Casablanca.'' I am shocked. Mr. Speaker, it is idiotic to think the people would not be coming. In fact, they come in droves. The lines to the Mexican consulates, Guatemalan consulates and others who are handing out these sort of get- out-of-jail-free cards to their nationals living there, the lines are blocks long. They never were there before the government started handing out these cards and we started saying in cities and localities, they were called sanctuary cities, that we would accept them. What an amazing, amazing thing. Sure, we have people lined up to the Mexican consulate. Sure, they are here illegally. If you are here legally, you do not need the card. This is an ID card that is given to you by a foreign government, and then that foreign government tells us we have to accept it, and many of our cities and States do so as a form of ID. Now, if you are here legally, Mr. Speaker, you have a form of ID that we gave you. It is called a green card or a visa or a stamp on your passport, something that the United States Government gives you to tell you that you are here legally. The only people who need the matricula consular card are people who are here illegally. And, yes, they are lining up at Mexican consulates throughout the country. Thank God somebody has decided to do something about it. I actually wrote a letter when this first started about a year ago, I wrote a letter to the Bureau of Immigration Control and Enforcement in my district, in my area, in Denver; and I suggested to them that this would be a perfect location for them to go with a big bus and just round up all of these people who are, in fact, there waiting in line, because 99.999 percent of them are here illegally. They said, well, what about that one-one thousandth of a percent of the number that might be here legally. We better not do it. Well, somehow, some way, they found a way to actually begin the operation of enforcing the law even as far as 100 miles inland, and I say, thank you, thank you, thank you. I say thank you to the Border Patrol, and I say thank you to the American public who have, in fact, forced this. I assure my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, it would not be happening tonight if it were not for the tremendous pressure being placed on the Congress and on the administration to enforce the law. And it is happening, and there is this shift. Sometimes imperceptible, certainly not fast enough, but it is happening. This is the good news. We are actually arresting people who are here illegally, arresting them in places where they gather. This has never happened before. In fact, in the past, Border Patrol agents were given a spot on the border, an X, literally, a big X, their car was parked there, they were told they could not move from that spot and that their only purpose was to try and stop people, try and intimidate people from actually coming across the line and walking by their car, by the Border Patrol car. It is idiotic, but that was the rule; and, in fact, many of them are still under that rule. And people said, are you crazy? That is not enforcing the law, that is making a mockery of it. I mean, we had Border Patrol agents who could watch people scurrying across the line and pass them; but they were told they could not leave the mark, the X. Goofy? Yes. Idiotic? Yes. Frustrating? Enormously. Not just to those of us who care about immigration, but to the Border Patrol themselves. How would you like to have that job, Mr. Speaker? How would you like to be there all day long and told you have to sit on that spot and you cannot even arrest those who are running past you on the sides? You are there just as a sort of deterrent. If somebody looks at you and thinks, gee, I probably should not run right into that car, but if I run to the side of it either way, I am okay. Idiotic. So now we are beginning to actually enforce the laws behind those spots. Now, it is only in one place, that is true. It is in Southern California. I have great hope. And of course, what is happening? The immigration crowd, the open-borders crowd, the cult of multiculturalists, they are going crazy about this. I heard somebody say here the other day, a Member, I believe it was, that people were afraid to go to school or afraid to go to work or afraid to go to church because they might be rounded up by the Border Patrol. Well, of course, nobody is arresting people for being at church or at school; but I am glad that they are afraid to go, because it is beginning to sound as though we are actually threatening to and even taking steps to enforce the law. Now, if that law is not a good law, if we should not in fact have such a law on the books, there is a way to handle that in this Republic. It is to, in fact, repeal it. That is the way to do it. Bring a law to the floor saying we should not enforce; well, we will simply repeal any law against people who are here illegally, because we need the cheap labor and we want the votes, and we want this country to be influenced by the cult of multiculturalism; and let us see if we can get it passed. If we get it passed, let us see if we can pass it in the other body, and if so, let us see if we can get the President to sign it. He may do it. Because there are a lot of people in this body and in the other body who believe that borders are, in fact, nothing of consequence, nothing that anybody should pay much attention to. Well, there are people in this room that feel that way, but relatively few Americans feel that way. And night after night I would stand up here and talk about