Tom Tancredo

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, every time we hear of the deeds of the folks like Todd Beamer on Flight 93, we are left with the kind of introspection that can be very challenging. We have to say to ourselves, what would I have done? How would I have reacted under similar circumstances? We all want to think that we would have done what Mr. Beamer and others did. We can only hope that is the case, but we can also only hope that we will not have to face that challenge. But if we do, if something like that ever comes up again, the fact is that any American who has read the story, becomes acquainted with the actions of the people on Flight 93, we can sincerely believe that the possibility for us to do the right thing under those circumstances, to do what they did, is greater because we know what they did, and because of what it does for us internally, because of the way it changes us, because of the courage, perhaps, that they have given us. Mr. Speaker, we also are able to put faces together with names now of people who were on the plane. I take this opportunity also to think about and to speak for just a moment about Captain Jason Dahl. Mr. Dahl chose to be on the plane that day. He scheduled himself for Flight 93. From everything we have learned about Mr. Dahl, it is certainly understandable and it is quite probable that it was his decision even to take the plane into the ground rather than into any other edifice.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3248 and wish to fully express my gratitude to the crew of United Flight 93, and especially its captain, Jason M. Dahl. It was with immense sadness that I learned that the Dahl family and indeed all of Colorado had been robbed on September 11th of a good man and a good father. Mr. Dahl's family, to paraphrase President Lincoln, must feel enormous pride for having laid such a costly sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. According to a friend, Dahl learned to fly before he learned to drive. A neighbor remembered Dahl's football and baseball games in the street with neighborhood children and his commitment to his family and his community. Having read the statements of those who eulogized him, I cannot help but conclude that the gentleman flying that plane was one of America's best--a great father and husband alkike. Since September 11th, America has rediscovered the importance of family, and turned to family members for comfort and understanding. It is no small tragedy that the Dahl family does not have this luxury, having been left incomplete on September 11th. Most of us saw evil on that day watching the pictures of the two planes collide with the World Trade Towers in New York City. Jason Dahl almost surely saw evil in a different form. He must have seen it in the faces of the hijackers and known that it was in their hearts. The loss of Mr. Dahl and all of the passengers aboard Flight 93 will not be forgotten--certainly not by this body. This morning, we passed a resolution calling for a plaque to be placed on the grounds of the Capitol memorializing their deaths. I would suggest that their memory will go much farther. The fact that this great building and its dome-- two irreplaceable symbols of American democracy--still stand today will always be a living memorial to their sacrifice. My prayers, Mr. Speaker, are with all of the innocent civilians who died aboard that plane, and especially Jason Dahl and his family.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. It is no wonder that this country, when we look back again, as I say, to our American heroes and to the people that gave so much to create this Nation, we so often find that they came from Virginia and that they express themselves as wonderfully as the gentleman does, and I sincerely appreciate the gentleman's comments. I want to pick up on something that he said specifically in regard to the difference in the kind of investigation that is done between someone who is trying to get into the United States and has to go to a counselor office in the country of his origination and go through a process that is really quite rigorous, supposedly; at least on paper, they are supposed to go into quite a background check. Even the State Department tells us that they do not have the capacity to do that, even in the country of origin but, at least, and this is important, at least the person today that would seek entrance into the United States and seek to come here and get legal status, they would have to go back or start out in their country and request that. But under the program that the gentleman refers to, 245(i), that does not have to happen. The person does not have to return; the person is here. So let us assume for a moment that the INS does all the background work that is necessary and believe me, they have a backlog now of 4.5 million people. And I guarantee my colleagues, when we ask the INS how are they going to get this backlog taken care of, they will give us their logo: I do not know. That is their logo. That is what I have decided. That should be on everything that says ``INS,'' a picture of somebody going like this, I am not sure. Because they could not possibly do it and they do not do it. They cannot even pretend that they go through the kind of analysis that is necessary, and the background check. Let us assume that they did. They are talking with the person who is in front of them in the United States and they are trying to find out, and they come to this conclusion after all the background is done weeks and weeks and weeks, months and months that it would take to do it, but let us assume they do it and they find out this guy is a bad guy; this guy, we would not let into the country. Well, guess what? He is here. We are not able to keep him out. And then, what are they going to do? Go out and try to find him at that point in time? Good luck. Mr. Speaker, the INS spends absolutely no time or energy or effort in tracking down people who are here illegally. We all know that. They tell us when we talk to them, that no, they really do not have the inclination nor the resources to go after people who are here illegally, unless something really big happens, they commit a murder or something like that and they get brought in under those conditions, and then they try to deport them. But as I said, there are lots out there that no one knows about. So we are actually going to trust the INS to do this kind of thorough background check? And as I say, even if they do it, so what? The person is here. The person is here. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of people here who should not be here, as we, of course, found out recently. And then this, of course, contributes to fraud, all kinds of fraud, fraudulent marriages being one of them. This is what happens, because one of the ways that you get the status is to show that you are married to an American citizen. So these are articles that came out of the Denver paper when we extended 245(i) the last time, 3,042 applications in one day. More than 3,000 illegal immigrants in Denver beat a midnight deadline to apply for the visas. Now, do you think for a moment that the INS went through all of this, just the 3,000 in that last day, went through all of those with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that what they were doing was right? What we find out, as a matter of fact, after the 1986 amnesty, and then when the Clinton administration pushed for, as we may recall, the gentleman from Virginia may recall, when we pushed for the legalization of a lot of people in the citizenship status for millions of immigrants when they pushed it through because the past administration wanted these people to be able to vote, we found that we gave something like 60,000 felons citizenship; 60,000 felons ended up as citizens of the United States, but had felony records. We never checked. We did not know about it until much later, but it was too late. Now, is their citizenship being revoked? Absolutely not. What if it were to be revoked tomorrow? What if we decide, that was a big mistake, we should take it back from those people and find them, get them out of here, if you tell the INS, what would you do about that? They would give you the logo: I do not know. One officer, it says, ``Our office is finished up by 3 a.m.,'' said Louise Germain, assistant director for the INS in Denver. They are sure tired today. Then they went on to talk about the people who came in who were not married, but came in and said, well, you know, we want to be married. The INS officer said when they showed up at the INS office, they had a marriage license but had not been pronounced husband and wife, so we told them, go quickly and find someone to marry you. They did. Thousands and thousands. It has been estimated in the hundreds of thousands of bogus, sham marriages were undertaken at that point in time in order to get visa status. Has anybody checked on that? Has one person been refused visa status because they fraudulently applied and did stuff like this, got this sham marriage put together. I asked the INS these questions. They responded again with their logo. One example of the people who are doing this kind of thing, a man worked and lived with two former area men facing criminal charges in the government's terrorist investigation is scheduled to be arraigned today on a charge of marriage fraud. That means of five Middle Eastern men whose names appeared on the lease for the 6th Street Northwest apartment, this was in Akron, three of them are in jail and one is in jail with a $2,500 bond and is facing three misdemeanor charges after he allegedly claimed to be three different people during a drunken tirade and that he was a terrorist. Another one tried to marry a U.S. citizen to get him under U.S. immigration regulations. They would not say how they found out about the marriage, nor would they answer other questions. These people are all in jail. They are not in jail because they violated the law, that is not it at all, the specific law against the immigration violations. Of course we rounded them up for other reasons and then tried to tack that on. The reality is, Mr. Speaker, that the extension of 245(i) is a travesty. The idea that we would even think about it is a travesty. Number one, I reiterate, it rewards people for illegal behavior. All of the hundreds of thousands, in fact, millions of people who are waiting patiently all over the world to come into the United States legally, legally, what message does it send to them other than sneak in if you can, stay here long enough, come up with bogus documents to prove that you have been here for a long time, that you have relatives here, that you are married, whatever, and we will give you legal status. Give us $1,000. This is absolutely the wrong message, I think, Mr. Speaker, and that is on the one side. The other side is this: we are now talking about public safety. We can now focus on some of the incredibly dire circumstances, the dire results of these kinds of loose immigration practices, and we recognize that there are people in this country today who are here illegally who wish to do us harm, who have every intent to do that. Now, would it not be better for them to go ahead and go through the process, give the INS $1,000, fill out the paperwork, become a legal resident of the United States, and then do what you need to do, with the full cover of United States citizenship, or at least being in the States legally? You can get your driver's license, you can do all kinds of things then, of course, that can cover your tracks. You will not stand out. You will not have to be hiding, not that many of them are probably doing that today, but I would imagine that it is a little more difficult today for these would-be terrorists if they are not American citizens, and I hope it gets harder and harder and harder for them. But it should not be made easier for them. I will tell my colleagues that it is going to be almost impossible for us to actually identify these people. I mean identify them when they come up to get their materials and to apply for this amnesty; we really will not know it. We will not do a background check that will tell us; but even if we do, it will be too late. They are here. They will be in this society. We will not be able to find them or get rid of them. They are here now. Let us seek them out, identify them, remove them; and if you are here illegally, Mr. Speaker, you have to go home. Start the process. There are millions of people who are here with no evil intent, and I recognize that fully well. The great vast majority, thank God, are here solely with the purpose probably to improve their lives economically. I wish they were here with another purpose and that was to become part of the American mainstream, and that is a debatable point as to whether or not that is happening. But I can assure my colleagues that I know and believe that for the most part they are here in order to improve the quality of their lives economically, and not to destroy buildings or people's lives. But there are some, of course, of a different ilk, and we cannot be so selective as to be able to identify them specifically and say yes, I know, of all of the millions, you are the one I have to worry about. We have to say, if you are here illegally, you must return home, and start the process of coming into the United States legally. Let us determine whether or not you can and should be admitted. And if we need workers, fine. Guest worker program. No problem. But this massive immigration, legal and illegal, that is trying to be managed by an agency with a shrug of the shoulders for its logo is not the way we should be doing business in this country. What more of a lesson do we need to learn? How much more dramatic of an event has to occur to tell us that we must understand this very basic premise, and that is the defense of this Nation begins with the defense of its borders. Mr. Speaker, we have every right to do it. We should not be made to feel as though we should be ashamed because we are telling people that they cannot come into the country. We have every right to defend our borders. We have every right to ask citizens who do come into this country to become part of the American mainstream and have the love of this country and an allegiance and an attachment of this country. We have every right to ask that. To not do so is sealing our own fate. It is a death wish for the country. So I challenge us all, Mr. Speaker, to take on the responsibilities that are given to us when we take the oath of office to protect and defend this country and do so by the understanding that that means defending our borders. We have no other option, Mr. Speaker. God forbid another event of the nature of September 11 occurs, and if it does occur, it is because if it happens and it happens as a result of someone who comes into this Nation illegally, then I say again that if we have not done everything we can possibly do, if we have not done everything we can possibly do to stop someone from coming into this Nation illegally; and I reiterate, I understand that even if we did everything that we could possibly do that it still might happen, but if we do not do everything we can possibly do to stop it, then we are not just irresponsible, we are, in fact, culpable; and I choose for one not to do so.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to address several issues, one dealing specifically with a lot of the discussion that has preceded my remarks this evening. It is always interesting and elucidating to listen to my colleagues discuss a variety of issues, in this case the stimulus package and the difference between the Republican position and the Democratic position in this House. I think it is appropriate. I am very pleased to hear that kind of discussion because it does help clarify to a large extent the issues that separate the two parties and the two philosophies. On the one hand, as Members have heard, the Democratic Party suggests that a stimulus package, something to stimulate the economy, revolves around extending unemployment benefits. On the other hand, the Republican stimulus package with which they disagree revolves around primarily giving tax breaks to the rich, specifically to large corporations. One deals with organizations that actually create jobs in America and create wealth; and the other deals with a social service plan, a welfare plan. Now, I am not here and I do not intend to challenge the idea of extending unemployment benefits. It may be a fine idea under certain circumstances. I could certainly be inclined to vote for it. It has nothing to do with an economic stimulus package. Giving people longer unemployment benefits has nothing to do with creating jobs and changing the direction of the economy and getting us out of the recession, I believe. But it is nonetheless a legitimate point of view to be discussed and debated in the House, both sides offering their observations as to what might help the economy and what might help get American workers back to work. But I am intrigued by the fact, Mr. Speaker, in all of the discussions and in all of the debates I have heard and in the monologues that have been offered on the floor about an economic stimulus package, not one word from either side has been mentioned about what I consider to be a very significant and a very logical approach to at least one part of the economic stimulus package. It should be in there and it is not, and that to which I am referring, of course, is the number of aliens in the country, people who are not citizens of the United States who are taking jobs, who are here, some of them who are here illegally in the workforce and others who are here quite legally under H-1B visa status. Let me concentrate on the latter for a moment and explain what we are talking about with H-1B visa status. It is a special category of visa. It is designed to bring people into the country who have specific skills in more high-tech fields, white collar workers, primarily in the high-tech area, the computer sciences, computer programming and the like. For a long time businesses came to this Congress and told us that they did not have enough people in the United States with the kind of background and the kind of skills necessary to fill the jobs they had available for them. As a result, they asked us for a special visa category, H-1B, which we have had for a long time. But they asked us to increase the annual allotment of H-1B visas which this Congress dutifully went along with, although not with my vote. I believed at that time and I believe today it is a bogus argument. It is not based upon our need for workers of a particular skill, but it was based on a need for large businesses in the United States, certain corporations, to employ people at lower rates. It is as simple as that. Recognizing that they could import workers into the United States and pay them less than an American worker would demand, these H-1B visa recipients became in great demand. So we raised the level. We raised the ceiling to 295,000 a year. Now, there are approximately, we are not sure because the INS has absolutely no idea, and I often refer to the logo for the INS and it is this: A shrug of the shoulders. That should be their sign. INS is just a person shrugging. Because almost without exception when you ask them a question, when you ask them how many people are still here in the United States having come in on H-1B visas over the years, have not gone home, maybe they have lost their jobs, we do not know, they say we do not know. Maybe around 500,000, 500,000 to a million. The INS does not know for sure. Now, let us settle on the 500,000 that are here. Remember, we are not talking about all of the other immigrants that have come into the country, all of the illegal immigrants that are in the country working, working at jobs that again we always hear Americans will not take. Well, is there anyone in this body, Mr. Speaker, that actually believes that today in the United States there are not at least 500,000 people, American citizens, who are looking for jobs specifically in that area? We know that at least that many and more have been laid off from that particular industry, the high-tech industry. It is horrendous, and there are more layoffs to come. We will be hearing in the next few weeks and months of more layoffs, especially in the high-tech area. Yet we persist with allowing 500,000 H-1B recipients to take jobs in the United States that could be provided for American citizens. Why would that not be part of an economic stimulus package, I wonder. Why would no one on either side of this aisle stand up and say that in fact what we have to do is rescind H-1B status, we have to eliminate that category altogether, and when someone is laid off, they actually leave the country. Now, they are supposed to do that. It is true that the law requires, the H-1B law says if you lose your job as an H-1B recipient, you have to go home. Mr. Speaker, not surprising, not long ago the INS told people here under that category and who had been laid off to not really be too concerned about it. They said we will get around to writing a regulation about what you should do. But, for the time being, look for another job. In other words, displace another American worker. Now, I have said often on the floor of the House with regard to immigration that I have no qualms about having a workable guest worker program, something that allows people to come into the country, something that protects their interest and rights so they are not abused by workers here, that they are not ill-treated. But we do not have that. What we have is massive illegal immigration to provide that workforce. And it is absolutely true that the millions of people who are here illegally do contribute to the economy I am sure in some measure. The exact amount of that is up for debate. But it is also true that the massive amount of illegal immigration into the country of low-skilled people has a depressing effect on wage rates for low-paid jobs in this country, for all people with few skills are working at low-end jobs. Massive immigration has a depressing effect on the ability of these folks here in the United States, be they recent legal immigrants or long-time citizens of this country, natural-born citizens of the country, massive immigration hurts those people. It hurts their ability to get ahead. It helps, of course, many employers, it is undeniably true, who want to exploit these people, and many employers who have legitimate concerns about being able to get employees they say they cannot get in any other fashion. Why is it we cannot construct a guest worker program that can serve the needs of business and protect American workers? The reason is because we have an organization called the INS that is charged with the responsibility of trying to actually implement such programs, and what we know today is that the INS simply does not care, does not care about the issue of massive immigration. To them, most of their resources, most of their efforts go into the social work side of INS. This problem is not often addressed, but I think it should be. Again, a half a million people in the United States today, holding H-1B visas, some of them employed in the original job, some of them having long since moved on to other jobs, supposedly they have to leave and go home, as I say, by law, but of course, they do not do it and the INS does not follow up. When we ask them where are all the people that have lost their jobs and have not left the United States, they use their logo: shrug their shoulders, I do not know. When we ask them when we have the INS where are the 300,000 people who have been ordered to be deported from the United States for violating the laws of the United States, not just their visa status, not just overstaying their visa, but robbery, rape, murder, they have been arrested, and when they get arrested they find out, oh, by the way, this guy is here illegally, his visa status is over or even if he is here legally, he has violated a law, we are going to send him. So they go to an immigration court, the judge listens to the information, listens to the defense, which is not supposed to be the INS but oftentimes ends up being the INS lawyer defending the immigrant lawbreaker, and they do this, and the judge orders the person deported, saying they have violated the law, they are someone we do not want in this country and they are going to have to leave the country or go to jail. We actually order about 100,000, a little over 100,000 people a year, we order 100,000 people a year to be deported for violating the law here. There are at least, at least 300,000 of those folks, 300,000 people who have been ordered deported from the United States for violating our law but are simply gone, vanished into society. They have not departed the country. They are here somewhere. When we ask INS where are these people, they give us their logo: shrug their shoulders, I do not know. That is the issue. That just really makes me focus on H-1Bs for a moment because, as I say, I listened to our friends talk about the problems with the two various interpretations of what economic stimulus is all about, whether it is more government jobs and/or extended welfare payments or whether it is job creation through giving tax benefits to corporations, who actually employ people. There are several other issues with regard to immigration and immigration reform that I want to address this evening. H-1B is just one of the many problems we have in this country, and I have a bill that would significantly reduce the ceiling on H-1B. I would like to see it become part of that economic stimulus package, but I fear that the opposition of industry and the corporate structure in this country will prevent me from actually being able to present that piece of legislation. Nonetheless, there are a series of other issues that come to mind tonight that I believe need some degree of discussion. I, like almost every American, have been heartened by the response of most people in this country to the tragedies of September 11 and the way in which people have rallied around the President and our military forces and have expressed themselves over and over again as being patriots. Underneath all of the exposure that has been provided to these expressions of patriotism, there is an underlying theme that runs in certain circles in this country that is very, very disquieting. I am going to try and discuss this issue in a way that connects to what people may think are divergent points of view, but in a way, my colleagues just have to give me a minute to make the case here. I believe that massive immigration into this country is very, very dangerous and is threatening in a variety of ways, massive immigration, legal and illegal; and I reiterate, I am not against immigrants. I am not anti-immigrant. I am not even anti-immigration. I am certainly very much concerned about the present system we operate, or