Tom Tancredo

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, Executive Order 13-166 is essentially another attempt to construct an even higher level of the Tower of Babel. Not only is that executive order an unfunded mandate, it is incredibly wrong-headed. To encourage non-English speakers to stay outside the mainstream of America and thereby indirectly condemn them to a life of impoverishment is essentially despicable. As the population of non-English speakers increases, so too will the pressure to divide this Nation along language lines. It will also contribute to the increased balkanization of the Nation. We do none of these folks a favor by encouraging their exclusion from the majority society. Mr. Chairman, I urge support of the Istook amendment.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, the issue I wish to address tonight is the issue that I have had the opportunity of addressing several times on this floor, it is the issue of immigration, immigration reform, and specifically the problems we are encountering in this country as a result of our inability to develop over the past several years a mechanism, some way or other, to actually have borders with integrity. For quite some time, it has been the prevailing point of view in this body, I think, and certainly in the past administration, and, to a certain extent, even the present administration, that the concept of open borders was appealing, and appealing for a variety of reasons, some of which had to do with economic benefits that may accrue to the country as a result of having massive flows of individuals and goods and money back and forth across borders. There is that kind of argument to be made with regard to the issue of immigration and open borders, and that argument held sway. There was also a political argument, and that was that, in fact, if we could get a large number of people into the country, and that those people could stay here without detection, eventually have children, and those children of course would become American citizens by virtue of being born here, it was a long-term strategy, I agree, but nonetheless the strategy was that those people would become part of a political party and cast votes primarily for one of the political parties in the country. And, of course, that is the Democratic party. That was another reason why it was so hard to ever affect change. It was so difficult to ever get anybody to pay attention for any call for immigration reform because we had those two sides. On the Republican side, we had a great deal of opposition to immigration reform from business and industries that wanted cheaper labor and that wanted to be able to access large numbers of immigrants, both legal and to a large extent, unfortunately, illegal immigrants in the country for the purposes of getting their labor and doing so for a sort of reduced price. So with those two very powerful forces at work, it was very difficult to ever advance the idea of immigration reform. Anyone that attempted to was automatically subjected to derision, name calling, and the like for being both racist or xenophobic or a wide variety of other kinds of nasty names, because immigration was an important issue to them. To me certainly it is, and it has been for quite some time. But there has been a huge shift in attitudes here, I think, in the Congress of the United States, and certainly, to a large extent, even in the country itself. That is to say, I think for the most part if we would have asked people before how they felt about immigration, especially illegal immigration, a majority would always say they were opposed to it and that they wished that we would do more to stop it. And this, by the way, interestingly, was a majority of white Americans and a majority of black Americans and a majority of Hispanic Americans. All of them felt the same way about the issue of illegal immigration. Now, the majorities were not huge, but they usually were always the majority opinion; that we should do something about immigration, especially illegal immigration. But ever since September 11, of course, things have shifted dramatically. And I must say, Madam Speaker, that there is absolutely no way I would ever want to have this issue won in the halls of Congress or anywhere else because of the events that we had here on September 11. But for whatever reason that is where we are. Things have changed, and I am glad they have. I am glad there has been at least now more and more emphasis placed on and attention paid to the whole issue of immigration and immigration reform. As we approach the legislative process here and we begin to develop pieces of legislation to deal with the events of September 11, we will undeniably be looking at legislation emanating out of the Committee on the Judiciary that is sometimes referred to as the antiterrorist package of legislation. That is coming up relatively soon, I understand. It is truly unfortunate that most of that package got watered down. It is almost incredible, as a matter of fact, to recognize that as part of the overall strategy that this government is going to employ to deal with the issue of terrorism, that we would not concentrate heavily on securing our borders and trying to do everything humanly possible to stop people from coming into the United States who have evil intent. This is not easy. It is not easy to do. It is not easy to identify people who are coming here with that kind of intention, but there are certain indicators that America may have a problem with various individuals. It is amazing to recognize the following: In 1990, the U.S. passed a series of immigration laws. They were sponsored by a member of the other body from Massachusetts, and it instructed the State Department employees that mere membership in a terrorist organization or advocacy of acts of terrorism should not exclude foreigners from receiving U.S. immigration visas. Mere membership in these kinds of organizations should not exclude anyone from getting a visa. Again, in light of everything that has happened, this seems almost unbelievable that any Member of this body, this body or the other body, would ever say such a thing, would ever put such a thing into law, but that is exactly what happened. This is sometimes referred to as the fellow traveler law because for a period of time there was an immigration law that said foreigners may not come into the United States if you belong to an organization that has called for the overthrow of the United States Government. We were concentrating on members of the International Communist Party at the time. If you were a member of some organization that had committed an act of terrorism, you could not come into the United States. But in the heyday of political correctness, at a time when we were searching our souls to figure out how we could possibly apologize for being who we are as Americans, when the philosophies of relativism, moral relativism were being breached in all of the campuses around the country and all of the textbooks were telling people our culture was no better than any other, and we could not possibly characterize another culture as being inferior to ours, that kind of what I would certainly call muddle-headed thinking ruled the day. It certainly did in the media, it certainly did in academia, and it certainly did in the halls of Congress. Political correctness. One of the more bizarre aspects of that muddle-headed thinking to which this Nation went and to a certain extent still exists, even here in the halls of Congress, as evidenced by the fact that we watered down the terrorist bill, but as a result of that we passed this law that instructs the State Department employees that mere membership in a terrorist organization or advocacy of acts of terrorism should not exclude foreigners from receiving U.S. immigration visas. In an article in ``Human Events'' it says, ``Under the law as it is written, someone who belongs to a Middle Eastern terrorist group and has publicly stated the desire that the World Trade Center towers be blown up, cannot, on those grounds alone, be denied permission to legally enter the United States as a prospective citizen. In such a case, the ultimate decision of whether to grant the immigration visa is up to the State Department officials, subjective evaluation of a person's knowledge and intent.'' According to the official Foreign Affairs Manual posted on the State Department's Web site, immigration law requires that a foreigner must be denied a visa if he or she has, quote, ``indicated intention to cause death or serious bodily harm and/or incited terrorist activity.'' If they come in and say I would like to apply to a visa to the United States of America, the consular office official says, here, fill this out. If you put down I intend to blow up your buildings, then I can keep you out. Then you can say it does not look like you have filled out this paperwork correctly because I cannot let you in as long as you state this. These things would be funny if they were not so tragic and idiotic. It is just a manifestation of this goofball thinking of how dare we think that we cannot keep someone out of our country because their culture may be inferior. And I am going to state categorically there are cultures that are inferior to ours. There are cultures that do not put as much emphasis on human rights, on individual human rights, and on human freedom; and I believe that makes them inferior to ours. And I do not mind saying so. I believe in the past we fought with cultures and political organizations inferior to ours. I believe that Nazism and communism were inferior in many ways, and certainly worthy of our disdain. And they rose to the level of those kinds of organizations and groups and philosophies that we should be wary of, and we should try our best to keep people out of the United States if, in fact, they proposed to advance these ideas. It is not to our benefit that these people come in. Things happen when they come. Sometimes places get blown up. Sometimes people are killed. Sometimes governments teeter, thank goodness not ours, but certainly in other countries. These acts of terrorism have been successful in bringing governments down. I am not suggesting for a moment that if tomorrow we were to be able to place troops on the border, which I hope we can do, or completely revise and improve the quality of the work done by the INS, which would be an astronomical undertaking, and improve the technology that we use as sensors to see whether or not people are coming across the border, I do not for a moment suggest if we did all of these things we would make our borders impervious to these incursions. Someone could get through. What I suggest, Mr. Speaker, is that we have to try. We have to try. We have constructed a strategy, a military strategy to deal with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda group that he directs, and any other terrorist organization that gets in our sights. We have described in detail to the American public that strategy. We will go in initially with the assets that we can deploy there in the air, both missile and airplanes; and we will try to destroy the infrastructure. We hope that we can develop an indigenous population that will support our efforts and will act against the Taliban. We will seek out these organizations even if they are some place outside of Afghanistan and perhaps go after them also. At the same time, we will use humanitarian efforts. We will drop food packages and leaflets and go into psychological operations, and we will broadcast into Afghanistan and drop pamphlets. This is a multifaceted war on terrorism. All of that I agree to. I believe it is important. But there is another important facet to the war, another important strategy that for some reason has not really developed into a well- publicized or even well thought out strategy as far as I can tell because I have not seen anything so far that would indicate that we have developed a strategy to indicate that we have tried to keep these people out to begin with. I have not seen a detailed, thought out, well-thought-out, well-delineated strategy to try to keep them out to begin with. That is amazing. It is, of course, our responsibility to think of every imaginable way there might be in order to defend and protect the lives and property of the people of the United States. Well, it certainly seems to me only logical and only rational that part of that strategy be something to do with the protection of our borders. There is no doubt about certain things that happened on September 11. One is that all 19 of the hijackers and terrorists were here from another country. I think, although we do not know this now because the INS and the Department of Justice will not tell us, but I think we will find that most of them were here on visas, various kinds of visas, and that many of them had violated their visas, and would have, therefore, been eligible, not just eligible, but would have been placed in a situation of being deported had we found them, had we known about it. We did not know about it, but that is not too surprising because there are, according to recent estimates, somewhere near 4 million people in the United States who have simply overstayed their visas, making them illegal immigrants into the United States. So every time we talk about the number of immigrants who come across the border every year illegally, and how those numbers are added to the total numbers every year when we talk about illegal immigration into the United States, we do not, for official purposes, count the at least 4 million people who are here illegally as a result of visas infractions. People who have overstayed their visas, people who have just simply forgotten about it, walked away, they know there is nothing that is going to happen to them. There is not much fear in the heart of anyone out there who has simply decided to hang on, stay and live your life in the United States. Get a job, vote. I know you are not supposed to, you are not supposed to do that if you are not a citizen, but it happens. One of the individuals we know, we found out voted twice. No, they were not here illegally. I am saying one of the individuals, one of the hijackers. He was known to have voted. I am sure that we will find many more who did the same. It is not that unique. It is not that unusual. We do not know exactly how much it happens, but we have this thing called the motor-voter law which is such a flimsy attempt to try and actually bring any degree of validity to our voting system. Anybody can get a card. Anybody who wants to can get a driver's license. Anybody who wants to can get a Social Security card. In Denver, one can go to a flea market, but there are a variety of places. I just happen to know about this one place because an ex- governor of the State of Colorado, Richard Lamm, will talk about it periodically. This is an issue with which he is involved also, the issue of immigration and immigration control. He went to this flea market, and he purchased after about I think 15 minutes of haggling over the price, and I can't remember for sure, I think it was something like fifty dollars starting up to about a hundred, maybe got him down to fifty dollars, but he purchased a driver's license, a Social Security card and a variety of other documents right there on the spot. They can take one's picture in the little booth and ring up a little card and the person is off to the races. With that, of course, a person can do almost anything, including, by the way, vote. So do we believe that these people who are here illegally do not vote simply because on the form that you fill out it says are you a U.S. citizen and you have to check that off, yes, I am; oh, okay, well now you are and therefore you can vote? Well, that fraud is rampant in this arena, and the fact is that there is very little that any of these people who are here illegally, any of the millions of people who have overstayed their visas, very little they have to worry about. They can take up life just like any other American, and unfortunately, they can act in ways that are certainly detrimental to our health as a Nation. The scope of the problem is almost mind boggling, and it is a result of the complete ineptness on the part of the INS to actually address their responsibility, the responsibility with which they have been charged for years, to try on the one hand to maintain the integrity of the borders and on the other hand to help people who want to come here legally. They have completely lost their way, Mr. Speaker. I will tell my colleagues that in a debate I was having in Denver on the radio with a lady who was I believe was the public affairs person for the INS in Denver, she stated when asked by the moderator why is it the INS does not round up all these people who are here illegally and send them back home, she said that is not our job. That is not our job. Our job is to help them get here and get legal. Now, I think she was confused about her job, but I also believe that she is not unique at all in thinking that that is her job. That was the job of the INS, to simply get people here as much as they could, get them legal because they put very little resources into actually sending people back who were here illegally, finding the ones who had violated their visa status or had come across the border recently, very little effort was placed in that, and almost all the effort was placed on getting people here, getting them legalized, getting them eventually to become citizens of the United States. My colleagues may recall, Mr. Speaker, the previous occupant of the White House forced the INS to rush through as quickly as possible and as many as possible applications for citizenship and get them qualified to vote before the last election. I think it was in the congressional elections actually before that that this occurred, but there was such a press to get people into the ranks of voters who were here as immigrants, that a huge, huge faux pas occurred and thousands, estimates are up to 60,000 people were made citizens of the United States who had criminal records, had felony convictions against them. They became citizens because they were rushing them through so quickly. So it was not just this lady who was arguing with me on the radio who has this concept about the INS. The INS is the culture because actually it is an old, established agency and a lot of bureaucratic inertia, and there are many, many good employees, many of them who have contacted my office by the way, many of them who have actually written us letters saying, Mr. Tancredo, you are right to do what you are doing, to say what you are saying, because the INS is in bad shape; it needs to be reformed. All of its efforts are directed in areas not related to the actual security of our borders or the strength of the immigration control process. For the most part these people feel as though they are crying in the wilderness and they are. It is true they are because that particular agency simply does not care about the fact, did not care and to a large extent I think still does not care about the possibility of having people come across this border who would do us harm. Why do I say that? Well, let me give you another statistic that is almost amazing, and again, it goes to the scope of this problem. Every year, as I say, there are millions of visas which are violated. We give out something near 30 million visas a year, and that only represents a small portion of the people who come to the United States. There are over 550 million visitors to the United States every year. So less than 10 percent of that number end up being required to have a visa. So 30 some million visas, 35 million approximately visas are handed out every year and somewhere near 40 percent of those are violated in the course of the year. So somewhere near 12 million people every single year are here in some violated status; that is to say, they are here illegally. A lot of them still do go back home at some point in time. It is true, we do not end up with 12 million people a year, but we have ended up with 4 million. Massive problem, 12 million a year violated. What do we expect the INS to do? Well, I know that it is tough, that is a tough job, how are we going to keep track of them. Very difficult to do. It is a matter of resource allocation. How about this one, Mr. Speaker, forget about the 4 million who are here illegally, have simply walked away from their visa requirements and are just simply living life as they wanted to as an American citizen. Forget about that for a moment. Think about this. Of the millions of people who are here and who have violated their visa, we do get some of them into the judicial system. They are brought to the bar. It is usually, by the way, not for simply overstaying their visa. Usually it is for committing a crime, and in the process of arresting and finding out about them we realize, oh, by the way, they are also here illegally because they overstayed their visa and so they were brought to court, an immigration court, and an immigration law judge listens to the case and a decision is made, and he or she hands down a verdict, and the verdict could be that they are to be deported. So now we actually go through a couple of hundred thousand cases a year of people who violate their visa, come before a judge and are ordered to be deported, couple of hundred thousand a year approximately. Maybe 40,000 of that number annually will actually be deported. The rest walk away, turn around and walk away. We know that there are about a quarter of a million of these people out there. I think it is probably far higher, but right now even the INS will attest to the fact that there is at least a quarter of a million people wandering around the country, not just as visa violators, not just as overstaying, but they have committed a crime and they have been ordered to be deported and they are simply walking around the country. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because the INS could care less, pays absolutely no attention to it, turns around, walks away from the immigration control point and says you are essentially on your own. Why? Because they do not care. It really boils down to that. They do not care. It is not a big deal to them. I have heard from individual agents. I have heard from retired agents. We had an INS agent in my office just last week. He has been on the job a long time. He is still afraid of being fired if he becomes known publicly, and we are supplying him right now with all of the information necessary so that we can protect him if we have to through whistleblower laws because if I can get him to come public with his stories, many years, I will not say how many because that would help identify him, but many, many years in the INS as an agent who has worked in almost every aspect of immigration control. If I could just get him to tell his story publicly, people would be amazed. We would be amazed. The general public would be amazed. The INS would not even be slightly surprised because, of course, they know their own culture. They know that what I am saying here is accurate, that they do not care about people here illegally. A lot of sound and fury is going to be directed toward the INS right now as a result of what happened on September 11, and let me go to another article here. This one appeared in the Los Angeles Times on September 30. It says, The September 11 terrorists did not have to steal into the country as stowaways on the high seas or border jumpers dodging Federal agents. No audacious enemy, quote, inserted them commando style. Most or all appeared to have come in legally on the kinds of temporary visa routinely granted each year to millions of foreign tourists, merchants, students, and others. Nothing in the backgrounds of these middle class men from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere apparently aroused suspicion among the State Department's consular officers who review visa applications. Let me point out once again that even if there is something suspicious that had come up, by law, that could not keep them out, like if they had belonged to some terrorist organization. Jot down al Qaeda, I am a member. That could not have kept them out. Once here the 19 hijackers-to-be did not have to fret much about checkpoints and police stops, even after some of their visas expired and they became illegal immigrants. The suicide attacks that killed 6,000 and more have brutally exposed shortcomings in airline security and intelligence gathering, but the strikes also highlighted another vulnerability. This is the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Speaker. It says, another vulnerability, the Nation's visa granting and immigration regime, and if that is not an understatement, highlighted some shortcomings. It goes on to say that the entire system is principally geared toward meeting another kind of threat, people of modest means whose concealed aim is not to bomb or wreck havoc but to work illegally in the United States. Moreover, proposals by Congress to keep closer track of immigrants living in the U.S. have been delayed or blocked because of complaints that the new rules will be too restrictive. That the Members know has happened. We have actually passed laws in this Congress, in 1996 specifically, that were designed to try to do something about the fact that we cannot keep track of anyone who is here, especially student visas and what happened? The colleges and universities got upset with us and said we are academicians, we are not paper shufflers, we are not supposed to be just filling this stuff out, and essentially they have not done it. They have not kept track of people. We are going to have to try to deal with that of course eventually, but they would not dirty their hands, the universities, with trying to keep any sort of records and documentation of whether or not this particular alien here in the country, visa holder of a particular nature, usually a study visa, is actually doing what he or she said they were going to do. Going back to this article, what little is known of the hijackers' history in this country suggests a certain confidence that immigration law could be circumvented where necessary. Again, what an understatement. For example, it says confidential records indicate that two possible hijacking ring leaders, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, presumed pilots of the jets that hit the World Trade Center, overstayed their initial visas. Hey, you know, they and, what, 12 million other people that year. ``It is an abuse that can void the travel document.'' Yes, it can, but, of course, somebody has to find them. ``But despite having no valid visas, both men left the country and were allowed to return on flights through Miami and New York last January, said an INS official who reviewed the records.'' So, now, look what we have here, Mr. Speaker. Listen to this again. Not only do they overstay their visa, but, okay, you cannot find them. I know it is a problem. Oh, gee, there are 12 million. How are we going to find all the people that overstay their visas? But these two guys, they were both on invalid visas, both left the country and were allowed back in, through Miami and New York last January. ``Other hijackers have been in the country on lapsed or otherwise invalid visas as, authorities say. Officials declined to provide more specifics.'' That is certainly true. We have asked, my committee, my caucus, I should say, the Immigration Reform Caucus and others, have asked the INS for specific documentation about these 19 hijackers. I want to know who they are, I want to know where they came from, and I want to know what was their status in the United States. All we have is anecdotal information here and there, because what they sent me back was a press release issued by the FBI that listed all 19 of the hijackers. It had absolutely nothing to do with their visa status except for two here on some sort of study visas, and one of them had overstayed his, if I remember correctly. As many as 4 million, I mentioned this, legal tourists and others have become illegal immigrants, according to government and academic estimates. These are the people with visas who overstayed them and stay here. They never go home. Federal officials acknowledge that they have no idea where all these people are. In 1998, as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration, Congress passed a series of laws zeroing in on abuses of temporary-resident status, with changes including expediting the expulsion of convicted felons and bogus asylum claimants. But other congressional mandates were never put in place. One measure directed the INS to develop an automated system to track the entry and departure of all visa holders. Another provision called for the accounting of hundreds of thousands of holders of student and other temporary visas. However, Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that I have to report this, because, again, the powerful interests that I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, in this case it turned out to be the powerful special interests of businesses and commercial interests that violently, vehemently opposed any of the restrictions that we had passed, that were to be placed on people entering into the country so we could keep some sort of track of them. Especially people from the Canadian border states complained that the new reporting requirements on people exiting the country would slow down transport or commerce. The Canadian Government also balked. The plan was put off. Likewise, academic institutions also objected to more controls, as I mentioned earlier, on their growing population of foreign students. That plan too was put on hold. All these things had been passed, Mr. Speaker. All of them were simply junked. Now, here is an interesting aspect of this. One of the September 11 hijackers who went by the name of Hani Hanjour entered the country on a student visa ostensibly to study English at the Berlitz School in Oakland. There is no record that the Saudi ever enrolled, school officials say. No one checked. There is no law requiring schools to verify student visas. So we are now, of course, going to be looking at putting something like that in place. The fact is that the INS complains when these things are brought to their attention. They complain that they do not have the resources. They simply have not been able to develop enough resource allocation from the Congress. We have not given them enough money so that they have not been able to put enough agents on payroll and that sort of thing. The reality is, of course, in the last several years we have quadrupled the budget for INS; but it has gone essentially to waste. It has not gone into the area of enforcement. It has gone to, unfortunately, build a bigger bureaucracy in areas that have nothing to do with immigration enforcement. There are many questions that we have to ask INS; and we have to ask ourselves, Mr. Speaker, about this issue of immigration, especially in light of the fact that this threat of terrorism comes from an identifiable group of alien males between the age of 20 and 35 and that we can now get a profile. They can and do quite easily travel in the United States. What is more alarming, Mr. Speaker, what is really incredibly annoying, is that however those people got into the United States before September 11, they could get into the United States on October 10. Six thousand are dead; threats of biochemical terrorism, nuclear terrorism, abound. We read in the paper, I hear one of my colleagues, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), over and over again telling the media that it is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when we will have to experience another one of these kinds of attacks. Every time I hear that, my heart sinks, because, of course, not just because of the fact that is a distinct possibility, but because of the fact that in this particular area, in this one area of immigration control, we have essentially done nothing to stop it, and the bill that we will see soon coming to this floor does essentially nothing to stop it, nothing with regard to immigration control. We will call it a bill to deal with terrorism, an anti-terrorism piece of legislation. But, Mr. Speaker, in terms of the most significant activity with which we as a Nation should be involved, that is, the protection of our borders, the protection of the life and property of the people who live in this country, our number one role, as I say often from this microphone, it is more important than all of the other things we do. It is more important than all of the other Departments that we fund. The role of the protection of the life and property of the citizens of the United States is paramount. And where does that begin? It seems to me it begins at our borders. We can certainly, and certainly should, go beyond our borders to find people like Mr. bin Laden and others and deal with them wherever they are; but the next, and I mean not just the next thing to do, but along with that, at the same time, certainly we should be doing everything we can do, mustering every ounce of our energy in this country to defend the border. Let me suggest something that could be done tomorrow. It would not take any activity on the part of this House. We would not have to pass any law, we would not have to go through a committee, we would not have to come to a vote, we would not have to deal with it at all. The President of the United States could pick up the phone and call the Governors of the various States that are on the borders, north and south, and ask them to deploy some of their resources in the form of National Guard troops on the border to help us defend that border. We do not have to even use the regular military of the United States, active duty military of the United States. We could, of course, employ without that. There is something referred to as the posse comitatus law which people suggest would be problematic if we wanted to actually employ troops on the border, active duty troops. We do not have to deal with that. We could go to every Governor and say would you please do that. I believe that most, if not all, of the Governors would agree to call up the National Guard and allow some of those resources to be placed on the borders, to help us defend the border. That could happen tomorrow. We could demand from Mexico and from Canada their help in defending the border. We could threaten, if they did not give us that help, that there would be ramifications, economic ramifications and others, diplomatic, if they would not agree to providing support and resources on the border, to help us defend our border. We could do that tomorrow. It does not require any action on the part of this Congress. Then the Congress has certain other responsibilities. One, we could establish a brand new immigration control authority. We could essentially abolish the old INS. