SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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28–781 PDF
2006
SHOULD WE EMBRACE THE SENATE'S GRANT OF AMNESTY TO MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS AND REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL ACT OF 1986?
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,
BORDER SECURITY, AND CLAIMS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JULY 18, 2006
Serial No. 109–127
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
LAMAR SMITH, Texas
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama
BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
RIC KELLER, Florida
DARRELL ISSA, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
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STEVE KING, Iowa
TOM FEENEY, Florida
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
JERROLD NADLER, New York
ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
ZOE LOFGREN, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
MAXINE WATERS, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
LINDA T. SÁNCHEZ, California
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
PHILIP G. KIKO, General Counsel-Chief of Staff
PERRY H. APELBAUM, Minority Chief Counsel
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Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana, Chairman
STEVE KING, Iowa
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
LAMAR SMITH, Texas
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
ZOE LOFGREN, California
LINDA T. SÁNCHEZ, California
MAXINE WATERS, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
GEORGE FISHMAN, Chief Counsel
ART ARTHUR, Counsel
ALLISON BEACH, Counsel
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CINDY BLACKSTON, Professional Staff
NOLAN RAPPAPORT, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
JULY 18, 2006
OPENING STATEMENT
The Honorable John N. Hostettler, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress from the State of Iowa, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Howard Berman, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Jeff Flake, a Representative in Congress from the State of Arizona, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
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The Honorable Louie Gohmert, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Linda Sánchez, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
The Honorable Maxine Waters, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
WITNESSES
The Honorable Silvestre Reyes, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement
Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement
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Mr. Steven Camarota, Director of Research, Center for Immigration Studies
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement
Mr. James R. Edwards, Jr., Adjunct Fellow, Hudson Institute
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Edward M. Kennedy, Senior United States Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Article entitled ''Senate Bill Creates Terrorist Loophole'' by Kris W. Kobach, submitted by Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum
Article entitled ''Study: Immigrants Pay Tax Share''by Karin Brulliard, submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
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Letter from the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition et al., submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
SHOULD WE EMBRACE THE SENATE'S GRANT OF AMNESTY TO MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS AND REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL ACT OF 1986?
TUESDAY, JULY 18, 2006
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration,
Border Security, and Claims,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable John Hostettler (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The Subcommittee will come to order. Good morning.
Today, there are approximately 11 million illegal aliens in the United States, making illegal immigration one of the most serious issues facing our nation. In May, the Senate passed legislation that would provide amnesty for most of the illegal aliens currently in the U.S. in a way that is eerily similar to the amnesty Congress granted in 1986.
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At this hearing, we have the opportunity to examine how the United States dealt with illegal immigration 20 years ago, why that approach did not work, and the direction we should take in light of our past failure. In 1986, there were approximately 3 million illegal aliens in the U.S. Congress responded by passing the Immigration Reform and Control Act, or IRCA.
There are several key features to IRCA. First, it provided amnesty to 2.7 million illegal aliens in several different categories. Aliens who had been illegally present since 1982 were granted a general amnesty, while agricultural workers who arrived more recently were granted amnesty under the special agriculture worker program.
The amnesty was accompanied by a plan designed to stop employment of illegal aliens in the U.S. IRCA created an employer-sanctions scheme for employers who knowingly hired illegal aliens and required employers to check the identity and work eligibility documents of all employees to ensure lawful immigration status. At the time, policymakers truly believed that it would be a one-time amnesty and the problem of illegal immigration would be solved.
Congress rejected recommendations made by the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy in 1981, which stated in part, ''The Commission believes that a legalization program is a necessary part of enforcement, but it does not believe that the U.S. should begin the process of legalization until new enforcement measures have been instituted to make it clear that the U.S. is determined to curtail new flows of undocumented illegal aliens. Without more effective enforcement than the U.S. has had in the past, legalization could serve as a stimulus to further illegal entry. The select commission is opposed to any program that could precipitate such movement.''
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Then-Senator Alan Simpson, coauthor of IRCA, affirmed his commitment to amnesty in exchange by stating, ''I firmly believe that a one-time-only legalization program is not only good public policy, it is good sense, and it is fully in the best interest of this country.''
Time showed us that IRCA has utterly and completely failed, mainly due to the fact that Congress did not heed the warning of the select commission regarding the need for real enforcement prior to any discussion of such legislation. Illegal immigration has not been controlled, but has increased significantly in the past 2 decades. Employer sanctions have been enforced in a farcical manner. Furthermore, the I-9 system has proven to be a failure because an illegal alien can cheaply and easily obtain counterfeit documents to show his or her employer.
Employers in a catch-22 situation cannot require additional proof that the documents presented are legitimate for fear of running afoul of discrimination laws. In May, the Senate passed the Reid-Kennedy amnesty, which is remarkably similar to the 1986 amnesty. The Reid-Kennedy bill also provides several categories of amnesty, including a general amnesty for anyone who can show that he has been in the country for more than 5 years, including an agriculture amnesty.
Again, proponents of the current proposals believe that this amnesty will solve the problem once and for all, but Congress and the Administration have no credibility with the American people. Why should Americans have any reason to believe that the supposed enhanced enforcement provisions in Reid-Kennedy will be effectively enforced by the Administration, any more than successive Administrations have enforced IRCA?
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The Administration will probably implement amnesty for millions of illegal aliens quite quickly. Enforcement will likely lag behind, if it occurs at all. We will find ourselves in exactly the same place we found ourselves 20 years ago. Amnesty sends out a message that the United States is not serious about enforcing our laws. It is an affront to the millions of immigrants legally who wait their turn and use the legal immigration system.
When the United States grants amnesty and forgives lawbreaking, it encourages more illegal immigration in the future. The grant of amnesty in 1986 did nothing to resolve the illegal immigration problem. It made the problem worse as increased numbers of illegal aliens pour across the border waiting for their turn.
Well, Reid-Kennedy is their turn and a new wave of illegal aliens will come to wait for theirs. I believe that Benjamin Franklin once said that, ''The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.'' We cannot expect to solve the problem of illegal aliens by encouraging lawbreaking through amnesty. It didn't work in 1986 and it will certainly not work in 2006.
At this time, I would like to recognize the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, for purposes of an opening statement.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As always, we thank the witnesses for their presence here. I thank my colleagues, Members of this Subcommittee.
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Mr. Chairman, I always wonder about the timing in this House, and there is a concept called regular order. That concept ensures that thorough hearings are given to a topic prior to legislative initiatives being put forward. I think both the House and Senate attempted to do their job, and interestingly enough there is an immigration initiative legislation passed out of the House and there is one passed out of the Senate. In fact, it has been known, the Senate bill, as the Bush-McCain bill. Working of course collaboratively with Senator Kennedy and Senator Reid, it is the concept that the president has adopted.
It is interesting to note, as the Chairman speaks eloquently about legislative history that includes the 1986 bill, I remind him again that President Ronald Reagan worked obviously very hard as a Republican to fix what was perceived as a broken system.
I might add that they put their best effort forward, but of course subsequent to Ronald Reagan's tenure was President Bush. And so Republicans had a chance to enforce both legal immigration and procedures that would assist in making sure that we had the proper enforcement.
I think what Americans are asking for now is not a recap, not a recounting, but they are really asking for us to fix the broken immigration system, the broken benefits system, the broken legal immigration system where members of our community are crying out to allow them to process themselves to a legal system that works, fingerprints that are not lost, paperwork that is not lost. And yes, Mr. Chairman, they are looking forward to a system that includes comprehensive immigration reform.
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Might I, for a moment, Mr. Chairman, just say that I thank you for discussions that I hope that we will have if we continue to have these hearings that would ensure that there is a balance between Democrats and Republicans with witnesses. That is fairness. That means that we truly are achieving our goals of getting the facts.
What I would most hope is that expeditiously we achieve the opportunity of a conference committee to work on the existing bills, unless, Mr. Chairman, you tell me that we are about to reopen the legislative process. I know that many of the witnesses here, Congressman Reyes, might like to open the legislative process.