nonsystem, of immigration. The fact that over a million people a year come into the United States legally, quarter of a million more come in under refugee status and about who knows, a million to 2 million to 3 million, we do not know how many for sure come in here illegally every year. That is what I call massive immigration. I say it is massive because in the heyday of immigration into this country in the early 1900s, late 1800s, the highest number of immigrants coming in in any given year was about 200,000. We are six times that amount today, six times that amount today and that is legally. We would probably go up to 10 or 12 times that amount if we add all the illegal immigration into the country. There are ramifications to that massive immigration, and I want to talk about one particular part of that, one ramification in particular. It deals with the degree to which we are able to integrate newly arrived immigrants into this country into the American mainstream and make them a part of the American experience in every sense of the word. It is disquieting to find information, some anecdotal, some empirical, that deals with the degree to which immigrants into this country have actually attached themselves to the American ideal, which has always been the case, I should say, I think for immigrants for a long, long time. I will speak of myself and my own family as an example. What I mean here is how immigrants attached themselves in the past, did attach themselves to the American experience, did want, in fact, to become Americans in every sense of the word, not just in terms of the ability to achieve an economic prosperity which, of course, that is in common with almost everyone. That is a common element of everybody that comes here; but in particular, I am talking about the issue of patriotism, patriotism, love of the country, willingness to defend it and association with it, a feeling of being part of the American experience. That is what I am talking about that is changing, I think; and I will get into exactly why I believe that is the case. Again, let me just preface it by explaining my own experience. My grandparents came here in the late 1800s, 1890 actually. So I am not what one would call a long-term immigrant. I am a relatively short- termer here. That is what I am really trying to say here. My great great grandparents did not come over on the Mayflower or anything near it. We are relatively new to the country. When I went to school, it was in north Denver, at a very small and relatively impoverished area, in a small school, parochial school, in which I learned about my country's heroes. I learned who I was by studying the history books that I was given, in this case, in the parochial school system; and I also learned about what my parents said about America. I will tell my colleagues that in my whole life I never ever thought of myself as anything but an American. When I thought of my heritage, and who were the heroes of my past, of my heritage, I thought of Washington and Adams and Jefferson, and I connected with them immediately. I never ever thought of myself as anything but an American with that kind of a heritage. I am happy about that because I believe that that is exactly what immigrants should do and what they should become, people connected to America in every sense of the word. Let me tell my colleagues that I have a feeling that this is not happening, and it is not happening as again many of us have had anecdotal experiences that would lead us to believe that many immigrants are not as well steeped in American history and well connected with it as perhaps our ancestors were. One anecdotal part. In the Washington Post, it interviewed a middle- class Muslim American immigrant family from New Jersey and reported that for Kahr and her husband, taxpayer, registered voters, law abiding citizens, assimilation is not a goal. The Post article stated that Kahr, who came to the U.S. from Syria when she was 12, 17 years ago, would soon graduate from Seton Hall law school. However, this well- educated woman opposes America's war efforts against the Taliban in Afghanistan and declares that, quote, ``throughout history Muslims will always be separate.'' That is the anecdotal thing, and there are literally hundreds of those kind of stories, but then there are studies that have been done. Empirical evidence suggests that Kahr's views are not unique. In what Islamic expert Daniel Pipes has described as perhaps the most sophisticated study to date of Muslims in the United States, an Iranian doctoral student at Harvard found that a majority of immigrants there he surveyed felt more allegiance to a foreign country than to the United States. This article goes on to say that this ambivalence about American identity is not confined to Muslim immigrants and their children. The most comprehensive evidence we have on patriotic assimilation of the children of immigrants is a longitudinal study by the Russell Sage Foundation, a study of 5,000 children of immigrants, mostly Mexican American and Filipino American teenagers. We feel that after 4 years of American high school the students were 50 percent more likely to consider themselves quote ``Mexicans or Filipinos than they were to consider themselves Mexican Americans or Filipinos Americans or just plain Americans.'' In other words, patriotic assimilation or self-identification within the American Nation actually decreased and decreased dramatically after 4 years of studying in American schools. That should not surprise too many people when we go on to recognize exactly what has been happening, and there are all kinds; and now again these are anecdotal in terms of what is happening in American colleges and universities and our K-12 system also; and this kind of cultural relativism is a philosophy which has seeped into the school system. And when we combine this sort of philosophy of cultural relativism, that is to say, we are all the same; there is no difference; America is not any better than any other country; in fact, in most situations we are worse, that is cultural relativism. That has seeped its way into our school system. If we combine that with massive immigration and my colleagues can see what kind of problems we are going to develop. When we do not teach children about America, be they immigrant children or native-born children, it does not matter, they will not understand America. Mr. Speaker, I was a teacher for many years. I was the regional director of the U.S. Department of Education, and I will tell my colleagues it is absolutely evident to anyone that in order to have children appreciate certain things, we must teach them about it. A child does not walk into school appreciating fine art. A child does not walk into school appreciating fine poetry, not even sciences; and they have to be taught the beauty of these things. They have to be encouraged. We have to find that spark in every child and ignite it and say there is an excitement to learning and here is what the child should be learning. We have to teach them about America because they will not walk into schools with an innate understanding of it and appreciation for it. It will not happen, but we not only do not teach them about America, but what we do tell them is the following. At a central Michigan university, a school administrator told several students to remove patriotic posters and an American flag in their dormitory. A residential adviser said the pro-American items were quote ``offensive.'' At San Diego State University an Ethiopian student overheard four Saudi Arabian students speak approvingly of the terrorist attacks. When he scolded them in Arabic, they complained to the school. In a response, the university judicial officer threatened to suspend or expel Kebede, the gentleman who was challenging these students who were excited over the bombings, over the terrorist acts, on September 11. At Pennsylvania State University, a professor was told that his web site, which advocated military action against terrorists, was ``insensitive, and perhaps even intimidating.'' Under Penn State's speech code, intimidating language is ground for dismissal. At a Florida Gulf Coast university, Dean of Library Services Kathleen Hoeth demanded that employees remove ``proud to be American'' stickers from their work areas. At the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, a professor is under investigation for ``harassment'' after he told a female student that he supported U.S. military action in Afghanistan. The student said that the position made her feel ``uncomfortable.'' A Roxbury, New Jersey, school superintendent who ordered signs with the slogan ``God bless America'' be taken down, he said he was merely trying to be fair to those who refer to God as ``allah'' and other names. Librarians at the Florida State University have been told not to wear ``I am proud to be an American'' sticker. A Los Angeles educator tells the paper that he has no intention of flying the flag. ``I grew up suspicious of the flag,'' he says. ``It meant right wing politics. It meant repression. It meant arrogance. I mean, we are the greatest?'' Okay. This is what children are being taught, both, as I say, native born children and immigrant children. At Marquette University, undergraduates were blocked from holding a moment of silence around an American flag. The gesture, the school President's advisers felt, might be offensive to foreign students. At Lehigh the vice provost for student affairs initially reacted to the tragedy by banning the display of the American flag. A Lehigh spokesman explained the idea was to keep from offending some of the students, and maybe the result was much to the contrary. When officials at Arizona State removed the American flag from a school cafeteria out of fear that it might offend international students, Syrian immigrant Oubai Shahbandar introduced a bill in the student senate paving the way for its return. His bill was defeated. Professor Jensen at the University of Houston pronounced that ``my primary anger is directed at the leaders of this country. The attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center are no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism, the deliberate killing of victims for political purposes that the U.S. Government has committed in my lifetime.'' This is a Professor Jensen at the University of Houston. ``We are just as guilty,'' he concluded. University of New Mexico professor Richard Berthold bluntly declared, ``anyone who would blow up the Pentagon would get my vote.'' We are surprised then that students write things like this? ``We sponsor dictators who maim, we defend corporations that enslave, and then we have the arrogance to pretend we are safe and untouchable,'' said West Virginia University student Joshua Greene. ``In light of the current destructive nationalism that calls for war,'' a Duke student opined, the sight of the flag burning would be preferable to its display.'' These things, these things all matter, and they are undercurrents, as I say, of a philosophy that will do great harm to the United States. You combine that, as I say, with massive immigration, with people coming into this country who are not being inculcated into the American mainstream, who are coming at such great numbers that we cannot begin to even do that, and they are being encouraged when they come here, by the way, they are encouraged not to accept American ideals, but to think of us as the enemy, to think of themselves as separate and apart from American mainstream, as this lady says, ``we will always be separate. Muslims will always be separate.'' And we encourage that. Our institutions of higher education and our schools throughout the country encourage that. So do many members of the media. So does the ex-president of the United States, and thank heavens we can say ex, who can stand up in front of a group of people, not too long ago, Mr. Clinton, and say that it is our fault that what has happened to us on September 11 was our fault; our fault. He only exacerbates this problem. That kind of thinking, of course, is indicative of the problem. It is going to get worse. And I suggest we have to deal with this issue on a variety of fronts. We should certainly deal with it in our local school system. I wish our schools, every school board in America, would look at and carefully analyze their curriculum to determine the extent to which we are teaching about the American experience and appreciation of who and what we are, because, I reiterate, children do not come into school with some innate knowledge of that. Certainly they are not going to learn it from the TV or from the movies. They are not going to learn to appreciate the American experience from any of the pop culture. Not from MTV. The only place we can hope they are learning it is either in school or in their home. But if the parents of these children do not care, do not want to, and, as a matter of fact, are antagonistic, as many of these immigrant parents are, to American culture, to American history, and if the schools do not teach children about who we are and what we are and how to appreciate this freedom, then what is the hope we will be able to maintain it in the future? With all of that, Mr. Speaker, with all that in front of us, with the economic stimulus package that is only being debated on the basis of whether or not we should give welfare or tax cuts, and no discussion of H1-B visas or the number of immigrants here taking jobs that otherwise should go to American citizens, without doing that, we are doing ourselves a disfavor and a disservice, because we should be talking about other things. What are we talking about with regard to immigration? Here is what we are going to be dealing with in this Congress very soon, something called extension of 245(i). I see a colleague has joined me this evening on the floor. I want to talk about this with him, because I know he has strong sentiments open this issue. Let me just briefly describe what 245(i) is and an extension therein. 245(i) is another category of immigrant status. What it is is essentially saying that there are a lot of people here illegally. We all know it. In 1986, there was a thing called amnesty that said if you have been around for a while and you can show you have a job and you are married and that sort of thing, we are going to give you amnesty. You can be here legally. We are going to reward you for coming here illegally. That is what it said. We are going to give you a reward for breaking our law. And we did it. We did it. Come to find out, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, did not sign up in time to take advantage of it. So there have been continual attempts, and in fact successful attempts, of extending this process of amnesty to people who are here illegally, who have violated our laws and are here presently, taking the jobs other Americans could have. But, regardless, even if they are here doing jobs no one else will do, the fact is they are here illegally, and we are going to reward them by extending it. Now the debate is going to be enjoined here in a relatively short time as to whether or not we should once again extend 245(i), to once again provide amnesty for people who are here illegally. That is what we are going to debate. Not whether or not we should defend our borders by tightening up and not allowing illegal immigration, not reducing immigration altogether to give us an ability to begin to get a handle on this, not H1-B visa reform. No. We are going to debate and take under consideration 245(i). I would yield to my friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode) for his comments. It is good to see you here tonight.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with tomorrow.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, as we face the calamity and the calamitous events of September 11 and recognize what our Nation now needs to do in response to that, we also recognize that there are literally hundreds, thousands, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of incidents of incredible patriotism that have been expressed by the average American citizen. We have seen the many pictures on TV and the representations of the flag being held aloft, and it is truly inspiring. And it is indeed necessary for our country to survive, to have that kind of united agreement upon our principles about who we are and what we are trying to accomplish in this conflict. But recently it has come to my attention, and I am sure to the attention of many of my colleagues, that we are also reaping what the seeds of political correctness that have been sown in this Nation over the last several years are producing for us. For years we have, I should not say we perhaps, because it is predominantly liberal political thought that has initiated a hatred for everything American, for everything with expressions of what might be called patriotic. Textbooks all over our land for the last 20 years or more have been purged of anything resembling an appreciation of those who fought and died for our freedom. We make fun of the people who constructed the most brilliant political document ever to be conceived of by the mind of men on this planet. And we taught our children to ignore or even deride these people and our heritage. We look down upon any act of patriotism. It was not perceived to be politically correct. Our media, of course, aided and abetted this anti-American spirit under the guise of an intellectual superiority and political correctness. Our courts on far too many occasion have encouraged this anti-American sentiment by interpreting the Constitution in a way that would have had Madison and Adams spinning in their graves. All of these things, in fact, comprise old news. No one is really surprised about that. We have talked about it certainly on this floor. I know many, many individuals have expressed their concern over the past years about the way in which American children were being taught in terms of our heritage and appreciation of those values that we call American. By and large, as I say, Americans have reacted to the events of September 11 with great courage and great patriotism. But amazingly, amazingly there were many places in America where expressions of anti- American sentiment are still prevalent. Oftentimes, of course, they are college campuses where this goes on. As recently as September 22, a gentleman by the name of Zewdalem Kebede, he is a recent American immigrant, he is from Ethiopia, he was studying in the campus library at San Diego State University, when he overheard a group of Saudi students discussing the suicide bombings of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. They started talking about September 11, he said, and with the action that they were deeply pleased. They were happy. The anti-American group, speaking in Arabic, thought that no one would be able to hear what they were saying. Kebede, who speaks fluent Arabic, surprised the anti-American students by interrupting their conversation in their native tongue. Guys, what are you talking about? And you are being unfair, he said. How do you feel happy when those 5,000 to 6,000 people are buried in two or three buildings. He said, You are proud of these terrorists. You should feel shame. Kebede claims he addressed his fellow students in Arabic because he did not want to embarrass them in front of others. A Saudi student sitting at a nearby table then angrily confronted Kebede in English. The ensuing conversation grew heated. Thirty minutes later the police came for Kebede. They informed him that a complaint had been issued against him. Soon the University Center for Student Rights ordered him to attend a disciplinary meeting because it was alleged he had been verbally abusive to other students. He received a letter ordering him not to respond to his accusers or he would face sanctions. This is all from a story written by Daniel Flynn in Human Events the week of October 29, 2001. The university, after a lot of outrage was expressed by some Members of the alumni especially, concluded the matter with an October 9 letter threatening disciplinary action against the political science senior: ``You are admonished to conduct yourself as a responsible member of the campus community in the future,'' San Diego's missive warned. Of course, I and many others would say that is exactly what Mr. Kebede was doing on September 22. He was conducting himself in a completely responsible manner, and yet he is the one attacked by the institution, by some of his fellow students. Unfortunately, what happened to Mr. Kebede at San Diego is not an isolated incident. At Marquette University, undergraduates were blocked from holding a moment of silence around the American flag on September 11. The gesture, the school's president and advisers felt, might be ``offensive'' to foreign students. The administration felt that it showed too much nationalism or patriotism and respect to foreign students. At Lehigh University, the vice provost for student affairs initially reacted to the tragedy of September 11 by banning the display of the American flag. Lehigh spokesman explained, ``The idea was to keep from offending some of our students, and maybe the result was much to the contrary.'' When officials at Arizona State removed the American flag from a school cafeteria out of fear that it might offend international students, Syrian immigrant Oubai Shahbandar introduced a bill in the student senate, paving the way for its return. Shahbandar's bill was defeated, but the ensuing bad publicity he generated against the school forced the administration's hand. The alumni threatened to pull their funding for the school. Money talked and the flag was returned. Professor Robert Jensen of the University of Houston pronounced that, ``My primary anger is directed at the leaders of this country.'' That is his response to September 11. ``The attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center are,'' he said, ``no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism, the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes that the U.S. Government has committed in my lifetime. We are just as guilty,'' he concluded. University of New Mexico Professor Richard Berthold bluntly declared, ``Anyone who would blow up the Pentagon would get my vote.'' Undergraduates writing in campus newspapers echoed this hatred against the United States, and I cannot imagine that we would be too surprised at that. Is that not just exactly the results that these professors would want? Is that not exactly what these students had been taught for years, that it is always our fault; that there is nothing in this country worth dying for; that there is nothing special, nothing of uniqueness that would give us the right to defend our way of life? That is what they have been taught. I remember, Mr. Speaker, it was years ago now, but it was a demonstration against the war in Vietnam, and there was a young man at my college, and he was carrying a banner, a poster; and it said there is nothing worth dying for, and I remember thinking to myself even at the time here is a fellow who is tan, just coming back from spring break, somewhere probably in the Bahamas. That is where a lot of the folks went in those days at spring break. He was certainly well dressed. He was well fed, well taken care of. It was apparent that he was not at all in need of any physical help or he was certainly well off and certainly a representation of the average American student on a college campus; and here he was carrying a sign saying that there was nothing worth dying for, not home, not heart, not kith, not kin, nothing worth dying for. We had hoped that that sentiment would be squelched by life's reality, frankly. It is understandable that idealistic students would seek this alternative way of expressing themselves or this way of expressing themselves, perhaps, because it is a part of growing up and being disruptive and that sort of thing, but it goes deeper than that I believe, Mr. Speaker. I believe that it infects our institutions, and it will infect our society to our great detriment. These students, who I started to mention, who wrote in various campus publications about America's involvement in Afghanistan, one of them said, ``We are kidding ourselves in thinking we have been wronged.'' This is Lisa Mann of Wake Forest University. She added, ``Sometimes it's our fault.'' ``We sponsor dictators who maim. We defend corporations that enslave, and then we have the arrogance to pretend we are safe and untouchable,'' said a West Virginia University student, Joshua Green. In light of the current destructive nationalism that calls for a war, a Duke student opined, the sight of the flag burning would be preferable to its display. Mr. Kebede found out the hard way that if one loves America they are going to get in trouble, especially if they are on a campus and especially if they express that opinion. He was harassed by the university simply for disagreeing with people who welcomed the killing of thousands of Americans on September 11. All that he is guilty of, Kebede insists, is loving his adoptive country. Is that a crime, he asks? At San Diego State, unfortunately, some people think it should be. Public colleges that force patriotic students to remove American flags because they are potentially offensive and threaten to expel students who scold terrorists, cheering foreign students should immediately lose their government funding. This is something I agree with entirely. These examples that I have given and others that I will add to it are so disconcerting that I think it deserves our attention in this body. I am going to go on and add a few more. At Central Michigan University, a school administrator told several students to remove a patriotic poster and an American flag from their dormitory. A residential adviser said that pro-American items were offensive. At Pennsylvania State University, a professor was told that his Web site, which advocated military action against terrorists, was insensitive and perhaps even intimidating. Under Penn State speech codes, intimidating language is grounds for dismissal. At Florida Gulf Coast University, Dean of Library Services Kathleen Hoeth demanded that employees remove ``proud to be an American'' stickers from their work areas on the grounds that they might offend international students. At the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, a professor is under an investigation for harassment after he told a female student that he supported U.S. military action in Afghanistan. The student said that the position made her feel uncomfortable. These things are incredible; and they are, as I say, worthy of our note. Recently, and this one is, I suppose, striking closer to home as one that really got me thinking about the issue to a greater extent, a few weeks ago Marcelee Gralapp, the Boulder, Colorado, Boulder Public Library's art director, recently turned down employee requests to hang a large flag