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Speaker, it would be the best possible thing we could do. We could replace it and the various other organizations that are all out there unfortunately sometimes stepping all over each other; we could abolish those agencies. That would require, of course, congressional action, administrative approval; and we could combine them all in one border defense agency. We could take away certain responsibilities that are now given to the Department of Justice and INS, given to the Department of Agriculture, given to the Treasury for customs enforcement. Right now we have customs, and this is one of the more bizarre stories that has come to light during this debate. You can, and often people do, people who are attempting to come into the country illegally for various purposes, will stay behind, say, somewhere behind the border, say in Mexico in this case, watching through binoculars, watching the various lines. Because, you see, in certain lines, an INS officer will be in charge, and they can do certain things; but they cannot do other things in the course of their investigation of you as you cross the border. In the other line you may have a Customs official, and they are in the same situation. They can do certain things, but things that INS cannot do. But they are not together. So people actually watch, and this happens, Mr. Speaker; and it has been attested to more than once, people actually watch the lines to try to figure out which one is being watched by an INS agent and which one is being watched by a Customs official. Because the Customs official, by the way, or the INS guy, one or the other, I cannot remember which now, cannot open the trunk. That is within one of the regulations. One can do it, but the other one cannot open the trunk. So if you are going to smuggle drugs into the United States, for instance, you watch to see which line is the line that is being handled by the agent that cannot open the trunk, and that is the line you get in. This is again almost mind-boggling, but it is absolutely true, because we have got so many different kinds of organizations trying to run the border; and none of them talk to each the other, none of them share information with each other. The INS has at least three, sometimes they say four different kinds of computer systems, none of which talk to each other. If you were a person in Saudi Arabia that wanted to come to the United States and you go to get a visa application, there is no way for that counsel or official to check that application through a series of data banks that might come up with something that is important. They only have one. They do not have the State Department. They do not have the FBI's or the CIA's. They cannot cross-check. So, of course, many times, many times, if you are not on the State Department's list of bad people, but you happen to be on the FBI or CIA list, it is okay, no problem. You can get through, your computer will not identify you. It is amazing how incompetent we have become; and it is because, again, as I say, the culture, the culture in the INS and the whole immigration community that says, really, who cares? Bring them in. Do not worry about it. We go back to the whole issue of moral equivalence again and the idea we should not probably be keeping anybody out that wants to come to the United States. What right do we have to do something like that, to suggest they should not come in? This is the kind of bizarre thinking we were dealing with. Now it has changed. So now what do we do? How long are we going to keep this goofball activity going on at the border, two different lines run by two different agencies with two different sets of regulations? How long is that going to happen? The INS, how long will they be unable, unwilling, but certainly for a long time, but even now unable to check various data banks? How long will it be before we actually put into place some method of tracking a person who comes into the United States under a particular visa for a particular purpose, and then we will be able to find out if that person is not living up to that set of regulations? How long will it be until we do something like that? Every day that we wait, Mr. Speaker, is a risk that we should not take. I cannot guarantee, as I have said over and over again, I certainly cannot guarantee that we will be able to completely and totally seal the borders from people who should not come into the United States; but I can guarantee this, that we have to try. We have to try. Just because people steal from banks and do so successfully almost every day in this country does not mean that we should leave the money on the counter. Simply because they do it, why should we try to stop them? Just because they come across the border illegally does not mean we should not try to stop them from coming illegally. And no matter how unpleasant this is to talk about, no matter how difficult it is because, of course, we run into all of these issues, we run into both domestic and foreign policy agendas that conflict with our attempts to deal with border security. Mexico will not like it, I have heard. That is true. The Canadians might not like it. That is true. That is tough. That is tough. It is not the safety of Mexico or Canada that I am primarily concerned with here, but it should be their concern also because in the total scheme of things, we are all in this boat together. It is not just the United States Government that these terrorists want to topple and our way of life they want to destroy; it is the West's way of life and Western Civilization that poses a threat to them by its very existence. Our Nation, I believe, suffers as a result of massive immigration, and has for years. I was here long before September 11 talking about immigration and my concerns with regard to massive immigration, legal and illegal. I think there are major problems for the United States as a result of it. But regardless of the cultural issues, the quality-of- life issues as a result of huge population growth, all brought on by immigration, and some of those old figures that I used to use, not old, just figures I used to use here before September 11 when I used to concentrate on sort of the demographic problems of immigration, massive immigration, showing that by 2050 we may reach, if things go as they have been for the last several years, according to the Census Bureau, if our population grows at exactly the same rate as it has been growing for the last couple of decades, that by the mid- century, we will be at the half-a-billion mark in this country population-wise; and 90 percent of that increase from now until mid- century will be as a result of immigration, legal and illegal. Believe me, those numbers do not count the kinds of things we have talked about here: 4 million people running around the country who just simply overstayed their visa; they are not even counted in that figure. So regardless of all of that, regardless of the kinds of problems that the Nation faces in terms of resources, resource allocations, the degradation of the environment, and again, the quality-of-life issues that confront people all over this country; talk to people from Los Angeles, if we do not think that the quality-of-life issue is relevant when we talk about immigration. Every time I give this particular speech and I walk back to my office, there are calls, most of which are from California and people saying they are very supportive; some, of course, not so supportive, but most are; and they attest to the fact that there is a quality-of-life issue to massive immigration, huge numbers of people coming across the borders. We cannot sustain it. We cannot build infrastructure fast enough to sustain it, to sustain a high quality of life. Those are the issues that we used to address before September 11. They are still important. They are still meaningful. I wish that we could make the case just on those points alone. But I have never been able to overcome the opposition of the political side of the process here that says, those people will eventually become good members of the Democratic Party, so let us not keep them out, and on the other side here saying, we need them for cheap labor. I have never been able to really wrestle with those two big Goliaths. Those are very tough, very difficult, very powerful interest groups. But now, forget all of that. There is something far more significant and immediate. Those threats I mentioned, those problems were all long- term threats to the health of this Nation and the survivability of the Nation as we know it. But what I am talking about now is, of course, immediate threats to our survivability. I am talking about people who came here for the express purpose of murdering thousands; and they would not care if it were millions, of our fellow citizens. That is why they came, and they were able to come across our borders without the slightest bit of concern; and they were able to stay here, even in violation of our visa laws, without the slightest bit of concern. It is despicable, Mr. Speaker. We cannot rationalize this in any way, shape, or form. And if we can, if anybody in this body can rationalize the past and say well, gee, we just did not know it would ever turn out to be anything like this; although again, prior to September 11, I must say that I and many other Members talked about the dangers to the security of the Nation with having porous borders. But regardless, if one can rationalize in one's own mind that we had to do it that way, that it was really just the altruistic nature of our country that it says ``give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free'' on the Statue of Liberty, all that meant that we had to open our borders, go ahead, rationalize it away; but now, think about the future, think about tomorrow. Think about the unthinkable, the possibility of another event as big as, if not worse, than the last one, and imagine what it would be like having to rationalize their position then and say, I knew it could happen but I chose to ignore it and not vote for immigration reform. Mr. Speaker, I choose not to be in that situation, and I hope a majority of my colleagues will join me in our attempts to reform this system and keep America safe.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight to speak about a couple of topics, in particular, of course, the issue that is always of interest to me and I believe should be to our colleagues and to the American people, and that is, the issue of immigration, the porous nature of our borders and the very devastating effect that has had on the United States literally and figuratively. I want to preface my remarks this evening Mr. Speaker with some observations that I had while I was waiting to address the House. One of the previous hours was taken by the members of the Hispanic Caucus, and they spent their hour dutifully recounting the notable achievements of Hispanic Americans in the United States, both in the military and in other areas; and as I say, dutifully, and it is appropriate that those observations were made and those accomplishments were lauded. As I listened to them, it struck me just how peculiar it is to have such a thing in this Congress. Certainly I think it is not unique here. There are probably State legislatures around the country that probably have a similar entity as a Hispanic caucus. That is a unique thing here, of course, and interesting from a variety of different standpoints. But it brings to mind the problem we are having in this country with trying to integrate into our society all peoples of various ethnic origins. There is to some extent a desire on the part of many people to integrate into our society and do so as quickly as possible as they get here, newly arrived individuals, new immigrants to the American scene, and that is as it has been since the inception of the country. Most people coming into the United States are coming here for reasons that help them adjust to the American scene by disassociating themselves with their past and integrating themselves into the American mosaic. I think to a large extent, although it is understandable, as I say, for individuals to form themselves up into organizations to reflect relatively narrow points of view and attitudes, it is peculiar, I think, to have organizations like that in this body and in other legislative groups around the country, and this all came home to me recently in Denver, when I was asked to speak to a group called the Hispanic Human Resources Association. These are individuals who work in companies throughout the State of Colorado in the capacity as human resource development people. It was kind of intriguing to me when I first got their offer that there was such an organization, first of all, Hispanic human resource administrators. I mean, I think to myself, well, why Hispanic human resource administrators? Why not Greek human resource, whatever, and of course, I wanted to go and speak to them. They wanted to talk to me about my position on immigration, a position, of course, which is very, very unpopular among a number of Hispanic organizations, not so unpopular among many Hispanic individuals who live here in the United States, who themselves see the problems that are created as a result of massive immigration, legal and illegal, but many organizations, of course LARASA and others, who attack my position quite vehemently. They and this group to a large extent reflected that point of view, but I wanted to go and I wanted to debate that point in front of them, and I was there with a representative of another Member of this body, the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette). And although she could not be there that night, she sent a representative, and he and I were the focal point of the evening discussion. At the conclusion of our discussions, a gentleman in the back of the room stood up and he was Hispanic. He said to me that he was concerned about the fact that, as he pointed up to the dais where we were sitting, that he and the other Hispanics in the audience were not represented by the people at the dais. In other words, not by me or by the representative from the office of the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette). And he was very annoyed by that. And he indicated that that was really his problem; that that was a major problem that he has generally with American society, with his particular situation in living in Denver, as I assume he did. And I was extremely interested in that observation because it goes to what I am talking about here tonight in terms of this Hispanic Caucus that exists in the body. I said to him, I am really intrigued by what you say, because what you have suggested is that because I am not Hispanic nor is my colleague, the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette), I cannot represent you and neither can she for only that reason; not because we may not see eye to eye on the issue of taxation or Social Security reform or the degree of support for the military or any of the wide variety of issues that confront us all on this floor day after day after day. No, not for any of those reasons did he feel that he is not represented and could not be represented by either my colleague or myself. He felt that he could not be represented because neither of us, neither my colleague, the gentlewoman from Colorado, nor I, is Hispanic. That was really a fascinating thing in a way, because this is really a problem in our society, Mr. Speaker, I believe, this balkanization of America, this assumption that in order for us to be truly ``represented'' in any body, any legislative body, it can only be someone of our ethnic background. So I said to him, do you know what that means, sir? That means if you are telling me I cannot represent your interests, and I may very well not represent your point of view on a wide variety of issues, because I assume you are a very liberal, sort of maybe a Democrat-leaning individual and I am a conservative Republican, so you are probably right that I do not represent your political point of view, I will give you that. But it is not because I am Italian; it is because I simply do not agree with your issues. But you are also suggesting that my colleague, the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette), does not represent your point of view, even though I will bet you anything that on every single one of your issues, everything that you can talk about, everything that you can possibly come up with as a public policy issue, I will bet you that she agrees with you. But you do not think that is good enough; that she agrees with you on every single public policy issue. You say she has to be Hispanic to represent you. Well, of course, what that means is that you cannot represent me. You could never represent me; not because you do not believe what I believe, but because you are Hispanic and I am Italian. I mean does that make sense to anybody here? Do we really believe that that is the way we ought to determine who gets elected to office, based solely on their ethnic background? And yet that is what this is all about. We draw lines. We are in the process now around the country of redrawing district lines for the Congress of the United States. And, interestingly, we continue to think about and courts continue to adjudicate lines drawn to protect specific minority groups so that minority groups, black and Hispanic, can have their representation here. But, of course, that begs the question, does the color of our skin make us incapable of responding to the needs and desires and wishes and attitudes of our constituency, if it is not the same color as the majority of the people who live there in that particular district? This is a very dangerous thing, Mr. Speaker. And I do not blame my colleagues for getting up here tonight and extolling the virtues of Hispanic Americans. They are wonderful people, and I certainly join them in their praise of the accomplishments of many people. But in a way it almost makes you wonder why we have to say it in that way. Why do we have to say these are the accomplishments of Hispanic Americans? Is it not just the fact these people did marvelous things and they are Americans? Is that not what we should really be giving them credit for, in order to not create and continue this divide that simply, I think, personally, makes it very difficult for America to succeed in its goal of a united States of America, of a united people of America? I see banners and signs all over. I am sure my colleagues have seen them, too, Mr. Speaker. I saw them on U.S. 66 coming from the airport, great big hand-painted banners people had hung over the overpass and they said ``United We Stand.'' Let us be united. That was kind of the underlying theme of all of these banners I saw; that we were united as a people against the threat of international terrorism. That is exactly what we have to be. There is no two ways about it. We must be united in order to confront this threat and to be successful in that confrontation. It does not help us, I think, in our quest to be united to constantly be reminded of our differences, again be they ethnic or religious or anything else. It is problematic from that standpoint; it is detrimental to American interests. And I worry about the degree to which this affects our culture, and I worry about the fact that it has an impact certainly on this body and it has an impact throughout the country. Again, what an odd thing, in a way. I wonder what the founders would say, Mr. Speaker. I would be fascinated to know what the founders of the Nation would have said if during their deliberations on the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence someone were to have suggested to them that it would be important to add a provision in the Constitution that assured that every ethnic group that one could possibly identify in the United States should have a special area in the country where they are highly populated, have that special area cut out and have a representative of that ethnic group especially for them. I wonder what they would have said about that. I wonder if they would have suggested that that was ``a good idea'' for American democracy. I do not think so. As I say, I mentioned to that gentleman that night that it was wrong, I believe. And by the way he responded and he said, are you telling me you really think we should not have separate groups to represent our points? I said, you are right, if what you are telling me is that your point of view needs to be represented by someone of a particular ethnic background. Then I am telling you I am opposed to that. I am totally opposed to that. I am Italian American, 100 percent Italian American; but I will tell you this, I would no more cast my vote for another Italian American simply because he or she was Italian than I would cast a vote blindly. Because it depends on what they think, what they believe, who they are politically. That is how I would vote. I know people in the State of Colorado for whom I have voted, Lilly Nunez, who is a lady I have known for 25 years, and who I nominated for national committee woman from Colorado; Bob Martinez, who I supported for national committee man. I did so not because either one of those two people are Hispanic, but because they were Republicans and they were the kind of Republicans that I wanted to see in power, in place. They were conservatives. And that is the only thing that really matters to me. It is not their ethnic background. But if I were to live by the dictates of the folks who come in here and form these caucuses and develop these groups and keep trying to divide America into these various balkanized States, then I would say, no, I could not possibly, evenly though I know Joe and Lilly Nunez very well, and I believe that they are solid Republicans, I could not vote for them because, gee whiz, they are Hispanic and they could not really represent my interests. That is idiotic. But that is the point of view that these organizations want us to proceed upon, and they go into court throughout the Nation and try to get courts to adjudicate this redistricting issue on their behalf so that they will cut up districts in order to have representation of a specific ethnic group. And I think that is abhorrent. I was struck by that, as I say, as I was listening to the debate tonight. Once again, please do not misunderstand me or misconstrue what I am stating here tonight. I absolutely agree with and lend my voice to the adulation for all of the accomplishments of the Hispanic individuals they mentioned. The Americans they mentioned. The Americans. No hyphen. The Americans. They did extraordinary things, the 38 members they identified; winning the congressional medal of honor. I say God bless every single one of them. The Nobel prize, and the various other things they were talking about. God bless every single one of those people for what they did for America as Americans. And that is the way they should be remembered. Now, let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that we are confronted by an incredible dilemma this evening on the floor of this House and as a Congress of the United States, and that is how to construct the most powerful alliance that we can possibly think of in order to confront the terrorists who have perpetrated such heinous acts on the United States on September 11. The spawn of evil is the way I identify these people. It seems to me that there are some interesting things that we confront in that particular endeavor; and one is, as I say, trying to build a coalition of countries who will help us in a variety of ways: Contributing armed forces, contributing financial support, agreeing to do something within their own financial systems to stop money from being transferred among and between these organizations, share with us intelligence information, help us maintain some sort of integrity on our borders. All of these things are the signs of what a friend would do. It is interesting to me, and I think it elucidates the problem that we are having around the world when we talk about one particular ``friend'' of the United States and what they are doing for us, and that ``friend,'' and I put that in quotes again, is Mexico. Mr. Speaker, after September 11, literally scores of nations immediately rushed to our support, promised various degrees of help and support. But one was conspicuous by its absence, one of our friends. One of our neighbors was conspicuous by its absence in support for our endeavors, and that, of course, was the country of Mexico. Now, if my friends in the Hispanic Caucus here tonight really want to do something for the United States, then let me make a suggestion to them because they have chosen again to form themselves up into this specific sort of ethnic group. Let me suggest to them that this is a very positive role that group can play. Instead of trying to divide America, separate America, it seems to me that they could make a plea to the Mexican Government and to Vicente Fox. On behalf of the Hispanic Caucus in the Congress of the United States, it would have been heartwarming to hear them say, President Fox, please give the United States the support we need in order to defend ourselves against these terrorists. Please do not hold back any more. Please try to overcome the objections within your own government, which have been noted in the paper here several times, and be forthcoming and bold in your willingness to help the United States. This is an article which appeared in the Washington Post on September 26. Mexico City, September 26, President Vicente Fox fighting charges that he has been lukewarm in reacting to terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. He came to the United States and sort of wanted to do some damage control. Fox's comments in the speech Tuesday followed a period of uncharacteristic quiet from the usually loquacious Mexican leader who had made friendly relations with Washington a trademark of his 10-month old administration. After calling President Bush and offering public condolences after the attacks, Fox seemed to focus on domestic Mexican issues, at least in public. And despite months of globe trotting and talking about how Mexico wants a greater role in foreign affairs, the article goes on to say, there was no trip to the rubble of the World Trade Center, no photo op of the dos amigos at the White House. In response, some Mexicans called Bush and Fox distant friends. An editorial in London's Economist magazine asked whether Fox was a ``fair-weather friend.'' Since the attacks, it says, Fox has been in an uncomfortable spot. Voices from the Mexican Congress, intellectuals and the public have long made it difficult for the Mexican Government to be seen as too supportive of the United States. Mexico has a tradition of avoiding getting swept in the U.S. policies and refusing to intervene in foreign conflicts. Nationalism often has been defined as anti-Americanism, anti-Americanism from our neighbor to the south. Refusal to provide the support that we should expect from our neighbors and friends. Refusal to provide the support that one would expect from a country for which the word trust was used over and over and over again during President Fox's visit here to the United States. He must have used that 10 times during his speech to this body. We need to trust one another he said, over and over again. Well, President Fox, if the Hispanic Caucus will not bring this to your attention, then let me. If you want to develop that trust that you ask for, there are things we can do. You can help us first of all by securing our border, our mutual border, our common border. Help us in defending that border against incursions. Help us in stopping the traffic of illegal aliens across that border, whatever nationality, wherever they come from. Mr. Fox, you recognize the problem, I would say to him, Mr. Speaker. You recognize the problem in your own country, where you have not too long ago ordered the military, the Mexican military, to go down and defend the border between Mexico and Guatemala from incursions of Guatemalan immigrants whom you identified as people that had to be kept out because of the problem they caused in Mexico. Now, in doing that, President Fox, I would say, I do not challenge you. You make the decisions that are necessary for the well-being of your country. So then help us, I would ask him, help us in doing exactly the same thing on your northern border. Of course, he is constrained from doing that, Mr. Speaker, because the politics inside Mexico are such that he could probably never get away with such a statement. The article in the Post goes on to say, Carlos Fuentes, Mexico's best known novelist, also weighed in noting his concern that the declared U.S. war against ``an enemy without a face,'' could bring civilian casualties. Fuentes reminded Mexico of its independence from its powerful neighbor, saying in widely published comments, quote, ``we are partners of the United States, not their hangers-on.'' The newspaper Reforma drew a scorecard. This is fascinating, Mr. Speaker; and I really hope our colleagues pay close attention to this. This is a Mexican newspaper called Reforma. It drew a scorecard of how supportive 15 countries have been for Bush. Mexico came in second from last, tied with China, slightly above Iraq and Cuba. The rankings were based on 10 signs of solidarity such as holding a national moment of silence, visiting Bush, granting permission for the use of military bases or air space. We have refused so far to make a public issue of this lack of response on the part of our southern neighbors because I think we do not want to embarrass them or ourselves. I think the President has not asked President Fox for overt shows of support, signs of support, because he knows he cannot get it from President Fox. He knows that the Mexican people do not support it. Now, Mr. Speaker, I would very much have appreciated hearing tonight from the Hispanic Caucus on the floor of this Congress how they were going to deal with this issue, again, since they choose to form themselves up in that kind of an organization, it is fair for me to ask. Why will they not talk to the President of Mexico and your colleagues down in the Mexican Congress and ask them to provide the same sort of support to the United States that Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay have provided? Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, that the countries I have just noted were listed in the paper today. As I was flying in, there was a map of the world and they were listing the countries of the Americas that had helped the United States. Canada, of course, add to that list. And the ones I just mentioned, those were identified as being, to the best of my recollection, those were identified as being the countries in the Americas that had come forth and helped us in our time of need. One was, again, conspicuous by its absence, Mr. Speaker. Where was Mexico? Where is Mexico in this dispute? Here are excerpts from Mexican newspapers. Many Mexican newspapers reacted to the first strikes by the United States and England against Afghanistan by criticizing U.S. President George Bush and questioning Mexico's governmental support. Daily La Jornada printed an editorial saying that the attack was ``not about justice or international law. It was a unilateral and arbitrary act of revenge.'' An editorial called the act ``Bush's holy war'' and said it is the start of a war in which Mexico has no moral, political, or military reason to participate. I want to repeat that, Mr. Speaker. This is the editorial in La Jornada, a daily in Mexico. It is the start of a war in which Mexico has no moral, political or military reason to participate. The murder of 6,000 innocent people in the Trade Towers and the planes that were used as missiles does not create a moral dilemma for Mexico according to this. Well, what in the name of God would if that does not do it? The newspaper Excelsior said, ``Mexico should not distance itself from its political tradition of rejecting war to resolve even the most difficult international controversies.'' The Daily added that Vicente Fox's government ``voiced its support of the actions of the U.S. and Great Britain.'' Hopefully, it said, ``that was not an effort to appease the Bush Government.'' The Bush Government. La Cronica de Hoy printed in its editorial page, quote, ``They will start two wars. One of the U.S. against the Taliban and one based on threats. In the first missiles are launched at targets that fail to feel the power and courage of the most powerful Nation.'' An editorial in that La Jornada was the strongest yet, saying it is not necessary to go back decades to see the moral similarity between the U.S. Government and its current enemy at the moment, covert acts of censorship and lies. This paper in Mexico compares the United States with its current enemy. We, I guess according to this paper, are similar to the Taliban, similar to the bin Laden organization, al-Qaeda. Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on here with these quotes from Mexican newspapers. Suffice it to say that our friend in the south is not showing us that degree of trust that was called for by its President when he was here. Nor, Mr. Speaker, should we extend any trust under these conditions. Street vendors, I am told, in Mexico are selling T-shirts that say essentially in Spanish, ``Go Taliban.'' I am told that the sales are brisk. For night after night I have come on this floor, Mr. Speaker, and I have talked about my concerns with massive immigration; and I continue to raise those concerns tonight because I believe that this is a significant problem for the United States, that a country to our south that contributes the greatest bulk of the immigration to the number of immigrants to the United States with this kind of attitude, this is not really all that healthy for the United States. We find ourselves in a difficult position if these are the attitudes that these people bring with them. I do not know that they are. My concern is that they may be. And I am also concerned about simply the numbers. It is the massive numbers coming from any country. In this case it is Mexico. But the massive numbers make it very difficult for integration to occur. It only exacerbates the problem of the divisive nature of these debates. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, let us go ahead and talk about the political reality of massive immigration. One reason we have it, one reason we cannot stop it, one reason why it is so hard to get people to address it is because there are political ramifications to it. One party enjoys a great benefit as a result of massive immigration. People become citizens in the United States, or even if they do not, many of them still vote illegally. We have cases of that popping up all over. Just recently one of the groups of terrorists or it is one in the group of terrorists had actually voted in United States elections twice and was not a citizen, needless to say. So it is not hard for voter fraud to occur. We do not know the extent to which it occurs, but I think it is significant. At any rate, people come here and are attracted to one particular party who promises, more than anything else, government largess; and that is one reason why we cannot stop immigration, legal or illegal. I hate to say it, Mr. Speaker, but I believe with all my heart that we have a serious problem as a result of porous borders and our unwillingness or inability or a lack of desire to actually create borders with integrity. I have said this before, and I will say it again. If, God forbid, another event were to occur in this country of the nature of the September 11 events and if those events were perpetrated by people who came across our borders illegally, snuck into the United States, or were here on visas that were extended, overextended, or were here on visas that were violated because they were not doing what they were supposed to do or were here because we let them in because even though they have been associated with terrorist organizations, right now, Mr. Speaker, that by law, by a law we have, that is not enough to keep them out. If they put down on a piece of paper, yes, I am a member of al Qaeda, that does not mean we could keep them out right now. We asked for the ability to do that. The administration sent a bill to the Committee on the Judiciary to ask for the ability to do just that, and it was turned down, it was watered down in order to get bipartisan support. So we have this problem. We have open borders, essentially. We have right now almost a quarter of a million people living in the United States who have gone through the system and been found guilty of violating their visa, or guilty of some law, the violation of an American law, and they were ordered to be deported, Mr. Speaker, but they are still here. A quarter of a million people have been ordered deported but are simply roaming the country because the INS chooses not to go after them. I will say this again, that if anything else happens and it is the same sort of situation, somebody else coming into this country and doing that and we choose to do nothing about securing our borders, not only are we irresponsible in this body but we are culpable. We look to do everything we can. We go to country after country asking for support. We look to cut off their money supply. We look to destroy their infrastructure. We look to every single way there is to try and stop terrorists from perpetrating heinous acts, their acts of hatred on this country, but we are afraid to do one thing. We are afraid to actually begin to control our own borders, because there is a political problem here, a political issue. I think that is despicable. No one should care about how these people will eventually vote. No one should care about whose party would be more benefited by the massive numbers of people coming across our borders. What we should care about is the safety of the Americans here of every race, religion, creed, color. We should be concerned about every single Hispanic American here, citizen, every single black American, every Hindu, Muslim, whatever, I do not care what. That is our main concern, Mr. Speaker. It is not some political need to keep these borders open that we should be concerned about. And if that concern overrides our major responsibility as a country, as a Federal Government, then I say shame on us, because our responsibility is here clear. The Federal Government has one responsibility, primary responsibility. It is more important than health and human services, it is more important than the Department of Education, the Department of Interior, the Department of Transportation. It is more important than all of that. It is to protect the lives and property of the people in this country. That is it. That is our main goal. Everything else pales in comparison. If we refuse to take that one step that would help in that direction, and I am not suggesting for a moment that even if we seal our borders, we would be absolutely able to be sure, positively, undeniably we will never have another attack of this nature, certainly I cannot say that, but I can say this, we will lessen the chance. And I will dare anyone, I challenge anyone to stand up and explain to me how we can possibly keep open borders under these circumstances. I just simply do not understand it. But we will do it, Mr. Speaker, unless the people of this Nation rise up in a loud voice and let their representatives know that they are concerned, more concerned even than the political problem of closing down the border, the political ramifications of such a thing. Again I ask my friends in the Hispanic Caucus, please send a message to our friends, if they are friends, in Mexico. We need their help. It is not just our Nation we are trying to protect. It is civilization. It is not just our morality that we are trying to defend, it is the morality of civilized men and women all over the world. And we need their help. The sign of a friend would be to say, we put aside all these regional differences now, we know that there is something bigger, more dangerous that affects us all, and we will help you secure your border, America, and we will do something else: If the Arab nations that control OPEC, if they attempt to blackmail the United States again by raising the cost of oil, we will sell you oil from our state-owned oil company at lower prices, and we will look to see everything we can do in terms of intelligence gathering to help you in your efforts to quash al Qaeda and any of the other organizations that are designed for the purpose of bringing death and destruction to the United States and the Western hemisphere and civilization. Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil. Can their efforts be any more in common with ours than Mexico? But they understood that there is a moral dimension to this that extends all the way through and across their borders. How could we not expect the same from our, quote, trusted neighbor in the South? It is not just our safety that I plead for their support on, it is their own. It is civilization itself that is threatened, make no bones about this. This is not just a war between the United States and Osama bin Laden, or al Qaeda or any of the other various individual terrorist groups. This is a war about whether civilization as we know it, where free thought and individual freedom reign, will be overtaken by the darkness of a barbaric time. So it is in your interest, Mexico, not just ours, to help in this endeavor. Until that happens, I do not believe we can call you a trusted friend.