He had a number of issues and amendments that I joined him on, particularly providing support for our very worthy border patrol agents that we did not and were not able to include in the bill. It would be great if we were told by the leadership that that would occur, but as we speak that is not the case.
So let me just simply say that the question of this hearing uses the word ''amnesty,'' which has been infused with negative connotations by the opponents of the Senate's bill, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, S. 2611. The Senate bill in fact would not grant amnesty.
Amnesty is defined by the American Heritage dictionary as a ''general pardon granted by a government especially for political offenses.'' It was derived from the Latin word ''amnesti,'' which means ''amnesia.'' We have no amnesia in the Senate bill.
The Senate bill does not have any provisions that would forget or overlook immigration law violations. If I could, I would clap in this room today because I would say, as some of the kids say, ''yay'' or maybe even ''awesome,'' because we understand the responsibility that we have pursuant to the American peoples' dictates.
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The Senate bill clearly asks those to get in line, to be able to be documented, whether or not they can meet the criteria of having a number of indicia to make sure that they can meet the standards of status or citizenship, keep their records clean, employed for 6 years, to establish eligibility for permanent resident status and pay a substantial fine.
Those dollars, $24 billion, can be used to invest in America. The essence of the question, however, is found in the phrase ''repeat the mistakes.'' This refers primarily to a grant of amnesty. The opponents of S. 2611 appear to believe that anything but an enforcement-only approach is a mistake.
They have failed repeatedly, however, to implement enforcement measures. I have already chronicled for you that when this bill was passed we had two Republican presidents back to back. It is well noted that during the Clinton administration, our enforcement capability went up, but we have to understand compassion and reason.
I hope that over the next couple of weeks, we will be able to have on the floor of the House, Mr. Berman and Ms. Lofgren, stories of immigrants who have helped build this nation. I think we have failed to acknowledge the stories of the origins of this nation.
Maybe, Mr. Chairman, you will accept my invitation to have a hearing to be able to, if we are going to continue with these mock hearings, to have a hearing that will tell the viable stories of immigrants who have contributed to America. I know that you can count that as a viable part of this question.
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S. 2611 has a three-pronged strategy to fix our broken immigration system that would avoid the mistakes of IRCA. It would establish a fair legalization program, but it would have a comprehensive border security program that includes the northern and southern border. It is the Bush-McCain effort. It is the Kennedy-Reid effort. It is a collaborative effort. It is what America wants. It would provide additional visas for future immigrants, which would address the primary cause of illegal immigration.
Let me conclude, Mr. Chairman, by simply saying that we all are intent on doing our duty. You have called these hearings and I am present and accounted for as my colleagues are. But I would offer to say that we have a lot of work. Though this is not particularly the call of this particular hearing, I would just simply say I beg the president of the United States to rescue the 25,000 Americans that are in Lebanon that are now stranded and are asking for relief, and days and days have passed and we can't seem to get them out of Lebanon. That is the work that we should be doing. But if we are doing this work, let us do it fairly.
With that, I would like to submit into the record, I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, a statement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who was here in 1986 and has been working without stopping in a collaborative way to bring America comprehensive immigration reform. I ask unanimous consent.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Without objection, we welcome the addition of Senator Kennedy to the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Kennedy follows in the Appendix]
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent for a letter from a number of issue groups on immigration. I ask unanimous consent to submit their letter into the record.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Without objection.
[The letter follows in the Appendix]
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Chairman. I look forward to a productive time of bringing forth to America what they have asked us for.
I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jackson Lee follows in the Appendix]
Mr. HOSTETTLER. I thank the gentlelady.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Iowa for purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I very much appreciate this hearing, and I associate myself with your opening remarks.
But it doesn't matter to me, in response to the Ranking Member's remarks, whether we call the bill Reid-Kennedy, Bush-McCain or Martinez-Hagel, it is a bad bill. America knows it is a bad bill. They are going to find out a lot more about what is in this bill as these hearings unfold across America. It is important that we help educate America on those pieces that were in there.
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I can't find a single senator that will stand up and say, ''I understood everything that I was voting for or against;'' the pages were too many; the components were too detailed and too vague. It is unfolding yet today what is in that bill. We need to shine the light on that for the American people.
My central point is this, that we passed amnesty in 1986 and no one argued whether there was amnesty or not in 1986 because President Reagan declared it to be amnesty in 1986 and then this is the same policy. Whether you define it as something else, it is pretty difficult to change the definition that the American people understand to be amnesty.
Whether it is a general pardon granted by the government generally for political purposes, this is for political purposes, the proposed amnesty, and it is a general pardon, and if you reduce or eliminate the penalties that are in existing law and grant a whole class of people a general pardon, that is an amnesty even by the gentlelady from Texas's written definition that she presented here.
So I would point out also that we were told in 1986 that the Administration would enforce the law. I accepted I-9 documents from prospective employees and those that I hired. I put them on file. I checked their identification. I lived with concern that the Federal Government would come into my office and check my records and see if I was complying. They never showed up, and they didn't show up in millions of businesses across America because enforcement diminished from 1986 until 2006.
I will agree with the statement that the gentlelady from Texas made that there was more enforcement under the previous Administration than there is under this one. In fact, if you are an employer and you are concerned about sanctions for knowingly and willfully hiring illegals, you were 19 times more likely to be sanctioned by the previous Administration in the first 5 years than you were in the first 5 years of this Administration. That is just simply a fact.
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And so we have bought that bridge before. I propose we not buy that bridge again.
I would yield to the Chairman for any time that he might want to consume.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
In response to my colleague, the gentlelady from Texas, a discussion about the timing of these hearings, I would just like the record to reflect that in a discussion about the timing of such legislation that should be considered by the House of Representatives, I was asked for my opinion. It was my suggestion to leadership for the House to consider legislation after the Senate had passed a bill.
When asked why I would suggest such a thing, it was very clear to me the path that the Senate was going to take, and that I believed that Members of the House of Representatives would be much more focused on their attention to what type of legislation should not be passed out of the House of Representatives after the Senate considered their bill.
It is now the feeling of many Members of the House of Representatives that we should reconsider the issue of illegal immigration and immigration reform. That is why we are holding these hearings, especially as it relates to a significant portion of the Senate bill which was not included in the House bill, and that is the granting of amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, would you yield, just for an inquiry?
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The gentleman's time is the gentleman from Iowa. I yield back to the gentleman from Iowa.
Mr. KING. And I would yield back to the Chairman.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California for purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don't buy the notion that this is a serious effort to come to grips with the fundamental issues in the Senate bill. I am convinced by virtue of what has happened here, both in treating the House-passed bill, what it went through, and in the way people are titling and talking about the hearings in the Senate on the Senate bill, that this is simply a well-orchestrated effort to have this Congress recess before the election without having dealt with one of the country's most serious national crises.
Anyone who has taken a civics course knows that hearings are held before bills are passed, and they are used to gather information that might assist in drafting the bill. When the two Houses of Congress have passed a bill, the bill goes to conference, not to hearings, to see if we can work out the differences and move forward. We are moving backwards in this process.
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Remember, Mr. Chairman, last December the House passed an enforcement-only immigration bill. That is the one that made felons of 11 million people in this country. That bill was introduced on a Tuesday and without a single hearing in the Judiciary Committee, no chance to put light on those provisions, it was marked up, moved to the floor, and passed the following Friday.
No hearings, no input from the minority party in drafting the bill, no real deliberative process, with the Rules Committee shutting out every amendment that dealt with any of the obviously related immigration issues raised by the bill that was then before us. And, of course, we passed a bill that as generally acknowledged provides no solution to America's need for meaningful immigration reform.
That is why we are here today. No one should confuse these hearings with an attempt to correct the lack of deliberation of the House the first time around. These hearings are a con-job on the American people. The Republican majority in the House is trying to convince the American public that they want very badly to enact immigration reform and they just need to study it a little bit more in these hearings before they can get the job done. Even though Republicans hold the White House and a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, they can't sit down and put together a real immigration reform package that will produce meaningful long-term results.
This process is becoming a total failure. These hearings are about one thing: running out the clock. We are going to talk about this for 5 or 6 weeks, not convene a conference committee, not do anything in the context of working out differences, and then the Congress will end up going home without having passed immigration reform.