from the glass entrance of the main branch. She said, ``It would compromise our objectivity and we do have many flags outside,'' she said. ``The idea is to make the environment of the library politically neutral to every one of the two to 3,000 Boulder residents that walk in each day,'' she said. ``We have people of every faith and culture work walking into this building and we want everybody to feel welcome.'' ``Library employees,'' she said, ``can wear flag pins and ribbons,'' but she urges them to do it thoughtfully, whatever that means. Now this has caused quite a stir in the Colorado papers because the same time that this particular library/art director had turned down a request to hang a large flag in front of the library, she approved a bizarre sort of artistic representation, I do not even know how graphically I can describe what was in the library. Suffice it to say that it offended the sensibilities of many members of the community, one to the point where the gentleman actually took down the display. As I say, it is very graphic, and I will not go into it here. It is a comparison of attitude. That is something that is very, very difficult. If I can describe it here, it would be very difficult to describe this particular display as artistic in any shape or form, and yet it was approved to put up, and an American flag was not approved to put up because it might offend somebody. That is where we are, Mr. Speaker. I cannot imagine, frankly, that an American flag flying can offend anyone in the United States of America. I know we offend people or it is offensive to people like bin Laden and his supporters. We see them burning it every day on the news. We see other terrorists throughout the world who do take offense at the American flag, and that is dutifully carried by all of the media throughout the world, whatever they do to the flag. There is little that we can do about that except to stand in revulsion of it. But here in the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, here, where that flag has draped the coffin of so many men and women who have given everything, their lives, their limbs, their health, for us to enjoy the freedom that we every day experience here. To be offended by that symbol is incredible, of course, to most of us. I would assume everyone in this Chamber would agree that it is incomprehensible. I would add, Mr. Speaker, as dramatic as this statement may seem, or I guess some would say bombastic, the reality is if one enjoys the freedoms provided by this country, if one enjoys the economic benefit provided by our system, by a free enterprise, capitalistic system, if one has sought that and come across our borders, oftentimes illegally, and has gained access to that freedom and economic opportunity, if you are offended, if you indeed take offense at the sight of an American flag flying from any building, from any porch, from any car antenna, if you take umbrage at that and if you are offended by that sight, then I say, get the hell out of the United States of America. I do not believe there are millions of people who respond that way, but I believe there are some, undeniably, who do, who do take offense, and that is what these incredibly ultra-politically-correct librarians and school superintendents and principals are trying to reflect, because they themselves to a large extent take offense at the sight of the American flag, at the sight of its depiction. I say to them the same thing. How can you take advantage of everything this country has to offer and be offended by its symbol? It is truly incredible to me. I will be attacked, of course, for being closed-mind and chauvinistic and all the rest of those things, I recognize that; but perhaps someone can explain to me in the midst of the attacks that I know will come as soon as I get back to the office, the phones have a tendency to light up when this subject is discussed, but perhaps someone can take the time to explain to me why I should not be offended personally at someone who says that they take offense at the flying of the flag. Mr. Speaker, to that end, I have introduced H.R. 3201 which prohibits any department or agency of the United States from transferring any funds to any individual or entity that prohibits the display of the flag in the United States of America. That is it. It is one sentence. I recognize full well that these people may have the absolute right to hate the United States as much as they do, to hate everything that we stand for. They have that right, but they do not have the right to command the tax dollars from hard-working Americans who do love this country, they do not have the right to take that money and then so callously disregard the system and the people who have created this wonderful experiment in freedom we call America. Mr. Speaker, I would just go on now to one other topic, and that is the topic of immigration and immigration reform. To a certain extent my previous remarks did reflect my concerns about massive immigration, legal and illegal into this country. Immigration that has had incredibly detrimental effects, massive immigration that has had massive detrimental effects. I want to go on with a series of discussions I have been having on the floor of the House over the last several weeks in which I have indicated that there are innumerable stories which have been brought to my attention with regard to the issue of immigration and the problems inherent in the system that we presently operate, or perhaps I should say the lack of a system that we presently operate. We are just building a file of incredible, but true and let me get something here, Mr. Speaker. This is an e-mail address that we have, Tom.Tancredo@mail.house.gov, and the fax number is (202) 226-4623. We use this for people to communicate with us. There is no way to do that through the regular mail, and yet we have had lots of people, actually several thousand people, try to communicate with us about this issue, about immigration reform, expressing their concerns and opinions and their willingness to try to do something about it, and also bringing to my attention and to the attention of the body some of the incidents which I call unbelievable but true. Here is one more for this evening. This comes from an article originally published in the New Times Broward Palm Beach on November 8, 2001. ``The INS' Mary Schneider warned of the terrorist threat, but no one listened to her. More than 2 years before the September 11 attack, a seasoned Federal immigration officer named Mary Schneider vehemently complained that Islamic visitors who were possibly terrorists were moving into the Orlando area. She told INS officials that hundreds of aliens, some of whom she suspected were tied to Osama bin Laden, were illegally gaining residence. She further alleged that several INS supervisors had accepted bribes in return for allowing those aliens to remain in the country. ``Rather than investigate Ms. Schneider's complaints thoroughly, the INS began a campaign of retaliation against the 21-year immigration employee that nearly led to her termination.'' Ms. Schneider has information from five informants on long-running, extensive, felony bribery conspiracies engaged in by Orlando INS and staff at former congressional offices, unnamed. The bribery ring involved over 50 Islamic Muslim Moroccans, an unknown number of whom had ties to Ihab Ali, an Egyptian who lived in Orlando before he was imprisoned in 1999 in New York City for ties to Osama bin Laden and East Africa embassy bombings. INS officials stole cash and jewelry from illegal aliens who had been detained, she claims. Records of more than 200 felony immigration fraud cases were secretly removed from her office. Whatever the merit of her allegations, Ms. Schneider's warnings certainly proved prophetic. Numerous Orlando ties to the suicide bombings and bin Laden have been uncovered both before and after the attacks, so many that the Orlando Sentinel recently suggested that Central Florida should be dubbed ``Terroristland.'' Ms. Schneider has retained the services of an attorney. Her one-time attorney, Mr. Ross, said that the INS and the FBI both dropped the ball in a big way. ``I was shocked that the Justice Department never investigated this. I don't think INS officials thought that what happened on September 11 would ever happen. Now people are actually going to look at this. Had the government followed Schneider's philosophy, we probably would have stopped some very bad people.'' Schneider would say, ``We are in danger. They are sending these terrorists into this country and I can't understand why more isn't being done. They are going to commit acts of terrorism in this country. She happened to hit the nail right on the head.'' This is just one individual. We have had literally scores of communications of a similar nature, many of them from INS officials, who today have told us that they are willing to provide testimony. One of them is actually going to provide testimony to this body. Mr. Speaker, I am the chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus here and our caucus will hold a hearing on Thursday, this week, at which one of these individuals, a 30-year INS employee, perhaps we will have two but we know right now of one for sure who we were able to obtain whistleblower status for and eventually the INS agreed to allow him to testify when they recognized they really could not stop it although they threatened to fire him shortly after his decision to speak to various congressmen was made known. But he is going to be here. As I say, we have had all kinds of information like this, from INS agents who are good, solid Americans wanting to do their job and who recognize that the organization for which they work is incredibly corrupt and incompetent. Those are strong words, I recognize, Mr. Speaker; but they are the only ones that accurately portray the system itself. Corrupt and incompetent. She alleges, as I said, INS officials stealing cash and jewelry from illegal aliens who had been detained. She suggests that a bribery ring was involved and that many officials, even staff at a former, quote, unnamed congressional office was involved. These things have got to be dealt with. The INS refused to deal with it. Even the Justice Department refused to deal with it. Mohammed Atta, a name all too well known to everyone in the United States now as the ringleader of the group of 19 terrorists who hijacked the planes on September 11, Mohammed Atta here on a visa, left the country and did so illegally. He was to fill out a particular form, he did not do that, saying that I am going to leave the country, I will be returning on a certain day. He did not do it. He left; he came back. He came back through Miami in January of this year. He should have been stopped at that point in time. The INS actually recognized that he had not in fact informed them, he had breached his contract, if you will, which is what a visa really is; and they could have at that time denied him entrance into the United States. Mohammed Atta could have been stopped from coming back into the United States, at least in January. But the INS overlooked it, chose not to pay the slightest bit of attention to it. The INS time and time and time again, far too numerous to lay out in any 1-hour Special Order, but so many times that it is beyond imagination. It is unfathomable that this agency could be in charge of our security, our border security. They have put almost all of their resources into what I call immigration social work. When I was on a talk radio show in Denver not too long ago, shortly after I was on the radio the person running the show called the INS and had a spokesman for the INS come on. They said something like, isn't it your job to go after these people who are here illegally and get rid of them? And she said, well, kind of in a way. But really, she said, our main focus is to explain to these people why they are here illegally and then help them get benefits. Mr. Speaker, I may be just confused about what I thought the INS was all about; but I think that that statement, that paraphrase in a nutshell describes the problem and the problem with which we must deal, and we must deal with it before leaving here this year. We have spent countless hours in the discussion of the degree to which we can make our airports more secure by improving the quality of the people that actually do the baggage screening. I have yet to hear any discussion of the literally hundreds of thousands of other people who have access to planes every single day, whether they be baggage handlers, whether they be food service workers, whether they be the people who repair the airplanes. None of them fall under the scrutiny of this particular piece of legislation that we are spending an inordinate amount of time debating and was brought up many times by our friends on the other side here just a little bit ago. Is it not the least bit peculiar, is it not the least bid odd that we spend this amount of time focusing on one small part of the entire airport security problem, one tiny part, frankly, the baggage screening people, a very small number relatively speaking, but the sound and fury coming from this body and the other body about this would make you think that if we just solved this problem, we will all be okay, we can rest easy at night if we just simply make baggage screeners Federal employees, as if somehow magically by changing who their employer is, we will make these people much more competent. It is idiotic. I personally, of course, support our efforts to try to improve airline security. I certainly support the House's bill which does so in a fashion far more definitive, far greater than the other body. As a person who flies twice a week, as most of the Members of this body do, I have a very personal stake in this thing of airline security. And contrary to the allegations made by our friends on the other side of massive payments and massive influence-peddling by these corporations who want to maintain it, I have never heard from any of them; and I want to know what Member of this body would vote for a piece of legislation that he or she thought did not enhance the security to the greatest extent possible, because he or she flies a lot and my family flies a lot and my grandchildren get on planes all the time. I am not going to do anything that is going to minimize or even jeopardize their safety if I possibly can. I have voted for and I believe the House bill is better. But all that said, Mr. Speaker, it begs the question, is that all there is to security in this country? The baggage screeners and bombing Afghanistan, that is what we have done so far. We have not even accomplished the former. I totally, totally support the President's actions in Afghanistan. I, of course, wish he had declared war; I wish he would have come to this body and asked for a declaration of war, because that is the constitutional way to handle this particular issue and crisis. Nonetheless, we are where we are. We have accomplished great things. The courage, the fortitude of our fighting men and women have persevered again. As the President said from that very podium the night he addressed the Nation, I know you will again make us proud, and they have. And they have. But while we are fighting this struggle, again, I hesitate to call it a war, it actually is not, we have not declared war, but while we are fighting, involved in this struggle in Afghanistan, risking the lives of men and women in the uniform of the United States, we have paid literally no attention whatsoever to the most basic issue of security, of national security. It is not just bombing the terrorists in caves in Afghanistan; it is trying to stop those terrorists and their colleagues from coming across the borders of the United States. If they get in here, I will worry about how they can get through a security checkpoint at an airport. We will do everything we can to stop them. But why would we not try to stop them at the border is the question that is begged by this discussion. Why would we not? Why have we not chosen to move as dramatically, as quickly, as expeditiously toward improving the security of our own borders as we have at enhancing the security of the people who look at the baggage going through the mechanism at the airport? There are plenty of reasons, of course. It is, again, politically incorrect, going back to a discussion of the first part of my remarks. It is politically incorrect for us to talk about border security, because we are talking about then inhibiting the ability of people to come into the United States. And since most of the people coming into the United States, both legally and illegally, are coming from south of our border, it is an assumption that if you talk about immigration reform you are naturally talking about and expressing sort of a anti- Hispanic sentiment. Mr. Speaker, I, for one, could not care less about the ethnicity of the people that are coming. It is the fact that our borders are insecure, and it is the fact that too many are coming, that I believe we must address. It does not matter from where. I am not talking about whether they are from Mexico, or Belgium. The issue is, who should control the boarders of a Nation? Should we actually? Is it the right of the United States to say who gets into the country and who does not? And if we say some do not, then should we not also say that it is our responsibility to try to prevent them from doing so illegally? What part of this discussion is so hard for us in this body to comprehend? Why have we chosen not to deal with this? Many bills have been introduced. They have not seen the light of day. Even the administration has been reluctant to deal with the issue of immigration reform and border security, except in the most cursory ways, except talking about certain visa changes, changes in certain visa requirements. Now, I am for strengthening visa requirements, Mr. Speaker, do not get me wrong. I am especially amazed at some of the more bizarre examples. This is another one of those incredible but true stories we could tell about immigration. Up until just a short while ago, until we passed the anti-terrorism bill in this Congress and it was signed by the President just a short time ago, it was absolutely legal for anyone, well, put it this way: It was okay for someone to come to a consulate anywhere around the world, fill out a visa application and say on it I am a Member of al Qaeda, the terrorist network that is committed to the overthrow of your government, and I hate America, and I agree with all of the things al Qaeda has stated about the United States. You could do that, and under our laws, that alone was not a reason to keep you out of the United States, because of something the other body and the leadership of the gentleman of Massachusetts sometime ago passed a law saying that just because someone has these political affiliations, they should not be kept out of the United States. Incredible. Incredible, but true. Now, we reversed that when we passed the anti-terrorism bill. We added that one clause that says yes, they could be kept out. That is great. I am happy. But, Mr. Speaker, let us be serious about this. Does anybody think for a moment that a terrorist, potential or real, is going to be even remotely intimidated by the fact that they cannot now attest to their allegiance to a terrorist network when they fill out their visa form, and so therefore they are going to say gee, you know, Mr. bin Laden, I wanted to go into the United States and wreak some havoc upon their people and kill as many as I possibly could, but, you know, I could not get my visa, so I just went home. Who thinks that? Who thinks that is going to stop them? Why would they not do exactly what millions of other people do every single year, walk across the border, north or south of the United States? Walk into the country, as perhaps at least six of the 19 hijackers did? When we asked the INS for information about these people, they said, oh, we are not sure. We will let you know. So they sent us eventually a document that indicated that ten of the people were here illegally because they had either overstayed their visas or were not doing what their visa was approved for. But, unfortunately, six of the 19, they said, we have no idea. This is the sort of, I call it the logo, if you will, of the INS. It is a shrugging the shoulders. I do not know. I have no idea. I do not know where these people came from. I have no idea what they were doing here. I do not know how. Maybe they snuck in. Could have been. We do not know. Where are the hundreds thousands of people, you could ask the INS, that have been ordered deported by immigration law judges across this country? Three hundred thousand people, Mr. Speaker, even the INS now agrees with this, we forced them into telling the truth about the numbers. Three hundred thousand, they say, so therefore I believe that is a very significant underestimate. But let us assume they are right, 300,000 people have been deported. No, they have not been deported, they have only been ordered deported. They have been brought up for trial, for rape, murder, robbery, fraud, for you name it. Not just, by the way, for overstaying their visa. That never gets you in front of a court. There are literally millions of people in the United States here illegally. It is estimated that 700,000 to 800,000 enter illegally through the visa process, who end up staying as permanent residents of the United States every single year. So we asked the INS about that. They go, oh, I am not sure. I do not know. I am not positive. I cannot tell you about that. Where are the 300,000? I do not know. They say we cannot go look for these people. They were ordered deported, but we just do not have the resources. We have got other things to do. We have to show them how to get benefits. That is the mentality of the INS, to show them how to get benefits. As I say, there are hundreds of people who are dedicated workers. I do not want to say thousands. I do not know if there are thousands in INS, but at least hundreds, I am sure, who are dedicated to the cause, dedicated to doing a good job, and they are thwarted by an agency that is completely and totally out of control. It is corrupt and it is incompetent. I repeat that allegation, and I want someone to prove me wrong, because, unfortunately, we today give them the responsibility of keeping our borders safe and secure. Does anybody feel good about that? The people who have e-mailed us at this e-mail address or faxed us at that number, most of them, I would say 90 percent of them, do not feel comfortable with that, Mr. Speaker. They do not like the fact that the INS ignores the responsibility for protecting the border, for not just the protection of the border, but then for internal investigations; what to do about the people who got here, who are here illegally. To ignore them completely is something that is akin to a death wish for the country. Now, I know that most of the people who come into the United States illegally do not do so to do us harm. They do so mostly for personal benefit. Naturally. That is probably why most of our ancestors came. But we cannot be that unconcerned. We do not know. It is not in our ability to be able to stand at the border and say, I know you are coming across the border illegally, but you appear to have no ill intent. You appear to be just coming across to get a job, send some money back home, improve your own life, maybe go back, maybe not. And we cannot determine that from the person who is coming across with the purpose of killing as many Americans as he or she can possibly kill. We cannot really decide that at the borders. So we have to do the next best thing. We have to secure the border from all illegal immigration. We have to call up the National Guard in each of the States that border Mexico or Canada and ask them to please use their resources, the National Guard, in defense of our borders. If that is not good enough, then we should put our own active duty troops on the border. We should use all the technology available to us, the sensing devices. We should use air flight. Mr. Speaker, we should do everything we possibly can to make sure that no one comes across that border that we do not know about. Hard? Absolutely. Foolproof? Absolutely not. No matter how hard we try, someone probably will get through. No matter how hard we try, someone with the intent to kill or commit acts of atrocity in the United States may get through. But that does not excuse us from trying. We have laws on the books, Mr. Speaker, against any one of thousands of various kinds of human behaviors, and those laws are violated pretty regularly and yet, no one suggests that we should simply ignore them because they are violated. We should do everything we can to protect our borders, everything we can. We should do everything we can to find the people who are here in the United States illegally and deport them. If we need workers, if we need workers in particular industries, fine. Establish a guest worker program that allows people to come in, allows their rights to be protected, and allows them to return home at the end of a contractual period of time, and an enforcement mechanism that makes sure that they do so, like a bond established for part of their wages or that the employer has to put up, part of the wages, that they can only be claimed once they return home. If we can convince this Congress, Mr. Speaker, that we need 10 million of these people every year, okay, that is fine, but bring them in here legally. Their lives are improved, their rights, they are not exploited by unscrupulous employers. That is fine with me. Then we determine how many people should be coming through just legally. Is it 1 million as it is today? I do not think so. It should be far fewer. But regardless of what we determine to be the legal process whereby anybody gets into this country, we should do everything in our power to make sure that the illegal process that is used is slammed shut, at least to the best extent possible, to the greatest extent possible. Because as I have said oftentimes here on the floor of the House, and as I will repeat tonight, if, God forbid, another event of the nature of those that occurred on September 11, another event like that occurs, or like those occur and it is perpetrated by someone who comes across this border and is either here illegally at the time or enters illegally to do it, and we have not done everything in our power in this Congress to prevent that; I am not saying that it is foolproof, I emphasize that, it may still happen, but if we had not done everything in our power, then we are not just irresponsible, we are culpable. We have to live with that. Mr. Speaker, I choose not to. I choose to know that I will do everything I could possibly do to bring to the attention of my colleagues and to the American people the seriousness of this debate on immigration reform. It is a matter now of life and death.