Mr. TANCREDO

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

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Blumenauer-Tancredo amendment. It is a narrowly drawn measure that eliminates a one-phrase loophole in the Animal Welfare Act. Simply put, it bars the shipment of birds for the purpose of fighting. It is clear. It is not ambiguous. I think that it cannot be used to do anything but what we are saying it should do. Now, I know that if it puts a slight burden on any other aspect of the industry, there are people who are going to be opposed to it and, I assume, or I suppose that that is proper from their point of view; but I think that it is not that much of a burden that it would prevent this amendment from being effective, from actually doing what it simply says we should do, that these birds should not be shipped across State lines for this horrendous purpose. It does not affect the ownership of the use of birds for show or the legitimate transport of birds for agricultural purposes. It strikes the provision that permits transporting birds for the purpose of fighting, the purpose of fighting, to States in which cockfighting is legal. This particular activity is rampant, in part, because of the Federal loophole that allows birds to be transported for this activity. This loophole will be closed if this passes and, up to this point, it has served to undermine local law enforcement in trying to enforce their own State laws against this practice. Illegal and violent activities often accompany cockfights, such things as gambling, money laundering, assaults, and even more serious, murders. Most of the money made in this activity is illegal. Gambling tax evasion is rampant. The activity itself of cockfighting is inhumane and barbaric. It is not just a human issue, it is a serious law enforcement issue. Over 100 law enforcement agencies have endorsed this amendment. This is not an attack on a way of life but, rather, an attack on a criminal activity and a way to help law enforcement do their own job in their own States. Mr. Chairman, I urge support for the Blumenauer-Tancredo amendment.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, it is once again my opportunity to address this body about an issue of great concern to me. It is an issue, of course, that I have been dealing with for quite some time. It is an issue that has taken on much more significance after the events of September 11; but it is an issue, nonetheless, that held and should have held our attention before that time. I am talking about the issue of immigration and the fact that this Nation for now at least for decades has embarked upon and embraced a concept that we have referred to often as ``open borders.'' Amazing as that is to many of our countrymen, there is still a philosophy, it is still a general sort of pattern of discussion in this body and around the country, think tanks, entities like The Wall Street Journal and others, to continually press this concept of ``open borders,'' even in light of all that has happened to us since September 11. It is a dangerous concept. It was dangerous before September 11, and it is dangerous today. My colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), addresses the issue of workers that have been laid off, workers that have been denied jobs; and now, as a result of these horrible events of September 11 have lost their jobs. But let me point out that before September 11, even before the September 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. job cuts announced in 2001 exceeded the 1 million mark. In this article, they give us a partial list. It goes on for four pages of the companies that had laid off employees, again, even before the attacks on our country on September 11. Lucent Technologies headed the list on this one with 40,000. Since then, I understand, they have announced that another 20,000 people would be laid off. Nortel Networks, 30,000; Motorola, 28,000; Selectron, 20,850; and it goes on to over 1 million Americans having been laid off before September 11. Now, of course, everyone knows what has happened in America and especially to the airline industry since September 11. Hundreds of thousands of Americans more have been laid off. It is not just of course the men and women who have been laid off in the airline industry directly, it is the thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands that we may be approaching here very soon that have been laid off as a result of the fact that the airline industry is down. I do not know at this point in time, as of today, as of this moment, what our unemployment rate is; but I will hazard a guess that when it is announced by the Labor Department, the most recent figures will show a significant jump. And I do not think that is much of a task to predict something like that. I say to my colleagues in this body and I say to the administration, when we are presented with the administration's plans for an economic stimulus package, when presented with the plans to deal with the unemployed, I know I have heard already of plans in the works to extend unemployment compensation to all of these people who have been laid off, and I have heard various other kinds of comments. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) talked about doing something with health insurance. All of that is admirable, but why will we not deal with one very basic problem, and that is we have had for almost 4 decades essentially porous borders, borders that really do not exist. We have faced a flood of immigration that has never before in this Nation's history been paralleled. Nothing we have seen in the Nation's history, not even in the, quote, heyday of immigration in the early part of the 20th century, not even then did we see the kind of numbers that we have seen in the last 3 or 4 decades. Right now we admit legally into this country about 1 million people a year, and we add to that another quarter of a million that come in under refugee status. But, of course, that is just the legal immigration, which is four times higher on an annual basis than it ever was during the heyday of immigration into this Nation in the early 20th century, the early 1900s. Four times greater. We are looking at four times the number of people coming into the country legally, and who knows how many are coming across our borders illegally; but I would suggest that it is at least that many every single year. The net gain in population of this Nation as a result of illegal immigration is at least a million. I have seen estimates far higher, of 3 million, 4 million. The INS does not really know and does not really care. The INS is a coconspirator in this immigration flood we have had. The INS considers itself not to be an agency that protects the border, that keeps people out who are not supposed to come here, that finds people who are here illegally and deports them, that finds people who are here even legally and have violated the law under their visa status and deports them. The INS does not consider itself to be an agency designed to do that job I have just described. Mr. Speaker, the INS considers itself to be, and I quote from an INS official I was debating on the radio in Denver a couple of months ago, and during the question period by the moderator who said to her why does the INS not essentially round up people. She said because that is not our job. She said, Our job is to find ways to legalize these people. Astounding as that might sound to the majority of Americans who are listening, to the people in the INS, that is the culture. Mr. Speaker, to suggest to them that their responsibility, an equal responsibility at least, is to keep people out of the United States who have not been granted a visa, who are not legally coming here under any sort of immigration status, to suggest to them that that is their role and that they should perhaps do something about the number of people who have come in illegally, we should find them, send them back to their country of origin, we should find an employer who employed them knowing that they are here illegally. Instead of thinking that is their job, they say their job is to essentially help these people find a way into the United States, and once they get here, find a way to make them legal. This is incredible, Mr. Speaker. It is almost beyond imagination that this is the perception and this is the culture inside the INS. Almost every single day I am confronted by another horror story that makes this one pale in comparison in terms of the corruption inside the INS, in terms of the culture that exists inside that agency, and of course with the acquiescence of the Congress. I do not for a moment suggest that we have not played a role in this corruption. We have essentially allowed the INS to do what they do, to abandon their responsibility, to thwart the law. We have allowed them to do so because in this body there has been, I am not so sure it is as prevalent as before September 11, there is a philosophy of open borders. There are a lot of reasons why we have found ourselves in this particular situation. Some of those reasons are quite political in nature. It is very possible that if we encourage massive immigration from certain areas of the world these people will eventually become citizens of the United States. Certainly their offspring who are conceived and born here in this country, I guess I should just say born in this country, will become citizens of the United States via the way we grant citizenship here, and therefore able to vote. There is a perception if we can get millions and millions of these people here, keep them here long enough to establish families, they will all become part of one particular party. That is, frankly, why we saw in the last administration a push, if Members remember correctly, to get as many people legalized and citizens awarded so they could vote in the election for the past President. Well, that is one reason why we have such massive fraud in this whole area of immigration. Another reason is because again it is the culture inside of the INS, and it is abetted by another aspect of our society and that is, of course, businesses, large businesses and small, that employ immigrant workers, some legally here, some illegally here. Before I go into the numbers that I came across today as a result of having a very interesting and disturbing meeting with two people, American citizens both who have been laid off of their jobs and replaced by foreign workers, H-1B visa recipients, specifically, before I get into that story I want to relate to this body an actual conversation I had last night with someone who chooses to keep his name secret but is involved in the judicial process with regard to immigration. This person has had a lengthy period of time working in his particular capacity dealing with immigration. He is part of our legal system. He called me to tell me of his great and incomprehensible frustration, the frustration that he feels every single day, recognizing the fact that although our judicial system is set up to address the issue of people who are here illegally or people who violate their status while they are here, and orders are entered to send them back, that it does not happen. These people are not sent back. Now, could it possibly be true, Mr. Speaker, what this gentleman told me? He said that there are presently almost a quarter of a million people in the United States who have gone through the system. There has been an adjudication, there has been a determination by a court of law that these people have violated their status. They have violated the law of the land. Either they have overstayed their status under the visa, or they were here doing something that the visa did not allow, or in fact they committed crimes against this country, crimes that had nothing to do with immigration, regular old run-of-the-mill crimes like felonies, like robberies, like murder, like muggings, and that when they go into immigration court, because they are here as an immigrant, because they are here under a visa status, they do not face the same system of justice that an American citizen would face. Mr. Speaker, could this be true? Mr. Speaker, let me say that the person who told me this should know. I am going to establish that as a fact tonight. I am at least going to make that challenge. I am going to challenge anyone who disagrees with what I have just said, that there are almost a quarter of a million people here in the United States who have been found guilty of a crime. They are here as guests of the United States under a visa process, a quarter of a million who are wandering around who have never been returned to their country of origin; and the reason is because that duty, that job, that responsibility, is one that we turn over not to the Department of Justice, in a way it is the Department of Justice because its a subset of it, but it is not to the police department, it is not to the regular court system. They do not come before a Federal, district, or county court. They come before an immigration court. The immigration court can and almost always does when they violate the law say you are going to be deported. We repeal the immigrant's status here. The immigrant's legal status, we withdraw it. Guess what happens, Mr. Speaker? Again I challenge any of my colleagues here on this floor or in this body to prove me wrong. A quarter of a million of these people have simply been ignored by the INS. They have chosen to simply ignore the situation. In fact, I am told that many times attorneys for the INS who are supposed to be on our side in these proceedings, they are supposed to come in and give the Government's position, they end up becoming a defense attorney for the plaintiff. Either that, or I am told they are so incompetent, so incapable of actually mounting a prosecution that the whole thing is a farce. Now I do not think that most people in America understand or know this. I do not think that most of my colleagues in this body know what I am saying tonight. But some do. Some know that it is absolutely true because I was talking to a colleague tonight earlier and I was relating this story. I was saying is this possible. This colleague happens to be a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, and more specifically a member of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims. As is often the case when I get into a discussion like this, I find that I am always being one-upped. When I start telling somebody a story like this, they say, well, listen to this. This gentleman told me about a conversation he had had with a magistrate in the immigration court because I had indicated if what I said was true and if people could come to the United States, commit crimes and essentially walk away without any kind of punishment because they are in this never-never land of immigration court, it is far better to commit a crime in the United States as an illegal alien than as a citizen of the country. As a citizen, you will face a judicial process that has some integrity, at least we can hope, and if you violate the law and if you are found guilty and if the judge chooses and a jury agrees, you can go to jail. In an immigration court, that is not at all the case. In an immigration court, you are oftentimes told, well, you will be deported for this act. But, of course, unless the INS actually takes some part of this, comes in afterwards and says, okay, this person is to be deported, we will see that he or she is deported and we will watch to make sure they do not come back. Unless that happens, you are free to wander the land and do what you want to do. And a quarter of a million people today in this country are in that status, having been adjudicated, having been found guilty of violating their status and are simply walking around the country, free to do what they want to do, because the INS chooses not to deal with it. I was in the process of telling you about a conversation I had with another Member who said, that is nothing. Listen to this. I heard from a magistrate that something had been happening in his court. When people recognize what I have just described, this scam, and the charade that we call immigration courts, it does not take too long for people to figure out how to work the system. He said that a magistrate told him that before him had come somebody who had been born in the United States, his parents had been born in the United States, his grandparents had been born in the United States. This fellow was a citizen of the United States. He had robbed an old lady, beaten her up, stolen her purse. He was arrested. Evidently not his first offense, by the way. When he was arrested, he had no identification on him. He said to the arresting officer when asked why he had no identification, he said, ``Because I am here illegally. I am not a citizen of this country.'' They, of course, the arresting officers, took him to a Federal court, to immigration court, at which point the magistrate said, I will give you a choice of either serving time here or returning to your country of origin, which he said was Mexico. Naturally the defendant said, ``All right, Judge, I'll go back home. I'll take your severe punishment. I'll go back home.'' They put him on a bus, which is, by the way, more than happens most of the time. At least putting this guy on the bus was a step up, because most of the time they turn around and walk away, without any action. But they put him on the bus, they took him to the border and they said, okay, good-bye. His slate was at that point wiped clean. He then went to a phone, called his mother in the United States and said, Mom, bring me down my ID. She dutifully got in the car, drove across the border, brought him his ID. He then, of course, came across the border as the American citizen he was, showed them the material, he came in now under a different name, his own name but as an American citizen. No problem. The slate has been wiped clean. And another travesty occurs. I am told by the gentleman today that this judge who told him the story said this has happened many times in his courtroom, because, of course, people have found a way to scam the system. It really does not take, quote, the proverbial rocket scientist to figure this out. If it is better to be an illegal alien in this country when you commit a crime, then why not pretend you are an illegal alien to escape justice? Or why not just be an illegal alien and commit the crime? You will not do the time. The gentleman that called me last night went on at great length about the corrupt nature of the system, the fact that time and time again, even when bond is posted by these people. By the way, he talked about the fact that drug dealers, I mean big- time drug dealers who bring these people in to transport drugs for them, when they get arrested, the drug dealer puts up the bond, it is just a cost of doing business. The individual bonded out never shows up again for the hearing and is never ever looked for by the INS. I say never. In very few cases. The INS will always tell you, well, it is a matter of resources, we have returned this many, but the reality is this, Mr. Speaker, they do not care for the most part. There are, of course, many people, and I have had them in my office, I have had INS agents come into my office and say, ``Look, I'm afraid of telling this story publicly, but, Mr. Tancredo, you are absolutely right in talking about this and describing the nature of this system. It is corrupt.'' There are many, many people who serve in the capacity of enforcement agents who are trying to do their best on the borders, but what they are doing, Mr. Speaker, is trying to hold back the ocean with a sieve. We could not get much attention paid to these kinds of problems up to this point in time. It has been very, very difficult to get anybody to care. I have talked about it at length on many occasions at this microphone and in the conference and at every opportunity I have had. Up to this point in time, certainly prior to September 11, the response I got was almost uniformly one of, ``Well, we really can't get into that issue, we really can't deal with immigration reform because, you know, Congressman, if we do, we're going to be called racists. If we try to stop the flood of immigrants into this country, you've got a whole huge constituency here in the United States that would turn against us.'' I say, who here legally supports illegal immigration? And if they do, I do not even want their vote. For the most part, Mr. Speaker, I believe that the vast majority of people in this country, of citizens of this country who came here through the regular process, who are legal citizens of the United States, be they Hispanic or Asian or whatever, they agree with us, that we must do something to stop the flood of illegal immigration into this country. But we have this fear, a fear which has paralyzed this Congress, and we are not over it yet, even after the September 11 events. Before I get to that, I want to stay focused on this issue of H1B visas, people coming into this country under a visa program called H1B and the incredible fraud that exists there. I told you that I met earlier today in my office with two people, two people who had been employed, they are part of the statistics in this article. They are just two of the four pages of numbers I have here of people who have been laid off prior to September 11 because of the downturn in the economy. But they were not just laid off because of the downturn in the economy. They were laid off because they were replaced by cheaper labor to do their very same job. They were replaced by people who came here legally under the H1B visa program. Now, for those people who do not know what we are talking about, Members of the House, perhaps, that do not know what an H1B visa program is, I will explain it simply, it is a visa that allows you to come and work in the United States. Usually it is a white collar job under an H1B. There are various kinds of visas that allow you to come in and take other kinds of jobs, more menial in nature, less skilled jobs, but this one, in particular, I am going to talk about for a few moments is called the H1B visa program. Recently, the Congress of the United States raised it. In 1998, the Congress of the United States raised the level, the number of H1B visas that we could grant, from 65,000 a year to 115,000 every single year. At that time, Mr. Speaker, industry representatives told Congress that there were not enough Americans with the necessary skills to fill the jobs that were available. Yet government studies, most notably the Department of Labor, rejected the industry's claims of a worker shortage. After months of negotiation, Congress adopted a temporary increase until 2002 when the annual level would supposedly return to 65,000. The 1998 H1B law also provided some protections against wage depression and job loss for American workers. However, they have not taken effect since the government has yet to issue the regulations to implement the safeguards. Today, despite continuing evidence that there is no high tech labor shortage and with the exception of possible spot shortages, the demand for foreign workers by American technology companies has prompted this body, this Congress, to propose raising substantially annual H1B limits. We were pressured to do so, Mr. Speaker, by businesses and industries which, in turn, came in just recently with these figures. They told us that they did not have enough American workers to fill the jobs, and that is why we had to go ahead and increase the visas in H1B. Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether they actually lied, but I will say this, that they misrepresented the situation dramatically. Because over and over and over again, we have seen cases where people were laid off of their job and were being paid X number of dollars and were replaced by H1B visa recipients paid less money. It was not a matter of not being able to fill the job, Mr. Speaker. It was an unwillingness to pay the price. And so they, of course, recognizing how the market works in these situations, supply and demand works, they increased the supply and, therefore, the wage rates went down precipitously. Now, this has become this massive, massive fraud that is lining the pockets of many millions of people around the world, but not the workers in the United States. One of the perpetrators of this fraud, an organization that I believe could be charged with aiding and abetting the fraud, is the American Immigration Lawyers Association. It has perfected the art of exploiting loopholes and technicalities in the law. They work with what are called body shops that are set up all over the world, India and Pakistan especially, Malaysia. Body shops by the way, Mr. Speaker, that phrase does not relate to any sort of auto work or any other sort of, I guess, any other kind of business. A body shop in this case refers to these organizations like employment agencies. They are set up all over. They bring people in. They give them some sort of fraudulent package of resumes. They construct fraudulent resumes for the people they bring in in India and Pakistan, saying that they have had years of experience in a particular field, which is required under the H1B visa program, to have at least 2 years' experience in the field. So they construct a fraudulent resume. They put these people through a brief, maybe 6-week course sometimes, and award them diplomas and degrees and whatever, and then put them into the H1B program and they charge these people exorbitant fees. There are interesting articles again here to prove that. They charge these people exorbitant fees and then promise them jobs in the United States. Some of them get here, of course, are put into the pipeline, sometimes laid off immediately and end up in jobs that have nothing to do with the kind of work they were supposed to be here, that their visa had cleared them for. There are many articles about that, people coming into the United States to be computer technicians, ending up, of course, as menial laborers in many cases. But many, many thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands of other cases of people coming into the United States under H-1B and taking jobs that Americans had, because they will work for less. There is massive, incredible fraud in this entire program. The fraud in this program, as I say, is rampant. It is widely understood within that community, within the H-1B community, even within the INS itself, that once you get here by an H-1B visa, you will never have to leave. It is sort of the colloquialism in the immigrant community deal with this whole issue of just getting here under H-1B, that you never have to leave. Even if you get laid off, even if you are not working in the kind of job you were originally assigned to, that does not matter, no one is coming after you. Again, it is because the American Immigration Lawyers Association has aided and abetted in this fraud. Mr. Speaker, we have now accumulated literally millions of people here in the United States who should not be here because they have overstayed their visa or in some other way caused an infraction of the visa. They are not working in the field. Mr. Speaker, another part of this, of course, is people who come here under an education visa and are supposedly attending school here. I think we have heard about one or more of these particular kinds of individuals came here to learn how to fly. Some of them attended classes; some did not. When we look into that whole arrangement between the schools that were providing this kind of experience and education and the whole issue of visa fraud, I think we are going to be very interestingly surprised. But the fact is that there are 30 million visas that are allotted annually, 30 million people every year are told they can come into the United States for a certain period of time. These primarily are tourist visas. But then a huge number are in the categories I talked about, work-related or education-related visas. It is my understanding, and once again I am going to state it as a question. Could this be true? A question posed to me by the individual I talked to last night on the phone, who is actually part of the immigration judicial process, if such a thing actually exists? He told me, and could this be true, Mr. Speaker? He told me that of the 30 million visas awarded annually, about 40 percent are violated annually; 12 million people violate their visa status every year, according to this gentleman. I pose this as a question. I do not have information in front of me to substantiate it. But I will tell you once again that the individual that talked to me was an individual who should and in fact I believe with all my heart does know. It was not someone at the lower level of the immigration service or judicial process. Millions of people are here, I think, who have overstayed their visas. I just talked, remember, about the quarter of a million that have already been adjudicated; the 225,000, actually, not quite a quarter million, but that was 1997, so I am sure it is up to a quarter million now, people who have actually gone through the process, been found guilty and not sent back. I am not talking about the millions who are probably here who have never been brought to any sort of court, never found themselves in front of a judge because they overstayed their visa. They just simply stay, and they take jobs. My friends, especially my friends on the other side of the aisle, talk about the need to do something for the unemployed in the United States. Well, I can tell you what to do, Mr. Speaker. You can cut off illegal immigration. You can eliminate or reduce dramatically H-1B and all of the other visa types that come in here. You can put troops on the border and make sure that people do not come across this border illegally. You can overfly the border. You can use sensors and detectors to protect this Nation, not just from those people who are coming without malicious intent, who are coming simply to improve their lives, of which there are millions, and I certainly understand and empathize, but protect yourself also against the people who come here with evil, malicious, or malicious intent. And there are, unfortunately, far too many of them. Today in this body, Mr. Speaker, many Members are still reluctant to deal with the issue of immigration reform. Many Members have told me personally that they agree entirely with everything that I say about this issue, but, after all, dealing with it is another thing entirely. It is not politically correct, and it may be politically volatile. Well, let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that although there are people in this body who do not get it, who do not understand the nature of this problem or the depth of it, who think they can get by; that we can all get by with ignoring this massive fraud that is perpetrated on this Nation; ignore the incredible problems that come as a result of massive immigration, both legal and illegal; ignore the fact that the crimes that were perpetrated on the 11th were perpetrated by people who came here on visas, who were not American citizens, some of whom, as far as we know right now, were not living up to their visa application guidelines, some, as I understand, who may have overstayed. Who cares? Overstayed your visa? Who cares? The fact is that all of these people, and the Members of this body, many of them feel that it is too controversial and we cannot deal with it. But let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the American public knows the truth of this issue. At least they know the problem with illegal immigration. Some of what I have said tonight, certainly I was not aware of it even until just recently, from discussions as I say I have had with people who called or other Members of the House. I had no idea how deeply rooted the corruption in the process, in the whole INS structure and immigration system, really is. But most people know there is something wrong. Although my colleagues in this body may not feel the heat right now, I guarantee you that they will. And they should, because that is the only way change will occur. In a recent Zogby poll, actually September 27, Zogby International poll, it is a survey of likely voters that shows virtually all segments of American society overwhelmingly feel the country is not doing enough. By wide margins, it says, the public also feels that this lack of control in immigration makes it easier for terrorists to enter the country. And, of course, they are absolutely right. Moreover, Americans think that a dramatic increase in border control and greater efforts to enforce immigration laws would help reduce the chance of future attacks. They are absolutely right. It would not necessarily guarantee it, it is true. It does not guarantee the fact. If we were able to seal the border tomorrow, it would not guarantee the fact that we would not be subject to another attack, but it would lessen the chance. To suggest that people can get in even if we try to enforce our immigration laws and therefore we should not enforce immigration laws is like saying, you know, I know there are laws on the books against robbing banks, but people do it, so why do we bother putting the money in the vault? Why not put it on the counter? After all, they are going to rob us anyway. That is about as ludicrous as to suggest we should not try to deal with our borders and close the sieve, because right now people get through. When asked whether the government was doing enough to control the boarders and screen those allowed into the country, 76 percent said the country was not doing enough, and only 19 percent said the government was doing enough. Those 19 percent were probably people who are here illegally and just told the person calling them up on the phone that they were going to be voting. While identified conservatives were the most likely to think that not enough was being done, by 83 percent, get this, Mr. Speaker, 74 percent of the liberals and 75 percent of the moderates indicated that enforcement was insufficient. In addition, by a margin of more than two to one, blacks and whites and Hispanics all thought government efforts at border control and the vetting of immigrants were inadequate. So although this body may not think there is a problem or that dealing with it is politically volatile, Americans do not think there is a problem with dealing with it. They think there is a problem with not dealing with it. They believe and they know, and they are right, Mr. Speaker, that there is a huge problem that we confront as a Nation because of our unwillingness to deal with this concept of immigration control. Again I stress the fact that it goes across political philosophies. It goes across racial lines. It does not matter if you are black, Hispanic, or Asian or white. They feel the same way about this issue, because they are Americans, just like anybody else; and they are worried, just like anybody else, about their own safety. And is that not our responsibility, Mr. Speaker? Are we not the ones charged with the responsibility in this body to develop, among other things, plans and proposals and programs to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense? Is that not our job? And are we not uniquely charged with the responsibility of determining immigration policies? No State can do it, Mr. Speaker. No matter how inundated that State may be, no matter how difficult it may be for them to deal with it, they cannot establish immigration policy. Only this Federal Government can; and, after it is once established, only the Federal Government can enforce it. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that if we ignore this any longer and another event, God forbid, another event of a similar nature as those on September 11 occurs, and occurs as a result of our inability or unwillingness to protect ourselves from people who come here to do us evil, then we are culpable in that event. I, for one, Mr. Speaker, choose to do everything I can and speak as often as I can and as loudly as I can about the need to control our own borders. We talk about the defense of the Nation, the defense of the homeland. An agency has been created for that purpose. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the defense of the Nation begins with the defense of our borders. I reiterate and repeat, the defense of this Nation begins with the defense of our borders. It is not illogical, it is not immoral, it is not even politically unpopular, as many of my colleagues would think. It is the right thing to do. Americans know it. What is it going to take, Mr. Speaker, I wonder, for the rest of my colleagues to come to this conclusion? We have written a bill to deal with terrorism. It got marked up today in the Committee on the Judiciary. As I understand it, although I have not seen the specifics, I am told that every provision we had about immigration control got watered down. That all attempts on our part to deal with the possibility of terrorism, terrorists coming into the Nation, identifying them, detaining them, deporting them, all of those proposals by the administration got watered down so that we could have a nonpartisan or a bipartisan bill come to the floor. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that I will not be allowed to offer an amendment to that bill. I believe that it will come to this floor with a rule that will prevent me or anyone else from offering some of the amendments to tighten up the borders. I am sickened by this possibility, but I think that that is where we are headed, because no one wants to rock these boats. Mr. Speaker, I am willing to do so because I cannot imagine doing anything else. It is my job, it is my responsibility to bring to the attention of my colleagues and the American people, to the extent that I am humanly capable of doing so, the dangerous situation we face as a result of our unwillingness to deal with the concept of immigration control. Tell me how we will face our children. Tell me how we will face the future, Mr. Speaker, if another event occurs as a result of our unwillingness to address the issue of immigration control because we fear the political ramifications thereof. I think, Mr. Speaker, that the only way we will ever change our policies is if the American people rise up in one accord and confront their elected representatives with this issue. Do not be placated by platitudes and do not be assuaged by those people who tell us that we are doing something because we may allow for 7 days of detention of potential terrorists, and that is the whole immigration reform package. Do not listen to it, I say to my colleagues. Demand more. What are the possibilities? I do not want to think of the possibilities of not acting. Think of the seriousness of our deliberations and of the potential consequences of inaction on this issue. They are more than I wish to deal with. I cannot imagine that we will shrink from this responsibility, but that is what appears to be in the wind, Mr. Speaker. All I can do is come here and beg Members to listen to these arguments and to act on behalf of the people of this country who look to us to keep them secure, to ensure domestic tranquility, and to provide for the common defense.