the fact that there is this huge gap between what the people of this country want and what this government is willing to provide for them in terms of border security. But do my colleagues know what, I say to my colleagues. That gap is narrowing. Again, slowly, but it is narrowing. The momentum is shifting to our side of this debate. These things make the difference. One night of these things, and then night after night after night after night, it does begin to make a difference. I know that we are making a difference when I see that I and other Members are attacked in publications around the country, conservative, sometimes conservative Republican publications, but publications nonetheless that are committed to the concept of free, or cheap, labor, I should say. It is okay with me to be identified as the culprit here, as the bad guy, the guy who is trying to stop immigration. Well, it is not immigration. It is illegal immigration, and it is my desire to reduce dramatically the number of even legal immigrants because we need to get a handle on this problem. The problem is enormous. It is bigger, in fact, than just the issue of jobs. It is bigger than the issue of false identification at the voting booth. It is bigger than all of the costs of illegal immigration into the country, which are enormous; far, far greater, by the way, Mr. Speaker, than the ``taxes'' that these folks pay. Most of the people here are here providing labor that is low-skill and, therefore, low- wage labor. So even those who are paying taxes are paying a very small amount. However, even those folks have learned how to scam the system. What they do is to claim, many of them, claim four or five or 10 children living in another country. The IRS will give them an ITIN, an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, for each of those children. They then become dependents on the tax form, and so the person not only ends up paying no taxes because they paid relatively few in to begin with, a few dollars in to begin with, but then they get an earned income tax credit on top of it. So we pay people to come here and work illegally. All they have to do is use a fake Social Security number, turn in the 1040, and get their check. We spend hundreds of millions, in fact billions, of dollars every single year providing the infrastructure for people who are here illegally. We provided for people whose children we educate in our K through 12 system, we provide it for children of illegals who come in here and send their kids even to higher education; and in many States they are allowed, or else the proposals are there, I should say, to allow them to be subsidized by the State. In many cases the State does not even check to see if anyone is a real legal citizen of this country, if they are here legally; and they will give them tuition, because they will get reimbursed by the State and the taxpayer. So there are billions of dollars going there. There are billions of dollars being spent in pursuit of health care benefits for people who are here illegally. Not many people realize this, Mr. Speaker, but part of the bill that we passed here not too long ago, the very controversial bill known as the Medicare/prescription drug bill, not only created the biggest entitlement program since the creation of Medicare itself, thanks to your Republican Congress and President, but a part of that bill was a $1 billion payment to hospitals for the treatment of illegal immigrants who are seeking health care. Mr. Speaker, $1 billion in our Medicare bill. This is at a time, of course, when we have about a $700 billion deficit in this country which will be extremely exacerbated by the creation of a new entitlement program and beyond that, $1 billion. And the line item actually said for the care, for the medical care of illegal immigrants in this country, illegal aliens in the country. We had a colleague here who used to say when he would read things like this or see things like that, ``Beam me up, Mr. Speaker.'' I cannot be on the right planet. I can certainly understand it. Beam me up. You really mean we are going to take $1 billion out of a pot of money which actually does not exist, we are going to have to actually print or go to the bond pool and try to sell government bonds in order to get the money to pay it which, of course, creates a debt for the government; we are going to do that to pay for only $1 billion and, by the way, the hospitals complained about that and said that is not nearly enough, but they are experiencing far, far heavier drains on their reserves to provide health care for illegal aliens. We are doing that, and that is a problem. It is a problem for our environment. Generally speaking, Mr. Speaker, the growth of this country, 90 percent of the growth is a result of immigration, both legal and illegal, and the progeny of people who come in here illegally; and a lot of people think that is good. That is where all the growth is coming from; that is great; we will have it. Well, there are really some very, very significant downsides to this thing called growth. If my colleagues do not believe that, just ask almost anyone in my neighborhood in Denver who are expatriates of California who have fled from the State of California, fleeing the growth in that State and fleeing all over the country, including Colorado, and, of course, making our problems with growth even more difficult: schools, hospitals, highways, housing. When you are stuck on the highway anywhere in this country, you have to ask yourself, how is it that the country is growing