Mr. TANCREDO

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

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I rise to thank and honor, Mr. Speaker, those who served with America to protect democracy in Southeast Asia. The commitment and sacrifice of the L Hmong people should never be forgotten. The citations that will be presented will represent a collective thanks from all of us. The Lao-Hmong, which means ``free people;'', are Laotian members of the Hmong tribe and are noted for their warrior tradition, loyalty, and bravery. Beginning in 1960 the United States recruited thousands of the Lao-Hmong to fight against the Communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army regulars in Laos. The United States relied heavily on the Lao-Hmong Special Guerrilla Units to engage in direct combat with North Vietnamese troops from 1960 to 1975. The Lao-Hmong conducted tactical guerrilla actions, flew thousands of deadly combat missions in support of the Armed Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency, and fought in conventional and guerrilla combat clashes with extreme casualties. The Lao-Hmong, although outnumbered, fought against enemy forces to disrupt the flow of troops and war supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Lao-Hmong protected United States personnel, guarded United States Air Force radar installations, gathered critical intelligence about enemy operations, and undertook rescue missions to save the lives of downed United States pilots. More than 35,000 of the Lao-Hmong lost their lives defending the democratic way of life, and many more were seriously injured and disabled. Thousands of Lao-Hmong suffered grievous injuries and permanent disabilities, and thousands more were captured and sent to Communist concentration camps. After the conclusion of the war, many Lao-Hmong soldiers were the victims of acts of retribution and atrocities by the Pathet Lao, causing many of the Lao-Hmong to flee to neighboring Thailand and become refugees. Beginning with the City Council of Golden, Colorado, in 1995, various state and local governments have issued proclamations declaring July 22 as Lao-Hmong Recognition Day. The issuance of a Presidential Proclamation supporting the goals of Lao-Hmong Recognition Day will recognize the bravery, sacrifice, and loyalty to the United States exhibited by the Lao-Hmong in Southeast Asia. I call on the American people today, Mr. Speaker, to recognize the service and sacrifice of the Lao-Hmong men and women with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I have on many occasions risen on this floor to address the body with regard to the issue of immigration and immigration reform, and tonight is no exception to that rule. I do this often because I believe it is a significant problem, perhaps the most significant problem we face in this country from a domestic policy standpoint. We argue on the floor of the House day in and day out and night in and night out about a variety of issues. All of them, of course, have major consequences. We have spent a long time debating the issue of airline security, for instance. It was mentioned again just in the course of the previous speaker's comments. It is undeniably an extremely important issue, the issue of airline security. It is for those of us, especially, who fly as often as those of us in the House do. I, for one, am on an airplane twice a week, and my family are off and on airplanes. I assure the Members that I have just as much concern about airline security as the next person, and perhaps more so, from a very personal standpoint. Therefore, the decisions we make in this House with regard to the particular kind of security that is put in place are certainly important. I do not mean for a moment to suggest that they are not relevant to our debates here. But I do mean to suggest that they are not as important, Mr. Speaker, as one other issue. That issue is the defense of our borders. As I have said on more than one occasion, the defense of this Nation begins with the defense of our borders. The extent to which we devote time and energy and resources protecting the flying public, to the extent to which we do that, of course, it is commendable and it is important; and it is absolutely the right thing to do. But it is amazing to me how much time and energy we spend in that. We passed something called a stimulus package. It is really a security package. It is designed to make sure that the American economy remains strong and that people remain employed, and we do this as we watch an economy that is deteriorating. We all know that. We are taking the right steps, I believe, in the measures that have been passed by this House to address this economic downturn. But they will, of course, take time. All of these issues deal with, in a way, some directly, some indirectly, national security. But in every single instance, we also have the issue of immigration and immigration reform working its way into those discussions. I will try to deal with both of them tonight. The issue of airline security. Let me talk about that on a broader scale. It is, of course, important to make sure that we are safe when we get on an airplane. Is it not also important, is it not even of paramount importance, to try and do something about the millions of people who come across our borders, either by land or by air or by sea, every single year? And they, for the most part, come here not to necessarily do us harm, but for their own purposes, almost always economic in nature. It is understandable. No one is suggesting that it is not the desire of every human being on the planet to better themselves and to provide more for themselves and for their families. But they do come across our borders, Mr. Speaker; and they do so sometimes, some of these people come across our borders with evil intent, as we learned all too savagely on September 11. Now, there is an undeniable problem. It is one of those huge problems; and in a way it is like the typical story of the 500-pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge, but everybody knows it is there. In this case, ``it'' is a completely broken, completely incompetent INS, Immigration and Naturalization Service. I want to focus the first part of my remarks this evening, Mr. Speaker, on this incompetence and on the desperate need we have for national security purposes to not only make sure that the flying public is safe, but to make sure that we are safe every day on the streets of the United States from people who come across our border, from illegal aliens or from immigrants who are here even legally, but have the desire to do us ill. We have a responsibility to point this out, and I try my best to do so. I have, every single time I come to this floor, people who write us, who call us, who take advantage of e-mail, which is right now probably the best way to contact us. I have people who do that by the thousands, contact our office to tell me of stories that I have put in the category of almost too incredible to be true, but they are true. Many, many of them are documented. Many, many of the stories come from people who work for the INS, people who are trying their best to do a good job in light of a bureaucracy that has absolutely no interest in having them do a good job, especially if that job is in internal security within the boundaries of this United States. I am going to start this evening's discussion with a story about a gentleman by the name of Walter Cadman. Mr. Cadman is an employee of the INS, a very high-ranking employee. I will tell the Members what that specific position is in just a moment. But let me give a little bit of background, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Cadman's climb through the bureaucracy of the INS began when he joined the service in 1976; and after working as an investigator and a regional director, he took over a job in Florida, the Florida operations, in 1992. Three years later, a seven-member congressional fact-finding team visited Krome, and that is a facility, a detention facility for detainees, alien detainees. They visited the Miami International Airport also. Mr. Cadman was among several high-ranking INS officials who attempted to deceive these Members of Congress into believing that Miami immigration operations were well managed. Mr. Cadman and others abruptly released 58 inmates from the critically overcrowded Krome detention center 2 days before the task force's visit, according to an exhaustive Federal investigation. All of this, by the way, everything I am telling with regard to this case is documentable. Again, if anybody wants more details, this is the way, Mr. Speaker, that one would obtain those, by contacting our office. Let me go on. More than 100 other aliens were hidden in the facility to dupe the House delegation, Members from the House of Representatives, to give the illusion that the inspection process at the Miami airport was well managed. Staff was bulked up and noncriminal detainees were allowed to wait in an unsecured lobby rather than in a less hospitable holding cell. Inspectors were also ordered to remove their gun holsters and handcuffs to portray a much kinder, gentler INS that focused on customer service. This phrase, ``customer service,'' I heard many times from many INS officials and many people who have come to our office as whistleblowers to talk to us about the incredible pressure under which they have been placed by INS management. They are told the same thing, that they are to treat anyone coming, trying to get into this country, and even those who have come here illegally, as customers; and the customer is always right. In this case, the customer chose evidently not to stay in the cell. After more than 45 employees, many of them union members, blew the whistle on their bosses, Kromegate broke. The office of the Inspector General for the Justice Department investigated the matter and in June 1996 released its 197-page report. In this report, Inspector General Michael Bromwich not only detailed the conspiracy behind the INS sham but also explained how Mr. Cadman and other officials tried to cover up the wrongdoing. Initially, by the way, Mr. Speaker, the Inspector General told a member of the delegation, the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly), who was at the time I believe even the chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration, told him that it would be done, that this report would be done within a few months, that the facts were clear, and if they could get simply the response that they required from the INS in terms of access to documents, the report would be done in just a few months. It actually took over a year because, of course, to no one's real surprise, the INS was not forthcoming with the documents that were required to conduct the investigation. Mr. Bromwich wrote in the report: ``Moreover and perhaps more troubling, Mr. Cadman was a willing participant in efforts to mislead INS headquarters and then to mislead and delay the investigation of this matter.'' That is a very damning statement. We have heard statements to that effect in other cases, people trying to mislead investigators, people trying to delay the investigation. We remember that all too clearly, I think, from past administrations. Anyway, Justice officials found that Cadman had presided over meetings in which the conspiracy was planned. On the day of the visit, Mr. Cadman, reportedly red-faced with anger, threatened to arrest two INS inspectors who tried to alert representatives about the whitewash. Mr. Cadman even called airport police. Again, this story gets better when I tell my colleagues where this gentleman now resides within the INS. So just hang with me here a minute. Again, put it in the category, unbelievable but true, and of course, with regard to the INS, the folder gets bigger and bigger and bigger every day. Mr. Cadman's cover-up efforts began after the Office of the Inspector General started its investigation. Mr. Cadman, ``did not deny that large numbers of aliens had been transferred and released from Krome,'' Mr. Bromwich wrote in his report. ``However, Mr. Cadman essentially represented that all alien movements were normal in light of the overcrowded condition there.'' That explanation, investigators determined, was not true. Rather than cooperate with investigators, Mr. Cadman forced the Justice Department to obtain subpoenas to access his computer files. As I say, the Inspector General expected that there would be some degree of cooperation. I do not know why they thought so, but they did. It was not forthcoming, however. When the Office of the Inspector General finally gained access to Mr. Cadman's computer, all his e-mails relating to the delegation's visit had been deleted. According to the report, ``In his interview, Mr. Cadman stated that as matter of consistent practice, he contemporaneously deleted his electronic mail messages shortly after responding to them. In searching his e-mail, however, we,'' the OIG, ``did find some of Mr. Cadman's messages from June 1995 which was inconsistent with Cadman's representation to us.'' In an extensive and time-consuming process, investigators were eventually able to locate 61 messages that had been sent or received by Mr. Cadman regarding the congressional visit, many of which helped OIG, Office of Inspector General, prove that the officials had purposely deceived the Congress of the United States. ``On the basis of the evidence gathered in this investigation, we believe the appropriate punishment for Miami District Director Walter Cadman falls within a range from a 30-day suspension to termination of employment.'' This was the OIG's, the Office of Inspector General's, conclusion. They went on to say that, ``Should he not be terminated, we urge his reassignment to a position where he would not have significant managerial responsibilities.'' I want my colleagues to listen to that carefully, Mr. Speaker. The OIG said should this man not get fired, which is as we all know almost impossible in the Federal bureaucracy, contrary to the protestations of those who want to federalize the airline security service, but it says, ``Should he not be terminated, we urge his reassignment to a position where he would not have significant managerial responsibilities.'' After Mr. Cadman's removal from Miami, he virtually disappeared in the INS bureaucracy. Then, on March 4, 1997, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) held hearings on Kromegate, trying to find out how Cadman and his cohorts were punished. The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) asked then-Attorney General Janet Reno the following question: The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers): I need to know what happened to the people. Let us get to the bottom line here. What happened to the people that misled the Congress? Name the names. Where are they now? Janet Reno's response: Dan Cadman elected a voluntary demotion to a GS-15. By the way, a GS-15, that is, if not the highest, it is close to the highest category of GS, of government service, that one can get. It is at least $100,000 a year. He elected to take this demotion to GS-15, criminal investigator in headquarters operations. Okay. That was the demotion. Congressman Rogers: Well, where is he now? Attorney General Reno: I cannot tell you precisely. Congressman Rogers: Is he still working? Attorney General Reno: He accepted a voluntary demotion, sir, so I would assume he is still working. Congressman Rogers: He is a Justice Department official; correct? Janet Reno: So far as I know, sir. Rogers: He misled the Congress and he still works for the Justice Department? Correct. Now here is the punch line, Mr. Speaker, and listen carefully to this. Roughly a year later in 1998 the INS promoted Mr. Cadman to head the newly formed National Security Unit. The gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly) represents this whole thing as a case where truth is stranger than fiction. Five years after Mr. Cadman left south Florida in disgrace, only to take a job as a very high-paid INS administrator and as a, quote, ``demotion,'' he was appointed, if we can believe it, to head up the newly formed National Security Unit. Chalk that up, Mr. Speaker, to another incredible but true series of events of which we have become aware in the last several months as we discuss the issue of immigration reform in this country. We wonder then how is it that so many breaches of security could have happened over the years? And more recently, how is it that even Mohamed Atta, a name all too familiar to every one of us now since September 11, how is it that Mr. Atta could have been readmitted to the country in January even though he had left the country? He was here on a particular kind of visa. He left and he was supposed to apply for what is called an I-512 form, or authorization to leave the country and return. By law he was supposed to put that in writing, the reason he was leaving and for how long and how long he would be gone. Now, he never did that. So, therefore, of course, after he left to go to Spain, which he did in January and then returned to the United States coming through Miami, should never been allowed to reenter the country. But, of course, the INS did not catch it and essentially did not care. That is the truth of the matter. They do not care. There is a lot more attention being paid to it now, that is true, since September 11. But prior to that time, let me just give some examples once again of the unbelievable but true incidents or situations that we have become aware of while we have been doing this analysis of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the United States. Approximately 35 million people come into the United States every year on visas. Now, Mr. Speaker, not everyone visiting the United States needs a visa. People come from certain countries where we have agreements where visas are not necessary. So we have far more people coming to the United States each year. In fact, we have about 500 million visitors a year. But about 35 to 40 million come as a result of the visa process. Now, that process is one where people go to the consulate in their home country. They fill out some forms; and it is the responsibility of that consulate official to determine whether the person making the application is indeed who they say they are, number one, and, number two, whether or not they have any sort of background that would prevent them from being able to come into the United States. So about 40 million come. Very little attention is paid, and was up until September 11, very little attention is paid to anybody's background. They could not care less, frankly. Again, they have been told that all of these people must be treated as customers. Again, if a customer wants to come to the United States, the customer is always right. So a visa is almost automatically granted. Once they get here, there are certain conditions that they must follow. If they are here on a student visa, they are supposed to be students. If they are here on a work visa, they are supposed to work. There is an H1B. This is a category of visa of a person, usually a white collar worker, usually in very high-tech industries, computer programmers. That is what they are supposed to do while they are here. It is estimated somewhere near 40 percent of all visas are violated every year, 12 million, in other words. Twelve million people either stay here even after their visa says they should go home or in some other way violate the visa, as many of the 19 hijackers of September 11 did. The process is one where if someone violates their visa or if someone commits a crime while they are in the United States as a visa holder, they are taken to court. But they are not taken, Mr. Speaker, to a regular court, the kind of court that we would be taken to if we violate the law. Not a district court, not a county court. They are taken to an immigration court. And believe me, there is a significant difference. What happens at that point in time is fascinating. And I will tell another anecdote, another story in a moment, another incredible but true story. They can go to the immigration court, charged with a crime. It could be as insignificant as overstaying a visa. It could be as significant as murder. Crime brings them there. They get arrested and end up in front of a judge, and the judge listens to the case, and he either gives bail or he throws the case out of court or he orders the person deported. Then they are essentially turned over to the INS; and that is where the problem begins, as we can imagine, turned over to the INS for their handling of the case, for their enforcement essentially. Now, would you believe, Mr. Speaker, that there are, as we sit here tonight, at least 300,000 people wandering around in the United States of America completely free to do whatever they are doing and want to do, 300,000 people who have, in fact, been ordered deported, but the INS has not taken charge of it? They have simply let them walk. And they have done so because, I contend, Mr. Speaker, the INS does not care. We have documentation; and I will read from a letter I received, an e-mail message we got not too long ago, like we get so many times, as I say, hundreds sometimes in a day, and it has now accumulated into the thousands of letters about this issue, and e-mails about this issue, and one of them came from an INS agent. Again, I will read part of it later, but he essentially expresses the opinion that the INS does not care, does not want there to be any close scrutiny of these people. The whole idea of internal investigations, internal security and what happens when people come across the border illegally, or what happens if they overstay, do they go after them? The answer is absolutely not. There are literally millions of people here. I am using the figure of 300,000, which I gave earlier, Mr. Speaker, which only refers to people who have actually been to a court and then ordered deported but have not gone anywhere. When we talk to the INS, they say I do not know where they are; I have not the slightest idea. This is a favorite response of the INS to almost every question; it is a shrug of the shoulders. I do not know. I do not know where they are, have not the slightest idea. After all, we can only look at so many people. How can we follow all these people? They give you a million excuses. But, of course, that is their job. Theirs to have internal security, but nobody cares much about it. So 300,000 people that have been ordered to be deported that the INS have done nothing about, did not take them to the border and deport them. One anecdote here to add to this list of incredible but true, unbelievable but true, however you want to put it. I will give an example of something that happened. Again, every day I am telling somebody about this and they will come to me and say, ah, that is nothing, listen to this. It is astounding now. Our files, if we stacked them up here, they would reach higher than the sign here. A magistrate, an INS magistrate told the story to a Member of Congress about a person that came before him as a criminal. He had been arrested. He was about, I think, 18 or 19 years old, if I remember correctly, but he had no identification on him. He had mugged an old lady, I think broken her arm or leg and had stolen her purse. Anyway, he had been arrested and taken to immigration court. The judge listens to the case and orders him deported. Actually gives him a choice: Do you want to go to jail, or do you want to get deported? Well, the kid I think probably made the right choice under that circumstance and said I would just as soon go back to Mexico, which is where he had come from. He told the judge and the arresting officers that he was an illegal alien; that he was here without permission. And he had no identification. He gave his name, or he gave a name to the police and to the judge. They actually, in this case, did take this particular person then, put him on a bus, and sent him to Mexico through San Diego, I believe. Shortly after this gentleman got into Mexico, he called his mother and said, okay, will you bring down my ID now. Because, of course, this gentleman was not an illegal alien. He was born in the United States, his parents were born in the United States, his grandparents were born in the United States. He was not here illegally. But he had learned, Mr. Speaker, he had learned