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And then to top it all off, I get communications and messages that come out from the House Republican leadership about this legislation, and from some of the witnesses that have been called today, making it sound like something reminiscent of the communist party days when all propaganda, when all messages were sent to convey propaganda.
A bill in the Senate, introduced by John McCain and Ted Kennedy, goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Arlen Specter, and through a process of changes and compromises Senator Specter passes out the bill. And then Senators Hagel and Martinez, two distinguished Republicans, put together a compromise, and then that piece of legislation passes the Senate with 20 Republican votes in favor of that piece of legislation.
The Chairman, the Republican leadership of the House, the witnesses, decided to name it the Reid-Kennedy bill, see how many times they can use the word ''amnesty'' in one sentence, and then try to create an image of a bill that doesn't exist. We know why the 1986 bill failed. It failed because the business community went to the Congress and said, ''Whatever you do, don't put the onus of determining validity of documents on our back.''
And the executive branch went along with that and the Congress went along with that. The fact is, the 1986 bill had a very fundamental flaw. The employer sanctions were worthless. One part of a comprehensive approach that will actually I think go a long way to solve that problem is to have a meaningful mandatory employer verification system in place so that both new employees and existing employees can be determined whether or not they have work status.
Without some process that deals with the legalization of the millions and millions of people in this country now working, and working under false identifiers, working in many cases in outrageously inhumane conditions, unless some process exists for them to come forward, that kind of a system will never work. All parts of this have to be done. The prescription is so clear. Instead, we get the propaganda releases from the Republican leadership here, which convince me they don't want to move legislation this year.
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Mr. HOSTETTLER. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona for purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Chair.
I rarely make opening statements in a hearing because I would rather hear those who are here to testify. I feel it is necessary for at least one Republican to say that the way the 1986 bill is being described is not very accurate, frankly, in relationship to what we are trying to do today. The failure in 1986 was because it wasn't comprehensive. That is a failure that we cannot afford to replicate.
In 1986, we gave an amnesty to those who were here illegally. We said, if you have been here 5 years, you have a shortcut to a green card. That is about all we did. We didn't secure the borders. We didn't have an employment verification system. Most importantly, we did not allow a legal framework for additional workers to come. So it was a farce. In the end, it was out of date before it was signed into law. We can't afford to do that today.
I would submit that if we only do one portion, and all we are talking about is the House bill, is more border security. That is one element, and a very important element, but it is only one. And we will do the same thing that we did in 1986 if we fail to do it comprehensively.
Yes, we need more border security. Yes, we need interior enforcement. But we also need to deal with those who are here illegally and we need to ensure that we have a legal framework for additional workers to come and return home. If we fail to do that, we will repeat the mistakes of 1986.
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So I resent the implication that in 1986 we tried comprehensive reform and it failed. It failed because it wasn't comprehensive reform. I think one Republican at least needs to stand and say that.
With regard to what is going on now, I associate my comments with those of Congressman Berman, who is saying that the proper order here is to have hearings, then have a markup, have a bill, and then have a conference committee. That is what we ought to be doing. The Senate bill, I like parts of it; I don't like parts of it. I voted for the House bill because it included many elements that we need.
So we ought to meld the two and get to the work of actually producing a compromise bill that contains all the elements that we need. It won't be everything I want. It won't be everything anybody wants, but at least we will move forward with a comprehensive approach. That is what we ought to be doing.
Instead, we are holding what we are calling field hearings across the country. They ought to be called faux hearings because they simply are in the wrong order. We aren't really looking to gather information so much as trying to beat up on the Senate bill. I am sorry for saying it like that, but I don't know how else to say it.
So I look forward to the testimony today, but just let me make it clear that I don't believe that the reason we are beating up on the 1986—I thought it was bad. We shouldn't have done it that way, but we can't repeat it, and that is what we are at risk of doing if we continue down this road.
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So I thank the Chairman for convening this hearing, and I hope it is productive.
I yield back.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. I thank the gentleman.
The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from California for purposes of an opening statement. Ms. Lofgren?
Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate my colleague, Mr. Flake's, honest commentary on this process. I attended a faux hearing in San Diego. It is pretty apparent, I think, to any honest observer what is going on here is a highly politicized process. It really has almost nothing to do with the serious work of dealing with immigration issues.
I think, and I certainly don't include Mr. Flake, because he has spoken openly about this, but I think it is pretty clear that the Republican leadership thinks that if they talk a lot about this that they can somehow convince the country that they are doing something. But I actually think that is a misplaced strategy because I think the country knows that the Republican Party is in charge of everything. They have the White House. They have the Senate. They have the House. And they have not produced.
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In fact, H.R. 4437 isn't really a solution either. If you take a look at what we haven't done, and I think the public will be aware of this, we have not actually hired, we have not produced the funding to hire the border agents that we said we would do. The president's 2006 budget calls for only an additional 210 border patrol agents.
The 9/11 Act which mandated an additional 800 immigration enforcement agents over the next 5 years has not been met. We have only funded 350 of that mandatory amount. The 9/11 Act also mandated an additional 8,000 detention beds, but for fiscal year 2006, we only funded 1,800.
So enforcement, and we have talked about enforcement, from 1999 to 2003, worksite enforcement operations were scaled by 95 percent. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 when Clinton was president, to four in 2003. The fines collected declined from $3.6 million to a little over $200,000. In 1999 when Clinton was president, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. Do you know what it was in 2004? Three companies.
So on the watch of the Republicans, there has been failure. I don't think the solution in the bill to make 11 million people felons is a serious one either. When you think about what it costs, it costs about $50,000 a year to incarcerate a person in Federal prison. When you add the costs of prosecution, defense, courtroom costs and the like, we are talking about one-third of a trillion dollars to actually take that felony provision seriously in the bill.
So I don't believe that a Congress that refused to hire border patrol agents is actually going to appropriate one-third of a trillion dollars to implement the felony provisions of that act, and if they don't mean to implement it, what are they doing other than just talking once again?
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I would also like to point out, and it's not that comfortable to criticize one's colleagues personally, but we have had efforts over and over again, the Democrats have, to increase funding for the border. The Republicans, including all the Republicans here, have voted against those amendments over and over again.
So I believe that we are talking a lot once again. We are going to talk all over the country once again, but I think it is all talk and no action. Talk is cheap, but I think that the American public is going to see through this sham and I think it is a real disservice to the country, frankly, that we are engaging in this kind of behavior.
I yield back.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gohmert, for purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I, for one, am glad you are having the hearings and I appreciate the opportunity. I would apologize to the witnesses here that have gone to a great deal of trouble to come here and to testify, as a colleague has referred to these as ''mock'' hearings. I doubt that your testimony is going to be mock. You will take an oath and we would expect you to testify not mock, but from your own personal experience and knowledge, truthfully to the best of your abilities, so help you God.
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Now, and also I had heard that we would like to have a hearing in which we can hear real stories about real immigrants. I will give you one. My great-grandfather came over around the 1870's. He got here with less than $20 and didn't speak a word of English. But he did two things: He worked his tail off and he learned English. As a result, by 1895, he built the house that has a national and State of Texas historical marker on it because he did so well. That is America.
You can come. You can do it legally. You can work your tail off. You learn English, and you can do amazing things, and one day maybe even your great-grandson that is a bald-headed goose-looking guy, could end up in Congress. You just never know what could happen.
We need immigration. We need border security. This is a tough time. It does not do us any good to turn a blind eye to the borders and to our avenues of entry. So again, I appreciate having the hearings because we have an impasse right now between the Senate and the House. I am constantly asked back home why is there such a wide discrepancy between the House version and the Senate version? I tell them it's easy: We have 2-year terms and they have 6-year terms. We have to listen to the people and find out what the problems are. They have a lot of time not to have to do that, and get serious when it gets toward their elections.
So that is why the House is more responsive. That was the design of the Constitution. So I think these hearings, once you reach an impasse between the House and the Senate, the hearings become important to back up and gather enough evidence to help persuade either the House or the Senate that one is off track. I don't mind a bit saying it is the McCain-Kennedy bill. It is the McCain-Kennedy bill. I am not embarrassed to say that because I don't like it and I don't care what the name is.