Mr. TANCREDO

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

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, let me say first of all that as I sat here and observed and listened to the comments of my colleague, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis), I am taken with the profound nature and the fact that he has for quite some time been a consistent and articulate spokesman for the concept of a missile defense system, which I certainly agree with him now increases in terms of its importance in the context of the defense of the Nation. I hope he continues to speak on this issue. I hope he continues to be the sort of advance guard for this concept, because, of course, it is one that is being criticized by our opponents. And it needs people like my colleague to defend it. It is striking because, from my own point of view, it is in a way a metaphor for what I want to talk about tonight. The gentleman talks about the danger we face, among other things, and this was just a part of his presentation, but he was talking about the danger this Nation faces from an outside source, from something coming in, crossing our borders, and attacking our cities. And he talks about the need of the United States to prepare some sort of defense against it. I certainly agree with him that that need is great. But it is a metaphor, as I say, for what I wanted to discuss tonight because I believe the issue of something outside of the United States, or somebody, in my case, outside the United States becoming a dangerous missile directed in our direction. Whether in the form of a huge massive piece of steel or in the form of an individual who is willing to give his or her life turning an airplane into a missile, the fact is we must protect our borders. We must defend the Nation against these outside incursions. And although I totally and completely support the idea of a missile defense shield, I must add that there is another thing that we are responsible for here in this Congress, something that we are uniquely responsible for in the Congress of the United States, something no State can individually take on for itself, just as they cannot take on the defense of the country individually State by State, but that they rely upon the Federal Government for that purpose, and that is the Federal Government is solely responsible for the control of our borders, for the control of immigration across those borders. States cannot in any way, shape, or form manage that problem. It is not delegated to them in the Constitution as a responsibility. And, of course, it is not realistic to think that they could take that responsibility on. It is uniquely this body, the Congress of the United States, and the President that have the ability to control that process, entrance into the United States of America. And what more do we need to know? How much more do we have to see before we come to the conclusion that what we have been doing for the last 20 or 25 years in terms of protecting our borders has simply failed us? The people that took over the planes, the people that did all the preparation, the people that did all the planning, all the cells that are operating inside the United States, or those of which we know anyway and those that have been made public, all of them had as members people who were foreigners to the United States, people who were here on various types of visas or, in some way or other, had come into the United States; but they were not citizens of the United States. They had come across our borders for the purpose of doing us harm. And we allowed them to come across the borders. And we allowed them to stay here, even though, by the way, some of them had given us cause to be concerned. In a recent article appearing in the New York Times, of all publications, September 27, the headline is ``Suspects in Hijackings Exploited Loopholes in Immigration Policy.'' The article goes on to describe, it says, For Hani Hanjour, identified as the pilot who flew the jet that rammed into the Pentagon, blending into the American landscape began in Saudi Arabia with a $110 application for a four week English course in California. He had only to prove that he had $2,285 to pay for the lessons along with room and board. He never turned up for class. Two other men the authorities said plowed jetliners into the World Trade Center, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, entered the United States on tourist visas. Even without the required student visa, the men studied at the flight school in Florida. Counselor officers deluged with visa applications say they generally do not have much time to investigate the applicants. Once foreign visitors enter the United States, immigration officers and law enforcement agencies usually have no idea if they are complying with the terms of their visas. United States Immigration officials said the hijackers exploited an immigration system that critics contend is riddled with loopholes. I am certainly one of those critics and have made my concerns with regard to this particular problem known for many months here on the floor of the House. Until September 11, that system was geared to ease the way for commerce, whether in the form of tourism, business or study. Experts on tourism said that security precautions often took a back seat to pressures from industry, the concerns of neighboring governments, and even bureaucratic rivalries in the United States Government. According to the State Department manual for counselor affairs, participating in the planning or execution of terrorist acts would bar a foreigner from getting a visa, but ``mere membership in a recognized terrorist group would not automatically disqualify a person from entering the United States, nor would the advocacy of terrorism disqualify a person from coming into the United States.'' I could go to an embassy in Saudi Arabia, in Syria, in Iran; and I could apply for a visa to the United States, and I could list my membership in a wide variety of terrorist organizations, terrorist organizations that had called for the kind of thing that happened on September 11. But the visa officer in those embassies would not be able to exclude me, would not be able to stop me under the present system of immigration laws we have in the United States from coming here. If this is not unbelievable to you, Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine what we can say that could more clearly define the problem than this. The manual, apparently unchanged since September 11, says that the United States will exclude immigrants who incite for direct terrorist activity but that statements of a general nature that do not directly advance specific acts of terrorism are not automatically a basis for exclusion. Some American investigators have said they believed Mr. Atta, the apparent mastermind of the group, belonged to the Egyptian Islamic jihad, and that he met with Iraqi intelligence officers this year. He apparently entered on valid visas and may have even reentered the country after overstaying his visa on his last trip to the United States. Mr. Speaker, approximately 30 million people obtain visas to visit the United States every year. Thirty million people come into this country via visas every year. Most of them of course are on tourist visas. Some are on business and education-related visas, but 30 million come in. We have some approximation; we think we have a handle on how many overstay or violate their visas, and it runs at about 40 to 45 percent. So that means that 12, 13, 14 million people a year come into the United States, ignore the visa requirements, and simply stay. Do you know what happens to them, Mr. Speaker? You know one of the reasons why such a high percentage of these people can and do violate their visa regulations? It is because nobody cares. It is because no one will take any action against them. The INS will say that it is an overwhelming job for which they are not sufficiently funded. Perhaps so. It is also true that the INS could not care less about the people who overstay their visas. There is a culture, a way of thinking in the INS, I do not know if it is still there after September 11, but I can guarantee you it was there before then and I think it is still there now, that encourages and it essentially abets the criminals who come into the United States, who come in illegally to begin their stay here or eventually become illegal because they overstay their visas. The INS does not care. It is of no consequence to them. In fact, they want to encourage it. Mr. Speaker, I was actually in a debate on the radio with a lady who was the regional officer in the Colorado area for the INS. She may have been the public affairs person. She was asked by the host of the program I was on, why is it that the INS does not actually arrest and deport all of the people who are here illegally? Why do they not essentially find them, round them up and send them out of the country? I thought it was a very logical question. By the way, this was before September 11. And she said because that is not our job. She said the INS, it is not our responsibility to deport people who are here illegally. Our job is to figure out a way to get them legalized. I have no idea where she read that, what particular set of rules or regulations or under what law she interpreted her role as an INS agent as simply helping everyone in the world become a U.S. citizen. I suggest that is an inaccurate observation on her part. It is the case that most people in the INS, many, I should say, many people in the INS have that same sort of idea. They are infused with this concept of open borders. They believe their real task is to get as many people in here as possible, get them legalized, and have them eventually become citizens of the United States. That is not what I consider their role, but that is what they consider their role. They ignore the 12 to 15 million people who overstay their visas. Nobody checks into it. Hence, we end up with people like the ones that I have just identified who became the hijackers and took the lives of thousands of Americans. They had overstayed their visas, many of them. Nobody cared. Nobody checked. Mr. Speaker, this issue of our ability to control our own borders is extraordinarily important from my point of view. It is true that I have been on this floor many, many hours in defense of a policy that would protect our borders, defend our borders, help us determine who comes in and how long they stay. The right, not just the right but the responsibility of every nation on this planet is to do just what I have described, protect and defend their own borders. Most nations do so, and we do not begrudge them that. Mexico does so. Not 2 months ago Mexico decided to once again put Federal troops, Mexican Federal troops on their southern border with Guatemala. Right before President Fox came here to ask the United States to essentially open our southern border, he made a decision about what was good for Mexico; and he determined that the large number of people coming across the border, the low-skilled people, were causing an economic drain for the Mexican Government, and he determined to put a stop to it. This is not the first time Mexico made that decision. Mexico in the past essentially rounded up immigrants illegally coming into their country, and I mean that in the literal sense, put them in detention camps or sent them north to get them out of Mexico. Yet the President of Mexico comes here and says it is our responsibility to open our border to his people, to his unemployed because, of course, they choose not to deal with the horrific economic problem and social problems that beset that nation. They would rather have the United States be the sort of safety valve that they need to keep their people moving north and sending money south. Mr. Speaker, no one is suggesting, certainly I am not suggesting that the events of September 11 were the responsibility of Mexican immigrants. They certainly were not. They were the direct actions taken by people from the Middle East. But my point is this: we must do everything we can to seal our borders except to those people we determine need to and legitimately have a reason to come into the United States. Just because one of those borders happens to be between the United States and Mexico is not the point. It is not anti-Mexican to suggest that we need to deal with the border any more than it is anti-Canadian to say that we must deal with the issue of a porous border on our northern frontier. It does not matter which country we are separating ourselves from, it is the function of this government, it is the legitimate function of this government to in fact ensure the domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense. That means, among other things, the defense of our borders. Going back to the article that was in the New York Times, it said, ``In spite of elaborate immigration laws and the efforts of the INS,'' which is almost a joke, ``the United States is de facto a country of open borders, the National Commission on Terrorism said in a report last year.'' It is that same report that we now hear spoken of widely as being prophetic. It is that same report that people refer to constantly and say why did we not pay attention. To Mr. Rudman and others who were the authors of the report when they gave it to us, a relatively short time ago, but even before that we had warnings. In earlier reports, in 1997 we had the Jordan Commission Report. The late Barbara Jordan was not considered to be a raving conservative with attitudes so anachronistic in nature. Barbara Jordan was a very outspoken, very articulate, very liberal individual, politically speaking. It was the report she commissioned that talked about the dangerous nature of our porous borders. It talked about a whole bunch of interesting issues, and I certainly commend it to anyone for their review. If they think that this issue is simply one of those right-wing conservative, white men issues, Barbara Jordan, an African American, who understood the problems and the dangers we face in this Nation as a result of massive immigration, legal and illegal, as a result of having borders that are completely and totally porous as a result of being unable to defend ourselves and unwilling to defend ourselves in that particular way. Mr. Speaker, I find myself in a dilemma. It is one with which I have dealt for some time, and it is this: I know that a huge majority, somewhere 75 to 80 percent of the people of this Nation, support our point of view vis-a-vis immigration and immigration reform. A huge majority of the people of this Nation believe that we should reduce immigration, that we should gain control of our borders, that we should do something to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country, that we should do something to make sure we know what people who are here on visas are in fact doing. That we in the United States and the Federal Government should take on our responsibility to protect and defend this Nation by protecting and defending its borders. I know, Mr. Speaker, that a huge majority of Americans agree with this point of view. Believe me, I hear from them. And the dilemma is this: How is it that we can have 75 to 80 percent of the population agreeing that we have to reform our immigration laws and do something to tighten up on the way in which people are able to obtain entrance into this country, why is it that that is the case and that this body is unable or unwilling to reflect that point of view? How is it, Mr. Speaker, that even in light of the events of September 11, that we have a situation where when the administration comes forward with a bill that has relatively few points dealing with immigration and visas, even those points are watered down? I saw today in the paper that this House, somehow it said, the House has agreed on a new antiterrorism bill. Now, no one has asked me about that yet, but it does not matter, the leadership evidently in both the House and the Senate have come to some conclusion about what the antiterrorism bill should include. And when it got down to the point about immigration, it talked about how watered down that bill had become. It talked about the fact that one of the provisions that was stricken from the measure was the ability to detain people who were here, aliens who were here because we believe that they are connected to some terrorist organization, now we have only a certain period of time and they can go to court, all the rest of the stuff. Amazing, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely amazing. We act as though, and we talk as though these people who have come here from foreign countries, whether for good intentions or ill, we talk as though they are American citizens, with the same rights as an American citizen. Mr. Speaker, they are not, by definition, American citizens. They do not enjoy the same rights as American citizens. Just simply being here, simply being within the, quote, borders of the United States, existing here does not confer upon you any of the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. There are some liberal judges who have interpreted this differently, but I suggest they are incorrect in their analysis. I suggest that if we do not say that there is a difference between people who come here and simply get across the border and exist here and those of us born here or obtain legal citizenship status, if there is no difference, then why do we even have the concept of citizenship? Why do we go through the process of having people raise their hand at a point in time when they come across the borders and swear allegiance to the United States and confer upon them citizenship? What does it matter? Why do we not just end the charade and say if you are here, if you have made it across our borders somehow, you get all of the same benefits as a citizen? Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that that is what the founders of the Nation intended. And as a result of the fact that the people to whom we are focusing on, whom we are focusing our issue here tonight and were part of the antiterrorism bill, they were not and are not citizens of the United States and, therefore, have absolutely no, quote-unquote, right to any of the protections that the immigration lawyers and our friends on the other side of the aisle forced into this package. But that is the extent to which we in this body have sunk. We are unwilling to confront the proponents of open borders. We are perhaps even willing to risk the security of this Nation in order to gain a political advantage, a political advantage that would accrue to one party who would gain the votes of these people who eventually became citizens. Now, that is a pretty cynical analysis, but, Mr. Speaker, I cannot, for the life of me, think of what in the world it is other than a cynical reason employed to stop and water down the antiterrorism bill in the area of immigration reform. It is truly amazing. It is almost beyond belief that this could happen today. But it goes to show you the dilemma, the nature of the dilemma that I referred to earlier. What do I do, Mr. Speaker? What can I do other than what I have been doing, to take this floor at every opportunity, to express myself as clearly as I possibly can about the nature of the danger, about the nature of our responsibility in the face of that danger? How much more can I say than has been said? How much more of a statement can I make than was made on September 11 to convince my colleagues that something significant has to change in the way of immigration reform? That is why I take this floor as often as I can and address those who may be listening, Mr. Speaker, and others for the purpose of trying to convince them that pure partisan political motives sink below anything that we believe can and should be done in this body to advance the American cause. I cannot think of any other reason why we are so unwilling to deal with this issue of immigration reform. Even the administration's bill, the original bill, did not go far enough as far as I am concerned, certainly. We should, in fact, impose a moratorium on all immigration for at least 6 months, except for cases of national security. We should give our agencies, the INS, the FBI, immigration authorities throughout the country, we should give them the opportunity to reform themselves, to reconstruct themselves into a true immigration control agency. We cannot do that with something near 300 million people crossing the border, 300 million people annually crossing the border between the United States and Mexico. We cannot do that with 30 million visas being given every single year. Let me talk for just a second about one special kind of visa, by the way, called diversity visas. We came up with these in the early 1900s and we said, you know, there are some countries that just are not sending enough people, some countries from which we are not getting quite enough immigration. And so we are going to give them a special place in line. We are going to set aside 50,000 diversity visas for these countries, and they are, among others, Egypt, Syria, Libya, they are countries throughout the Middle East who benefit from diversity visas. Now, I have no idea if any of the hijackers were recipients of diversity visas, but I have to ask if this is one of those things we are going to hang on to because of some sort of politically correct concept about who should be able to come into the United States. Mr. Speaker, before September 11, there were many people who would even actually openly state that it was their desire to see open borders, not just between the United States and Mexico, the United States and Canada, but open borders throughout the world and that we should be sort of the forerunner in that. You do not hear them anymore. They do not stand up on the floor of this House. They do not even write editorials in the Wall Street Journal anymore. Cato Institute, a very powerful, very influential, libertarian-oriented think tank here in the United States, has for years pushed the idea of open borders. Even they have been, interestingly, quiet in recent weeks. Nobody thinks it is a good idea anymore, Mr. Speaker, to simply walk away from the borders and let anyone walk into this country at any time, stay for as long as they like, do whatever they want, and leave. Nobody thinks that that is judicious. Well, interestingly, we are still at that point, even after the 11th of September. We are still there. That can still happen. And although people do not take the floor to attack the idea of open borders anymore, they still want it. They still advocate the concept, they just cannot do it openly, for fear of the political and social retribution that would be heaped upon them, and deservedly so. There is another article to which I wish to refer this evening. It is written by a lady by the name of Ann Coulter, opinion editorial. She says: ``After the World Trade Center was bombed by Islamic fundamentalists in 1993, the country quickly chalked it up to a zany one-time attack and 5 minutes later decided we were all safe again. We weren't then. We aren't now. They will strike again. Perhaps they will wait another 8 years. Perhaps not. The enemy is in this country right now. And any terrorists who are not already here are free to emigrate. The government has been doing an excellent job in rounding up suspects from the last two attacks. But what about the next attack? We thought there was only one murderous Islamic cell in America the last time. Incorrect. Congress has the authority to pass a law tomorrow requiring aliens from suspect countries to leave. As far as the Constitution is concerned,'' she says, ``aliens, which is to say any noncitizen, are here at this country's pleasure. They have no constitutional right to be here. Congress has, within its power, the ability to prevent the next attack, but it won't,'' she says. ``When the Sears Tower is attacked, the President is assassinated, St. Patrick's Cathedral is vaporized, anthrax is released in the subway systems or Disneyland is nuked, remember, Congress could have stopped it but it didn't. Pious invocations of the Japanese internment are absurd. For one thing, those were U.S. citizens. Citizens cannot be deported. So far, thank God, almost all the mass murderers of Americans have been aliens. But even more blindingly obvious,'' she says, ``there was no evidence that the attack on Pearl Harbor was staged by Japanese saboteurs living in California. The Japanese internment was a pure land grab implemented by liberal politicians, President Franklin Roosevelt,'' and she mentions others here, Governor Warren. ``The internment was vigorously opposed by J. Edgar Hoover. This time, the very nature of the enemy is that they have infiltrated this country and passed themselves off as law-abiding, quiet immigrants. The entire modus operandi of this enemy is to smuggle mass murderers to our shores. But the country refuses to respond rationally. Rather, Congress is busily contemplating a series of `anti-terrorism measures,' most notable for their utter irrelevance to the threat. What precisely would a national ID card accomplish? The hijackers were in this country illegally. A few may have overstayed their visas by a few days, a minor bureaucratic oversight that they surely would have remedied had they not been about to commit suicide in a monstrous attack. One member of the other body,'' she said, ``has bravely proposed that we take the aggressive step of asking aliens in the country to register periodically with the government so we know where they are. That is already the law in Germany. Several of the hijackers in this attack lived in Hamburg. They obediently complied. The mastermind of the most vicious attack in the history of the world, Mohamed Atta, was in Florida on a 'vocational status visa' in order to attend flight school. Let's say Atta had registered. Now what? ``As the entire country has been repeatedly lectured, most Muslims ever amazingly peaceful, deeply religious, wouldn't hurt a fly. Indeed, endless invocations of the pacific nature of most Muslims is the only free speech it is safe to engage in these days. This is a preposterous irrelevancy. Fine. We get it. ``The New York Times can rest assured that every last American has now heard the news that not all Muslims are terrorists. But that is not the point. Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all the terrorists are Muslims, at least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America that leaves 7,000 people dead in under 2 hours. ``How are we to distinguish the peaceful Muslims from the fanatical homicidal Muslims about to murder thousands of our fellow citizens? Are the good Muslims the ones that live quiet lives, pray a lot and obey the laws? So do the architects of Bloody Tuesday's mass murder. Are the peaceful Muslims the ones that loudly proclaim their hatred of Osama bin Laden? Mohamed Atta did that too. ``The only thing we know about them, other than they live among us, is that they are foreign-born and they are Muslims. The government has been remarkably tight-lipped about precisely how many Muslim visitors we are currently accommodating, but from unofficial estimates there appears to be more than 1 million. Even if the Attorney General instigated latter day Palmer raids, it will take years and years to investigate and infiltrate every potential terrorist cell operating on our shores. ``The investigation should not be conducted while the enemy continues residing here, plotting the next attack. It is an extreme measure,'' she says, ``but we face an extreme threat. It is suicidally naive to think we can simply seal off every water supply, all the air vents, food supply and crop dusters from now until the end of time. We cannot search every truck, every passenger, every shopper, every subway, every person entering every building, every American every day. It is impossible to stop Islamic fundamentalists who think that slaughtering thousands of innocent Americans will send them straight to Allah. All we can do is politely ask aliens from suspect nations to leave,'' she says, ``with full expectation of readmittance while we sort the peace- loving immigrants from the murderous fanatics. ``More benefits of the plan next week, but the beauty part of the terrorist deportation plan can't wait. There will be two fail safes. One, Muslim immigrants who agree to spy on the millions of Muslim citizens unaffected by the deportation order can stay, and, two, any Muslim immigrant who gets a U.S. Senator to waive his deportation by name gets to stay. ``This is brutally unfair to Muslim immigrants who do not want to kill us, but it is not our fault. It is the fault of the terrorists who are using their fellow Muslims as human shields. So far, America's response to a calculatingly cold-blooded enemy has been to say, excuse me, you seem to have dropped your box cutter.'' Now, Ms. Coulter's observations are just that, her observations. She is, of course, free to state them. And they are harsh, and I doubt for a second that this body would ever consider such an action as deporting all people who are here as immigrants and who are Muslims. We are not going to do it, and whether that is good or bad I will leave up to the observer. But I will say this, that there are many things we have an absolute right and ultimate responsibility to do. Putting troops on our border, a scary proposition for some, an absolutely logical one for me. Also, I might add, Mr. Speaker, a logical one for a majority of Americans. They agree it should be done. The purpose of the military is to defend our borders. We know where our borders are. Let us send them there. We cannot depend upon the INS to protect us. We cannot depend upon the INS to keep people out of the United States who should not come. We cannot depend on the INS to enforce our own laws. An amazing thing I was told earlier this evening, there are literally hundreds of thousands of orders that have been issued by judges, by immigration judges in this country; orders for the deportation of immigrants who have violated a law, who have come here illegally, or while here have violated some law or have overstayed their visas. Hundreds of thousands of these orders have been issued in the last few years. Yet few, if any, have actually been carried out by the INS. When the judge raps his or her gavel and says you have been found guilty of violating the law and I hereby issue an order to deport you, that person can simply laugh at the judge, turn around and walk away. We do not hold them, and we do not go after them. Now, they can in fact enter an appeal. We do not know exactly how many have done that, but we do know that many have done that and again walked away. We are going to try to find out those numbers, but the INS is very tight-lipped about these things. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have actually put up bond, put up bail, and walked away. They have committed crimes. Some of these crimes are far more serious than simply overstaying their visa or entering the country illegally. Some of these are felonies, and yet the people walk away, because right now the law allows them to do so. And there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of frustrated Americans serving in the capacity of judges and honest immigration officers who are incredibly frustrated by their inability to stop the ocean with the sieve that we have given them. We could do something about that tomorrow. We could determine how many people are out there who have skipped out on bail, who have simply walked away from court orders deporting them and have never been looked for by the INS. The INS will tell you that it is a resource issue, but it is more than that, Mr. Speaker. They do not want to look. They do not care. Some of the time I am told that in some of these cases that come in front of these judges that I have referred to, the immigration lawyer, the lawyer for the government, is actually half the time defending the perpetrator, the plaintiff. And to the judges even, this seems odd and almost incredible, but it is what has happened. For years we did not pay the slightest bit of attention to it. As I say, I and others could get up on this floor and speak to our concerns about immigration, and people really would not want to hear it. Because no one wants to be considered to be racist or xenophobic, and I certainly do not believe that I fall into either of those two categories. I know that I do not. No one wants to be called those things, and so everybody avoided the discussion of the issue of immigration. It is too late for us really, in a way. But at least we must now do everything we can, as I said earlier, if it is building a missile defense system, that is fine; but let us do something before it gets here, before that missile or before anyone with the intent of destroying the United States and everything we stand for. Let us do something about it. Even Ms. Coulter suggested, after her rather Draconian measure is employed, to send, to return all Muslims, to send them all out of the United States, she agrees that they should be allowed to come back in, once some sort of detection mechanism has been set up, once some sort of a system is set up to see if they should be allowed in. I am not advocating that at all. All I am saying is that some measure has to be employed here, some rational approach has to be adopted by this House and by the Senate and signed by the President to deal with this issue of immigration in the poorest nature at our borders. I do not know, as I say, what more we can possibly add to this case that we are making in front of the people of the United States. I do know this, Mr. Speaker, that unless the people of the United States let their elected representatives know how they feel about this issue, things will not change. There is a strong lobby here in the Congress of the United States against any immigration reform. It is led oftentimes by immigration lawyers who make their living, of course, out of making sure that we have open borders or at least pursue a policy, a de facto policy, of open borders. Then there is, of course, a large number of people who simply believe in that concept philosophically; they adhere to it. Even if they are out of touch with their constituents, they are going to vote that way, Mr. Speaker, we both know this, unless they hear from those constituents. That is why when I say I have a dilemma, it is in knowing exactly how to deal with the fact of the incredible irony, if you will, the fact that a huge percentage of the population by every poll agrees with the point of view that I have established here tonight, that some form of immigration reform is necessary, that we should limit the number of people coming into the United States far lower than it is today at a million and a quarter or so legally, and maybe twice or three times that many annually coming, into the United States illegally. People want that reduced. They want illegal immigration stopped. They want us to deal with those people who are here illegally. They do not want them employed. Certainly, there are a lot of employers who understand the fact that it is good business to pay people maybe even less than the going wage, maybe even less than minimum wage, exploit them because they are here illegally, knowing that they cannot do anything about it. Yes, I know there are employers of course who do that. But I am telling my colleagues that a majority of Americans want people to enter this country legally, want us to have a fair system that allows for diversity, that allows us to continue to enjoy the benefits of diversity, all of the great things that immigration has provided to the United States. I would never, ever deny the fact that we are richer as a Nation as a result of the many incredible treasures that have been brought to our shores by immigrants. I do not believe that we should forever end all immigration. I simply ask for us to take a rational approach. Let us pause immigration for at least 6 months, a pause. Let us catch our breath. Let us try to create a true immigration agency, one that can actually determine who is coming across our borders and how long they are here, and determine whether or not they are doing something when they are here that they should not be doing. Is that too much to ask for, really? Is it too much to ask for that we probably should not hand out 30 million visas a year, that we maybe should get rid of the diversity visas directed specifically at Middle Eastern countries? Is that too much to ask for? I am not suggesting Ms. Coulter's remedy. I am saying that far from that, there are many things that we can do, but we must do something. It is incredibly irresponsible for us to ignore the reality here; and the reality is that there are people in this world who are intent upon our destruction. They hate us, Mr. Speaker, for reasons that go far beyond our foreign policy, far beyond the issue of Israel-United States-Palestinian relationships. They hate us because of who we are and what we stand for. Because we are the bastion of Judeo-Christian ideals, among those being the freedom to think. This is not the kind of world, the one we represent is not the kind of world in which these people, these terrorists, are comfortable; nor is it one in which they can survive or thrive. Their brand of hijacked Islam can never survive in our kind of world, because our world puts them into the marketplace of ideas. It asks them to simply advance their ideas through that marketplace. They cannot survive in that arena. They know it. Therefore, they believe that the only way to advance their cause is by the sword, just as it was centuries ago. This is a continuation of that failed concept, of conquest, of moving a religious issue by the sword. They are not unique in the world. It has happened before. There are many times in the world's history where we have seen this kind of thing happen. The fact is that we are dealing with it now, today, in America; and the perpetrators are fundamental, radical members of Islam, as a result of the fact that there are who- knows-how-many millions of people out there who have our destruction as their main purpose and goal in life. Mr. Speaker, several things are important for us to do. One is to understand what I just said, that that is their intent. It is not to change our foreign policy, Mr. Speaker. It is not just to get a respite from the atrocities, from the conflict in the Middle East. It is not just an issue of the Palestinians versus the Israelis. It is far, far more serious than that, far deeper. As I say, its roots go back centuries. Therefore, recognizing that we cannot change it simply by changing foreign policy; recognizing that the mechanisms that can be employed today to bring about our destruction are far more threatening than they ever have been in the history of mankind; recognizing that what happened on September 11 is probably just a teaser, and that the next event could very well be horrendously more devastating. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the chairman of one of the House committees that deals with the issue of security, has said on this floor, said on television, I have seen him, I have heard him and he said more than once, that it is not a matter of if they are going to use weapons of mass destruction; it is a matter of when. Knowing that, then, Mr. Speaker, why would I not do everything I can, stand up here at this microphone as often as I possibly can, to encourage, to cajole, to talk to this body about the importance of doing this one thing: gaining control of our borders. It is the only thing I can do. It is the only mechanism I have. I can introduce the legislation, but I assure the Members, it will not pass. I assure Members it will not even be heard by the committee of reference because there is this kind of knee-jerk reaction to anything like this that it is too controversial, that we would make too many enemies in certain communities in this country. How can we let these things guide our actions today, Mr. Speaker? How can we? It is more important than politics. It is more important than how many votes we are going to get at the next election from any particular ethnic group in the United States. It is for every ethnic group in the United States that I plead. It is for every human being here, from whatever racial origin. It does not matter who they are, where they come from, but if they are here, if they are American citizens, it is they that I plead for. I plead for their safety, for their security, for the security of every Mexican-American who just came here and came legally and is a member, or anybody who is even here illegally, it does not matter, I am pleading for their security. I choose not to identify any particular ethnic group. I know every time we talk about immigration reform, it comes down to this thing. I have read in the paper attacks on me personally because I have called for immigration reform, and the suggestion the other day in the Denver paper, there was someone who wrote an editorial saying, why is he talking about reforming immigration? Why is he talking about shutting off the border? It was not Mexico that attacked the United States. Of course it was not. Who said it was? It has nothing to do with Mexico; it has everything to do with porous borders between Mexico and the United States and between the United States and Canada, and the United States and the rest of the world. That is the problem. It is not any ethnic group. It is our inability to control our own destiny because of our inability and unwillingness to control our own borders. Many philosophers have used the phrase ``demography is destiny,'' many times. I agree. We have an ability to help control our destiny, but it means controlling our borders. Mr. Speaker, I once again take this microphone and once again suggest that the only way we will ever get immigration reform through this body is for people to rise up and let the Members of this body know how they feel about it. They have to do it directly and quickly and vociferously, and they have to be unwavering in their commitment to get their point across that we desperately need true immigration reform.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, during my comments tonight, I will refer to one phrase that I think is important to place on the minds of the people of this country, and that phrase is this: ``The defense of the Nation starts with the defense of our borders.'' Mr. Speaker, we have begun a massive buildup of forces as a result of the events of September 11. Indeed, the President has issued a call for units of the National Guard to be activated. Troops are being dispatched, planes, ships, all over the world. The President has issued an executive order to restrict the flow of capital so that we will, hopefully, inhibit the ability of terrorists around the world in that particular capacity. We have done a great deal to try to figure out how to make it more difficult for hijackers to take over planes. We have increased security at all of our airports. Recently, we ordered that even crop dusters would not be allowed to fly for fear that some sort of chemical agent might be introduced into the atmosphere. We have increased security around water facilities and power plants throughout the Nation for fear of some sort of, again, biological or chemical attack that might come in that direction. We have, indeed, created a brand-new, or will create a brand-new, cabinet level agency for homeland defense that I hope will do what is desperately needed to be done, and that is to coordinate the activities of all of our agencies that are designed to provide some sort of defense for this Nation. The President and the Secretary of State have been extremely successful up to this point in time in creating some sort of international coalition to help fight terrorism everywhere that it rears its ugly head. We have even talked about trying to tighten up on visas, visas that are given to people who might have backgrounds that are suspicious, have terrorist connections, not allow them to either enter the United States, or if they are here, to be held perhaps even indefinitely. All of these things are good, and I totally support them. They are all important. We were told today by a general in the Israeli Army at a briefing that was available to any Member, it was not classified, but it was, indeed, a fascinating discussion. We were told about the Israeli experience in dealing with terrorists for now well over 2 or 3 decades. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that this particular general said was that it is imperative that we think about terrorism as a phenomenon, as a system. What he meant by that is it is global in nature. It is not anything like we have ever dealt with before; and, of course, we have heard many, many people, including the President of the United States in his address to the Nation just last week in a very articulate and incredibly compelling address to the Nation say it is a brand-new world in a way, and a brand-new kind of war. The Israeli general that gave the briefing today was talking about the fact that low-intensity warfare, a minimum of power, it is not an appropriate approach. Terrorism, he said, requires maximum power to be applied against it in order to be successful; and that because it is a systemic problem, you must treat it systematically or holistically, treat it in every way you can. Attack the problem every way you possibly can. He suggested that we should look at terrorism as a cancer; and that just like any other cancer that invades the body, if it is attacked in a piecemeal way, even though several different kinds of approaches may be tried, it will eventually gain control and overcome the body, the host body. Therefore, it must be attacked with every single thing in one's arsenal. Mr. Speaker, the President said from that podium just a few nights ago essentially the same thing. He said, we will use every weapon in our arsenal to defeat terrorism. Every weapon in the arsenal. I for one was heartened to hear that, because that is exactly what we are going to have to do. I refer again, however, to the phrase that I opened these comments with, that the defense of the Nation begins with the defense of our borders. It begins with our ability, our desire, the necessity of defending our borders, of making sure that we as a Nation, to the greatest extent possible, are able to determine who comes into the United States and for how long and when they leave, and how many will come into the United States. This is what is referred to as an immigration policy. It is something we do not really have. It is something we have abandoned over the course of the last couple of decades. And we have abandoned this policy, we have abandoned our borders, we have succumbed to the siren song of open borders, a phrase used so often by organizations like the Wall Street Journal and the Cato Institute and others, libertarians and liberals looking for votes from the massive number of immigrants that would come into the country and perhaps become part of a voting bloc that they could then take advantage of. For all of these reasons, we have abandoned our borders for all intents and purposes. They do not really exist. No one believes that they are there in reality. They may be there on maps, but they are not there in reality, because if a border is important for determining who comes, how many and how long, then, of course, America is just this place on a map, not distinguishable by lines that separate it from any other country on the globe. That has been the desire of a great many people. Many industrialists, many members of the, quote, elitist establishment in this country, many of the biggest, the Fortune 500 companies, other individuals who employ cheap labor, illegal immigrants, because, of course, they can be hired cheaply, they can work cheaply, and they are frightened to turn their employers in for ill treatment, all of those people have formed a bloc over the course of the last couple of decades to destroy our borders. And, Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that one part of the result that we witnessed that came from this process, of the destruction of our borders, were the events of September 11. Every single person that we now know that was involved in the hijackings, in the suicide bombing, that is, turning the plane into a bomb and crashing it into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the other attempt that was made outside Pittsburgh, and I am told, I understand that now they believe that there were several other planes, there was a great possibility that the same thing had been planned but they were not, for whatever reason, able to accomplish it, thank God, accomplish their goals, but every one of the people that we know that were on those planes that took them over, that killed the airplane crew, members of the crew, that took over and crashed them, every one of them was here on some sort of visa or were here illegally, and even the ones that were here on visas, we are not really sure exactly what kind. We have written now, my office and other Members have asked the INS for clarification about the status of each one of these people. They sent me back a list of the names of every single one of them and the status of only two, two, they said, that were here on visas, one with a visa that had expired, essentially illegally. It is now my understanding that every one of them were here on some sort of visa, but many of them were, in fact, here illegally because they had overstayed their visa or they were not living up to the obligations of the visa. But we did not care. Or we did not know. Or if we knew, we simply paid no attention to that particular problem, because, Mr. Speaker, we do not pay attention to the fact that there are millions, I say millions, of people in the United States who are here illegally. You know it. I know it. Everyone hearing my words knows that there are millions of people in the United States who are here illegally. Now, I do not for a moment suggest that the vast majority of those people, or even a small percentage factually are involved with terrorist activity or are people that we should be concerned about because of the threat to the Nation. At least not a direct threat to the Nation. But I do suggest to you that it is the philosophy, it is the attitude that we ignore millions of people here illegally, millions coming across the border illegally, that makes it impossible for us to then go back and say, well, but these folks, this particular group, maybe they are Middle Eastern by ethnicity and heritage and, therefore, we should watch them more carefully. Well, that is not going to happen. I mean, that is, of course, profiling. We would not ever want to do a thing like that. You cannot segregate out these particular portions of the population for a different kind of treatment. If they are here illegally, they should be sent home. I do not care where they are from. It does not matter to me if they are from Mexico, or Egypt, or Lebanon, or Brazil, or Bolivia. It does not matter. It is of no consequence, the place of origination. The fact is they are here illegally and we as a Nation have a duty for the protection of our system of government, and, indeed, for our very lives, we have a duty to secure our borders, because, again, I will say, Mr. Speaker, that the defense of the Nation begins at our borders. We can do all of the things that I have outlined at the beginning of this presentation, and I agree with every single one of them. You notice that I left to the end any discussion about tightening up on visas, because the only thing I have seen so far as part of the administration's proposal to deal with terrorism that deals specifically with the issue of immigration is this aspect of tightening up on visas. Mr. Speaker, let me suggest to you that although I completely and totally support that particular provision, the horses are out of the barn at that point in time. The people are already here. The task we have ahead of us, the task we must face, is the one that would prevent them from getting here. It is defending our borders. It is defending the sovereignty of this Nation. That is what we seek. Mr. Speaker, it has been many, many hours that I have spent almost right here, at various podiums on this floor, cajoling, arguing, using all of the effort that I can muster, any degree of articulation of the issue that I can possibly develop over the past several months, long before this event, by the way, of September 11, I have come to this floor and asked my colleagues to please join me in an attempt to make our borders secure. It has been a relatively lonely fight. I have been assailed by some of my colleagues. I have certainly been assailed by members of the general public, e- mails and letters and calls and that sort of thing. I have been called a racist, I have been called xenophobic, I have been called a lot of things that I certainly do not want to repeat on the floor of the House. But I persist, Mr. Speaker, because I believe that this is one of the most important, one of the most significant issues with which this body can deal, and, that is, the determination of our own system of government, how long our system will survive. I really believe it has that kind of significance. There are literally hundreds of reasons that I can bring forward to argue my case for lower immigration, for tightening our borders, for controlling our borders, I should say, for determining who comes in, and they certainly deal with just the simple issues of population growth, the pressure it puts on the infrastructure of the United States, of every community in the country, the costs that are involved, the economic costs involved, the cultural issues that come up when we balkanize America with different languages and different ideas about government and philosophies of life. All of those things we can confront. And I certainly have done so from this floor. But they all pale in comparison to the importance of this issue that was brought home to us all in the most stark of manners, in the most horrendous proof I can possibly offer. What can I say, Mr. Speaker, what can I possibly say on the floor of this House that could ever compare in terms of encouragement to do something about the control of immigration? What can I say or do that could ever compare with the events of September 11? Mr. Speaker, if that does not help my colleagues come to some conclusion about the need to do something about immigration, I do not know what else will. And there will still be libertarians who come to the floor as my dear friend did just before me here, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), whom I respect immensely, on almost every issue I have been supportive of what he has tried to do, but I must admit I disagree with him wholeheartedly on the issue of, especially immigration controls and our policy now, the policy we should now adopt vis-a-vis the terrorists that reside in Afghanistan and, indeed, around the world. But there will still be voices like the gentleman from Texas. There will still be voices like many of my colleagues on the other side tonight who fought against an amendment which, I might add, passed overwhelmingly, and which I was just amazed to see the number. It was an amendment by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) that simply said that the Armed Forces of the United States could be employed, if requested by the Attorney General, could be employed in the protection of our borders. Now, there were individuals who stood up and argued that, and there were 180, if I remember correctly, 180 some people who voted against it. Even in light of what has happened, 100 and some of our colleagues, I do not recall the exact number now, but well over 100 said, No, I don't think I would use the military on the border to protect our sovereignty, to protect our Nation. And so you say to yourself, Mr. Speaker, my God, what does it take? What does it take? How many people in this country have to lose their lives before we come to the understanding that the defense of the Nation begins at the defense of our borders? All the other things we talk about are important, but, Mr. Speaker, nothing surpasses the importance of our borders and their integrity. That is why I will continue to raise this issue, as long as I have breath, anyway, and as long as I am a Member of this body, because I can think of nothing more important. There are hundreds of issues with which I have been involved, I am confronted by them as you are, and every other Member of our body here every single day, important issues, and I say, I have got to do something about that, and we should do something about that. You want to go off in about 20 different directions, but always I am pulled back to this, always I am grounded in this particular issue, because everything begins to come back to it, everything I hope to accomplish for the Nation, everything I hope to add my voice in defense of depends upon our ability as a Nation to control our own destiny. And to control our own destiny, we must control our own borders. It is a world, Mr. Speaker, that has changed so dramatically in so many ways. There are intellectuals, I think, perhaps I would refer to them as, a famous old reference to them, perhaps pseudo-intellectuals, effete snobs, there were a couple of other things that I can remember, people who pride themselves on talking about a brand new day dawning in the world, that it is really a world that should not be separated by borders, that there is really no purpose for borders anymore. Now, these things we did hear before September 11. I must admit, Mr. Speaker, I have not heard as much of that recently. But we will begin as soon as things calm down a little bit. I assure you there will be; they will be out in force. They will be saying things like, we really do not need to defend our borders so much, so long as we go out there and we make sure we attack terrorism in other lands, that we root them out, as we have heard often. I am all for doing that, do not get me wrong. Draining the swamp, all those other things, absolutely need to be done. So they will suggest if we can just do that, somehow we do not have to have borders. I refer back to now the presentation and the little briefing that we had today by this particular Israeli general, who again talked about the systemic approach to this; that you had to use every single thing in your arsenal. That it was not enough just to go out and find them, it had to be done, you will have to go outside of your borders and find the people who are trying to kill you, and you will have to kill them. You will have to disrupt their organization. You will have to do all of that, Mr. Speaker, but you recognize, and we all recognize, the fact that Israel has another aspect of that core policy, that holistic approach, and that is they defend their borders. They defend their borders in every way they possibly can, using every kind of technology, low-tech and high-tech, barbed wire to electronic surveillance, they use it all to defend their borders. Now, they have an easier task than we would have, it is true, a smaller land mass, a more homogenous population. All of those things are true. It does not, however, excuse us from the responsibility. What more are we to do here? What else is more important for us, Mr. Speaker? Is it the Department of Health and Human Services? Is it the Department of Natural Resources? Is it the Department of Transportation? I know I would encourage you to think about that one, Mr. Speaker. Is it the variety of things we do out there, that this Federal Government does, that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every single year doing? Are all of those things as important as the protection of the life and property of the citizens of this Nation? No, sir. In my opinion, my humble opinion, they all pale in comparison. I mean from HHS-Labor, which is a thing we are going to be voting on here, and we will dump hundreds of billions of dollars on that thing to get it out the door, and it is more important, yes, even than the Department of Education. I know, there I have said it. The defense of the Nation, the security of the people of the Nation, yes, it is, Mr. Speaker, it is more important than all of the other things we do. So I am not opposed to efforts to increase, in fact, I heartily support all efforts to increase the appropriations for our military. As I say, it is the most important thing we can do. But how can we ignore in that process, how can we ignore perhaps the most important aspect of that defense system? Where can we be expected to draw the line, so-to- speak, if it is not at our borders? Mr. Speaker, one of our colleagues, a very respected Member of this body, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), he is also the chairman of one of the security committees of this Congress and has been a member of that committee for many years, and I respect his observations. And I have seen him now on television and I have heard him on the radio in the past couple of days, and he has stated unequivocally that it is not a matter of if we are ever going to be confronted by biological or chemical or even nuclear attack by terrorists; it is indeed, he says, a matter of when. Mr. Speaker, we are well aware of the fact that many countries, several countries anyway, that have already demonstrated their mastery of this particular form of warfare, that is, biological and chemical especially, Iraq, I refer to specifically, as it has used this particular weapon, biological weapons, against its own people, the Kurds, killed many thousands of them a few years ago. We know that there are governments out there that have perfected these particular weapons. We know that those governments harbor terrorists. We know that those governments provide succor to terrorists, provide support; not just physical support, not just a place to live and some food on the table, but support of every kind and variety. What makes us think for a moment, Mr. Speaker, that they have not provided them, or at least are not willing to provide them, with these other agents to carry out their dastardly deeds? Now, I do not know if the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) is right or wrong when he says it is a matter of when, not a matter of if we are confronted with this. I can certainly say that the odds are that we will be in some way, at some time, confronted with that kind of a situation. I pray to God that it will not happen and that we will do everything in our power to make sure that it does not, and there are things we can do. That is the other side. That is the thing to think about. We should not dwell on the inevitability so much of this particular kind of terror, but we should dwell on our ability to stop it. There are many things we can do, and certainly finding the terrorists out there, that is number one. But how can we suggest for a moment, even a second, how can it be in anyone's mind in this body, that as part of our defense against that next act of terrorism would not be the closure of our borders to anybody who is not well-known to us, anybody who we can determine is not a threat to this Nation's survival? How can we not do it? If something were to happen, Mr. Speaker, of this nature, and, again, I pray to God, of course, that it never does, but if it does, and if we have done nothing to increase our ability to protect our borders, then there is culpability here, because this is not, as they say, rocket science. I do not suggest for a moment, Mr. Speaker, that if we did everything we possibly could, if we put troops on the border, if we reduced immigration dramatically so we could actually get a handle on it for a while, if we tightened up on INS regulations, if we found out where all of the people in the United States who are here illegally are and sent them home, if we did all of that, I am not able, of course, to promise that we would make ourselves immune to or impervious to or unable to be attacked in the way we have suggested. All I know is it is something we have to do. To those who suggest that there are other options open to us that do not include controlling our own borders, I just say this: perhaps there are others, perhaps in times past there were others who said, look, let us explain to the Vandals in ancient Rome, or the Huns, that there is no reason to be all that upset to us; we will open our borders to them and let them in and just discuss it with them. We will just peacefully deal with it, because, really they are just all members of the human race, you know? The Nazis, the Japanese militarists, you could go on and on and on. There were people here who said, I am sure, not many, thank heavens, but people who suggested that there probably is some way we could have just negotiated our way out of and around the Second World War, and any other war with which we have been involved, because, after all, they are just people, just like us. What are their needs? How are they different from us? There are still people who say that, and I suggest that it is almost irrational. People who suggest that we should not care about who comes across our borders are, to a certain extent, maybe to a large extent, irrational. Because I guarantee you this, Mr. Speaker: the American public, they do not feel that way. The vast majority of the American people believe in their heart of hearts in the very common sense idea of controlling our own borders; and they are not heartless, cruel people, who just hate foreigners. No, they all recognize that all of our roots are from someplace else. Even if you call yourself a Native American, your ancestors, how far back, came across a land bridge from Siberia, from Asia. So all of us are immigrants. That is not the issue. The issue is will we be able to control who comes for how long and how many. Will we be able to do that? And the American people want us to do that. There is only one way, of course, Mr. Speaker, that this body will ever move in the direction that we are hoping for tonight, even though there was a great sign that things may have changed tonight with that vote on the Traficant amendment to put troops on the borders. However, I am told that has passed before, it has always been taken out in the conference committee. Perhaps it is different tonight. Perhaps September 11 changed all of that. I certainly hope so. I certainly hope that there were more people in this body who were voting for that amendment without the thought in mind that it would be taken out, and they could easily cast their vote and sort of cover their tracks. They say, well, I voted for it, but knowing in their heart of hearts it will probably be taken out in committee. I hope there were not many like that in our body. I hope the 250-odd people who voted for it tonight did so because they know what we are saying here tonight, that it is the duty, the responsibility, of every Nation on the face of the Earth, including our own, to defend our borders, and that in our case, because of the geographic problems that we confront, it will require perhaps a far stronger force than we have available to us tonight in the INS, and it may in fact require the positioning of Armed Forces on our borders. That is, of course, what the Armed Forces are for, to defend our borders. It is not an inappropriate use, it is an absolutely logical use of our Armed Forces, because it is very difficult for us to patrol the length of our borders. I understand that. Mr. Speaker, there was an op-ed that was written by a gentleman by the name of Mark Krikorian who is with an organization called the Center for Immigration Studies. I am going to enter it in the Record and read it tonight as my final statement, because I believe that it encapsulates so much of what it is I am trying to say here this evening. It stays, ``As we consider our response to last week's horrific attacks, we must be careful not to seek scapegoats among foreigners who live among us. But if immigrants in general are not the problem, a broken immigration system almost certainly is partly to blame. While much attention has been focused on the failure of intelligence and airport security, it is also clear that we have failed to properly police our borders, borders being any place where foreign citizens enter the United States. It would be a grave error if we did not ask ourselves the fundamental question: How did these terrorists get in? Despite all the cant about globalization, borders are not irrelevant in today's world, nor are they unenforceable. In fact, the need to secure them is more pressing than ever, given ease of travel, coupled with very real terrorist threats. ``Most Americans understand that our border is not an obstacle to be overcome by travelers and businesses but, instead, a critical tool for protecting America's national interests. Unfortunately, much of America's elite does not get it. ``Most notorious among the cheerleaders for open borders have been libertarians such as the Cato Institute. The Wall Street Journal has frequently called for a 5-word amendment to the Constitution: `There shall be open borders.' '' I have not heard that recently from the Wall Street Journal. In fact, as an aside, I had a reporter from the Wall Street Journal call me the other day saying, has there been a change of attitude in Congress about immigration as a result of what has happened? I said, it is funny you should ask that question. I had exactly the same question for you. Has there been a change on the Wall Street Journal editorial board about immigration as a result of what happened on September 11? He just laughed and said, Well, you are not the first person to ask. Back to Mr. Krikorian's op-ed: ``Even minimal borders to strengthen controls have been stymied. Congress in 1996 directed the Immigration and Naturalization Service to record arrivals and departures of foreigners at border crossings so as to identify people overstaying their visas. Business interests prompted Congress to postpone this requirement several times and ultimately to eliminate it. ``If we take the physical safety of our people seriously, we cannot continue to allow libertarian ideologues, immigration lawyers, cheap- labor business interests, and ethnic pressure groups to hobble our ability to manage our borders. What, then, is to be done? ``The Border Patrol, despite recent increases, remains almost laughably inadequate. At any given time, there are only about 1,700 agents patrolling the southern border, an average of less than 1 agent per mile, and the northern border is even less well defended. ``Establishing a computerized system to track entries and exits from the United States should not even be a subject of debate. There are no technological obstacles, merely a lack of will and funding. What is more, the practice of requiring permanent residents who are not yet citizens to annually register their whereabouts with government, which was discontinued in the 1970s, should be revived. ``The State Department's visa officers overseas need to be recognized as `America's other Border Patrol.' Visa officers often have only 2 or 3 minutes to consider an application, and are pressured to approve a high proportion of applicants to avoid offending the host country. The granting of visas should become a freestanding, well-funded function that people sign up for from the start, rather than today's dreaded right of passage for rookie Foreign Service officers. ``The very morning of the September 11 attack, the House was about to resurrect a provision called 245(i), which allows illegal aliens to receive green cards in the United States rather than in their home countries. ``Because personnel abroad are best equipped to screen applicants, 245(i) negates any efforts to keep out those judged to be ineligible. ``Finally, whatever one thinks about the level of immigration, a temporary reduction in legal immigration and the admission of temporary workers and students is essential to allow the overhaul of our immigration infrastructure.'' Did we hear that, Mr. Speaker? ``A temporary reduction in legal immigration,'' and I will say a pause in all immigration; I want a pause. I will soon be introducing a bill to that effect. A pause, at least a 6-month pause, in all immigration into the United States, except for special circumstances, maybe national defense-related issues. But other than that, let us stop it. Because we have an overhaul to do with our entire system. Let us let the Department, let us let our new Secretary for the Department of Homeland Defense determine how best to go back into the field and try to defend our borders. But let us call a pause or a halt to immigration for at least 6 months. ``Only by lightening the INS' load can the agency both process its huge backlog and strengthen border controls. ``Improved border and visa controls may not catch all malefactors, but it will help alert us to conspiracies such as last Tuesday's attacks. If only a dozen of the conspirators had been identified by consular officers during visa processing or border inspectors, it is very possible the entire conspiracy would have been unraveled. We have, of course, seen some home-grown terrorists as well, but there is no reason to neglect border control. ``We should not overreact by eviscerating constitutional rights, including those of Muslim Americans, but an overhaul of our lax border controls is precisely the kind of reasonable reform that would make future attacks less likely and does not represent any threat to the civil liberties of American citizens. Americans are going to have to wait in longer lines at airports, and it is not too much to ask people entering into the country to do the same. ``Moreover, more foreign citizens may be denied visas.'' ``The measure of a successful immigration system is not how many people are allowed to enter and how fast, but rather whether the broad national interests of the United States are being served, including the safety of Americans.'' Mr. Krikorian is the executive director, as I say, for the Center for Immigration Studies here in Washington, D.C.; and I certainly commend his reading and his efforts, by the way, which I am sure one can go online and get. In fact, it is on here: http://www.cis.org. One can go on the Net and look into the Center for Immigration Studies and Work. They do great stuff. And the other thing, of course, everyone must do, Mr. Speaker, is to let their representatives in this body and in the other body know how they feel. Believe it or not, Mr. Speaker, believe it or not, there are still people in this body who are opposed to immigration reform, even after September 11; and there is only one way they are ever going to change their mind. There is only one way they are ever going to see the light and that, of course, is when they feel the heat.