this quickly if we actually have a fairly stable birth rate? There is one reason, it is called immigration, both legal and illegal. That is the source of almost all of the growth in this country. Along with that growth, of course, as I say, comes some big problems in terms of the environment. People coming into this country illegally have essentially destroyed large chunks of our pristine desert area along the southern border. Millions upon millions of feet going across that border have created thousands of foot paths that will not be something that can be overcome by the natural environment for centuries. They have driven their cars into the desert. They have polluted the water resources in the area. They gather in places called pickup sites where they discard their belongings and their clothes, many times, much of their clothing. A lot of human waste accumulates there while they wait to be picked up by a truck that would bring them farther inland. Sometimes these places are areas where thousands have gathered along the southern border. I have been there. I have gone through them. And they are creating tremendous environmental problems that, of course, neither the EPA, that is another proposal that we have in the works, Mr. Speaker, is to require an environmental impact statement on immigration. Would not it be fascinating to know how immigration is, in fact, affecting our environment? Strangely, I have not heard a positive response from the EPA or from the Sierra Club. I am sure that it is forthcoming. I am sure that, any day now, they are going to say to me, Congressman, we are so happy that you are trying to do something about the environment and we are going to even score this, if it ever gets to the floor, we will score it in favor, it is a vote in favor of the environment if we actually require an environmental impact statement on immigration. We have a bill like that. I will not take any bets about how quickly that will be allowed to come to the floor, or even be heard, of course, but I would love to see it. Because it is just great to point out the hypocrisy of the establishment on this issue. The people that come into our committee, the Committee on Resources on which I sit and talk about the degradation of the land, and they will talk about it as long as one does not bring up what immigration is doing to the land, one does not bring up the hundreds of thousands of acres that have been burned along our southern border by people who have come in illegally they make camp fires, move on in the morning, camp fire, of course, gets out of control, burns hundreds of thousands of acres, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, California. Nobody says anything about that. I would venture a guess, Mr. Speaker, that most of the people listening tonight do not know about the environmental degradation of our land as a result of illegal immigration into the country, but it is enormous. It is horrendous. Now, that is a problem and, of course, national security is a problem when it comes to illegal immigration. The fact that we continue to press for open borders, we continue to say that people should not come into this country, or we continue to say that we will not restrict the flow of illegal immigration, creates huge problems for us in the standpoint of national security. Over the weekend, I was on the northern border. And about 20 or 30 miles north of Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, we went and talked to the Customs officials there at the port of entry and talked about the problems they face, talked about the fact that we have been able to do a much better job of creating a much more secure border crossing at the ports of entry. But, of course, all that means that all those miles between ports of entry, and there are thousands of miles, are completely open or, at least for the most part, open. So as you make it more difficult to come into this country illegally through a port of entry, naturally, people will seek the weakest link in your defenses and those are the places between the ports of entry. And they are still coming. We are still seeing people who are paying upwards of $50,000 to be smuggled into the United States. Now, these are people, almost all of whom are from the Middle East or from Asia. You have to ask yourself, Mr. Speaker, why would anybody pay $50,000 to be smuggled into the United States? It is not to work the local 7-Eleven store. No. It is probably to do something very bad once you get here and you do not want to be known as having come across the border. So you will not go to the port of entry. It is one of those things that kids would do, when you would say do you think if you want to come into this country illegally you will go through a port of entry and they would go, ``Duh? Are you crazy? Of course not. Stupid?'' No. One would go around it. That is right. That is what they do. So it is good that we have, in fact, made our ports of entry more secure. It is idiotic that we refuse to make the miles of border in between them more secure. So people are coming into this country with very bad, very bad things on their mind to do to us. Of course, there is the question. People talk about the illegal immigration being important for the economy. Well, let me tell you what it does to the economy. Massive importation of cheap labor is a very, very, very bad phenomenon and has a negative effect on low skilled, low wage American workers because it depresses their wage rates. And one can look at any of the information we have, the statistical information