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As far as the cry that we need to be not having this hearing, but rescuing those in Lebanon, I would say we need to be rescuing people in the Middle East. We need to be sending those who would attempt to disrupt the Middle East, like Hezbollah, we need to send them back to the Stone Age.
But unfortunately, this country has so many problems, is so diverse, we cannot just focus on one little area like the Middle East when we have problems on our own borders. So I think it is incumbent for those of us who can multi-task to help those who can't. If some people can only do one thing and look at one area, God bless them, and help us in that area, for those of us that can multi-task, let's look at the Middle East, let's look at the borders, and let's try to make sure we are secure all around.
As far as the comment of a colleague that this is a well-orchestrated effort to do nothing, I would say it is an orchestrated effort to try to get enough information. You give me facts that change my mind, then I will go to the leadership and I will push to have our conferees change their positions. I am looking forward to hearing the testimony today with regard to that.
As far as additional funding, this House, guided by and pushed by this Committee, has forced additional funding far beyond what the president has asked for. We have asked for it. We pushed for it. We have gotten it. We got $275 million last year that the president didn't even ask for for more border security. So I am glad to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they are on-board now. They want to push for more funding.
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I do regret that we weren't able to get more funding to help with our ports. All our avenues of entry need to be protected. We need reform of the immigration service, whether you call it INS, ICE, whatever you want to call it. It has still got problems, and I will look forward to working on those, and I appreciate the Committee Chairman's opportunity to have this hearing.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. I thank the gentleman.
The chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Sánchez, for purposes of an opening statement.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wholeheartedly agree, like most Americans do, that our immigration system is broken and it badly needs a comprehensive overhaul. Americans also agree, like I do, that we need concrete and effective immigration policies to secure our nation's borders.
Meanwhile, I can't help but say that I am totally disheartened about the election-year posturing that is going on here. The title of this hearing is pretty comical, if it wouldn't be pretty sad. It has already attracted a lot of attention in the press: ''Should we embrace the Senate's grant of amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and repeat the mistakes of the Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986?''
Well, that is a conclusion in search of a justification, if I have ever heard one. We all know that these hearings are more about posturing, than a real honest reckoning with problems and solutions. I do think, however, that the hearing title does make one important point, and that is that we need to learn from past mistakes.
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These hearing titles are one thing, and then on top of that, the majority insists on calling the bill that passed the Senate, the Reid-Kennedy bill, as if it were somehow a Democrats-only bill that our colleagues somehow ran through while Mr. Frist and Mr. Specter weren't paying attention, which is completely ridiculous.
The world knows that this was a bipartisan bill that passed with the blessing of Majority Leader Frist, Judiciary Chairman Specter, and Senate Republicans from both the moderate and conservative ends of the spectrum. While personally I am not 100 percent enamored with the Senate bill, I admire that body at least for working on a bipartisan basis and for passing a comprehensive bill, instead of the piecemeal approach that we seem to be taking in the House.
The Republican immigration hearings like the one we are holding today are pretty meaningless. In the history of Congress, the House has never held hearings on a Senate-passed bill before going to conference. If this body is truly serious about enacting much-needed border enforcement plus immigration reform legislation, they should convene a conference that is fair and bipartisan.
These sham hearings are not fooling the American public. Republicans can't run away from their record on failure on border security and immigration enforcement. I want to cite two quick examples. I know my colleague, Zoe Lofgren, also gave some examples, but this is a pretty deplorable record. In the 9/11 Act of 2004, the Republican Congress promised to provide 2,000 additional border patrol agents, 8,000 detention beds, and 800 immigration agents per year from 2006 to 2010. And yet over the last 2 years, that promise has been broken.
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Between 1999 and 2004, worksite immigration enforcement operations against companies were scaled by 99 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In 1999, the U.S. initiated fines against 47 companies, and in 2004 it issued fine notices to exactly three companies. On the other hand, Democrats seven times over the last 4 1/2 years have offered amendments on the House floor to enhance border security resources. If these amendments had been adopted, there would be 6,600 more border patrol agents, 14,000 more detention beds, and 2,700 more immigration agents along our border than now currently exist.
But each time these efforts have been rejected by the Republican majority. It is clear that the Republican rhetoric doesn't match the Republican record of neglect and underfunding. America deserves an honest debate with all the facts on the table, not rhetoric, not cute hearing titles, and not demagoguery.
I thank the Chairman and yield back.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith, for purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, let me just observe at the outset that I think it is pretty clear from some of the words used by those who have made opening statements who is trying to politicize an issue that should not be politicized.
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But, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for having this hearing. In my judgment, this is probably the most complex, sensitive, and emotional issue that America faces today. So I think the more hearings on the subject, the better, and the more we can learn about such a controversial subject, the better as well.
I do think there is a temptation on the part of some individuals to blur the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. I think that we ought to be clear that there is a distinction and it is a meaningful one. Let me also say at the outset that legal immigration has in fact made our country great. We are the great nation we are today, the most prosperous, the freest country in the world, because of the contributions that legal immigrants have been making for generations.
America also admits more legal immigrants than any other country in the world. In fact, the last time I checked America admitted as many legal immigrants as every other country in the world combined. That generosity, I believe, should and will continue. I have no doubt that America's generosity will be perpetuated.
But there is a proper and essential distinction to be made between legal immigrants who have played the rules, waited their time in line, and come into the country the right way, and those illegal immigrants who have cut in front of the line, who have broken our laws, and who have remained in the country contrary to our laws.
In that regard, let me say that while I am not going to be able to stay long enough to ask questions today, I would like to make a point about the subject of the hearing. That is that as I understand the Senate bill, people in the country illegally are going to be able to become legalized after only 6 years. That means that that bill treats illegal immigrants far better than we treat those who aspire to be legal immigrants.
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I say that because if you are playing by the rules and being patient and waiting your time in line, and are from any number of countries, you have a wait that amounts to, in the case of Mexico and depending on the family relationship, you might have to wait in line 15 years. If you are from the Philippines, 23 years. If you are from India, 12 years.
Now, what kind of a message does it say to those individuals who have been waiting and playing by the rules, when someone who is in the country illegally gets to be legalized after 6 years? Basically, it says that they have not been smart to obey the law, and that they ought to try to come into the country illegally and they will become legalized much more quickly.
So in other words, unfortunately the message is you are going to be rewarded for your illegal conduct. You are going to be rewarded far more than those who have played by the rules and waited their time in line. In addition to that, you get to stay in the country while you are waiting for your legalization to occur. That seems to me just not the right way to approach the subject of immigration.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me just say that there is a panelist today who is a close friend and a colleague from Texas, Silvestre Reyes, who I greatly admire and respect. He knows as much about immigration as I think anybody in Congress. He has been a border patrol chief. He has been on the frontlines. He speaks about the subject with sincerity and with knowledge.
I hope I am here long enough—Silvestre, I have to leave at 11 a.m.—to hear your testimony today, but I appreciate your being here as well.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Goodlatte, for purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Thank you for holding this hearing.
I want to associate myself with and add to the remarks of the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith. He is quite right. The great flaw is the Senate bill, and there are many flaws, but the great flaw is the granting of amnesty to people who have entered this country illegally, or, and we have not talked much about this, entered the country legally on visitor visas, student visas, business visas, and then overstayed their visa to remain here illegally.
We need to address that problem, and we need to address it in a way that is fair to everybody involved, including people who have gone through a very lengthy process. Prior to my election to Congress, I was an immigration attorney. I helped people and businesses and families who wanted to reunify families and to bring in workers that were clearly needed in the country, to do that. They go through a very arduous, lengthy, complicated, sometimes costly process to comply with the law. Some of the people who have been through that process are sitting in those lines going through that process today, and are the most adamant that we should not be granting amnesty to those who short-circuit the process.
There is another important legal principle here as well. That is, with a few exceptions like the spouses of United States citizens, we have always imposed the standard of saying that if you violate the immigration laws and are illegally in the country; if you want to adjust your status, you must go outside of the country to adjust your status and come back in.