Mr. TANCREDO

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

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1900. One of the things that our community in Littleton, Colorado had to deal with shortly after the Columbine tragedy was the fact that there were many parents and children who were frightened to return to school. They were frightened because they felt helpless in their ability to control their own environment. With that in mind, I asked the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the Colorado Department of Education, U.S. West and AT&T to help me construct the Colorado school safety hotline. Within just a few months after the tragedy at Columbine, these posters were up in every school in the State of Colorado and a 24-hour hotline had been started and was in operation at CBI. Since that time, there have been some 1,323 phone calls, there have been several arrests, and God only knows how many incidents have been avoided as a result of the Colorado school safety hotline. H.R. 1900 includes a provision that would allow States to use their safe and drug-free school money in the creation of their own hotline. I certainly encourage them to think about this as a way of preventing possible incidents similar to Columbine. The one thing we learned since then is that in every single situation we have had of school violence, without exception, the perpetrators of the crime told somebody. With this knowledge in mind, it is imperative that every State in the Nation take the kind of action that we took in Colorado, the establishment of the hotline, to allow someone who may have heard something to call somebody anonymously, tell them what they have heard, and let the authorities take what actions need to be taken. With the inclusion of this particular amendment and for all of the other good things that are in this particular piece of legislation, I sincerely hope that my colleagues will support H.R. 1900.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, there are countless heroes that have emerged from this tragedy, firefighters, police and others who have offered themselves in aid to their fellow citizens; but a few have risen even above those, and these are the folks that through their acts of incredible valor actually saved the lives of countless others. They are Jeremy Glick, Todd Beamer, Tom Burnett, and Mark Bingham and the other members of the crew and passengers of Flight 93 that were hijacked. These people did something so extraordinary that it deserves the attention of this Congress. The way we are able to provide that attention is to award them and the other members of the crew and the passengers of that plane who participated in the events that prevented that plane from reaching its ultimate destination and killing who knows how many other people. We should, in fact, therefore, bestow on them the Congressional Gold Medal. Mr. Speaker, I am introducing legislation today for that purpose, and I encourage all of my colleagues to join me in that effort.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, Coloradans are fortunate to have a man like Morton ``Mort'' Marks and his wife Edie as members of our community and civic leaders. Mort was born in Washington, DC, and the political genes that accompanied him from his birthplace were never lost. After graduating from Columbia University, Mort fought in World War II, and bravely participated in the Battle of the Bulge. When he returned from Europe, Mort cultivated his interest in politics, which began to climax when he became a field director and delegate for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaigns, and then a delegate to the Republican National Convention for the Bush/Quayle campaigns. Coloradans have also benefited from Mort's vast political experience as he has worked or volunteered for Governor Bill Owens, Senator Bill Armstrong and Representative-Elect Jack Swigert, the first person elected to represent Colorado's Sixth Congressional District. Mort currently writes for several local publications, including the Villager newspapers, Colorado Expressions, and the Colorado Statesman, and has won awards for his writing from the Colorado Press Association. He and his wife have two lovely daughters, Lori Marks and Elise Marks Grutch. Thank you, Mort, for everything you have done for your state and your party.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House tonight and to bring to the attention of this body and to the Nation an issue of, I think, extreme importance to us. My original intent was to speak on the issue of immigration, immigration reform, in light of the visit of President Vicente Fox. I intend to do so. I will certainly do so for the majority of my remarks. But as I sat here in the House waiting for my opportunity to present my observations, I was, of course, listening to the discussion that preceded me with regard to the fiscal dilemma in which the United States finds itself at the present time; and my colleagues on the other side of the House, the Democrats, have concluded that the problem is that we are not taxing Americans enough. They have suggested, for over 1 hour what we have heard, is that we have an enormous task ahead of us because revenue projections are lower than had been anticipated as a result of a turn down in the economy and that, therefore, this Congress is faced with a major dilemma: How do we deal with the fact that we do not have enough money coming into this body? It is their plan, when they ask the question, how did this problem come about, the answer they provide is that we gave Americans tax breaks. We allowed Americans to keep more of their money. As a result of that, the Democrats say, we are now in this fiscal bind. We now find ourselves in a situation where we may ``dip into the Social Security Trust Fund,'' a trust fund, may I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that was raided, not just partially, but totally, 100 percent, every single year that the Democrats had control of the Congress of the United States. Every single year. All of a sudden, this new-found concern about the Social Security Trust Fund is, I must admit, greatly appreciated. I am so happy to hear that my friends on the other side of the aisle are worried about this fund, which they successfully raided every single year for 40 years, took every single penny out of it and spent it in the general fund. Now they are worried about getting into that particular fund. Well, I am glad. This is a major shift in thinking in this body. I hope and I pray that it lasts for a long time. I hope and I pray that every Member of this body will in fact adhere to the pledge to not spend any money out of the Social Security or Medicare Trust Fund in the general fund. I am one of the 150 Members who have signed a letter to the President of the United States telling him that if he vetoes any appropriations bill that forces us to dip into that trust fund, we will support his veto. By the way, I did not see a single name of a Member of the other side on that letter, not one. I was intrigued by the fact that in all this discussion, the 1 hour that has preceded me here about the horrible state of our economy and the horrible state of our budget, not once did I hear, Mr. Speaker, even though there was constant reference to the fact that we may have in fact given too much back to the people in terms of tax breaks, gone way too far, that was said over and over again, way too far in giving back the people of the United States their hard-earned money, giving back, as if it was ours to begin with. Of course, the appropriate way to phrase it is we allowed them to keep more of their money. But to my friends on the other side of the aisle, any money that we allow an American taxpayer to keep is money we are giving back to them; money that first belongs here in the Congress of the United States, first belongs to be spent by this body, and, if we deign, we will allow Americans to keep part of their tax dollars. But not once, Mr. Speaker, not once in that 1-hour presentation that preceded me, did you hear any one of the various Members on the other side who addressed this issue say the words ``let's repeal the tax cut.'' You see, Mr. Speaker, every one of us has a wonderful opportunity, being a Member of the Congress of the United States, an incredible, enormous opportunity, and that is to introduce legislation that we believe to be important, that we believe to be helpful to this country. Every one of us here, that is something that we can do. Every one of the Members who spoke here tonight, Mr. Speaker, every one of them, could introduce a bill tomorrow to repeal the tax cut. We have only sent out half of the checks so far. They could introduce a bill to say stop where you are; we desperately need the money. They could introduce a bill saying for all of the other tax cuts we have passed, for the elimination of the marriage penalty tax, for the elimination of the death tax, for the reduction in the tax rates, we will not reduce them. We will eliminate them. We will get rid of them, because we believe we are in desperate financial straits; and those straits can be addressed, they can be changed, they can be dealt with successfully by taxing Americans more. You did not hear that, did you, Mr. Speaker, because they did not say it, because they, of course, know that it is politically very unpopular to tell people that we cannot live within our budget in this body; because, my friends, the problem here in Washington is not a lack of revenue from you, from the taxpayers of the United States of America. That is not the problem. Mr. Speaker, the problem is the fact that we in this body collectively spend too much and have spent too much. One of the other speakers referenced Reaganomics. I am glad he did, because it is, in a way, Reaganomics all over again. But let us look at what Reaganomics really means and what it really was. It was a time in the Nation's history when we reduced tax rates, not taxes, but tax rates, and we reduced them significantly. What happened, Mr. Speaker? Was there a dramatic decline in revenues to this government as a result of that reduction that caused deficit spending that we, of course, had? We definitely had deficit spending during the 1980s. Was it because the Reagan tax cuts produced fewer dollars coming into the coffers of the government? No, of course not. It is simply because we spent all of the money. Not only did it not reduce the revenue coming into the government, it dramatically increased the revenue. Revenues tripled, quadrupled because, of course, we stimulated the economy, more people were employed, so more people were, therefore, paying taxes. That is the effect of Reaganomics. It increased revenues to the Federal Government. We definitely had deficit spending, absolutely true. Why? Mr. Speaker, the reason is because this body, this body spent the money. Not only did it spend all of the revenues that came in, which were significantly more than had been experienced in the past, but it went on and spent beyond that. It did, in fact, deficit spend. So it was not Reaganomics, Mr. Speaker, it was this body. It was the Congress of the United States in profligate spending that caused the deficits of the 1980s, and it may very well be this body which causes that problem again. It may very well be, because no one can accuse us of being very judicious in the way we approach budgets. In the last several years, because of the past President's urging and the fact that this Congress could not say no very often in terms of spending, we outdid ourselves. We increased budgets dramatically. And now, of course, we may have to look at reducing expenditures. That was something that was never mentioned in the 1-hour as we listened to the other side talk about our problem. Never once did they say, we need to reduce expenditures. Every single time they talked about the problem we face, they said it was because we gave people a tax break. Now, is that not intriguing, and does that not simply tell us something about the nature of this body? Today, Mr. Speaker, a newspaper which comes out every day here in the Congress, it is called The Hill. For most people, they may not have heard of this, because it is really just a newspaper circulated in the Capitol and around the Capitol, and it is certainly not a paper that I would call, or I think anyone would call partisan in favor of Republicans. It is a very liberal-leaning newspaper; most of its reports have that sort of slant to it. But today a very interesting headline in The Hill newspaper, especially in light of the discussion we just heard about the problem we are having with the deficit, with the budget, and about why we may actually be sort of dipping into the Social Security Trust Fund, remember, a fund that the other side spent 100 percent of every single year in the general fund. But now they have great concerns about it. Again, I am happy to hear that, I am very happy to hear that we have had sort of an epiphany for the people on the other side here. But here is The Hill newspaper and here is the headline: ``Senate Dems Wield Power, Feast on Pork.'' The whole article is about the degree to which the Senate Democrats, the Democrats now having taken control of the Senate, have gone bananas essentially in a spending frenzy. Senate legislation would give the Corps of Engineers $500 million more than the President requested in his budget, which sought to reduce superfluous spending by that agency. The Corps currently has a $40 billion backlog, and there is no greater pork barrel project in this Congress than the Corps of Engineers. It is everybody's engineering firm around here. Believe me, I know. I have tried to reduce the funding, and whenever we do, we run into a buzz saw around this place, because many, many, many Members see the Corps of Engineers as their personal construction company. It is not just unique to the Democrats, I should say, but in this case: ``Senate Dems Wield Power, Feast on Pork.'' We should take that into consideration, I say to my colleagues, when we think about the degree to which the words of our Members on the other side hold any water whatsoever when they discuss the issue of budgets and tax reductions and the reasons for coming up to a budget crisis. So anyway, as I say, Mr. Speaker, these were not the original remarks I intended to give, but I simply could not sit here and listen to the other side discuss this issue without trying to at least shed a little light on the reality of the situation. The real reason, of course, that I took to the floor this evening is to discuss the issue of immigration into the United States, massive, uncontrolled, illegal and legal immigration into the United States. I take this opportunity to address this issue, of course, because of the visit today and tomorrow of President Vicente Fox of Mexico. I was privileged to be able to be on the south lawn of the White House this morning when President Bush greeted Mr. Fox, President Fox, and it was truly a very exhilarating experience. It is always exciting to be able to go to the White House, to be able to participate in an event of that nature, a lot of pomp and circumstance and 21-gun salutes and all of the rest of it. It was very, very interesting, very enjoyable. As I stood there with the crowd watching, I listened to both the remarks of the President of the United States and the remarks of Mr. Fox. To a large extent, those remarks centered on the issue of immigration. Now, when I say ``immigration,'' I think most people understand the meaning of the word ``immigration,'' immigration meaning people coming from one country into another. In this case, more specifically, people coming from Mexico into the United States. ``Immigration,'' that word was never once spoken by either the President of the United States or President Fox, interestingly, although a great deal of the time and a great many of their remarks dealt specifically with immigration. Mr. Speaker, let me tell my colleagues how they addressed it. Let me tell my colleagues the word they used. Throughout this whole speech, there were several times, from both the President of the United States and President Fox of Mexico, I thought, gosh, that is a different sort of phrase, that is a different way of addressing that particular issue; I never heard it like that before, they have changed. In this debate about immigration, we have found that there have been many, many times actually that the words have been changed. For instance, we started talking about a month ago, I guess, and we used a word to describe a process called amnesty, the word ``amnesty.'' The word has a definition; one can look it up in the dictionary. We all pretty much understand what it means. It means, if you have done something wrong, we are going to forgive you for it. That is amnesty. If you have broken the law, we are going to say, that is okay, no problem. Everybody go back to square one and start over again. That is amnesty. Well, because the word ``amnesty'' has a relatively bad connotation, and let me tell my colleagues how bad it is, by the way. There were recently several polls done, the most recent is the Zogby poll on amnesty for illegal immigrants, but by the way, everything I am going to say in this poll is substantiated by other polls, by the Gallup Poll, USA Today; all of them say the same thing. Consistent with other polls, Zogby finds that the majority of Americans, 55 percent, think that amnesty is a bad or a very bad idea, compared to 34 percent, who think it is a good or very good idea. The strongest opposition to amnesty can be found among conservatives with 60 percent thinking it is bad, and most troubling for those who are supporting this idea is that 32 percent of the conservatives said they would be less likely to vote for anybody who supported amnesty. Among Democrats, 55 said they thought amnesty is a bad idea, 55 percent of the Democrats; 36 thought it was a good idea. Some of the strongest opposition was found among voters in union households, a key Democrat constituency. Sixty percent of the voters in union households said it was a bad idea, compared to 32 percent who said it was good. And amnesty splits the party's liberal base right down the middle with 46 percent of the liberals thinking it was good idea and 45 percent of the liberals, people identifying themselves as liberal Democrats, saying it was a bad idea, 45 percent. By the way, amnesty does not even appear to be winning Hispanic votes. Fifty-one percent of the respondents identifying themselves as Hispanic said it was a bad idea; 51 percent of Hispanic Americans said that amnesty is a bad idea. This according again to the Zogby poll, but believe me, every single poll that has been taken says the same thing. So, all of a sudden, as a result, Mr. Speaker, as a result of this kind of information, these kinds of facts being brought to the forefront, all of a sudden, the word ``amnesty'' disappeared. We will not hear anyone who favors this concept use the word. We have now changed ``amnesty'' into ``regularization.'' Yes, that is right, ``regularization.'' Or, another one I have heard is ``earned legalization.'' These are the euphemisms that have been constructed to describe the fact of amnesty, but nobody wants to use the word because of the polling data that tells them, everybody is against it. Do we know why they are against it, Mr. Speaker? They are against it because they are, in fact, logical, common-sense people, common-sense Americans. When we say to Americans, do you think it is okay for people to come into this country illegally, take jobs, many of them, of course, hard-working, nobody is suggesting that that is not the case, but do you think that that is okay? Do you think that we should reward that behavior with amnesty? Do you think it is all right that there are literally hundreds of millions of people around the world who would give their eye teeth to come to the United States, and who go through a process every year signing up, going through the application process, which is laborious, and hoping and praying that their number will come up and that the quota that they are in will not be filled until they get in. And those people who do the right thing and come to the United States expect, of course, that they are coming to a country which is governed by the rule of law and not by the rule of man. That is the basic underpinning of the American republic, the rule of law. So we ask Americans, do you think it is okay that those people who choose to ignore that particular avenue, albeit for probably very, very good reasons, probably because they are in economic deprivation in the country of their birth. They are seeking to get into the United States for advancement. Again, I do not blame them for trying. But do you think that we should reward them for doing that? Is that a good idea, America? Do you think that will help us deal with our illegal immigration problem? And America says, golly, I do not think so, to the tune of some 65 to 67 percent in the CNN poll, Gallup-CNN poll, 66 or 67 percent saying, no, I do not think that is a good idea. So, therefore, in the speeches today, from both President Bush and of President Fox, we never heard the word ``amnesty.'' Never. And we will not hear it emanating out of the administration or any of the people in this body who support immigration. What we will hear are these other things, these other euphemisms: ``regularization'' and ``earned legalization'' and all that stuff. But I ask my friends when they hear that word to remember that it means one thing, amnesty, which means rewarding people for breaking the law. That is it, pure and simple. They went on; both Presidents today went on in their remarks. I mentioned earlier that although a lot of the discussion revolved around the whole concept of administration, I never once heard the word ``immigration'' ever spoken. Never once did either one of the two gentlemen speaking today use the word ``immigration.'' What they used instead, and this is President Bush speaking, ``We understand our two nations must work together in the spirit of respect and common purposes to seize opportunities and tackle challenges on issues that affect the lives of our citizens, including migration,'' migration; ``the environment, drugs, crime, corruption, and education.'' President Fox went on in his remarks: ``Likewise, we want to continue making progress towards the establishment of an agreement on migration which will be of mutual benefit to us, and will recognize above all the value of migrants. The time has come to give migrants and their communities their proper place in the history of our bilateral relations. Both our countries owe them a great deal.'' Well, that is an issue we will explore a little bit more here as time goes on. Mr. Fox goes on: ``For this reason we must and we can reach an agreement on migration before the end of the year which will allow us before the end of our respective terms to make sure that there are no Mexicans who have not entered this country legally, and those who have come to this country do so with proper documents.'' Once again, two or three times, migration. Mr. Speaker, there is a difference between a migrant and an immigrant. A migrant moves from place to place. An immigrant moves from country to country. This is an important distinction which is attempting to be blurred by these kinds of statements. I know these are small things. People would say, it is just a word. It is just a word. But these are important, very important. Do Members think it is odd at all, even intriguing, put it both ways, that both gentlemen in their discussions never use the word ``immigration,'' but also use the word ``migrant'' or ``migration"? It is important. There is a distinction here between those two words. The attempt is to make us feel as though there is essentially no border; that the