we have on this and one will see that low income Americans have not seen an increase in their wages. So people come here to the floor and demand that we artificially increase them by increasing the minimum wage. But, of course, if we allowed the market to work, restricted the flow of cheap labor, you would see an increase, a natural increase in the wage rates of people who are here and who are poor. Because, of course, if one wants to really and truly be a purist about that kind of economics, one would say that, as the President said, we should allow, for every single person who wants to work, find an employer who wants to employ them. Well, if one thinks about that, at first it sounds perfectly logical and right and good, but if one thinks about it for a minute, one has to realize that there are, of course, billions of people out there on the other side of the world or on our borders who, in fact, are willing and desirous of a job, a job presently held by an American citizen for X number of dollars, and these people are willing to come here and take it for X minus something. And then, of course, if one moves a little farther out to other parts of the Third World, there are more people who are willing to come and replace those who just came in at an even lower rate. So naturally, this massive immigration, legal and illegal, has a detrimental effect on low income earners in America. It also, frankly, when we do things like export high tech jobs or import high tech workers from India or anywhere else on the abuse of the H-1B or L-1 visa, what that does, of course, is to actually also put a damper on the wages for middle income people, higher income people. This does not help us. It helps certain companies, that is true. It does not help America. And so we look at the economic implications of massive immigration, we look at the environmental implications, we look at the national security implications. One comes to the conclusion, I think, if one looks at all of these things in an objective way, one comes to the conclusion that there is at least the room for debate as to whether or not immigration is all that good, or if we should not control it much more effectively than we do, even if it is good. Should we not know who is coming in, for what purpose, and for how long they are going to be here? So there are a whole bunch of reasons why we should all be concerned about immigration into this country, especially illegal immigration. But there is one that is even more significant, an issue that I think is overriding all of it. And that is the fact that there is something else happening in America that deserves our attention. We are as a Nation becoming less and less sure of who we are. We are being more and more confused about what the idea of being an American really is. We are being pressured constantly by the cult of multiculturalism. To suggest that there is nothing good or valuable about Western civilization or that everything that we represent to the world is a negative, and that our efforts have been, generally speaking, unproductive at the best, and, probably, at the worst they have been detrimental to the benefit of humanity, this is what we put in the textbooks. This is what we teach children. This is what our movies show us. This is a phenomena that is absolutely fascinating to watch. There was a book written in the 1970s, and I read it, it was by a gentleman by the name of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. He is a liberal. I am a conservative. But I must admit to you this was a captivating book in many ways because of what it said about who we are. And the title of the book that you can still get, I am sure, in fact, I got another one just a couple of months ago, the title of the book is, ``The Disuniting of America'' by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. He is talking about the multiculturalist phenomena that everything where we go and everything we see is designed to split us apart in America instead of pulling us together. That we will become divided into all of these subgroups, these Balkanized ethnic groups or some group victimized in their own minds and divided up so that it becomes harder and harder to understand what America is really all about. In fact, it becomes harder and harder to identify those ideas and ideals that hold us all together as Americans. He talked about this 30 years ago. There have been books subsequent to that written by people like Samuel Huntington. Mr. Huntington, one of his books in the 1990s was called ``The Clash of Civilizations.'' It talks about this. His most recent book that came out last month is called, ``Who Are We?'' I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this issue, anyone who thinks about this issue beyond the most superficial level. Who are we as Americans? Do we really know? Are we really and truly doing those things that are designed to have everybody who is here, whether they are from Azerbaijan or Zimbabwe, regardless of the country of origin with redoing those things that encourage people who come here as immigrants and people who are born here and in our school systems, are we doing those things that encourage those people to connect with the idea of America? Are we telling them that they should stay separate? Are we telling them that they will teach them in their own language even if that language is not English? Yes, of course, we are. Are we encouraging them to keep their political affiliations to other countries, not just the United States? Yes, in fact, we are. We now have somewhere near 