that if you say you are an illegal alien, you will be taken to immigration court and you will not find yourself in a prison, or even in a jail waiting to go to prison. You will be sent on a trip, in this case down to Mexico. So he called his mom and said, would you bring down the ID; and his mom dutifully got in the car, drove down to Mexico, drove across the border, I guess it was 100-some miles from their home, handed him his ID and he then, of course, came right back across the border with her, showing his ID to the INS agent, the border guard, as if anybody paid attention even there, but showed his true ID and came into this country as a citizen. All records of the original offense, of course, were attached to that person that was deported to Mexico, not to the person that was coming back in. Two different people. This guy was an American citizen. But he knew how corrupt, how messed up the system is. He knew that it was better for him to pretend to be an illegal alien and take advantage of the laxity, the incompetence, whatever you want to call it, of the INS to get away with his crime. Amazing, but true. Here is another one. Would you not think, Mr. Speaker, that it would be only appropriate, certainly expected that a high-ranking official of the INS would understand the words ``legal'' and ``illegal'' and the definition of the word ``crime"? Would that be asking too much? Perhaps we need to give a test to every potential administrator at INS so they could actually define these words; because evidently, Mr. Speaker, some of them are having a very difficult time with the English language and with understanding the English language. Here is what I mean. Mr. Fred Alexander, the deputy district director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Fairly high-ranking position, would you not say? A position where you would expect someone to be able to understand the English language? Well, I am now going to attribute what he is quoted as saying to language problems. I am not going to suggest that he is actually abetting criminal behavior, aiding and abetting or encouraging criminal behavior. That is too much to suggest. Because if you actually ended up maybe prosecuting this gentleman for aiding and abetting criminal behavior, he would be moved up to an even higher position within the INS, following INS protocol. Here is the comment by Mr. Fred Alexander: ``It is not a crime to be in the United States illegally.'' It is not a crime to be in the United States illegally. Is there something wrong here? Maybe it is just that he does not understand the English language; does not know what a crime is; does not know what the words illegal and legal mean, the difference between those two. He went on to say: ``It is only a violation of our civil law.'' Now, evidently a violation of a civil law is not a crime. If you are here illegally, it is not a crime. What kind of a statement is this? It is a reflection of what the INS thinks their job is. They believe themselves to be social workers. They believe that they were put here to encourage immigration into the United States, and it does not matter how anybody gets here. The INS, for the most part, I will contend, Mr. Speaker, would just as soon there be no borders whatsoever. The INS would then find themselves in a position of sending out agents to countries all over the world to explain why they should come to the United States, and that the fact is there would be no restrictions against them doing so and everything will be better off as a result of hundreds of millions of people crossing our borders. I believe that that is the motivating factor and the real basis, the ethos, of the INS, I do believe, after all the things we have come across here, after all the things that have been e-mailed or faxed to our office by thousands of people, some of them wanting to know what they could do about this horrendous problem; but many others are like the gentleman I am going to read or address here in a moment. We got this in our fax just a short time ago. I cannot reveal his name right now, except to say that he, according to his letter, works for the INS. And I will just read excerpts from his letter so as to avoid any indication of who he is for fear of whatever retribution might be in store for him. ``I wanted to write you and let you know that I, as well as my entire extended family and all my close coworkers and friends, appreciate your efforts to reform our immigration policies.'' That is the kind of thing they usually start out with. They are not alone, and believe me, I know it. We are inundated with not just faxes and e-mails but people coming to the office, INS agents, present and past INS agents, telling me essentially the same thing; thanking us for doing what we are doing here, trying to reform that system. I think my colleagues could understand those kinds of things happening, Mr. Speaker. We have all been confronted by a Federal employee in this agency or that who is disgruntled and wants to come and tell his or her story. We have to oftentimes look at it in light of what the circumstances are: Have they actually gotten into some sort of trouble, are they being fired or something other? But never, ever have I had so many people from the same agency coming to tell me of the problems that they face there. He says, ``I currently work for the Immigration and Naturalization Service and have for'' blank years. I am not going to say. He goes on to explain what his background has been. He served in a variety of different capacities in the INS and he was recently transferred. He said, ``Every honest border patrol agent will tell you that every illegal alien makes it through the border, it just takes some longer and more attempts than others to get across. In any event, make no mistake about it, every determined illegal alien, from the youngest of the young to the oldest of the old, and even disabled aliens can find a wheelchair, and make it to the interior of our cities. Once they are there, they live amongst us with very little fear of discovery and deportation.'' An absolutely true statement. And even those outside INS know this is true. There is not a Member on this floor, and certainly probably most of the population of the country recognizes that once an illegal alien is here, the chances of their ever being returned to their country of origin are slim to none. It is because the ethos inside that Department says, come on, come on over. He goes on to quote something, this gentleman who wrote me, goes on to quote something that his employer, one of his supervisors told him that puts in a nutshell everything I have said about the INS and the ethos there, the thinking. He said, ``I would also like to point out that probably close to half the illegal aliens in our country first entered under some sort of legal method and subsequently violated or overstayed their original status.'' This is what I mentioned earlier: came here through a legal process, under a visa perhaps or some other process, but then just simply stayed. And there are literally millions. We are not sure how many. Figures range from 7 to 15 million. No one really knows, but we know it is in the millions, and I certainly believe it is in the double digits. ``Here in the interior,'' he said, ``there is almost zero enforcement operations which target these violators.'' Absolutely true. Documented time and time again. ``Finally,'' he said, ``I would like to make you aware that I believe the INS is totally mismanaged.'' Again, a common theme. ``After writing that, I feel it is a complete understatement,'' he said, ``but the English language probably doesn't have a word which would convey my sentiments without being vulgar.'' When he was transferred to this particular district office, he said that his new supervisor said to him, and we have heard this phrase over and over again, Mr. Speaker, ``Now, listen, big cases, big headaches; little cases, little headaches; and no cases, no headaches.'' ``That in a nutshell,'' this individual writing me goes on to say, ``seems to be the INS management philosophy.'' ``That same supervisor told me not to be too gung ho about doing my job because the United States is not ready for an efficient immigration service.'' The letter concludes that he would be happy to discuss this later with me, and that sort of thing. Mr. Speaker, I think that in a way sums up the attitude of the INS with regard to what their job really is. Big cases, big headaches. Little cases, little headaches. No cases, no headaches. And do not be too gung ho about doing your job because the United States is not ready for an efficient immigration service. Maybe this supervisor is right, and we are not ready for an efficient immigration service. I disagree. There was a time when I would stand on the floor of the House, as I do tonight, and ask my colleagues to join me in an effort to reform the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and there would be relatively little comment except from the general public. I would hear from folks all over America. When I get their e-mail address or any other way to contact them, we try to respond, and we have thousands and thousands who have contacted us in that way. I would be asking my colleagues time and time again for their help on this issue, and this gentleman's observations were accurate. Nobody really cared that we did not have an efficient immigration service. There were political problems with trying to make it efficient. One party, the Democratic Party, recognizes that there is a great deal of political support that they get from the immigrant communities; they want to encourage massive immigration for that purpose. The other party sees that there are both business interests and political problems that develop as a result of actually trying to do something about immigration reform. Many businesses are not happy about what I talk about here on the floor and, believe me, I hear from them. They suggest that it is my responsibility to make sure that they have a cheap work force. That is really what it boils down to. They seldom say it in just those terms. It starts out ``Mr. Congressman, I have to hire them to do the job.'' We explain that we would be willing to look at some sort of guest worker program, but people should come to the United States legally. I try to encourage them to think about that as the right way to do it. Maybe, yes, they will have to pay more money for the service. Employers do not like to hear that. I was an employer, and I recognize that an employer is always looking for the best help at the lowest wage. But the reality is that there are tremendous problems as a result of massive immigration to the United States, and especially massive illegal immigration to the United States. Because of the problems that I have identified with both political parties, for the longest time, we could not get anyone to pay attention. I would come to the floor and say, there are problems with standard quality-of-life issues with massive immigration, with the balkanization of the American culture and society; and there are national security problems with not being able to control our own border and not knowing who is coming across at any given time, not knowing what they are doing here, or if they have gone home when they are supposed to go home. I recognize that there are massive problems with actually trying to secure our borders. Let me suggest, although I certainly hope that we will use the military, either the Active Duty military or the National Guard, to secure our borders, along with using all kinds of technology that is available. We are not talking about having guards standing shoulder to shoulder across thousands of miles between Canada and the United States and Mexico and the United States, I am talking about patrolling, use of sensors and overflights, and there are a variety of ways. I am also talking about deploying massive numbers of people for internal security purposes. We started talking tonight about security issues. How much more relevant are the discussions with regard to the internal security of the United States than just the person who looks through that little machine and screens our bags? I want good ones, but I am trying to keep the bad guys from coming here in the first place. We cannot just stand at the border and say, you look like someone who wants a job; even though you are illegal, there is probably an eager employer willing to hire you and oftentimes, unfortunately, exploit you. We could do that and try our best to figure out which ones we want to let in illegally. The INS would be all for that, by the way. They would say, let us look for certain characteristics. Are they Arabs, let us keep them out. Even those, we have to be more specific. The reality is we cannot do that. If we are going to have secure borders, that means that we are going to stop all people from coming across the borders illegally. We have to stop it, Mr. Speaker. We have no alternative but to try and control our borders. It is a very difficult task. Everybody recognizes that. But I suggest that we have to rise to the occasion. There is hopefully legislation that will be making its way through the Congress. I understand that there will be some legislation coming up soon that will actually do something about the INS structure. I am not sure what it is right now. I think that the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary is developing it. I hope that it is comprehensive in nature. I hope that it actually abolishes the INS, or the part of the INS that is designed to deal with security and enforcement. I hope that it abolishes that responsibility that we give to Customs, to the Department of Agriculture, to the Coast Guard, and a variety of other agencies that are cobbled together in order to try and create some kind of border security. Right now there are so many agencies with such conflicting responsibilities and specific regulations as to what they can do, what they can look at and what the other people cannot, people will wait on the border to see which line is being monitored by which agencies. Certain agencies can look in the trunk and certain ones cannot. So if you are trying to smuggle drugs into the country, you will pick one line. If you are trying to smuggle people in, you will pick another. Put that in the category of idiotic but true. I hope that we abolish all of those agencies or those parts of it that are supposed to deal with border security, and I hope that we create a brand-new agency. Let us call it the United States Border Security Agency for our purposes together tonight, and all of their functions are to secure our borders and root out those people who have come here illegally and send them back. If they violated the law while here, they serve time for it. The reality is, the nature of this place and the business we do here and the pressures that are applied by special interest groups, especially by immigrant support groups, business interest groups and others, we will start out perhaps with a very good thought in mind, and by the time it works its way through the body, it will get diluted. People in this business hope that everybody out there simply forgets the connection between the terrorists and immigration and our lack of enforcement. The hope is that people will simply forget about it and we can get back to business as usual. Business as usual, meaning porous borders, meaning unconcerned about who is coming across and why. There are plenty of people who still want that. They desire that situation. Again, the political motivations are strong. I hope and I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I will never let this body forget this, at least as long as I am here and I have breath. I will not let Members forget that 19 people came into the United States on September 11, all of them immigrants, all of them here on some status, some of them with legal documents, some of them who were here illegally because they had overstayed; and some of them, six to be accurate, we do not have the slightest idea what status they had when they came here. The INS cannot tell us about six of the individuals, if they were here on visas, here on green cards; they have no idea. That tells us something, does it not, about exactly how those people did get here. I think they probably waltzed across the border without telling the INS and asking for a visa. I cannot even imagine such a thing, but they did. That is why when we talk about tightening visa requirements, I am all for it. But let us assume that we get concerned about handing out visas like candy, and we begin to apply more scrutiny and we actually have a law if it is signed into law, the Antiterrorist Act, which has something which we proposed, the Immigration Reform Caucus, which said that if you are a member of a terrorist organization, you cannot come into the United States. Put this into the unbelievable but true category, Mr. Speaker. Prior to the passage of that law, the antiterrorist law, a person could be a member of al-Qaeda, the organization that is devoted to our destruction, could be a member of that organization and that alone would not have been enough, would not have been sufficient to deny this person a visa. There was a law on the book that said the INS cannot deny a person a visa simply because they belong to a terrorist organization or an organization that is devoted to destroying the United States of America. We did repeal that. That is good. Now, if we find out that they are a member of al-Qaeda or an outfit that wants to destroy us, we can deny them a visa; and boy, do I feel better about that. The terrorist with his or her bomb in the bag waiting to come across, when they do not get the visa, do they go home and say, sorry, Mr. bin Laden, I cannot get my visa. You will have to get somebody else. Does anybody believe that is what is going to happen? Does anybody believe that they will not simply use the same path that everybody else uses to come into the United States illegally, that is, the millions and millions of people who cross our border illegally? No. They will waltz across our southern border or northern border, or find a way to fly in undetected because our borders are porous, and there is no real defense mechanism, while we are wrangling over having these people who look through the screening device, whether they should be paid by the Federal Government or somebody else, as to whether that matters, as to whether they are competent. Amazing. But that is what we wrangle over. And we do that to our peril. If we do not address this issue, Mr. Speaker, if we do not do everything in our power to stop people from coming into the United States illegally, to find those who are here illegally and deport them, if we do not do everything in our power to accomplish that goal, then if, God forbid, another event similar to the 11th were to occur and it turns out that it was perpetrated by somebody who is here either on falsified papers, snuck across the border, here even legally but eventually became illegal because they violated their visa status, any one of the wide variety of reasons that someone like that can get into the United States today and stay here, if that happens, Mr. Speaker, then we are not just being irresponsible in this body, we are actually culpable, because we have the opportunity to try and stop it. Can I guarantee that even if we implemented the most stringent border controls that we would never have an incident again like September 11? Of course not. Of course not. But I can tell you this, just because I cannot guarantee that we will never have such an incident does not mean that we should not do everything in our power to try to stop it. We have a great window of opportunity, Mr. Speaker, in this body because the American people are with us, those of us who want immigration reform. I hear from you. I guarantee you. They want to know, they write me, they call me, they e-mail me and say, what do I do, what can I do to help? There are plenty of things that we can suggest and we do. There are bills coming up that need to be passed. There is action that needs to be taken. Suffice it to say, Mr. Speaker, that this body needs to represent the common sense that is manifest time and time again in the information I receive, from, quote, your average Americans. God bless them for being there. God bless them for being willing to come forward and tell their story, sometimes to their own detriment, to the fear of losing their job. My immigration reform caucus, Mr. Speaker, will be holding a hearing, we believe next Thursday, at which we will have at least one individual that we have been able to obtain or we are working to obtain whistleblower status for if that is what is necessary to get him to be able to speak to us. He is an INS agent. He has been an INS agent for over 30 years. His stories about the troubled agency are again almost unbelievable but true. I hope that he will not be treated unjustly by being willing to come forward. I assure you that we will do everything we can to protect him from any retribution that might attempt to be wreaked upon him because of his willingness to come forward. There are hundreds out there, Mr. Speaker, hundreds that are willing to tell the story. They just need someone to hear it and then act upon it. I ask this body to heed their message. They know the threat to America. These are patriotic Americans who watched what happened on September 11 and shed the tears, the same tears, the kind of tears that you and I and everybody else shed. They work for the INS. They know the problems. They know and some of them tell me in very specific terms about what they believe happened and what they believe is wrong with the agency they work for that helped cause the horrible events of September 11. Please, Mr. Speaker, I urge you and everyone else, all my other colleagues, to move expeditiously to reform immigration, to abolish the INS, create a new, a better homeland defense organization, stop illegal immigration at the border by every method we have at our disposal, devote resources to identifying the people who are in the United States illegally, and yes, deporting them. Mr. Speaker, these may be harsh words; but these are harsh times in which we live. Who could have thought that we would be here talking about buildings collapsing as a result of terrorists turning planes into bombs? The days to be shy about immigration reform are over with. They were over with for me a long time ago. They should be over with for all of us. I am encouraged by the response we get from average Americans. Now all I need to get, Mr. Speaker, is the same response by my colleagues here.