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It is a very important principle to those people who are waiting in those long lines who are trying to do this process legally. It is a very important principle to U.S. citizens who understand that while we are a nation of immigrants, there isn't a person in this room who can't go back a few generations or several generations and find somebody in their ancestry who came to this country as the land of opportunity that America still is today.
We are also a nation of laws. If you send the message that you can break those laws and then be granted amnesty, in fact massive amnesty to millions of people, you are sending the wrong message. And that is the great flaw of the 1986 bill. It wasn't the problem with employer verification. Employer verification is in that bill. There is an employer verification system there now. It can be improved. Congressman Smith attempted to improve that system in the 1990's. It was rejected by folks on the other side of the aisle.
It is a workable system, if it is enforced. I agree with those who say that both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration have not done enough to enforce our immigration laws. But the great flaw in that bill was to say to people, ''you can come into this country illegally, and then at some point in time it is okay to adjust your status here without ever having to go outside the country again.''
That is wrong and that sent the message to millions, millions more people, millions more people, that if they did it once, they will do it again. And now here we are examining a Senate bill that is getting ready to do exactly that once again. That is the mistake and we shouldn't repeat it.
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Now, the House bill is a good comprehensive bill when it comes to immigration enforcement. I strongly support it. It is badly needed. It has to be supported by the Administration to carry out the enforcement of the current laws and these additions. But those who say there is more to be done, I don't disagree with them.
A workable guest worker program that is truly temporary and that truly requires people that are illegally in the country to go out of the country to adjust their status and come back in is something that can be discussed and negotiated in this process. And probably at the end of the day, it will be needed to meet the needs of some employers in this country.
But that is not what the Senate bill does, and that is not what we should consider here today. We should examine this flaw and examine it from the historic perspective of not making the same mistake we made 20 years ago.
Now, the point has been made that there is a felony provision in the House bill that makes it a felony to be illegally in the United States. Quite frankly, I think it being a misdemeanor is sufficient offense. But an amendment was offered on the floor of the House to convert it from a felony to a misdemeanor and it was opposed by almost every Member on the other side of the aisle, including I think every Member who is sitting here today.
So when the point is made that this House bill is atrocious because it has this felony provision, and people sit here today and complain about it, I wonder who is playing politics with this legislation. I think the point needs to be made that enforcing the law has got to be the first priority.
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Mr. BERMAN. Will the gentleman yield on that?
Mr. GOODLATTE. I will be happy to yield.
Mr. BERMAN. I think our point was the House bill is atrocious and it creates felonies, not because it creates felonies.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman's comment, but the gentleman was not in any way interested about correcting that provision in the House bill.
Mr. BERMAN. Will he yield further?
Mr. GOODLATTE. I would.
Mr. BERMAN. Because the gentleman, and I am referring to myself, believed that no part of finding a solution to this issue was helped by making criminal, whether it be felony or misdemeanor, any aspect of presence in the United States. The reason the House bill was atrocious is because it didn't even allow amendments on the guest worker issues that you have raised.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Reclaiming my time.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. GOODLATTE. If I might have 30 additional seconds to reply to the gentleman?
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Mr. HOSTETTLER. Without objection.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the Chairman.
The fact of the matter is that to sit here today and complain about the bill, about an aspect of the bill, and you may dislike the whole bill. That is fine. I understand that, and certainly that would be your vote on final passage.
But to have the opportunity to correct an aspect, not correct it, and then come back in and complain later on, I think the gentleman is without good standing to make that particular complaint about the felony provision.
Ms. WATERS. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlelady from California, Ms. Waters, is recognized for purposes of an opening statement.
Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Members.
I don't know whether to thank you for this hearing or not. I know that this Judiciary Committee led by our esteemed Chairman, Mr. Sensenbrenner, passed out a bill from our Committee that would have been House bill number 4437, which was a very punitive bill that literally created felons out of immigrants, many of whom are trying to receive the right to be here. I think that was misdirected. I think it was unfortunate, and it has set off a firestorm in this nation.
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That bill was absolutely a radical bill. Of course, Democrats did not have a lot of choice. We are outnumbered on the Judiciary Committee. We could not stop that bill. So that bill left out of here, sending a message to this country that somehow we wanted to penalize immigrants in the harshest way for simply being in this country.
The Senate tried to correct what was done over on this side by coming up with a comprehensive bill. The H.R. 4437 only dealt with border security. The Senate bill is a comprehensive bill that not only talks about how we secure our border, what we do with employers that hire illegal immigrants, and guest worker programs, but it was a bill that talked about a path to legalization.
Unfortunately, the Republican talking heads, all of the right-wing radio talk shows hosted by the familiar voices, labeled the bill an amnesty bill. Well, we all know it is not an amnesty bill, but somehow that designation stuck, and the people out there in this country began to believe that somehow the Senate was irresponsible and it simply passed out a bill that would give amnesty to all of these immigrants.
That is so unfortunate. Normally, and the reason I said that I am not so sure I want to thank you for this hearing, we should be in conference. This hearing, these hearings should have taken place before the Sensenbrenner bill got out of this Committee, and I mean serious hearings, and even all over the country. I have no reason to want to oppose the fact that we should have had hearings. But this is a day late and a dollar short, and simply an attempt to politicize this whole issue, and to fan the flames of fear about immigration.
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So here we are talking about the Senate bill. All we need to do is let the bill go to conference and, you know, people of good will go into conference and try to work out the problems. Now, what we have is a country that is up in arms about the fact that there is an amnesty bill out there and no real decent, considered, thoughtful conversation and discussion about what we do to deal with the problem of immigration in this country.
Of course, we have some problems, and I don't think there is anybody opposed to securing the border. You ask the most liberal Democrat, the most conservative Republican, and those who are somewhere in the center, wherever that is, and everyone will agree that we need to have border security, that we should be a country that is concerned about how our immigration program works. So we are all on that.
Now, we have to undo all of this talk about amnesty. The Republicans are caught in this situation where they ran out with the bill, and now the Chamber of Commerce and all their well-heeled friends are saying no, no, no, no, no; we need immigrants to do this cheap labor; we need immigrants not only in the fields, but we need them in the factories and everyplace else. We are beginning to find that some of our upstanding well known, well-heeled corporations have been exploiting these immigrants.
Now you have to figure out a way by which you can keep the discussion going, calling this amnesty, satisfy your conservative corporations that need the cheap labor, and somehow come out on top without telling immigrants, and particularly Latinos, that somehow you are their friend and that you don't really mean to harm anyone. Well, this is all a little bit disgusting, but we have to go through this charade. We have to go through this charade today to talk about we are having a hearing on immigration.
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The fact of the matter is, ladies and gentlemen, I would hope that we would take the best parts of the Senate bill and honor the work of the Senate, secure the border, make sure that those employers who are exploiting these immigrants, are penalized and we have something in law that will do that. Think thoroughly about this guest worker program, and not simply have a guest worker program to satisfy the exploiters. I am not so sure we even need the guest worker program.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. WATERS. Unanimous consent for 30 seconds, and I will wrap it up.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Without objection.
Ms. WATERS. The most important thing is to have a legitimate path to legalization. What the Senate point out was there is a way that you can do this. We can ask these immigrants to pay fines, to learn English, to whatever, but give them an opportunity, particularly those who have been in this country for years. Many of them have children who are legal. They may not be legal, but we should not separate families the way that bill that passed out of here would do.
I would just ask us to try and give some real direction to an immigration bill that would make good sense.
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Thank you very much.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. I thank the gentlelady.
We will now introduce members of our distinguished panel.
First of all, the Honorable Silvestre Reyes represents the 16th District of Texas. Now in his fifth term, Congressman Reyes became the first Hispanic to represent his district in the United States House of Representatives. The 16th District of Texas includes the city of El Paso and surrounding communities, and lies within the El Paso County boundary. El Paso and Ciudad Juarez comprise the largest border community in the United States.
Representative Reyes has extensive experience in border security issues, as has already been mentioned, having spent over 26 years with the United States Border Patrol, where he eventually served as sector chief in both McAllen and El Paso, Texas.