movement of people back and forth between what we now call Mexico, or by the way, which has actually had a name change in the recent past. Today when I got the invitation to go to this particular event over at the White House, I was intrigued because it said, ``Please come here. President Vicente Fox, President of the United States of Mexico.'' That was on my invitation. That was interesting. I did not know Mexico had changed its name from the Republic of Mexico to the United States of Mexico. There were all kinds of interesting really semantic things in terms of discussing this issue which I think are intriguing, to say the least: the United States of Mexico. But the whole purpose of the discussion today was to make us simply think about the idea of illegal immigration as being nonexistent. And when Mr. Fox suggests that ``there will be no Mexicans who have not entered this country legally,'' what he is saying, of course, is there is only one way in which that particular phenomenon could occur, one way. That is to essentially remove the border, eliminate the border in a de facto way and even a de jure way. That is the only way we would eliminate illegal immigration is by everyone coming here as legal. There are people here in this body, there are people certainly throughout the country, who believe that that is exactly what we should do; that we should in fact eliminate the border, not just the border between the United States and Mexico but all borders, because, of course, nowadays the free flow of capital and people should not be impeded, and, what the heck, it is all one big world, anyway. The European Common Market has formed itself into the European Union, they have established a single currency, and they are now establishing a single government in the European Congress. So that should be sort of the model for the rest of the world: that we should simply eliminate borders and let nature take its course. If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, then I think that that is a debatable point. I hope and I pray that this body will debate that point, because that is the end result of our whole debate on immigration. We have sort of talked around the edges of it: How many people, what should we call them, how long should they be here, how should we deal with the millions who have come to the United States illegally. What really and truly people are saying, people who are pushing the pro-immigration side, and I am saying ``immigration,'' mind you, not ``migration.'' Migration is what happens if I move to Kansas. It is not what happens if I move to Mexico or Canada or Guatemala. That is immigration. But when we talk about immigration in this body, and in this context, in the context of the discussions, the speeches given today by President Fox and by President Bush, I am concerned that what we really are beginning to discuss is the elimination of the borders. In the June 22 Time Magazine, they had a very, very interesting series of articles. In fact, the front page, and I wish I had it with me tonight, I forgot to bring it, but the cover of Time Magazine June 21 says, ``Mex-America,'' and the real gist of the story was that we have in fact, in a way, completely eliminated the border between the United States and Mexico, and that the Mexican culture, not just culture but many other aspects of life, has changed in the South, southwest parts of the United States because of massive immigration, both legal and illegal. There are, in fact, people who believe that we should do that. Well, then let us get to that point, Mr. Speaker. Let us really and truly simply get to the basic debate point here in the issue of immigration; that is, should we have a border, or should we not? Mr. Speaker, here is what we have to decide as a nation. If we want a border, if a border is meaningful, if it has any reason to be, if there is a reason to draw a line around this place we call the United States, then it is the responsibility of this Congress, uniquely of this Congress, by the way, and this administration, to defend it, to give it integrity. What that means is to make sure that only the people who are allowed to come in by law are able to come in, and if that means defending that border with one's armed forces, that is what it means. That is what we have to do if we want a border. We establish an immigration policy. Every Nation does. It says, here is how many people we will allow in this year; and by the way, not just how many people, but here is how many people with what we need in this country. We need doctors or lawyers although I must admit I do not know why we need any more of the latter. But we need people with various skills, various attributes to come into the United States, or any country. That is not just us, that is what most countries do. They say, here is who we need, here are the kinds of skills we need, and we will establish that as our immigration policy. We will defend our borders to make sure nothing else occurs. The United States essentially has surrendered that degree of sovereignty by saying, hey, listen, we will wink at all the millions, and I mean millions, of people coming across our borders illegally every year; we will wink at the employers who employ them illegally, and we will do so because it provides profits for many employers, and in a way it provides future voters for various political parties. Let us face it, there is a very political issue here. So we do not care about the fact that this Nation's population grows approximately 60,000 per week. That is the net gain over deaths and over emigration, people leaving the country, 60,0000 a week. And we ignore the fact that approximately 70 percent of that amount is a result of immigration. All of the issues with which we deal day in and day out in terms of the enormous strain on our infrastructure, the increase in demands, in the State of California, by the way, 95 percent of that State's increase in population over the last year, 95 percent is the result of immigration, legal and illegal. And because of that, Mr. Speaker, the State of California has to build a school a day to keep up with the demand. And, of course, there are highways, hospitals, and social services. It has been estimated that the cost of adding every new person to any community is about $15,200 a year, and that is the initial cost. It is not the costs we incur every year from that point on. There is no way that people coming into the United States today with very few skills or none at all, taking the lowest-paid jobs available, will ever pay back that cost. So all the talk about immigration being important for the United States, important economically, is hokum. If we were to really be concerned about what was good for America, we would say that we will take in about 300,000 a year, and here is who we need, people with certain skills, high-level skills, primarily, who will come into the United States, become very highly successful in terms of whatever trade they are involved with, and become net taxpayers, not tax users. That is the present state of affairs, that by far, by far the people coming into the United States today are net tax drains on the United States over even in the short run and over the long run. We tend to ignore this for a lot of other reasons, a lot of political reasons. I have developed a list of questions that I would like to be able to pose to President Fox while he is here. I have a feeling they will never be asked, but this is my only opportunity to present them. I am the chairman of what we call the Immigration Reform Caucus in this House. I have many times attempted to contact the administration, the White House, and talk to them about this issue. We have been unsuccessful in arranging for a meeting to this point in time. Therefore, I have only this way of bringing these issues to the attention of my colleagues, to the administration, and to the people of the United States. Recognizing full well that it is extremely important for Mexico to reconstruct itself economically in order to provide a standard of living for its own people that will keep them in Mexico, will allow them to live in their homeland, will allow them to prosper, achieve a better life for themselves. Recognizing a significant change has to occur in Mexico, I would ask President Fox, in order to achieve that degree of change, I would ask him: Number one, Mr. President, exactly how do you plan to reduce the massive and pervasive corruption which, in your country, unfortunately is endemic? For everyone from the cop on the beat to the highest levels of government, we know, everyone knows, the world knows the level of corruption. I had a gentleman in my office 2 days ago, in my Denver office, my Littleton office. He wanted to open up a business in Mexico. It is sort of a unique enterprise. He was not sure exactly who he needed to talk to in order to get permission from the Mexican government to import certain, in this case, tires to be recycled. And if he opened a plant in Mexico, he thought, how can I get permission from the Mexican government? He was going around and beating around the bush. Finally he said, look, what I am trying to say is, can you find out for me, Congressman Tancredo, who I have to pay off in Mexico to get the permits? Because he had done business in Mexico before, and anybody who has done business in Mexico and in fact in many third-world countries recognizes that that is the cost of business. That is the cost of doing business. If you have been stopped in Mexico for a traffic ticket, I mean, I could go on and on and on. We know that the best way to handle it is to hand the policeman your driver's license and a $20 bill, probably now more like a $50 bill. It does not matter. The corruption goes from that level up to the top. I assure the Speaker that until we begin to address this particular problem in Mexico we will never have a viable economy. NAFTA has got nothing to do with it. We could have completely 100 percent free trade between these two countries. We would lose many, many jobs in the United States, but it would not improve the economy of Mexico because the economy in Mexico is stuck in two ways. It is stuck in a socialistic enterprise. It still has not been able to get itself out of the old government control, government ownership. The government owns the oil industry. The most significant industry in Mexico is owned by the government. This is not a good idea. If I had the opportunity, I would ask Mr. Fox, What are you going to do about that? Are you going to divest yourself of the oil industry because, of course, you will never prosper as a nation under these conditions? What are you going to do, President Fox, about corruption? Tell me specifically how you are going to handle it. President Fox demanded of the United States not too long ago, attacking our current immigration policies, and this was in Milwaukee on July 17, an integrated Mexican-U.S. labor market. An integrated Mexican-U.S. labor market. Again, I would ask Mr. Fox, What do you mean by that? That is an interesting statement. An integrated labor market. I would like to know specifically how you define that. He demanded that U.S. laws be rewritten to bring about open borders between the United States and Mexico and that we give illegal aliens in the United States driver's licenses, even though, of course, they cannot read the road signs and do not have insurance; and that we give Mexican illegals a university education and other taxpayer benefits. Mr. Speaker, we do now presently provide K-12 education to all illegal immigrants' children in the United States. He wants us to go farther. He asked us to, in fact, provide university education to illegal immigrants from Mexico. So I would ask President Fox, Will your government, the Government of Mexico, provide a free education, K-12 and post-secondary, to any foreign national in Mexico as he has requested of the United States? Is he willing to do the same thing? I would ask President Fox, Since you own the oil company, President Fox, will you agree to sell the United States oil at below OPEC prices when that cartel punishes the United States by reducing its production? Because at a certain point, about $27, they go, oh, it is too low. OPEC says we have got to decrease production in order to increase prices. So, President Fox, you said that you wanted to be a friend to the United States. We have to build a relationship on trust. Okay, I would say. Mr. Fox, let us start here. I want you to agree to sell us oil at below OPEC prices every time they try to blackmail us. What do you think the answer would be? I wonder. I would ask him again, President Fox, What specific step is your government willing to take in the direction of increased privatization of the Mexican industry, Mexican economy. Are you willing to give up the oil company? Are you willing to privatize in order to spur economic growth? If not, do not look to the United States to be your safety valve, to take all of your unemployed, all of your poverty. Because I assure you, Mr. Speaker, as long as we continue to do that there will never be any pressure on Mexico to reform itself, as long as we are there acting as that safety valve. I will ask him, Mr. Fox, Will you stop the practice of handing out survival kits to those people about ready to come into the United States illegally? An agency of the government hands out a paper bag, 200,000 at last count, to people coming across the border into the United States illegally, paper bags filled with maps, little how-to- survive in the desert, condoms. Go ask them what is the purpose. But, anyway, that is what they give them, some water. Will you stop that, Mr. Fox? Because you say you want to stop illegal immigration in the United States, why are you promoting it by handing them out ``survival kits''? Will you stop that as a friendly nation? Will you publicly condemn those members of the Mexican Government who have called for the recolonialization of the southwestern United States by Mexican nationals? They have done so. Bizarre as that sounds, they have done so. I guess also, Mr. Fox, I would have to ask you, Why are you encouraging your people to take dual citizenships in the United States? In 1998, Mexico passed a law allowing for dual citizenships of their people. Since then somewhere close to 6 million Mexican-Americans, or I should not say Mexican-Americans because there are probably others involved, but so far 6 million people have accepted that particular identification as a dual citizen. Why are you doing that, Mr. Fox? I ask our own government, Why do we allow that? When a person becomes a citizen of this country, they are supposed to raise their hand and swear that they give up allegiance to any foreign power or potentate, I think is the word that they use. How is it that you can have a dual citizenship and call yourself an American? How can that happen, Mr. Fox? President Bush, I would ask you the same question. So those are some of the questions that I would pose to the President of Mexico, the Republic of Mexico or the United States of Mexico, whatever it calls itself now. Those are the questions I would pose. I hope that someone will ask them. I doubt if they will. I will tell you that those are the questions I want answers to before I would move one step forward in the area of immigration, liberalization. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I have introduced a bill to reduce legal immigration in the United States from the present 1 million a year to about 300,000 a year. I would, of course, take any action I could to stop illegal immigration. I would fine those employers who continue to use this form of illegal employment. I would put troops on the border. I would do what is necessary to protect our border; or I would say let us dissolve it. But let us have the debate here. It is one or the other. Either you have a border or you do not. Either it is meaningful or it is not. But before we go 20 years down the road and we look back and say, gee, how did it happen, that it sort of just evaporated, it is just gone, how did that occur, I would just as soon have us in this body debate that topic, have a vote up or down. Shall we eliminate the borders or not? If we decide not to, then we have to decide to enforce them.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, we are once again approaching a national discussion with the regard to the issue of immigration, and I am glad we are doing so because it is, of course, an important one. I am concerned because many times this particular issue is one that we are reluctant to deal with. We are reluctant on the floor of the House; we are reluctant oftentimes in the court of public opinion to discuss the issue of immigration or immigration reform for fear that somehow or other our concerns on this particular topic would be interpreted as being either anti-immigrant or racist in nature. But it is a fact, Mr. Speaker, that it is one of the most significant and perplexing problems we face as a Nation. It is, I think, one of the most serious of the domestic policy issues that we face as a Nation, because it affects us in a variety of ways. Massive immigration into the United States, especially massive numbers of illegal immigrants into the United States, cause a number of problems. They cause problems not just for people in the United States, but they cause problems even for those coming in. We have heard, of course, many times of the situations that have occurred as people have come across the border, have been taken advantage of either by people on this side or on the other side of the border, people who charge large sums of money for taking people into the United States illegally; and then when these folks get here, they are oftentimes taken advantage of by employers who know that they can pay them lower than the going rate for wages, they can withhold benefits, they can do all of this because the employee being illegally here cannot do, or refuses, or is fearful of, doing anything about it. So it is bad for the person coming across the border, and it is bad for people here for a variety of reasons. Massive numbers of people coming across the border, legally and illegally, low-skilled and, therefore, low-wage earners, have a depressing effect on the income of low-income people in the United States. It is difficult for people here to get jobs sometimes; it is certainly difficult for them to compete with people who are working for even lower than minimum wage levels. But there are even more important and pressing problems that we face in this country as a result of massive immigration, and those problems deal specifically with the cost of infrastructure that has to be developed and created in response to the growing numbers of people in the country. We have time and time and time again talked about the problems that the Nation faces as a result of an energy crisis. Yesterday, this House, to its credit, passed the President's bill, an energy reform proposal that hopefully will bring us a long way towards solving the energy crisis that we face in this Nation. But why do we face the crisis, is the concern that we should all have. Why is it that there is not enough energy to go around? Well, the fact is, Mr. Speaker, that the problem is a direct result of the numbers of people that we have coming across the borders in the United States. The massive numbers of illegal immigrants and legal immigrants have increased the population of the United States dramatically over the last 10 years. According to the United States Census, immigration accounts for over 55 percent of the population increase in the country. As a result, there are, of course, lots of pressures that are brought about in terms of infrastructural costs. Recently, we have witnessed something else happen. We have witnessed a proposal on the part of a Working Group in the White House, a proposal to provide amnesty to at least 3.5 million Mexicans who are here illegally. Now, that is peculiar in many ways. First of all, we tried this once before. In 1986, we proposed and, in fact, adopted an amnesty plan. It was designed at that time to reduce the number of illegal aliens coming into the country, to help us get a grip on our immigration problem. It, of course, did not work. It did exactly what we would assume it would do, Mr. Speaker. It encouraged many millions of others to come into the country illegally in the hopes that they too, in time, would be given the opportunity to be legalized because of their illegal activity, I mean as bizarre as that sounds, as incongruous as that sounds, as illogical as that sounds. But, nonetheless, we have done that. I am concerned about this proposal, and I do hope that we will eventually strike it down.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on International Relations be discharged from further consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 222) congratulating Ukraine on the tenth anniversary of reestablishment of it independence, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, I introduced a resolution, with the support of all five of my colleagues from Colorado, honoring the Colorado Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. The Colorado Wing was stabilized 60 years ago as a volunteer organization to conduct air and ground searches for downed or missing airplanes, hunters, hikers, and other missing persons across the State of Colorado. Last year, the Colorado Wing was accredited with safely flying 1,216 air search and rescue hours and saving the lives of 15 people. It continues its efforts to aid the people of Colorado through annual camps, training Civil Air Patrol cadets in ground search and rescue, field and emergency skills, in leadership, and in self-discipline. Having witnessed firsthand the invaluable and exemplary service the Colorado Wing of the Civil Air Patrol provides the people in the State of Colorado, I am extremely proud to introduce this resolution commending their excellent work and devotion to our community, and I urge my colleagues in support of this resolution.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, the Energy Security Act helps America address its energy problems by increasing our energy production on existing Federal sites. It helps us get more oil from our existing oil wells, more natural gas from our existing natural gas wells, more hydropower from our existing Federal dams. It looks for ways to produce more energy from wind, sun and geothermal heat, all from Federal lands. It also allows careful, gentle oil development of 2,000 acres in the Arctic by using the latest technology and adherence to the strictest environmental laws. The Energy Security Act does what we need to increase our production of energy, and together with bills from other committees, will form a comprehensive package that emphasizes vigorous conservation, more research, more reliance on clean and renewable energies, and the wise increase of energy production. As for California, its problems will not be solved until it changes its attitude with regard to energy production and changes its political leaders.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall vote 227 which occurred yesterday, July 26, I was present on the floor and I voted ``aye'' in support of H. Res. 209. Unfortunately, the House voting machine did not record my vote.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I wish to engage in a very brief colloquy with the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) related to the fifth proviso under the heading ``Office of Management and Budget.'' It is my understanding that this proviso would prohibit the use of funds for the purpose of OMB calculating, preparing or approving tabular or other material that proposes the suballocation of a budget authority or outlays by the Committee on Appropriations. Is this the correct understanding of this provision?