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight on an issue that is similar to that which has been discussed on this floor for the last hour or so, and that is national security. It was focused almost entirely, the last hour, that is, on airline or airport security. It is an incredibly important issue. No one denies the fact that what is happening around the country in our airports in terms of security has got to be improved, and that there is a great deal of concern about how that should be accomplished, whether it is the federalization of screeners at airports or not. That seems to be the major sticking point, and it is an interesting one, certainly. It is not a very relevant point, however. I am afraid it is only a rhetorical point. It provides the minority party the opportunity to come to the floor of the House and suggest that the majority party is responsible for a lack of action that would lead to airline and airport security because we have not passed their brand of airport security. Now, that is predictable; it is understandable. That is the way this House operates. It is interesting to note that little, if anything, can be accomplished in terms of true overall airport security and certainly, very little can be accomplished in terms of national security by simply doing what is suggested needs to be done over the objections of the majority party; and that is to federalize the screeners that look through that little box as stuff passes through the x-ray machine as one tries to reach one's flight. That is really what this is all about. Should those people, the screeners, be Federal employees? Somehow, we are led to believe that in doing that one thing, just by making that one person, because remember, Mr. Speaker, regardless of the fact that those folks who were up here for the last hour kept talking about federalizing the system, we are not talking about federalizing the system. The system includes airplane pilots and airplane attendants and baggage handlers and food handlers and mechanics and people who sell the tickets at the airport and people who pick up bags when people come to the baggage check-in area. That is the system. That is the airport system. No one, absolutely no one that I know of up to this point in time, has suggested federalizing that whole process, eliminating the private entrepreneurial activity that goes on in airports all over this country, eliminating airlines taking over instead of the variety of airlines that we have. Federalizing the system would mean one airline run by the Federal Government. It would mean all pilots, all airline attendants, everybody I mentioned earlier would be part of this, quote, ``Federal system.'' That is what federalizing the system means. Now, they use that phrase, ``federalizing the system,'' but they are not really talking about that. They are talking about federalizing one tiny little part, making Federal employees of the people who look through that screen to determine what is going past the x-ray machine. And they are suggesting that somehow, somehow by magic, as if by magic, doing that, making those people who peer through that screen Federal employees, we will all be safer. Now, there is a cachet to the whole concept of federalization. I understand it. It is a knee-jerk reaction. The other body had that reaction when they passed the original bill. It was a knee-jerk reaction. Some of those Members of the other body closer to the second half of knee-jerk were on television explaining why that needed to be done and suggesting that there is some enormous advantage to be gained as a result of making all of the folks who screen your baggage and look through that little machine Federal employees. But no one has ever said why. Not once, not even in the 1 hour previous to this debate that I am having tonight, this discussion, did I hear anybody say that if we federalize these screeners, we will all be safer because. Because why? They will be what? Better trained? Well, fine. Does that mean that only a Federal employee can be trained? Well, I do not think so. I do not think anybody believes that that is the case. Then why would it be better just to make them Federal employees? Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many times my colleagues take advantage of that particular mode of transportation, airplanes. I do it twice a week. My family periodically joins me out here. My sons, my daughters-in-law, my grandchildren all fly on airplanes quite often. They are the dearest things in my life, and to suggest, as our Members did in the previous hour, that if we vote against the federalization of airport security workers, of these baggage screeners, we are really surrendering to these money interests who evidently have put a lot of money into all these campaigns, and that is what has corrupted the system, they have suggested that the gentleman or I would in fact vote for a piece of legislation because somebody put money into my campaign, even though I thought that we would be less secure as a result of it. First of all, Mr. Speaker, I put every single person who donates 5 cents to my campaign on our Web site. Anybody can go to it any time they want. That is more than the FCC requires. They require that we disclose periodically anybody that has given us over $200. We put everybody there. Everybody who gives us any money, we list them. We disclose them. I challenge anyone to go to our Web site, my Web site, and find any contribution from Argenbright or any of these other organizations that we are talking about, security organizations. I will tell the Members something else: if I were in charge right now of airline security, airport security at DIA, I would think very, very strongly of firing Argenbright. From everything I have heard, they are not doing a very good job. That may be the case. But I suggest, Mr. Speaker, it is easier to fire Argenbright security than it is to fire even one Federal employee. I suggest something else: if the same circumstance would happen in the future as happened yesterday or the day before in Chicago when someone went through the security process; now as I understand it, here is what happened: somebody came through the security process, and they were detected as carrying something that needed to be identified; and those screeners found this gentleman carrying two knives, and they took them away from him. What they did not do at that point in time was search his baggage. That happened some point later in the process when he was trying to board the plane and they found these other knives. Okay. Now let us assume something was wrong in this whole thing, that they should have searched his bags earlier; undeniably true. But remember, they found, these incompetent private employees found the two knives initially and took them away. That is what they were supposed to do at that point. Maybe there was some problem with what should have happened next, and as a result of that, some people may very well be fired as a result of not doing what was right and following procedure. I do not know exactly what the procedure was; but if there was something wrong, they could be fired, and I would suggest that they should be fired. We are not talking about an unimportant activity here; we are talking about the safety of the flying public. So I think the standards should be very high. If somebody did not meet that standard, they should be dismissed. Think for a moment, Mr. Speaker, what would have happened if the exact same scenario that I just laid out had occurred, but the employees there had been Federal employees. Does anybody think for a moment, by the way, that if we federalize the screeners, that this similar type of situation would not happen? Is that what I am being told by the other body, by the other body and including the other Members who spoke earlier, that if we federalize the screeners by making them Federal employees, somehow what I have just described, this process that happened in Chicago, would not happen? Of course, why? Just making them Federal employees would make them, what, more astute, more intent on making sure that the procedures were followed? No. It is a problem, of course, of training and of standards. We know that. And it is silly to assume that just simply having Federal employees there would have changed the outcome. But what would have changed, Mr. Speaker, is the possibility of the kind of action taken against the employees, because if they were Federal employees, regardless of what we try to write into a law about our ability to fire a Federal employee, about our ability to transfer a Federal employee, about our ability to stop a strike or a work slowdown of a Federal employee, all those things have been challenged in court; and time and time again they have been thrown out. So it is just enough to put that into a piece of legislation, and to suggest that that is the way in which we would build a firewall between irresponsible action on the part of the union and the safety of the flying public is a ruse. It cannot happen. We cannot write laws to force people or to make it illegal for people to go on work slowdowns and strikes and to actually be fired if they are Federal employees if they do something wrong. Mr. Speaker, I spent 12 years as the regional director of the U.S. Department of Education. I assure the Members that the ability to actually dismiss someone for incompetence as a Federal employee is darned near impossible. It would take, sincerely, it would take years; and it would take hundreds of thousands of dollars to get rid of just one, let alone several people who we found to be incompetent. So I wonder, with that being laid out there, I just wonder, Mr. Speaker, what would be the outcome if these were Federal employees who had not followed the regulations correctly, as perhaps this happened in Chicago? We can at least fire the ones in Chicago. We will never be able to fire the Federal employees who would go through that same process and unfortunately make the same mistakes. Now, somehow people, again, as I say, would feel better. They would go, oh, gee, that is all right. I feel better. I am more secure if these guys are Federal employees that are looking through that screen. That is not it. If Argenbright, which has been referred to oftentimes in the last hour as the major contractor for security, if they are not doing it right, fire Argenbright. Fire Argenbright tomorrow. Bring someone else on who can do a better job. If whoever is responsible for hiring and firing Argenbright does not do their job, then hold them accountable politically. That is the process that I believe would make us more secure. I fly, as I say, every week, Mr. Speaker, twice a week to my family. I would never do anything, I would never cast a vote for anything that I did not believe would improve the security for my own family, and certainly myself. So to suggest that our opposition to this particular proposal is based on, on what, payments I had gotten, or other Members have gotten, for voting the way we vote? As I say, go look. We were moving close there to taking down the gentleman's words when he suggested such a thing. The other countries, we can look around the world and think about the other countries that have tried this. Yes, I know that they brought this up saying, well, the other countries have done this, but they are not like America. They do not have a political system that allows us or allows their politicians to be bought off. That is what they were saying. I do not know about the Speaker, but I think that kind of statement is irresponsible. I think the suggestion of the Members on the other side that it is only our system of government that prevents us from federalizing airport security, and that is essentially what they said. Go back and read their words. They said that other countries do not have a system that allows the corruption of politics to occur as a result of the money that private companies put into this. As I say, I had never heard of Argenbright Security in my life until this discussion over airport security began some month or two ago. They have certainly never contributed to my campaign; and I will tell the Members what, if they had given me 5 cents or $5,000, which I suppose is the most they could give; no, they are a corporation, perhaps they cannot give a dime. I do not know what the actual legal status of their arrangement is, but the reality is they have never given us any money. If they are a corporation, of course they never have been able to give any Member of this body any money. So to suggest that our support for a private company being held to high standards, federally established standards, is somehow injudicious or an aspect of corruption, then I suggest that we take a very close look at those people who are making these charges and ask ourselves, for what purpose would they be coming to this floor with those kinds of spurious allegations? There are many countries, many countries, such as the Netherlands, Japan, Belgium, France, Great Britain. These are excerpts from articles from the Washington Post with regard to countries who have at one point in time either employed or used federalization as a way to handle the airline security and moved away from it, or never started it to begin with. The Netherlands: ``As an armed member of the Dutch Royal Police looked on, the guard, an employee of a private contractor who had undergone a year of training through the Royal Police Academy, began questioning the couple.'' These are examples of what we can have, where we can have Federal oversight and private actual implementation of the process. Japan. At Japan's Narita International Airport, the airlines hire separate companies to screen checked baggage, but combine to hire one contractor, one contractor to X-ray carry-on bags. Belgium. Sixty government inspectors work at the Brussels airport to oversee about 400 employees of private companies; 60 inspectors oversee 400 employees of private companies. Securitas, an arm of the Swedish Securis group, AB. So there are alternatives to this Argenbright outfit, evidently. France. In France, airports do the hiring of security contractors and must draw from a list of companies approved by the Interior Ministry. Fine. No problem. Great Britain. Britain allows its airport to either hire a contractor or to perform the work themselves. Fine. Our bill, the bill that they so readily castigated over here, does exactly that. It allows the President to make whatever choice he wants in terms of how we will handle this issue, federalization or private or some combination thereof. But it is the height of hypocrisy to come to this floor and suggest that the only way this can be done, because, of course, we are the only Nation that would be in this position of having private security firms overseen by the Federal Government, actually be responsible for the security of our airport; to castigate us for that and not share with the American public the truth of the matter, that there are many governments that do. And this is not a definitive list of those countries that have tried federalization of airport security and moved away from it; there are many others. I suggest that we all should look carefully at this issue, and we should refrain from suggesting on the floor of this House or in any other medium that if a person votes for or against the bills that were on this floor not too long ago with regard to airline security, that we are doing so for any reason other than what we believe in our hearts to be the best thing for this Nation, and certainly for our own personal security, if nothing else, and for the security of our families who fly all of the time. Now, Mr. Speaker, let me get to the second point of my discussion this evening. It will probably not be a surprise that that point is going to revolve around the issue of immigration and immigration reform. I find it fascinating that we spend many hours on debate, in debate on this floor on the issue of, in this case, airline security, and whether or not to actually make that individual who looks through that little box a Federal employee. This has just been so, so difficult for us to handle, such a major issue, such an incredibly important change in the procedure in America, that it deserves the hours that have been spent here in debate. I find it amazing that we have chosen to spend that much time in the debate over whether or not one tiny part of the entire airline system, just the lady or man who looks through that little screen, should be a Federal employee, that we find that to be the most important thing to talk about when it comes to our Nation's security; and we spend little if any time dealing with what I consider to be a far, far more important issue, and that is this: Would it not be better, would it not be better to spend at least as much time in the determination of who gets into this country in the first place, keeping track of them once they get here; trying to keep people who want to do us ill, want to do us ill, is it not better to do that than to even worry about what happens to them as they go through airport security, once they are here, once they are in the Nation? How is it that we can ignore the fact that there are millions of people in this country illegally, that there are millions of people who have overstayed their visas, millions of people who violate our laws all the time, and we are so worried here? I heard reference after reference to the fact that some of these private companies hire ``noncitizens'' to do the security at the airport, to look through that screen. This has been said with aghast, taken aback, to use the Casa Blanca line. They are shocked, shocked to find that noncitizens are being employed at the airports. Hello, noncitizens, and not just noncitizens but illegal aliens in the United States are being employed in every aspect of American life; and no one seems to care about that, and no one seems to care about the fact that hundreds of thousands, in fact, millions of people cross our borders every single year, without going through the system, without going to apply for a visa, without coming through a border checkpoint so that someone could determine who they are and where they are going and why. Millions of people come across our borders where there is no checkpoint and where no visa is required. They sneak into the country. It is true that certainly a huge, vast percentage of the people who do that are not coming here to do harm to the United States. They are coming here for their own personal benefit, and it is understandable. It is also true that some of them may not have the best interests of the United States at heart. It is true that some of them who come across illegally may, in fact, be coming here to do us harm. Mr. Speaker, 19 people, all of them noncitizens of this country, on September 11, 19 people, as we all know too well, hijacked airplanes, crashed them into buildings or were prevented from doing so by the heroic efforts of certain efforts of the crew and/or passengers, I should say, on one of those flights. Who were they? Who are these people? Who were these people? All, of course, unable to tell their own story because they are dead. But who were they and how did they get here? My staff asked the INS shortly after September 11 for a list of those people and for their immigration status. We got nothing back; and finally, the only thing that they told us to look at was a press release from the FBI that listed all 19 people and had three of them identified with a particular status, and all of them were visa holders. One of those they had identified had overstayed their visa. It turns out that 13 were here on visa status of one form or another, one category or another, some of those here illegally because they had overstayed their visas or were not doing what the visa had said they were supposed to be doing here. Six of them, Mr. Speaker, up to this point in time, as to this time right now, November 6, we have not the slightest idea how they got here or who they are. We may know their names, but we do not know what their status was. We do not know how they entered the United States of America, six of them. The INS finally had to admit it. It is one of those shrug-your-shoulders, I-do-not-know, I-am-not-sure, I-do-not- know-how-they-got-here. Let me suggest that they did not come through the regular process. Let me suggest that they did not apply for a visa in Saudi Arabia. We would know that. Let me suggest they did not come through one of the border checkpoints and use their name. We know that. We would know that. Let me suggest they got here some other way. How could that be? How could it be that somebody could come into the United States and we would not know it? Of course, that is how millions of people come into this country. They swim across rivers. They take canoes across rivers in the north. It is a little colder. They walk across into the deserts of the South or into the mountains in the north, but they come by the millions. We have absolutely no plans today to defend against that. Nothing will change. Nothing has changed. We are approaching the 2-month mark since the tragedy in New York and Pennsylvania; and yet I have seen not one significant piece of legislation on this floor or even in the developmental stages that would reform the process, reform the immigration system so that we could begin to think that our borders are being secured. Nothing. We are certainly concerned about whether or not the person that looks through that little device at the airport is a Federal employee. Give me a break, Mr. Speaker. Where in the world are our priorities here? Do we honest to God think that if we only federalize the screeners that we will be safe in America? That something as horrendous, if not even more so than the September 11 event, would not occur? Do we really believe that? Of course not. Of course not. It is political rhetoric, my friends. It is partisanship rearing its ugly head on this floor. Incredible as that may sound, that appears to me to be what is happening here; and it is a reluctance on the part of this body, certain Members of this body certainly, to advance the concept of immigration reform because of the fear of two things: one, the political backlash that will occur among certain ethnic groups. There is a fear that if we were to try and clamp down on our borders, especially Mexican nationals who come to the United States, stay here for a long enough period of time, either vote illegally themselves or through gaining legal status or their children who are born here as American citizens and who then vote, would somehow make one of our parties pay the price for being hard on immigration. There is that fear. There is a recognition of the fact that most of the people, massive numbers of immigrants coming across the border eventually grow into, as they become eligible to vote and some of them, of course, unfortunately, voting even if they are not eligible to do so, but will vote primarily for one party, in this case the Democratic Party. So the Democratic Party is reluctant to talk about this issue, although they are very happy to talk about whether or not screeners should be Federal employees, spend hours on it. But they will not talk about illegal immigrants coming across the border and the threat that porous borders poses to this Nation. Again, I say it is not the vast majority of people coming across those borders illegally that pose a threat to the health of the Nation or the stability of the Nation in a very immediate sense, although they may pose that in the long run. But the fact is that unless we secure our borders against all of those people who are trying to come here illegally, we cannot hope to prevent another incident. Even if we did, I understand fully well, Mr. Speaker, that even if we did do everything I am suggesting, put troops on the border, if not active military put on National Guard troops to secure our borders, use technology to monitor the borders, use every aspect of military and police work available to us to make sure our borders are secure, overnights and patrols and electronic monitoring, if we did all of that, we cannot be absolutely positive that nothing else would ever happen as a result of somebody sneaking into the country. But let me ask, Mr. Speaker, let me ask the American public, should we do any less? Should we not do everything we can to make sure that those borders are secure simply because we cannot make sure they are absolutely impervious? Mr. Speaker, I have said on more than one occasion that, God forbid, if something else happens similar to the occurrence of September 11, and we find that they are perpetrated by people who came into the United States illegally, or even came here legally with a visa status that we gave them but did not monitor, and they perpetrate another event of a similar nature, I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that we are not just going to be held to be irresponsible as a Congress, but we are going to be held to be culpable. And I recognize that this is a very strong statement, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why it is not true. We sit here, Mr. Speaker, with the ability to put in place a system that would be far more efficient than presently exists. We are the only people, this Congress is the only thing that can act. We cannot expect States to actually do the work of immigration reform for us. We have to do it. We are the only ones with that authority and with that responsibility. But why is it that we have refused to do so? As I said, there is a political price to pay, that is for sure. And we understand that there is a political benefit to pandering to illegal aliens. There is also on our side of the aisle a reluctance to deal with this issue because of economic implications. The fact is that many, many of our jobs are being taken, many jobs in this country are being taken by illegal immigrants or by people who are here legally but are willing to work for less than an American citizen would work for. That is true. And, therefore, we have pressure on our side, on the Republican side, the people who have business interests, to avoid doing anything that might impede the flow of low-cost employees, low-wage, low-skilled people; or in some cases like H1B, which I will talk about in a minute, high- skilled people but still lower paid. Let me go into that for a moment, Mr. Speaker. H1B is a visa category that allows people to come into the United States, about 160,000 a year, by the way. And they can stay here for up to 6 years to work in jobs that, quote, ``no one else will take.'' Jobs like computer programmer at some of the most prestigious companies in America in terms of technology. These really rotten jobs that no one else will take, computer programmer, analyst. We were told by the mavens of industry that in this particular arena, technology, that we could not hire enough people. They could not hire enough people, qualified people, here in the United States. So we had to grant H1B visa status to 165,000, at least, every single year. Let them stay for 6 years. So we now accumulated several million, 4 or 5 million people here in the United States on that status, H1B visa status. Now, unless it has escaped us, Mr. Speaker, and I do not believe it has, there has been a change in the economy over the last year. Starting with the last quarter of the Clinton administration, the economy has begun a slow but steady decent into what is now undeniably a recession. Yesterday, I believe it was, unemployment figures came out; and the figures were frighteningly high, higher than they have been in well over a decade. Especially frightening in the area of high- tech jobs where hundreds of thousands of people have been laid off. Mr. Speaker, in America today there are factually millions of people looking for work, people who can operate in this capacity as a computer programmer or whatever and people with various other skills who are looking for work. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is time for us in this body to revisit the whole idea, the whole issue of H-1B, and I have, in fact, introduced a bill to abolish H-1B visas. I think, Mr. Speaker, we do not need them anymore. I do not think we needed them when we passed them. I think we did it as a favor to some large corporations in the United States because they could get people to come to the United States and work for less than they could hire an American worker to do the same job. And I say that with the recognition that there are people in the United States who I know today are unemployed and unemployed because an H-1B visa holder took his or her job, took a job that those people would be qualified for and would be doing except, of course, they asked for more money. Now, this kind of thing, to my friends on our side who are Libertarians and who feel as though we should not really care about the issue of high wages for American employees, that it is all a function of markets and we should just simply erase the borders, let people come and go freely, that is all fine. It is an idealistic concept. But the idea of open borders, I think by now has been totally and completely discredited, for obvious reasons. Look where we are. Look what has happened to us. Look what happened on September 11. The idea that American citizens who need and want jobs should be kept from those jobs because there are H-1B visa holders here is, I think, unconscionable. But it is where we are. And let me tell my colleagues what has happened, Mr. Speaker. It is true because there have been many layoffs in industry, the high-tech industry especially, that some of these H-1B holders are out of work or were out of work. Now, the law says, by the way, that if they are no longer employed by the company that hired them to bring them over here as an H-1B visa holder, they must go home. That is the law. The INS has said essentially that we are going to look the other way. They say, do not worry about it. When H-1B holders call them and say, what am I going to do, I am out of work, am I going to have to go home? They say, well, we are in the process of writing regulations, so we will let you know. Other people have been told they have a couple of months to look for another job; take another job away from an American citizen because, after all, you are here. We would not want you to be disadvantaged. We would not want you to have to leave the country. The INS is no longer an organization that looks out for the best interests of the United States. The INS is an organization that has turned into a bunch of social workers. Immigration social workers. That is how they think of themselves, Mr. Speaker. They are not concerned about the health of this Nation, about the impact of massive immigration on the overall course of the Nation, and certainly not concerned about the fact that American workers are being displaced by H-1B visa holders. Why do we still have H-1B visa holders in light of the fact that there has been a significant turndown in the economy? For one reason, Mr. Speaker, because this body is afraid to take that up. There are powerful interests who want the H-1B visa status to be expanded, certainly maintained, because they get many workers here at a lower price than they can hire American workers for. That is the story. I wish it were not true, but it is true. And it is actually totally understandable, I suppose, if you are an employer whose eye is only on the bottom line and could not care less about the United States of America. And, believe me, what we now call multinational corporations, that is a good, good descriptor. They are multinational. They could not care less about America. Their interests are bottom line, and so should they be. Maybe we can argue their interests should be just that, bottom line. But I argue that our interests in this body should be for the people in the United States who are citizens of this country, who are looking for jobs and are competing with people who have been brought into the country, albeit good people. I do not suggest for a moment because someone is here as an H-1B visa holder that they are a bad individual. That is absolutely not true and irrelevant. They are fine people looking to better their own lives. I understand it. I empathize with them. But my job is not to make sure that every single unemployed person in the world is given the opportunity to take an American job. That is not what I consider to be my responsibility as a Member of this body. Yet my bill for the elimination of H-1B status will not be heard, I will predict. We will not even get a hearing, Mr. Speaker. My bill to put a moratorium on the deliverance of visas will not be heard, I fear. My request, as the chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, to have a bill that would actually reform the INS by abolishing that responsibility that they take so casually, that is for enforcement, abolishing that and creating a brand-new agency that includes some of the responsibilities that are now given to the INS, Customs, Treasury, Coast Guard, and others for border security and internal security. We would abolish those agencies, or those parts of agencies that are now given that responsibility, an overlapping and confusing and conflicting responsibility, and create a new agency under Governor Ridge, under the Homeland Defense Agency. We could call it the National Border Security Agency, or whatever we want; but let us make sure that it has only one responsibility, not to on the one hand hand out green cards and help individuals get legal status in the United States, help them figure out a way to get here and achieve their life's dreams as an immigrant, but has as its only responsibility to make sure that people we do not want in this country cannot get into this country, and to make sure that those people who are here illegally are deported. Now, that is the true and real responsibility of a Federal Government. It is especially our responsibility now. It does not mean we slam the door shut to every single immigrant. We will hear that, I know; that what we are trying to do is deny our heritage as immigrants, as a nation of immigrants. Poppycock. It is irrelevant to talk about the fact that we are all here as immigrants. Yes, well, so what? What has that got to do with September 11 and what we should do from that day forward? It is irrelevant. It does not matter. Because if we continually look to the past in that respect to try to determine what we do in the future, why do we not simply abandon the border? How much of a death wish do we have? It is not the fact that we cannot grow our own terrorists. It has happened. But it is the fact that right now the most significant threat we face to this country does not come from a homegrown terrorist; it comes from an immigrant, people who are here either legally or illegally, who are not U.S. citizens, and are here to destroy this Nation. Now, how do we stop that? Do we just say that only those people whom we deem to be potential terrorists are going to be given a hard time trying to get a visa? Well, that is what we have proposed. That is the huge immigration reform proposal we have had so far, that we are going to make it much more difficult, Mr. Speaker, for anybody to come into this country on a student visa; and we are going to actually try to make sure if they do come in on a student visa, they go to school. Well, I feel so much better. That, combined with making sure that that person that is peering through that little box a Federal employee will make me sleep so much easier at night. Idiotic. Almost incomprehensible. But here we are. Here we are. By the way, when I talk about my suggestion for a bill that would move us in the direction of a brand-new agency, it will not be heard. I am sure it will not find its way into legislative format. I am more than willing to draft a bill, Mr. Speaker, but if history is any guide, I am going to bet that I would not be very successful in getting that bill heard in the committee of reference, the Committee on the Judiciary, chaired by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), or any other place in this process. I suggest that there is a problem that needs to be addressed of far greater significance than who pays the salary of the person who looks through the screening device at the airport when we talk about the security of the Nation. Far more serious. Far more serious. The defense of the Nation begins with the defense of our borders. I find it fascinating, almost, again, incomprehensible that time and again I have to come to this floor and plead with my colleagues to do something significant about immigration reform, to do something that would in fact improve the security of the Nation; that in fact would help us all sleep a little easier. I ask my colleagues to think about the fact that as we stand here tonight on the floor of the House, not one thing has happened to improve the security of our borders, although a great deal of attention is paid to trying to get on an airplane in America. And whether it is improved or not, I do not know. I certainly go through a lot more security every single week than I ever did before. But nothing has really happened to change the fact that if a person wanted to come into this Nation and avoid being detected, he or she could easily do so. All it would take is the willingness to expend a little energy to get around the border security checkpoint. That is all it takes. We talk about tightening the visa requirements. I am all for it. But I ask, Mr. Speaker, for us to apply just a tiny bit of logic to this whole process, this whole question, to this controversy. Let us assume for a moment that we have someone, a member of the al- Qaeda, or any one of the other various groups that want to do us harm, and that person is in, let us say Saudi Arabia today, or Pakistan or the UAE, or any country that requires a visa. And by the way, we do not require every country to actually approve visas for people coming into the United States. But let us say that person is coming from one of those countries, and they go to the consulate to try to get a visa and they find out the requirements are a little more difficult: that there is actually a form they have to fill out, maybe even a fingerprint they have to give, maybe even some other form of identification that actually will be shared with other agencies; and that information from the CIA and other groups will all be stored in one place, and we will be able to determine whether this person trying to come into the United States is connected with a terrorist organization; and therefore we will say to them, no, sir, you cannot come in, we will not give you a visa. Then will we go, oh, thank God, that stopped that. That person is now probably going to go home and say, you know, Mr. bin Laden, I tried to get into the United States but, hey, they would not give me a visa. So I guess I just will not go any farther with this plan. I will just go home and take my bomb with me. I do not think so. I do not think so, Mr. Speaker. Again, let us apply a little logic. If that person wants to come into the United States, and let us assume we actually tighten up visa requirements, then that person, of course, will come the way that millions of others come every year. He will simply walk across the border, the part of the border that is undefended, and come into the United States, probably the same way that at least six of the nineteen hijackers on September 11 came in. We do not know because, as I say, the INS cannot tell us. They have not the slightest idea how they got here. They shrug their shoulders. I do not know. Gee, we are just the INS, do not expect us to keep track of people. Here is an interesting statement that was reported in the Marietta Daily Journal in Georgia. It is from Fred Alexander, who is the INS Deputy District Director, speaking to a group of ``undocumented day workers.'' If I am driving without my driver's license, I am undocumented. But if I am here illegally, I am an illegal alien. ``It's not a crime to be in the United States illegally. It's a violation of civil law.'' Oh, I see. It is not a crime to be here illegally. That sentence makes all of the sense in the world. No problem. I do not know if this fellow is really that unable to understand the English language. Perhaps he himself is not able to really communicate well in English, although his name does not suggest it. It is not a crime to be in the United States illegally; it is a violation of civil law. I do not know what that means except this guy is trying to say do not worry about being here illegally. The INS is here to help you. That is what he is saying. Members wonder why we are concerned about the INS and why we are trying to push this body into truly reforming the INS. There will be bills put into the hopper that will split the INS into two. That idea is not good enough because of course, if we do not gain control over the entire process, we will soon be left with this peculiar and at least questionable method of border security where people actually look at lines, and this happens, Mr. Speaker. People will actually view which line is being monitored, and this is coming across the border now, which line is being monitored by border patrol and which line is being monitored by any other agency. Customs in this case in particular, because of course Customs has certain regulations that they have to follow and Border Patrol has others. Border Patrol does not look in certain places where Customs will look. If you are trying to smuggle drugs in, you will come in via one line; and if you are smuggling people, you will come via the other. That happens. It is incredible, but it is true. It is because we have this mish-mash of responsibilities. Trying to actually change all that, reform the system, this is our greatest opportunity, Mr. Speaker. This is the greatest opportunity we have ever had to reform immigration; but I fear that the lethargy, the inertia is so strong and the political obstacles to overcome are so great. We fear the political ramifications of immigration control, both Republicans and Democrats. Those ramifications are significant, but none more so than the potential safety of the Nation. We have asked, this is our e-mail address and if Americans want to get in touch, we have encouraged them to write Tom.Tancredo@mail.house.gov for more information about immigration reform and for us to be in communication with people when there are important bills coming up in the Congress that they should be aware of and that we can request their help. This is the only way that this will happen, the only way any of the reforms will be accomplished is if there is a huge outcry, to both Senate and Members of the House, to please, please do something more than just give lip service to immigration reform. Please develop true immigration reform proposals, put them in front of the President for him to sign. We are going to be looking at one issue coming soon, and that is the extension of 245(i). The only thing we are going to do is perhaps extend amnesty for literally millions of people who are here illegally. That is going to be coming up on the House floor. Whether it is a part of the Commerce, State, Justice appropriations bill or a freestanding bill, that is what we are going to be asked to do, not throw out H-1Bs or diversity visas which give 55,000 visas to special countries because they do not send us enough people, many of those Middle Eastern countries, not to reduce or eliminate the number of immigrants coming into the country, not border security, not doing anything about truly trying to significantly change and improve immigration at INS by creating a new agency, entirely new agency. None of that. What we are going to be asked to do is to extend, for the ability of people to stay without going through the process of being reviewed in their country of origin so we will not know whether or not they have a criminal background or whether or not they are connected with any sort of agency that will bring harm to the United States. That is what we are going to be facing. If people are willing to help us, we encourage them to go to that Web site, Tom.Tancredo@mail.house.gov. We need the help of everyone on this issue. It is the only way we will improve the whole procedure of immigration. It is the only way we will reform immigration and the only way we will be able to sleep easier at night, and that is what we are seeking here. It is far more important in my mind and in the mind of most people than who pays the salary, than the person who looks through the screening device at the airport.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).

Mr. TANCREDO. Let me answer that question, at least a partial answer as to where did they come from? How did they get here? How is it that 895 people from Iraq were given visas? Something else your constituents should know about, something all of our constituents should know about. There is another program operated by the government, we passed it not too long ago. It is called diversity visas. Diversity visas are given to countries that we do not think have actually sent us enough people. As bizarre as this sounds, this is the truth. Congress passed it a few years ago. There are 55,000 allotted every single year. They go to countries, as I say, that it has been determined, it is a formula basis; and if a certain country has not sent us enough people, then they go to the head of the line, these diversity visas, 55,000 of them. The bulk of those 55,000 visas go to countries in the Middle East, Egypt, Iraq, Iran. They are put on the top of the list. So I do not know if the 895 people from Iraq came on that basis. But I am telling you that 55,000 visas are set aside just for those kind of countries. They have not sent us enough people. That is as bizarre as it gets. No, that is not as bizarre as it gets. Believe me, it gets even weirder around here when you start talking about his issue. Tell your constituents this, that of the 31 million people who come here every single year on visas, something like 40 percent violate their visas. That is 12 million people a year who do something to violate the visa. They overstay it. That is the most common. But they break our laws. That is another very common thing that happens. Of the 12 million who violate these visas, we actually end up with maybe 100,000 of them going into the judicial system, maybe 200,000. Of the 200,000 of the 12 million who get to the immigration court, about 100,000 actually get deported. No, actually get sentenced to be deported. A judge hears the case. He hears about the person who beat up the old lady, raped the young girl, murdered somebody in the street, robbed the bank, whatever it was, and the judge sentences this person to be deported. At that point in time, in the system we now have, in the immigration system, that person is turned over to the INS for enforcement procedures. And I had a judge, an immigration judge call my office one day and say I have got to tell you this because I am going crazy. I am so frustrated. I have been here 12 years on this bench. He said, day in and day out I listen to these stories. I adjudicate and I find someone guilty of violating their visa and I order them deported. And day in and day out they turn around and walk out the door, and I know they will never be deported because INS does not go after them. They do not care. That is not their main interest. He said, I think there are about 225,000 of these people wandering around the United States. So we went on the television and everywhere I would go I talked about it. I said by now it is about a quarter of a million. I thought I was pushing the envelope a little bit. He said the information was about a year old. I thought by now it is probably a quarter million. Finally, someone from Human Events and a newspaper in California went to the INS and kept pressing them. They finally admitted, yes, it is true that there are a few folks out there who have been ordered to be deported but they are not gone. How many? It was 300,000 per year. This is what the INS says they have lost. No, the INS says we know they have been deported. We cannot find them. We do not know where they are, and we have not gone after them. Can you imagine explaining this to anybody, a constituent, and having them say, well, Congressman, what are you going to do about that? And I say, it is very tough because you try to get any immigration reform across here and they would rather talk about the airline security guy who is looking through the screen.

Mr. TANCREDO. The gentleman is so correct. We cannot stand here tonight, nor have we ever stated in this debate that unequivocally we know that if we simply control our borders, do everything we can possibly do to make sure that the people who are coming in are identified, that we know what they do when they come in here, that we know when they leave, that if we did all of these things that we could prevent any other kind of event. But not doing those things makes us irresponsible. At this point in time I will say this, that God forbid, if there is another event of a similar nature as there was on September 11, and it occurs as a result of somebody else waltzing across our borders, somebody that we should have been able to identify as being one of the bad guys, somebody that we recognize or who even comes in under legitimate passport or visa but then does something here for which he should have been deported and we do not do it, if anything like that happens, we are not just being irresponsible, we are actually being culpable at that point. This Congress is culpable if we do not do everything we can do to stop it. It may still happen, but we have a responsibility. It is like saying they still rob banks even though we have laws against it. What does that mean? Should we pile the money on the desktop in the bank? No. We should still do everything we can do to stop it. And that is what we should be thinking about in this Congress. Our immigration reform caucus, I see Members joining us here tonight who are members of the caucus; and I sincerely thank them for their participation in that effort because that is the only thing that is going to move legislation through this is getting enough folks to add their voice to those that have been raised in this debate so far. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman. I must tell the gentleman, I could not be prouder of the people on this floor tonight who are here to support this effort. It is great. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode).