Phyllis Schlafly founded Eagle Forum in 1972, a national organization of citizens who participate in the public policymaking process as volunteers. She has testified before more than 50 congressional and State legislative committees on constitutional, national defense, technological and family issues. Mrs. Schlafly served as a member of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution from 1985 to 1991, appointed by President Reagan and chaired by Chief Justice Warren Burger.
Phyllis Schlafly received her J.D. from Washington University Law School and is admitted to the practice of law in Missouri, Illinois, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Supreme Court. She is Phi Beta Kappa and Pi Sigma Alpha, and a graduate of Washington University, and received her master's in government from Harvard University.
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Steven Camarota is director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies. In recent years, he has testified before Congress more than any other non-Government expert on immigration. His articles on the impact of immigration have appeared in both academic journals and the popular press, including Social Science Quarterly, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and National Review. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in public policy analysis and a master's degree in political science from the University of Pennsylvania.
James R. Edwards, Jr., is an adjunct fellow with the Hudson Institute. Dr. Edwards' publications includes the Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, which was nominated for the Hardeman Prize. He has written policy papers on such topics as State and local police enforcement of immigration laws, ideological exclusion, the connection between legal and illegal immigration, and public charge doctrine. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Times and elsewhere.
Members of the panel, as is the custom of our Committee, I would ask that you please stand and raise your right hand to take the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Thank you. You may be seated.
Let the record reflect that the witnesses responded in the affirmative.
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At this time, all members of the panel are instructed that, without objection, your written statement will be made a part of the record. We have a series of lights in front of you. All of you I am sure are very familiar with the 5-minute time limit. We ask that you summarize your comments within that 5-minute time period.
Congressman Reyes, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
THE HONORABLE SILVESTRE REYES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Jackson Lee. Thank you for inviting me to be here and allowing me to testify before the Subcommittee this morning.
As we have sat here for the past hour, I just want you to know that the head of the CIA is in my Intelligence Committee, where we are working on some very important issues dealing with national security, and also at 10:30 I had a hearing in the Veterans Committee on cyber-security because of the 26 million or so veterans whose Social Security numbers could have been jeopardized.
But I am here, and I only mention that because I want you to know how important this issue is to me and to the district that I represent, and I think to our country. As I was listening to my good friend and colleague from Texas talk about our long-time friendship, I have been testifying before Congress for the last 15 or 20 years on border security, terrorism, drug trafficking and all those kinds of issues.
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So this morning, Mr. Chairman, I would like to preface my remarks about the substance of today's hearing on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, with a word or two about the process, or perhaps having listened to all of you and your opening statements, the politics that actually got us here.
It has been nearly 5 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. There have been countless investigations, hearings and reports about how to secure our borders and curb illegal immigration, but far too little in the way of meaningful measures to keep America safe, in my opinion. The time for talk about these issues has long since passed, and the moment of action is now.
Instead of numerous hearings that may make perhaps good politics, but do little to advance sound policy, Congress, all of us, need to reach a compromise agreement on comprehensive border security and immigration reform legislation.
I need to tell you that what we are doing now, what we are engaged in, is being perceived as convoluted and confusing around the country. Since the House Republican leadership is moving forward with these kinds of hearings anyway, I have come here to share with this Subcommittee my experience in border security and immigration reform to help ensure that we do not confuse rhetoric with reality on these very important issues of national security to our country.
As many of you have mentioned before, before coming to Congress I served for 26 1/2 years in the United States Border Patrol, including 13 years as a sector chief in McAllen and in El Paso. During the course of my career, I patrolled the tough terrain of the United States-Mexico border region, and I supervised thousands of hardworking and dedicated border patrol agents and did everything within my power and theirs to strengthen our borders and to reduce illegal immigration.
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I am probably the only person in this hearing room and in Congress who actually witnessed first-hand the effects of IRCA and other immigration legislation passed by Congress. I often tell people, including a group of about 300 or 400 last Friday night where one of my former colleagues retired, that there is good news and bad news in being the only Member of Congress that has this background.
The good news is a lot of people talk to me about it and want to get my opinion. The bad news is oftentimes my comments and my opinion are disregarded, and we keep on doing the same things over and over to the detriment of the security of our country. As I said, I represent a border district. In fact, I have spent my whole life on the border. I live there today and I am honored to represent the people of El Paso and the El Paso area in the House of Representatives.
Like most Americans, and especially given my background and experience, I am frustrated by our Administration and the leadership in both the House and the Senate and the failure to secure our borders and curb illegal immigration. This is 5 years after 9/11. This is why in coming to Congress, I have lobbied my colleagues for greater resources for border security, including additional border patrol agents, equipment and technology, more immigration inspectors, judges and thousands of new detention beds, so we could once and for all end the catch-and-release policy of releasing OTMs.
I have also long supported providing the resources required to enforce immigration laws in our nation's interior, including tough sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers. If it were harder for an undocumented worker to get a job, fewer of them would try to enter this country illegally, which would allow the border patrol to focus on those who might be trying to come here to do us harm, which by the way was a message that my former colleague stressed over and over last Friday night.
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Yet in every instance, the leadership and the Administration have failed to deliver these very necessary resources, even though experts agree that another terrorist attack on our country is not a matter of if it happens, but when it happens.
I think my colleagues have gone over the shortages that we have seen in terms of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, so if I can take an additional 30 seconds or so just to give you some of my observations, because I know a lot of you have expressed opinions on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Without objection.
Mr. REYES. If there was a failure, there was a failure in that Congress did not fund the resources necessary to enforce employer sanctions. I can assure you, based on my own experience along the border, employer sanctions worked, and they worked very effectively because we had the resources to check businesses along the border corridors where I was chief.
We took that law seriously. Apparently, Congress did not. And when people look and say that the Administration has failed to enforce the law, it is Congress that has failed to fund the resources necessary to prioritize that as part of the process.
I can also tell you that immediately after the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, we had a downturn in attempted illegal entries, that is people trying to enter this country. Some sectors were down as much as 80 percent on the U.S.-Mexico border.
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The overwhelming reason, and there were surveys taken, the overwhelming reason was because people understood that there were now employer sanctions that were going to kick in; that those were going to be enforced. And so they didn't think it was worthwhile to go through all the process of entering this country illegally when they weren't going to be able to get a job once they got here.
We failed as a Congress. I can't tell you how frustrating it is for me to see us again talking and talking and bantering back and forth politically and with great partisanship, when we are in danger because we haven't done the things that we have promised to do in securing our border.
I hope that at some point in wrapping up I get a chance to talk about H.R. 98, which is a bill that I have cosponsored with Congressman Dreier that addresses the Social Security card, addresses a system where employers would verify that card and the person that presents it, and also gives resources to both the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who are responsible for employer sanctions, and Social Security, to be able to make that happen. I think H.R. 98 unto itself would be one of the most important things that we could do as a Congress.
I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here. As I said, although I have those two other hearings going on, I am going to sit here and answer any questions that Members may have. I hope that we are working our way toward some meaningful immigration reform that takes into account all of the priorities that were mentioned by Members on both sides, that we do come with the Senate and come up with a compromise so that we can work for this country in securing its borders and its national security.
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With that, thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here before you and your Subcommittee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Reyes follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SILVESTRE REYES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Chairman Hostettler and Ranking Member Jackson Lee, thank you for allowing me to testify before your Subcommittee this morning.
I would like to preface my remarks about the substance of today's hearing on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) with a word or two about the process, or perhaps I should say the politics, that got us here.
In the nearly five years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there have been countless investigations, hearings, and reports about how to secure our borders and curb illegal immigration, but far too little in the way of meaningful measures to keep America safe. The time for talk about these issues has long since passed and the moment for action is now. Instead of numerous hearings that may make good politics but do little to advance sound policy, Congress needs to reach a compromise agreement on comprehensive border security and immigration reform legislation.
Since the House Republican leadership is moving forward with these hearings anyway, I have come here to share with this Subcommittee my experience in border security and immigration and to help ensure that we do not confuse rhetoric with reality on these important issues.