10 million people it is estimated who live in this country with dual citizenships. We are seeing other countries in the world take advantage of this cult of multiculturalism that permeates our societies. We are seeing, in fact, the President of Mexico who was here just a few days ago, June 18, this is an article out of the Phoenix paper, Mexico City, ``Mexican President Vincente Fox announced Tuesday he planned to send a bill to Congress asking law makers to give Mexicans living abroad the right to vote in their elections in Mexico in 2006.'' Currently, Mexicans have to return to their home country to vote. More than 20 million people of Mexican heritage live in the United States, and half of those are Mexican born. Mr. Fox also came here to the United States just a few days ago and was essentially campaigning here in America for votes from the Mexican American community or I should just perhaps say Mexican community, because I do not know what attachment they have to America. But he is telling them that they should not attach to America, that they should retain their political ties to Mexico, vote in Mexican elections. Now, why is he doing this? I will tell you. There are a couple of reasons. One is that he wants them here in the United States, he wants to encourage more people to come from Mexico to the United States, but he also wants to make sure that when they get here they continue to have an allegiance to Mexico and therefore they will send home remittances, the money I was talking about earlier, the money that is made by people who work here but sent home that now accounts for about $15 billion to the Mexican government and the Mexican economy. And now it is higher, that is a greater amount than any other foreign investment in the country. It is greater than the amount invested by tourists in Mexico. It is second only in terms of the dollars brought into the country to PEMEX who is their Mexican-owned, government-owned oil company. So do you now understand why President Fox was here in the United States essentially campaigning for his presidency by asking people here to remain connected to Mexico and complaining, by the way, about their rights that he says are being violated by the United States? And that he says I will take up this issue of your rights here with the President of the United States, the rights of people who have violated the law to come into the country to begin with. It is true that anybody here certainly has a certain degree of human rights. They have the right to life, but in terms of all the other ``rights of citizenship,'' the right to vote, the right to get driver's licenses, the right to send your children to higher education, all those are supposedly reserved for people who are here legally, whether they came from Mexico or Guatemala or Hungary or Italy or China, wherever they came from. If they came here legally, they have a right to all of those things. If you come here illegally, the question is what are your rights, and certainly it is not the business of the President of Mexico or any other foreign government to come in here and lecture us about the ``rights'' we are providing or not providing to citizens from other countries. I would just end by saying, if they are coming here illegally, there is a solution to the problem. They can return. If their rights are being violated, they can return home. They are not doing that.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the accomplishments of an outstanding student from my district, Mr. Siming Yang. Mr. Yang has the distinction of being honored as one of the more than 140 national winners of the 2004 Presidential Scholar Award. The award honors graduating seniors that excel in their community, both in and out of the classroom. Each year, the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars selects the winners based on Academic and artistic success, leadership, and involvement in school and community. Mr. Yang is invited to be honored in Washington during the upcoming Presidential Scholars National Recognition Week, which runs from June 19 through the 22. Mr. Yang and his family plan to travel to the Nation's Capital at that time, along with his most influential teacher, Mr. Ron C. Carda of Dakota Ridge High School. Mr. Speaker, Siming Yang has demonstrated, through his academic accomplishments, his willingness to lead his peers, his community achievements, and his dedication, that he is worthy of receiving this honor. So once again, I recognize this young man's achievements before this House today, and I wish him all the best in his bright future.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, those who serve in our armed forces show great dedication to and pride in our country. These people often make personal sacrifices during their service to perform their duties. Therefore, it is with great pride that I rise today to recognize the service of Chief Warrant Officer-4, Jackie Karsten. Chief Warrant Officer Karsten retired on May 1st after 30 years of service. She later celebrated her retirement at a formal ceremony the 22nd of May. Mr. Speaker, people who show allegiance and devotion to our country through military service are remarkable individuals. Jackie is one of those individuals. I commend her for her 30 year career with the U.S. Navy and wish her all the best in all her future endeavors, and throughout her retirement.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, my colleague has been warned about that kind of language in the past. I ask that my colleague's words be taken down.