Mr. TANCREDO. I appreciate the gentleman's comments, and I want to reemphasize something he was talking about in terms of the economic stimulus package that was passed earlier today. It was a very controversial package of legislation, primarily dealing with tax cuts. I hope that it will do the job. I hope that it will, in fact, provide the stimulus this country needs to put people back to work and to deal with the people in the district of my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia, in the district of my colleague from Minnesota, all of whom are looking at us for some way to describe what is happening to them, some explanation of what is going on and perhaps a way to help out. We can do certain things. We can tinker with the monetary policy, and we can tinker with the fiscal policy, and we can hope that down the road apiece all that will kick in and in maybe 6 months or a year we will see the effects of it. But we could have done something today with an immediate reaction, immediate reaction, and, frankly, I had asked for permission to offer amendments to the bill but was not allowed to. We were not allowed to bring this issue up. But I am going to talk about it, and the gentleman brought it up tonight, and we are going to continue to talk about this because we are going to introduce a bill even in the next couple of days, and I hope my colleagues will join me on this, and that is to repeal the particular provision that the gentleman is talking about that has allowed us to expand the number of people who can come in here on visas and take jobs. We were told by many people that we needed them; that we could not fill the jobs with Americans; that no matter how hard they tried, no matter how many ads they put in the paper, and we are talking now about white collar jobs, these are not the folks that are coming in across the border to do some of the more menial tasks. We are talking about white collar jobs that are relatively highly paid, and we have been told for years that we cannot get enough people in here to do it. Well, I think we have people in the United States today, American citizens, who are willing to do the job. But what is happening to us, because of the visas we have allowed, the particular kind my friend refers to, and we raised the cap on that visa, that particular visa, we now have allowed 195,000 a year, and they can stay for 6 years. Now, figure that out. That is 1.2 million people after that period of time, and that is only from this point on. It does not even count all the ones that have come here up to this year under that visa program. So there is 1.2 million potentially here in a relatively short time. And we could close the door on that and we could improve the opportunity for a lot of people in this country to get jobs again by simply saying that if you are here, and I am sorry, if you are not an American citizen and you are taking a job, you have to leave. Because, frankly, we have our own people that we have to employ. I am telling the truth here, and I am as altruistic as the next guy, but I want to give the job to the American citizen before I give it to somebody overseas. It is not as if we do not have people who want the job. I have had people in my office, two just last week, both of them displaced because they had people come in here on visas and take their job. It was not because they did not want the job. That was not it at all; but they could be replaced with somebody who would work for less, pure and simple. So they are out of work. And now, by the way, some of these visa holders have been thrown out of work. And their visa says very, very clearly that they must leave the country if that job ends. But the INS said just the other day, not to worry; to spend a few months, they said, and look for another job; compete with the Americans who have been thrown out of work, they said. This is the INS. This is the group that we charge with responsibility of monitoring our borders, of actually enforcing our immigration policy. But they are not on ``our side'' here. I had a debate in Denver, Colorado, not too long ago, with a lady who was the representative of the INS in my region. During the debate the radio announcer, the host, said to her, I do not understand, why does the INS not go after these people who are here illegally and send them home? And she said, without hesitation, this lady said, because that is not our job. She said, our job is to help them find a way to become legal citizens. I mean, I was flabbergasted. But I do not know why I should be flabbergasted any more about things I have heard with regard to this immigration issue because it is all mind-boggling. In fact, we are compiling in my office, and if anybody has stories out there that can be verified of these, what I call ``unbelievable but true stories,'' they can call our office, 202-226-7882, because we are compiling these stories, and I will bring them to the floor night after night. I am going to list the top 10 most incredible stories. We could be here every single night for the rest of this Congress talking about these incredible but true things like I have just described where an immigration official said that the responsibilities of the INS was not to go after people who were here illegally, but in fact to find a way to get them into the United States and make them legal. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely appreciate the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) coming to the floor tonight, all of my colleagues, because frankly I could not have said it better and especially the gentleman's last statement in regard to his constituents and others who were recent arrivals to the United States and stood up there with an American flag and saying God bless America and saying God bless them. Certainly, it is an interesting aspect when the gentleman talks about the idea of dual citizenships, the fact that someone cannot go to other countries and become a citizen, and it is very true that it is very difficult in many countries to become a citizen of that country. It is very easy here. Another interesting aspect of all of this is that there is another phenomenon we are witnessing with this massive influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal, but the ones that eventually become legalized. There are today as we stand here six million people in the United States that hold dual citizenships, that have either refused to relinquish at one point in time the citizenship of the country from which they came or chose later to accept a second citizenship. Mexico just recently passed a law a few years ago allowing for this to happen and the numbers exploded. Six million here. I do not know this of course, but I will bet my colleagues that not one of those people that stood up where the gentleman talked about and waved that flag and were singing God Bless America, I bet none of them have latched on to dual citizenship because you have to ask frankly, whose side am I on. When it really comes down to it, when a person takes the oath of allegiance to become a citizen, that person is supposed to relinquish any allegiance to any foreign potentate or power. That is the old wording of it. If the person has another citizenship, have they really done that? Why is this happening? Should we allow it to happen? I do not believe that United States citizenship should be conferred on anyone who has some other loyalty. It is just another part of the picture here that we have to bring forward and wonder about. It has been a long time that I have been debating this issue, it is true, and it is also true that now some Members of the Congress are joining us. Those of us who have been in this caucus know that now we are getting people coming to us and saying they want to join, and I say that is wonderful. I hate the idea that it may have been the events of September 11 that brought it about. I do not want to win on that basis. I wish that was not the reason why this whole focus has changed because it is such a horrific event, but we have to deal with reality here, and the reality of the situation is this: That immigration is an important part of this picture and immigration reform is a very important part of the solution. That is undeniable. There is not a Member of this body that can honestly look a constituent in the face or another Member in the face and say forget about immigration, open borders. Even organizations like The Wall Street Journal and others who have been for years on their editorial page pushing the issue of open borders, free trade and all this, and I am a free trader, so that is not the issue at all, but even they now, I have noticed, have some degree of reticence to come forward with those kinds of editorials and I am glad of it. I just wish it had not been anything quite so horrendous to force them into this position. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode).

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. It is not as if we had not been warned more than once. It is not as if all of this happened to us in the United States, the events of September 11, and we thought, Gee, how could this have occurred? Why were we not warned? Why did no one ever come forward? Well, of course, people have come forward. Many people have come forward, and earlier than the 11th, actually years before. There has been testimony before this House of Representatives, before the Congress of the United States, about the dangers we face as a result of having border that we cannot control. As early as January 25, 2000, a terrorist expert by the name of Stephen Emerson testified at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on international terrorism and immigration policy. Rereading Emerson's testimony is chilling, but it is also infuriating, because he laid out chapter and verse how terrorists enter the U.S. Emerson virtually predicted the attacks. In a 35-page document, Emerson listed the various reasons for the emergence of terrorist groups in the United States: One, an ability to operate under our political radar system; Two, an ability to hide under mainstream religious identification; Three, loopholes in immigration procedures; Four, ease of penetration of the borders; Five, limitation on FBI and other agencies performing law enforcement functions, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Service; More sophisticated compartmentalization of terrorist cells around loosely structured terrorist movements; Exploitation of freedom of religion and speech; Exploitation of nonprofit fund-raising, and lack of government scrutiny. Does all this sound somewhat familiar? Every single issue that he brought up of course we now know to be part of the great mosaic that has been presented to us here as the terrorist threat: Increasing cross-fertilization and mutual support provided by members of different Islamic terrorist groups; Ease of ability to get student visas from countries harboring or supporting terrorists; Failure by universities to keep track of foreign students and their spouses; Protection afforded by specially-created educational programs; Ease of visa fraud and the intervention of false credentials from passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, and Social Security numbers; Blowback from the anti-Soviet Mujahedin that the U.S. supported in Afghanistan. Again, it is almost uncanny, but this was testimony to the United States Congress, and we chose to ignore it. Why? It is because this issue, the issue of immigration and immigration reform, paralyzes so many of us. We are afraid of the kind of epithets that are thrown at us when we enter into this debate.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, perhaps anecdotes are useful and I feel they are useful to sort of portray a much bigger problem. Every day somebody comes up to me because I have become sort of involved with this issue and people know. So these people will tell me stories about something they have heard something else that just occurred. I will share with my colleagues and the Members here something that happened again a short time ago, and it is one of those things that one says no this cannot be, this is impossible. Remember here, he was telling the story about, I thought at the time three-quarter of a million people who were running around the country, and I was saying to him, it is better to be a crook as an alien here in the United States than it is to be a citizen crook. A citizen crook goes to our justice system, to a regular justice system. In fact, if the person is found guilty he is going to go to jail. It is a very good chance if the person is found guilty as an alien, there is a very good chance the person will never see the inside of a prison cell. He said, again, well, listen to this. He said, You think that is something, listen to this. This gentleman had been a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly), a member of the Committee on Government Reform, and if I am not mistaken, chairman of a subcommittee at one point in time, but he was telling me about an immigration magistrate who had called him and said I have had the most amazing thing happen. This is about the third or fourth time. He said a young man, I think it was 18 or 19 years old, came in, came before me, and he had just mugged an old lady, broke her leg, stole her purse. When the police arrested him, he had no ID, and so the policeman said what is your name, where are you from. He said I am an illegal alien, I am here from Mexico. So they took him to immigration court, and the judge said, well, you have two choices. I will either send you to jail or deport you right away. He said, well, judge, I will be deported. So they put him on a bus from San Diego, sent him back to Mexico. He goes in as one somebody, the person he said he was, gets into Mexico, calls his mother in the United States. By the way, this young man I am talking about was born in the United States, parents were born in the United States, grandparents were born in the United States. He was a United States citizen but he had learned the scam. He had learned that it was much better to go before an immigration judge and be turned over to the INS. So he calls his mom after they deport him, after they send him back on a bus to Mexico, calls his mom and says bring down my ID. She gets in the car, drives 120 miles, hands him his ID. He now enters the country as John Doe, whoever he is, and of course, that record is completely erased of who he was, that he went in and the violation. They do not know anything about him. By the way, this magistrate was telling the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly) this was not the first time this had happened, that they had found this out. Here is the thing. If the kid on the street, the average thug, a mugger has figured out that it is better to be sentenced by an immigration judge, what does that tell one about how many people are actually taking advantage of the system who are, in fact, aliens? They can with impunity violate our laws and do so and never fear that they will ever be caught. I see that we are coming to the end of our time. I want to thank the gentlemen very much for joining me tonight, and I just want to end with a little comment here that was on the earlier thing I read. The U.S. can bomb Afghanistan to dust but terrorism will remain. In some bizarre thought process understood only in Washington, D.C., the possibility of tightening up immigration laws paralyzes most politicians. Absolutely true, but not with the people who have joined me here tonight, and I want to thank my colleagues for their courage.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, as I have been waiting this evening to address the House, I have, of course, been listening to the comments of my colleagues from the other side with regard to airline security. It will undeniably be an issue that will be brought to the attention of the American public in this fashion as a point of general order and, of course, discussions in the House as we meet daily. It is, of course, a very important issue, there is no 2 ways about it, that people in the general public believe that airline security has to be enhanced. I do not know that there is a single Member of the Congress that does not think that airline security needs to be enhanced. Of course, we will have differences of opinion as to exactly how that should happen and we, unfortunately, will take advantage of the differences of opinion about this to make partisan points and to be incredibly divisive and to reintroduce the whole issue of partisanship into the debate about airline security. But that is, of course, the nature of the business when we are in. When 2 individuals or, in this case, 2 parties have different opinions about issues like airline security, each side will claim that the other side is being partisan for holding on to their opinion. It is intriguing certainly, intriguing, to say the least, that a great deal of time is being spent on the discussion of airline security with the thought in mind somehow that a change in who pays the wages of the people who are charged with the responsibility for conducting security, that somehow or other, this fact, this and this alone, will change the whole arena and will change the whole feeling of the general public about security, and will make people feel better about traveling; just simply changing who pays the wages, whether it is the Federal Government paying the wages or a private employer. Somehow or other, people then will become much more intent upon doing their job, much more competent in doing their job. Well, I must tell my colleagues that I do not believe for a moment that that is what will give us confidence in this country in terms of our general, overall security. I do not believe it is the issue of who is paying the person who is looking through that little screen as our bags go through as to whether or not; and, by the way, people I guess think of that as being some very complex job that only a very highly skilled person, a ``Federal employee'' is able to do, right? Now, again, I do not know what makes anybody think that a Federal employee is more capable of looking into that little screen and seeing a light go off, because they are not actually trying to identify any individual part of the package going through; they are simply there to see when a light goes off, and the light tells them, search that package, that is it. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, it is not really a very high-level job. It just means the light went on. Can you tell? If it does, search the bag, right? Now, somehow or other, the other side would have us believe that if we hire Federal employees, give them all the benefits of Federal employment, of course, more importantly, the security of never being fired for being incompetent, the security for being able to strike, the security of being able to shut the whole Nation down by a work stoppage because they can do that as a Federal employees union and never be held accountable for it, that part never comes up in this discussion about transferring this responsibility. We are led to believe that if only the Republicans, these ideologues, as my friends on the other side kept calling us, if only these ideologues will agree to federalizing this entire work force, we will be safer. But never has anybody said why. I ask my friends anywhere in this House to tell me why it would be safer to have a Federal employee looking through that screen to see the light come on, or any other variety of jobs. If we need better training for the employees who do this work, I am all for it. I am all for it. If we want to federalize anything, federalize the standards that have to be met. I have no qualms about that whatsoever. But who is the ideologue here in this discussion, in this debate? Is it in fact the people on our side who are suggesting that the safer and better thing to do would be to allow people to be hired and fired if they are incompetent, to be fired if they threaten to strike and shut down the entire Nation's air transport system, and yet be held to high standards of ability in order to assure whatever degree of security we want established at our airports? Those of us who want that, are we ideologues, or could it be people on the other side who want those people to be Federal employees? Again, nobody has said why that is so necessary. The reason they do not want to say it, Mr. Speaker, is because the reason they want Federal employees is because Federal employees will contribute to the Federal employees' union, which will contribute to the campaign coffers of the people on the other side. That is ideological, in my estimation. So the real issue here, as far as I am concerned, has nothing to do with airline security; it has everything to do with securing our borders. This is the issue we should be debating tonight, and every single night and every single day. I have never heard, and I have done this many times; as the staff and maybe the Speaker will attest, I have have done this many times: I have come to the floor on special orders to plead with my colleagues to look at the issue of immigration reform, to look at the issue of defending our border as the first line of defense in defending this Nation. I have begged for that; and oftentimes, far too often, I have been the only person here. I am happy to say that I am joined this evening by a colleague to join in this debate who I will recognize in just one second. It is just that never have I heard anyone from the other side of this aisle come to this floor and talk about this issue. Frankly, from my point of view, I am much more concerned about the fact that we have porous borders through which people can come and do come who wish to do us harm, and we have absolutely no desire to try to stop them there, but we spend enormous amounts of time talking about who should be the guy or the lady looking through the screen to see if the light comes on in the machine. That is what is going to make us feel better? I do not want them in this Nation to begin with. I do not want them in the airport in the United States, the people who are here to do us harm. I do not want them getting across the border. I do not want them being given a visa in any nation in this world which requires a visa to come to the United States. I do not want them getting it in the first place. That is where our emphasis should be, because frankly, Mr. Speaker, every single member of the organization that came here on September 11 and hijacked those planes, drove them into the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon, and would have come here, were people who were not citizens of this country. They were here on various visas, some of them illegal because they had overstayed or not done the right thing on their visa, and we did not care. We did not go after them. The INS could not care less. I have tons of information we will get into tonight. That is where I want our emphasis put. I want it put on stopping them from getting here. I am all for airline security. I am all for making sure that man or woman who is looking through the little scope on that thing, and when the light goes off, I want to make sure that they say, okay, open that bag. Yes, I am all for it. I am actually for doing a lot more than that with everybody who gets near the airplane. Food service handlers and baggage handlers, let us make them accountable, too. We do not need to make them Federal employees to get there, but that is a secondary issue. The issue is, how do they get into the United States to begin with, and why is it that we continue to be so afraid of paying any attention to this issue, so afraid of discussing the issue of immigration and immigration reform? Someone who is not afraid of that has joined us tonight, and I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), for his comments.

Mr. TANCREDO. The gentleman should perhaps explain.

Mr. TANCREDO. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. TANCREDO

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

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor a man who has served his country, his state, and his fellow veterans for over thirty years. Richard F. ``Dick'' Ceresko is retiring on Friday, October 12th, after fourteen years as the Director of the State of Colorado's Division of Veterans' Affairs. In that time, he has played an integral role in expanding and improving both state and federal services for veterans. Although he will be leaving his official post, his legacy will live on in the new partnerships he crafted with private groups and federal agencies, new facilities to care for our veterans, and new national cemeteries to honor them eternally. You might say that Dick Ceresko was born to serve his country. His father fought in World War II, and his grandfather served in the Navy at the turn of the 20th Century. In October of 1965, Mr. Ceresko entered the U.S. Marine Corps where he earned his Naval wings and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. He was ordered to Vietnam in July, 1967, and flew more than 360 missions as co-pilot, first pilot, and flight leader in a helicopter gunship during combat operations. He served throughout the northern ``I-Corps,'' including Khe Sanh, Hue, Dong Ha and Con Thien, before he returned stateside in 1968. In other words, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ceresko flew more than one mission per day while in Vietnam. For his service, he was honored with numerous awards and decorations including 19 Air Medals, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal with Four Stars, the Presidential Unit Citation and the National Defense Service Medal. He was honorably discharged in 1970 in the rank of Captain. Mr. Ceresko joined the State of Colorado Division of Veterans' Affairs in 1980, and became the director of the Division in 1987. In this capacity, he served no fewer than 410,000 veterans every year. I became acquainted with Mr. Ceresko as the State of Colorado began planning a new, 180-bed extended care facility for veterans to be located at the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. This is an incredibly important project, since Fitzsimons promises to become one of the world's preeminent medical campuses in the years to come. He was the first veteran to make me aware that then-President Clinton's Budget proposals were not sufficient to pay the federal share of constructing this new veterans' nursing home. I asked him to crunch the numbers, and we determined that in order to save the facility, I needed to fight for extra funding on the floor of the House of Representatives in the form of an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2000 VA-HUD Appropriations bill. The amendment was successful, two years in a row, diverting more than $37 million towards state veterans' nursing homes nationwide. Since that time, I've considered Mr. Ceresko one of my best resources as I weigh the many proposals that affect veterans in Congress. I know that Dick Ceresko will be missed by his peers and his fellow veterans, but I'm sure his retirement will be welcomed by his wife, Martha, and their four children. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the veterans of my district, I want to thank Dick for his service and wish him much happiness, fishing and fulfillment in his retirement.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, when my children were growing up and before they had an understanding of the family budget, they would ask for things that we were sometimes unable to provide. They were usually extravagant things we simply could not afford. We didn't blame them for asking--they were just kids--they didn't know better. What is our excuse? Is there a Member of the body who can't understanding the fiscal implications of declining Federal revenues combined with the cost of financing of a war? How many of us I wonder will file down here and dutifully cast our vote for this bloated, extravagant, piece of profligate spending and then go home to tell our constituents that we are appalled by the fact that the Social Security surplus has been blown. There is more than one kind of threat to the Nation--one stems from foreign terrorists and another from the fiscal irresponsibility of budget busting appropriations like this. The 12.6 percent increase in this bill is unconscionable. I am not saying that the hundreds of programs funded in this bill are not all individually wonderful. They will surely bring about a totally literate society while concurrently wiping out poverty in America as one would be led to believe by listening to the rhetoric supporting it. What I am saying is that they are not as important as providing for the common defense. This after all is the thing for which we have sole and paramount responsibility--it is not our main responsibility to be the Nation's school board or health care provider. And Mr. Chairman, I know it is hard to hear what I am going to say. It was hard to tell it to our kids but here it goes--we can't afford this bill. If we can't defeat it I hope the President will act as the adult here and veto the bill.