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Before being elected to Congress, I served for 26 years in the United States Border Patrol, including 13 years as Sector Chief, first in McAllen, Texas and later in El Paso, Texas. During the course of my career, I patrolled the tough terrain of the United States-Mexico border region, supervised thousands of hard-working, dedicated Border Patrol agents, and did everything within my power to strengthen our borders and reduce illegal immigration. I am probably the only person in this hearing room who actually witnessed firsthand the effects of IRCA and other immigration legislation passed by Congress, on the ground in the U.S.-Mexico border region.
In fact, I have spent my whole life on the border, having been born and raised in Canutillo, Texas, which is located near El Paso, Texas. Today, I am honored to represent the people of the El Paso area in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Like most Americans, and especially given my background and experience, I am frustrated by the Administration and the Republican congressional leadership's failure to secure our borders and curb illegal immigration, five years after 9/11. That is why since coming to Congress, I have lobbied my colleagues for greater resources for border security, including additional Border Patrol agents, equipment, and technology; more immigration inspectors and judges; and thousands of new detention beds so we can end the absurd practice of catch-and-release of other-than-Mexicans, or OTMs, once and for all.
I have also long supported providing the resources required to enforce immigration laws in our nation's interior, including tough sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers. If it were harder for an undocumented worker to get a job, fewer of them would try to enter this country illegally, which would allow the Border Patrol to focus on those who may be trying to come here to do us harm.
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Yet in every instance, the President and the current leadership in Congress have failed to deliver these necessary resources, even though experts agree that another terrorist attack on our country is not a matter of if, but when.
For instance, the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, often referred to as the 9/11 Act, called for 2,000 additional Border Patrol agents annually from fiscal year 2006 through fiscal year 2010, but Congress has fallen well short of providing that number. Time after time the Republican leadership has voted against efforts to fund the authorized number of agents, leaving the Border Patrol to do the best they can with not nearly as many agents as they need.
Similarly, the 9/11 Act called for 8,000 additional detention beds annually for five years, but far fewer have actually been funded. As a result, OTMs are still being released with nothing more than a notice to appear, not because the Border Patrol wants to release them, but because we have nowhere to detain them.
In total, Congress is 800 Border Patrol agents and 5,000 detention beds short of what was promised in the 9/11 Act. If the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks did not convince the Administration and congressional leaders that border security and immigration must be a priority, what will?
Talk is cheap. What border residents want, and what Americans want when it comes to border security and immigration reform, is action.
With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you again for allowing me to participate today. I look forward to hearing from the other members of the panel and our witnesses.
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Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Congressman Reyes.
The chair now recognizes Mrs. Schlafly.
TESTIMONY OF PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY, PRESIDENT, EAGLE FORUM
Mrs. SCHLAFLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee.
As the president of Eagle Forum, a national, conservative, pro-family organization of grassroots volunteers, I am in close touch with the people you would call grassroots Americans. In the last 6 months, I have given speeches in 16 States: Florida, Virginia, Utah, California, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, Alabama, New York, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Texas, Kansas and New Jersey.
I can report that the invasion by illegal aliens is the hottest issue across America, even in States far from the border, such as Kansas and Georgia. The first question I am always asked is: ''Why doesn't the Government get it about illegal immigration?''
Americans are basically a fair-minded people and the continued entry of thousands of illegal aliens offends our ideals of fairness. Failure to stop the entry of illegal aliens is unfair to those who don't have health insurance, but see illegal aliens given costly treatment at hospitals for which U.S. taxpayers have to pay the bill.
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It is unfair to the legal immigrants who stand in line and wait their turn to comply with our laws. It is unfair to our friends in Arizona who are afraid to go out of their homes without a gun and a cell phone.
It is unfair to small businessmen who are trying to run an honest business, pay their taxes and benefits to employees, but cannot compete with their competitors whose costs are so much less because they hire illegal aliens in the underground economy. It is unfair to American children in public schools who see their classrooms flooded with kids who cannot speak English and cause a gross decline in the quality of education. It is unfair to our own 16 million high school dropouts who need those low-wage jobs to start building a life.
Americans are basically a law-abiding people, and we believe our Government has betrayed us by its failure to enforce immigration law. Failure to stop the entry of illegal aliens is an offense against our fundamental belief that we are a nation that respects the rule of law.
In addition to believing that failure to enforce the law is unfair and a betrayal, the American people have lost faith in the honesty of our leaders. Americans think we are being lied to. Everybody knows that the various plans called ''legalization'' or ''earned citizenship'' are euphemisms for amnesty. The president and other public officials lose credibility every time we hear them deny that Senate bill 2611 is not amnesty. The American people don't like to be talked down to by politicians who play games with words.
Americans also feel lied to by the Senate bill's use of the term ''temporary guest workers.'' We know the president and the senators are not telling the truth when they imply that guest workers will go home after a couple of years. The American people are thinking, we don't believe you, and worse, we don't believe that you believe what you are saying, because the evidence is so overwhelming that guest workers do not go home.
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The Senate bill invites guest workers to a path for citizenship after a few years, and anyway, it is obvious that those few years give plenty of time to produce an American-born anchor baby. The American people also believe we are lied to by those who say we cannot get border security unless we also have a guest worker program and amnesty-lite. That is what they mean when they demand a comprehensive bill.
Mr. Chairman, you all need to realize that ''comprehensive'' has become a word as offensive as ''amnesty,'' because we have figured out that it is just a cover for a plan to repeat the mistakes of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act known as Simpson-Mazzoli. That was a comprehensive bill which combined amnesty with promises of border security and sanctions on employers who hired illegal aliens. We got amnesty, but we did not get border security or employer sanctions. There was massive fraud and the illegal population quadrupled.
The American people are not willing to be cheated again by the word ''comprehensive.'' Their attitude is, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. When we hear the word ''comprehensive,'' we believe that legalization and guest workers will be fully implemented, but we will get nothing but pie-in-the-sky promises about border security and employment verification.
If you have water in your basement, plan A must be to stop more water from coming in before you deal with the water already in the basement. Plan A is border security only, House bill 4437. We thank Chairman Sensenbrenner and the 88 percent of Republican House Members who voted for it. The House bill cannot be compromised or conferenced with the Senate bill because, in the words of the old adage, you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Schlafly follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY
My name is Phyllis Schlafly. As the president of Eagle Forum, a national conservative, pro-family organization of volunteers, I am in close touch with the people you would call grassroots Americans. In the last six months, I have given speeches in 16 states: Florida, Virginia, Utah, California, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, Alabama, New York, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Texas, Kansas, and New Jersey. I can report that the nationwide invasion by illegal aliens is the hottest issue across America C even in states far from the border such as Kansas and Georgia. The first question I am always asked is: Why doesn't the government get it about illegal immigration?
Americans are basically a fair-minded people, and the continued entry of thousands of illegal aliens offends our ideals of fairness.
Failure to stop the entry of illegal aliens is unfair to those who don't have health insurance but see illegal aliens given costly treatment at U.S. hospitals for which U.S. taxpayers have to pay the bill. It is unfair to the legal immigrants who stand in line and wait their turn to comply with our laws. It is unfair to our friends in Arizona who are afraid to go out of their homes without a gun and a cell phone. It's unfair to small businessmen who are trying to run an honest business, pay their taxes and benefits to employees, but can't compete with their competitors whose costs are so much less because they hire illegal aliens in the underground economy. It is unfair to American children in public schools who see their classrooms flooded with kids who can't speak English and cause a gross decline in the quality of education. It's unfair to our own high school dropouts who need those low-wage jobs to start building a life.
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Americans are basically a law-abiding people and they believe our government has betrayed us by its failure to enforce immigration law. Failure to stop the entry of illegal aliens is an offense against our fundamental belief that our nation respects the Rule of Law.
In addition to believing that failure to enforce the law is unfair and a betrayal, the American people have lost faith in the honesty of our leaders. Americans think we are being lied to.
Everybody knows that the various plans called legalization or earned citizenship are euphemisms for amnesty. The President and other public officials lose credibility every time we hear them deny that giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship is not amnesty. The American people don't like to be talked down to by politicians who play games with words.