Mr. TANCREDO. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the amendment is to prevent the use of Federal funds by governments who adopt sanctuary policies. These are laws that prohibit State or local government entities or officials from sending to or receiving from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement information regarding an individual's citizenship or immigration status. I assume considering the fact that we have had this amendment on the floor before and I recall the kind of debate that we had, a great amount of that debate will center around the actual law that is on the books and not my amendment. I want to stress the fact that there is a law. It has been on the books for 10 years. It is section 642(a) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996. That law is there. This amendment does not change the law, it does not repeal the law, it does not add anything to the law. That is the law that is on the books. It says States and local governments essentially cannot impede the flow of information to the Department and/or stop the flow from the Department. The problem, of course, is that States and localities around the country, a relatively small number but nonetheless a growing number, are disregarding that provision of the law. They do not care. They are, in fact, adopting things that we consider to be certainly problematic and certainly fly in the face of the law. By enacting these misguided and illegal sanctuary policies, a handful of local governments have put the rest of the country at risk. In addition, the refusal of these governments to share information with Federal immigration authorities inevitably results in a local law enforcement arresting and then releasing criminal aliens who may then move on to commit other crimes in the country rather than being deported. The Washington Times, for example, reported in June of last year that in December there was a rape of a woman in New York, a particularly brutal rape and battery. Four of the five men charged in the case were illegal immigrants, and three had are prior convictions that, in keeping with Federal law, would have allowed their deportation had that information been originally provided to the Federal authorities. As a result of the great amount of public clamor about this particular incident, the City of New York has, as I understand it, repealed that particular provision of their law so that that is what needs to happen, of course, I think, throughout the country. In order to prevent these kinds of resolving-door injustices from occurring, we must create a financial disincentive for cities and States that choose to violate the law. Since September 11 Members of both sides of the aisle have bestowed the virtues of intergovernmental cooperation between State, local, and Federal law enforcement authorities to prevent future terrorist attacks. State and local governments should not be able to unilaterally prevent this kind of cooperation by disregarding the Federal law and jeopardizing antiterrorism efforts. A message that continued subversion of Federal immigration law will not be tolerated must be sent loud and clear, and the prohibition on the expenditure of those funds will prevent this. We have a very difficult time. The Federal Government has an enormously challenging responsibility in trying to both adopt and enforce immigration policy. It is made even more difficult, the problems are exacerbated a thousand times, when cities and localities and States around the Nation decide to enter into this arena and decide to begin adopting their own immigration policies. We cannot have hundreds of immigration policies developing throughout the country, State by State, city by city. Once again, I reiterate, my amendment has nothing to do with the law that is presently on the books, and I know that there will be a lot of discussion about the law, and if someone wants to introduce legislation to repeal that law, that is of course their right to do so. But that is not what this is about. This is about essentially trying to provide some sort of disincentive for people who do violate that law. Point of Order

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I would agree with the gentleman from Kentucky's (Chairman Rogers) definition of an analysis of this amendment.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, this is a debate on the provision of the Department of Homeland Security. That is what we are supposed to be talking about here, the security of the Nation. The tax obligations of this company are really irrelevant to whether or not this contract provides for the United States of America some greater degree of security. No one has argued, in fact, that it does not. No one has argued that it is not the best company, Accenture in this case, to provide the service we need and the technology behind it. No one has denied the fact that if we do not do this, if we change the rules at this point in time, that in fact now we will have to go back to the drawing board. It will be another couple of years before we can help secure the borders now, the U.S. VISIT program, and implement it. So because this is a national security issue debated in the homeland security bill, I urge that this amendment be defeated.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I request that my colleague's words be taken down.

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

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

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I have oftentimes of course been on this floor in the debate revolving around immigration issues. We have tried desperately to keep that debate focused on the issue itself and away from innuendo and slur. That was the purpose I had in originally asking that the gentleman's words be taken down, to avoid that kind of thing, and I appreciate that the gentleman, in fact, withdrew his remarks. Remarks like those are not only an insult to the people to whom they are made, they are demeaning to the maker. It is also important to understand that this debate has gone on now and has been centered on the other side on whether or not we should, in fact, uphold the law. Again, what a peculiar thing to be talking about here. It certainly has nothing to do with the Statue of Liberty or anything that is written on it. The fact is there is a law. It is on the books. It has been there for 10 years. It says that cities must provide information about immigration and they cannot stop the flow of information from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That is what it says. They are doing it. Now, if we do not like the law, then, of course, as I said in my opening remarks, introduce a bill to repeal it. But it is there. And to stand on the floor of the House of Representatives and suggest that people should, in fact, disregard it, that cities and localities should ignore it, and that we should even reward them for doing so by providing them Federal dollars does seem, to say the least, peculiar. But that is the debate here. It has nothing to do with immigrants, with people from various countries, with the help that they can provide in various services. We are talking about simply not providing some disincentive for cities and localities who break the law. I ask my colleagues to please think beyond the rhetoric. All of it is used to obfuscate the issue. It is just about the law. I ask for the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. The Chairman pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.