Mr. TANCREDO. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman be amenable to reviewing the need for revision during the conference deliberations on this bill?

Mr. TANCREDO. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. TANCREDO

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

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I will assure those Members, and especially the staff here this evening, that I will give them something to look forward to, and that is that we will probably not go half the time available to me, but I do appreciate the opportunity. I wanted to address an issue of concern to me, and it is an issue that I have risen before to discuss here on the floor of the House and I think certainly deserves our attention again this evening, and that issue is immigration, and specifically the problems created by massive numbers of people coming into the United States illegally. Recently, Mr. Speaker, a trial balloon was floated. It was floated by a working group that was appointed for the purpose of coming up with some proposals to deal with the issues of immigration, illegal immigration to the United States, and a variety of other related issues. That trial balloon was a proposal, and the proposal was to provide amnesty for up to 3\1/2\ million Mexican workers. Now, I say it is specifically designed for Mexicans who are here in the United States. It is not Guatemalans, it is not Haitians, it is not any other nationality, it was for 3\1/2\ million Mexican people here in the United States illegally, and it was to essentially just give them amnesty if they had been here a long enough period of time. Well, that trial balloon was met with a great deal of resistance, to say the least. Certainly our office received many, many calls. I am sure the offices of many Members of the House and Senate were similarly affected by this trial balloon, and the response was almost unanimously in opposition to such a proposal. There is a basic fairness issue here, a fairness issue that I think most Americans see. And it does not matter how one feels about the whole issue of immigration in general, those who are pro-immigrant, as I think most of us are. As a matter of fact, I think all of us have to be very cognizant of and very sensitive to the fact that we are all here as a result of someone's decision to come to the United States at some time in the recent past. Even those of us in the country who identify themselves as Native American probably came here, their ancestors, over a land bridge from Asia. So we are all in one way or another immigrants to this country. The issue of immigration in general is not the point in this case. The point in this case is whether or not we are going to simply ignore the fact that people have chosen to violate the law of the United States to come here and then be rewarded for that action by being given amnesty. Now, we recognize that that, as I say, is at least unfair. I think most people would agree that it offends their sense of justice. And it should. It should. What would happen if we would suggest that any other kind of crime be treated in such a manner? If someone comes here, if they were in the United States and involved with some criminal activity, and for a long enough period of time and they did not get caught, would we simply say, King's X, it is okay, they were able to avoid the authority long enough, so we should give them amnesty? Well, we do not do that. Of course not. And we should not do that in this case, and I think a majority of Americans feel the same way. Well, as a result of the kind of reaction that that proposal had, we saw that today another proposal has been floated. This one is designed to be a ``compromise proposal,'' and it says, all right, we will not just go ahead and grant three, four million people, and by the way it will be far more than that when all is said and done, but let us just take their numbers for the time being, we will not grant three to four million people amnesty who are here illegally just because they are here illegally, we will establish some sort of guest worker program into which these people can enroll and then we will grant them amnesty. Well, Mr. Speaker, that is really not a compromise. That is really not something anybody can get too excited about and say, oh, in that case, absolutely, all right, I see that it is worthy of doing. It is, of course, exactly the same proposal. We are simply going to reward illegal behavior by providing amnesty if they have been here long enough. The other interesting aspect of this whole thing, Mr. Speaker, is that we have tried this before. The idea of giving amnesty to people who are here illegally and who have been here for a long time, or some period of time anyway, and can prove that they have paid rent here or a variety of other criteria that we establish to determine how long someone is here illegally, has been tried before. In 1986, we did this, exactly the same plan, and it was a result of the fact that people were concerned about the massive number of people who were coming across our borders illegally. And in order to get a handle on that and to strike a compromise with people who want massive immigration, people who essentially frankly want to essentially erase the borders, in order to strike a compromise with them and to not look as though we were being too antagonistic to these people who have arrived here and come in here illegally, we decided to have an amnesty program. That was 1986. We adopted exactly the same thing. And it was designed to stop the flow of illegal aliens into the country. At that point we were going to get a handle on it and say, okay, if someone is here, if they have been here a long time, we are going to give them amnesty. Eventually they can become a citizen of the United States, even though they broke our laws to get here. Well, of course it did not work. As anyone may have guessed, to suggest that rewarding someone for that kind of behavior would stop that kind of behavior is counterintuitive, to say the least. It is hypocritical, I suppose, to even suggest that we should think that somehow or other the millions of people waiting outside our borders to come into the United States, tempted to do so illegally if they need to, are told if they do that, if they come in illegally, and if they can hide from the authorities long enough, they will be given legal status. That was the message, right, that is the message we send. Just exactly as anyone would have expected, they came. They came in massive numbers. Now, Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say I do not blame them for trying. I am sure that if I were in the situation they are in, many of these people, I would be trying to do the same thing. I would be seeking a better life as my grandparents did, perhaps yours. Certainly, as I say, everyone here at some point in their history looks back to someone who made that decision. But I must say, Mr. Speaker, that there is a process we have established for immigration into this Nation. The process is one that we must actually adhere to if we are to even pretend that we are a Nation that has control of its own borders. If you look on a map of the world, you will see every country identified by an outline, by a line around that country separating it from its adjoining neighbors. We have such a line separating us from Mexico and from Canada. Why is the line there, I guess I would ask. If there is no purpose for a line that separates one nation from another, then we should erase it. We should just simply forget about the idea that we have established one nation a little bit different than any nation around us. That, therefore, we are identifying ourselves as this separate entity, separate laws, separate history, separate culture, certainly open to immigration but with a separate identity. I happen to believe that that is an important aspect of nation state. I believe it is okay to, in fact, have that line. We have it whether it is good or not. The reality is if we are going to have a line that we call a border, then there is a responsibility of this House and of the other body and of the President of the United States to establish the policy of who comes across that border. That is the true and one unique responsibility of the Federal Government. It is to decide who can come in and who does not have whatever it is we believe is important for entrance into this country. It could be on any set of criteria you want to establish. It could be because we need workers in various industries. We need farm workers. We need workers in the construction industry. We need workers in the high tech industry. All of these things can be used as a reason for immigration. We establish a policy. We say, okay, here is how many we need this year for this particular task. Here is who we want to come into the United States. We want people that perhaps are going to bring capital into the United States. That is a pretty good thing. Maybe we need more lawyers, I do not think so, but, whatever it is, if it is lawyers, if it is engineers, if it is agricultural workers, it does not matter. What is important, Mr. Speaker, is that we make that decision who it is we believe with what attributes we think necessary to come into this country, the attributes we believe would be important and enhance life in the United States. That is why we have borders. That is why we pretend to have an immigration policy. But, Mr. Speaker, if you ignore that, if you pretend as though that border does not exist and you simply allow people to come across in the kind of numbers we have seen for the last 2 decades, many things happen. Massive immigration into the United States both legally and illegally has been a factor in certainly the growth of the Nation, the population of the Nation. As a matter of fact, 50 percent of the Nation's growth in the last census was a result of immigration legally, legal immigration, and illegal immigration, 50 percent or more. That is the census figure and I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the census figures are far too conservative. But let us use them for the time being. Fifty percent of the growth in the Nation is due to immigration, legal and illegal, far more illegal than legal. That means that 50 percent of the pressure applied in communities all over the Nation for more highways, more hospitals, more schools, the infrastructure that has to be built to support that kind of population is a result of this immigration pressure. It also has other ramifications. The day before yesterday I happened to pick up the paper in my hometown, Denver, Colorado, and I read a story about the fact that several police agencies are having to either hire or ask volunteers to come on board that would go out with policemen on their calls, especially domestic violence calls or, in the case that was cited in the paper, it was an accident, a boating accident. People were drunk and they crashed their boat and about 8 or 10 had fallen overboard and some were drowning. When the police got there, when the rescue teams got there, they could not communicate with any of the people who were in dire straits, and there was a lot of concern about the fact that this is not unique, that this particular situation is not unique, that there had been many times when police had been called out to a variety of different situations but had trouble communicating because the people did not speak English. So now police departments all over the country, this is not unique to Colorado, they are putting people on who have a variety of language skills so that they can perhaps respond to these issues. They are becoming concerned. Businesses are becoming concerned because they are fearful of lawsuits being brought by people who cannot speak English or read it; and, therefore, cannot read the safety warnings or whatever kind of instructions are on the product. So consultants are telling businesses that now they should be hiring people, they should be, of course, printing things in different languages and/or hiring people to be able to communicate in various languages. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, how many languages will we have to try and communicate in in order to satisfy this sort of legalistic tendency on the part of many people in our country and to avoid lawsuits? In my district, I have school districts where there are over 100 languages that are spoken right now. Mr. Speaker, we can handle immigration. I am not for a moment saying that we have to slam the door shut tight behind us and that no one else can come into this country. We can and should continue to allow people to seek access to the United States and to the freedom and the economic opportunity we offer. We should do so mindful of the fact that there is a certain number above which we cannot really accommodate that easily anymore. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that a million legal immigrants, plus those that we bring in under the status of refugee, plus the four or five million that stream across our borders illegally, I suggest that it is too much. We cannot handle the massive numbers coming in here. That does not mean that we, in fact, are opposed; or that I am opposed to any sort of immigration, but we cannot handle it at these numbers. There are ramifications to it. There are ramifications to it in our schools with attempts to impose bilingual education in classrooms, teaching children in a language other than English so they accomplish very little in terms of achieving the skills necessary to be successful in our society. The pressures are there. Why? It is because the numbers are here at such a level as to force a change in the structure of society. There are ramifications to massive immigration. It behooves us, it is our responsibility as the organization established, the entity established to, in fact, determine who comes into the country and who will not be allowed to come in. It is our responsibility to set an immigration policy that is good for the immigrants who we allow in and good for the United States on the receiving end. An amnesty program for millions of people who came here illegally, that is not a good proposal. That is not a plan, Mr. Speaker. That is surrender. It may be, it has been suggested, as a matter of fact, that this plan was proposed with the thought in mind that it would attract a certain number of voters from various ethnic communities, that they would support our efforts and the efforts of the party in the White House, my party. Well, I do not know, Mr. Speaker, if that is true or not, but I will tell my colleagues this. Even if it were true that we would find a huge number of Hispanics in this country changing their attitude about the Republican Party and, therefore, voting for us in massive numbers, I do not know whether that is true or not but it does not matter. We should not make laws in this country for specific groups in order to entice them to support us, our party or our candidacy. We should make laws that benefit all members of our society. I believe with all my heart, Mr. Speaker, that we can in fact entice, encourage, explain our position. We can provide an explanation of who we are as Republicans, let us say, explain the principles upon which our party is founded, principles of individual freedom, individual responsibility, and I believe we can make a case for someone to become a Republican on that basis. Certainly the Democrats are free to do the same thing. But that is the free marketplace of ideas. That is the whole concept behind this government, that people should be encouraged to support us one way or the other because of who we are, not because we make a law especially for them, not just because their ethnic group or their sexual preference or whatever. We have already divided this country up in so many ways, it is hard to really understand who we are as a Nation as opposed to some balkanized country in Eastern Europe. We have divided ourselves into so many camps, Mr. Speaker, with so many different interests. We have constructed a political system that is supposed to now sort of accentuate these differences, but this is not healthy for this democracy, not healthy for this republic, and it is certainly the wrong reason to make law. Mr. Speaker, the other day we had an event in Denver. A gentleman came up to me at this event and he told me a story. This was an elderly gentleman. He told me about an acquaintance of his who was a Filipino by birth. He had fought against the Japanese in the Filipino resistance in the Second World War. He eventually became associated with and worked in some capacity or other with American military in the Second World War. He was wounded in that process. After the war, this gentleman, after having, remember, fought the Japanese, supported the United States in that endeavor, fought on the side of the United States, fought shoulder to shoulder with American servicemen in the Philippines, this gentleman applied for citizenship to the United States. Well, he waited one year and one year grew to two and two grew to three and eventually it was 20 years that went by before this gentleman, remember, a person who had put his life on the line, who had fought shoulder to shoulder with American servicemen, it was 20 years before he was allowed to come into the United States as a legal citizen. Not too long thereafter, I think 2 or 3 years after he was here unfortunately, he died. He had waited most of his life to come to the United States and to do so legally took him, as I say, 20 years. Now, Mr. Speaker, what do we say to his relatives? What do we say to his memory? If we suggest, not only suggest but propose a law that would give what he so desperately sought, access to this country legally, if it would give it to millions of people who snuck into the country, who did not fight in any way, had no greater claim to come into this Nation than anyone else, except that they wanted the benefits of this life, of this society. What do we say to people like that? How can we look them in the face and tell them that they live in a just society? Mr. Speaker, there are literally hundreds of millions of people like this gentleman who would give anything to come to the United States and who have in fact applied for entrance into this country. But we have a quota for people from certain areas and we establish how many can come in, supposedly. If you are going to do it legally, you wait. That is exactly the way it should be. You do it by the rules. It is a travesty to offer amnesty to people who ignored these laws. Again, I am not blaming them individually, but I am also saying that it has not been in our interest to reward them for that action. Mr. Speaker, I believe that massive immigration into this Nation in the numbers we are talking about is one of the most serious domestic policy issues we face. It is extremely difficult to get many of my colleagues to stand up here and talk about this because there is a fear that if you do so, you will be branded as a racist, a xenophobe, a variety of relatively unpleasant things that no one likes to be called. Certainly I do not consider myself to be any of those things. I believe that I am pro-immigrant, having come from an immigrant family. I believe that the United States has been made richer in many, many ways by the contributions of immigrant families from the time our Nation was founded. I am not against immigration. We can handle a certain number of people in here every year. But we cannot handle the millions and millions of people who are streaming into this Nation and who are waiting to stream into the Nation. What if we really did eliminate the border? What if we really said, ``Well, if you want to come, come. Come on ahead.'' Does anybody wonder about what would happen? How many hundreds of millions of people would stream into the country? Could we really handle this? Could we really provide for them and for ourselves and for our children the kind of quality of life that we have come to build and expect in this country? I do not think so. I do not believe anybody believes that. So I ask to be rational in our approach to immigration. I believe that most of the immigrants who have recently arrived in the United States legally would agree with me, that that is the way it should be done. I believe most of the immigrants here today would say that the people coming in should not be rewarded for that kind of behavior, when they themselves, the people who came here legally, had to go through all of the hoops and did it right. So I do not think we are unique in calling for a complete reversal of this peculiar policy that has been proposed to give amnesty. I hope that we will once again regain control of our borders, I hope that we will establish guest worker programs that will satisfy the needs of business and industry in the United States, those that tell us day after day--they tell me, anyway--that they would go out of business if they did not have the opportunity to use guest workers, but in reality all of that can be handled through a guest worker program. We do not have to rely on illegals in order to serve us, because the illegals themselves are exploited more often than not by these employers. They are paid less, they are ill-used, they are ill-treated, because they know that if you are here illegally, you are afraid to turn anybody in. This is not a good deal. Illegal immigration is not a good deal for the immigrant, it is not a good deal for the United States, and it should not be rewarded by amnesty.

Mr. TANCREDO

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is historically accurate to say, I believe, that political freedom can influence economic vitality. I think that that is a provable point. I think it is much more difficult to try to prove the opposite, that, in fact, economic freedom can somehow force political freedom. It is a very difficult thing to do, just as my colleague has described. In the past, economic freedom, economic vitality did not lead ipso facto to political freedom, which is the case that is made over and over in defense of NTR. It will not necessarily work that way. The gentleman from California earlier, in opposition to this bill, suggested that we have to deal with the fact that China is an emerging nation. Wow. Pretty profound. It is, in fact, yes, it is an emerging nation. No one can deny that. No one does deny that. What kind of an emerging nation is China? It is a nation that in the last year has increased military capabilities to threaten Taiwan; exploded a neutron bomb a little over a year ago, that event went widely unpublicized; constructed 11 naval bases around the Spratley and Paracel Island group; convicted a U.S. scholar of spying for Taiwan; jailed or exiled every major dissident in China; closed or destroyed thousands of unregistered religious institutions; arrested 35 Christians for worshipping outside the official church and sentenced them indefinitely to forced labor camps; expanded the total number of slave labor camps to around 1,100; expanded the industry of harvesting and selling human organs. The government intensified crackdowns in the treatment of political dissidents in Tibet; suppressed any person or group perceived to threaten the government. Hundreds of Falun Gong have been imprisoned. Thousands of practitioners remained in detention or were sentenced to reeducation-through-labor camps or incarcerated in mental institutions. China has increased the number of extrajudicial killings; increased the use of torture, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, the mistreatment of prisoners, lengthy incommunicado detention, and the denial of due process. In May, the U.N. Committee Against Torture issued a report critical of continuing serious incidents of torture, especially involving national minorities; and, of course, last but not least, forced down an American plane and held 24 Americans hostage. This since we passed PNTR. This is the result. This is what we got for doing what we did. What can we expect, do my colleagues think? I quake to think what we can expect from a continued relationship of this nature. Trade. The issue of trade has come up so many times. The term trade we throw around here so lightly implies a two-way street. It implies an action we take, they take. We sell, they buy. No, it is not what is happening. Mr. Speaker, $100 billion later we explain to the rest of the world that this trade has not worked out to our advantage. And what makes us think that it ever will? I suggest only this: Please, when the gentleman earlier said that companies are setting an example in China, he is right, and here is the example they are setting. Those companies are putting profit above patriotism. Please do not encourage that kind of behavior. Vote for this resolution.