Americans also feel lied to by the Senate bill's use of the term ''temporary guest workers.'' We know the President and the Senators are not telling the truth when they imply that guest workers will go home after a few years. The American people are thinking, we don't believe you C and worse, we don't believe that you believe what you are saying because the evidence is so overwhelming that guest workers do not go home. The Senate bill gives guest workers a path to citizenship after a few years and, anyway, it's obvious that those few years give plenty of time to produce an American-born anchor baby.
The American people also believe we are lied to by those who say we can't get border security unless we also have a guest-worker program and ''amnesty lite.'' That's what they mean when they demand a ''comprehensive'' bill. But ''comprehensive'' has become a word as offensive as amnesty because we have figured out that it is just a cover for a plan to repeat the mistakes of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, known as Simpson-Mazzoli. That was truly a comprehensive law which combined amnesty with promises of border security and sanctions on employers who hired illegal aliens. The illegal aliens got their amnesty B but we did not get border security or employer sanctions. There was massive fraud, and the illegal population quadrupled.
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The American people are not willing to be cheated again. Their attitude is: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me. When we hear the word ''comprehensive,'' we believe that legalization and guest workers will be fully implemented, but that we will get nothing but pie-in-the-sky promises about border security and employment verification.
If you have water in your basement, Plan A must be to stop more water from coming in C before you deal with the water already in the basement. Plan A is border security only, House bill 4437. We thank Chairman Sensenbrenner and the 88% of Republican House Members who voted for it. The House bill cannot be compromised with the Senate bill because, in the words of the old adage, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
I. THE SENATE BILL REPEATS THE 1986 MISTAKES
When President Bush went to Cancun, Mexico, in March, he said that he is committed to signing a ''comprehensive immigration bill. And by 'comprehensive,' I mean not only a bill that has border security in it, but a bill that has a worker permit program in it. That's an important part of having a border that works.'' In his nationally televised speech on May 15, President Bush reiterated that we can't have border security unless we also have a ''comprehensive'' bill including legalization and guest workers.
There are two problems with that argument. First, it is downright ridiculous to say that our government can't stop illegals from entering our country unless we legalize large numbers who want to come in. The United States has troops guarding borders all over the world, and it is not credible that we can't guard our own border. Second, we don't believe that the people who make that argument will ever give us border security. There is no hard evidence that they want to stop illegal aliens from coming into our country. George Bush has had six years to enforce border security. When grassroots Americans don't believe the President is leveling with us, it damages the moral fabric of our nation.
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The Senate bill would give legal status and a path to citizenship (i.e., amnesty) to the 11 to 20 million aliens (workers, spouses and children) who entered our country illegally and have been using millions of fraudulent documents. They would then become recipients of our generous entitlements. The cost to the taxpayers of this monumental expansion of the welfare state would be at least $50 billion a year. U.S. taxpayers would be saddled with paying for the entitlements of these low-income families, including Medicaid, Social Security (with credit for FICA taxes paid under false numbers), Supplemental Security Income, Earned Income Tax Credit (cash handouts of up to $4,400 a year to low-wage households), the WIC program, food stamps, public and subsidized housing, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, public schooling and school lunches, and federally funded legal representation.
The Simpson-Mazzoli Act is a good model of how any type of legalization or ''amnesty light'' will be fraught with fraud. That 1986 Act was expected to amnesty one million people; it turned into three million. Five illegals who received amnesty in 1986 subsequently participated in the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. One of them, the terrorist Mahmud ''The Red'' Abouhalima, a New York City taxi driver who got amnesty as an agricultural worker, used his legal status to travel to Afghanistan for terrorist training and then return to attack us.
Even worse than the Senate bill's plan to deal with the illegal aliens now in the United States is its mammoth legalization of foreigners under the deceitful words ''temporary'' and ''guest-worker.'' The newly imported workers will not be temporary and will not be guests. We are indebted to the Heritage Foundation for its stunning report proving that the Senate bill is a stealth open borders bill that will import about 66 million people into our country permanently and put them on the path to citizenship. This is ''the most monumental bill ever considered'' and its mindboggling costs would be the largest-ever expansion of taxpayer-paid entitlements.
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The fine print in the Senate bill describes how the so-called temporary guest workers, who will be given new H-2C visas, will convert to legal permanent residents with the right to become U.S. citizens after five years. The plan would start by importing 200,000 foreign workers with new H-2C visas in the first year. The H-2Cers can immediately bring in their family members on H-4 visas, without being required to have a physical, and they also will get permanent legal residence and citizenship.
The demographics of the new guest workers would be similar to those of the illegal aliens already in our country. Over half are high school dropouts, they work low-paid jobs that require little or no income tax to be paid, they are 50% more likely to receive tax-paid benefits than natural-born households, and they have a 42% rate of out-of-wedlock births (all of whom, of course, will be granted automatic U.S. citizenship). Working low-income jobs, they will qualify for the cash handouts called the Earned Income Tax Credit paid by taxes imposed on American citizens.
The Senate bill would, within 20 years, make 25% of our population foreign born (most of them high school dropouts), even though Pew Research reports that only 17% of Americans support increased immigration. It is impossible in so short a time to assimilate 66 million people whose native culture does not respect the Rule of Law, self-government, private property, or the sanctity of contracts, and who are accustomed to an economy based on bribery and controlled by corrupt police and a small, rich ruling class that keeps most of the people in dire poverty.
The Senate bill would give the so-called temporary guest workers preferential rights that American citizens do not have. The temporary workers can't be fired from their jobs except for cause, they must be paid the prevailing wage, and they can't be arrested for other civil offenses if they are stopped for traffic violations.
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The bill assures the illegals they can have the preference of in-state college tuition (a large taxpayer-subsidized benefit of up to $20,000 a year), which is denied to U.S. citizens in 49 other states, plus certain types of college financial assistance.
After the so-called temporary guest workers and their spouses become citizens, they can bring in their parents as permanent residents on the path to citizenship. Although the parents have never paid into Social Security, they will be eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Siblings and adult children and their families will be given preference in future admissions.
A system of temporary guest workers would give America a future like France, which is staggering under multicultural guest workers and bloated tax-paid welfare entitlements. It would turn the United States into a boarding house for the world's poor by enabling employers to import millions of ''willing workers'' at low wage-levels.
There is still more that is disastrous about the Senate bill. It would invite into our country with guest-worker status 115,000 skilled workers on H-1B visas, and raise the number each year. H-1Bs encourage corporations to hire engineers and computer specialists from India, Pakistan and China at half the salary Americans would be paid. The Senate bill would exempt from the H-1B visa cap and put on the track for permanent residence all foreigners who get advanced degrees from a U.S. university (an additional discrimination against U.S. graduates in technical subjects).
The Senate bill would also create a new F-4 visa category for foreign students pursuing an advanced degree in math, science, engineering or technology and put them on the track for permanent residence (thereby discouraging U.S. students from majoring in math and science).
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When I lecture on college campuses, students tell me they are switching out of computer science because they are told that there are almost no jobs available for computer majors. Of course there are plenty of computer jobs, but not for Americans because big business would rather hire foreigners. This system is not the free market; it's politicians and corporations conniving to do an end run around our immigration laws in order to keep wages artificially low.
The rationale for inviting H-1B foreigners to take American jobs is an alleged labor shortage, but we never had any shortage in engineers or computer technicians. The labor-shortage claim is ridiculous today since there are more than 100,000 unemployed or underemployed Americans with those skills. After the dot-com bust a few years ago, tens of thousands of computer workers and engineers left Silicon Valley and took any job they could get, of course at a fraction the pay they had been receiving.
The promise that employers will offer jobs to Americans first is a sick joke. American engineers and computer techies who lost their jobs to foreigners under the H-1B visa guest-worker racket know that a look-for-Americans-first rule is never enforced and easily evaded.
At least 463,000 H-1B workers are employed in the United States, and some estimate twice that number. H-1Bers who are hired by universities and other exempt institutions are not in the count. During the third quarter of last year, high tech companies in the U.S. laid off workers in record numbers, but they didn't lay off H-1B workers. Just before being laid off, hundreds of American engineers and computer specialists were forced to train their foreign replacements.
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The best research on the economics of H-1B workers has been done by Professor Norman Matloff of the University of California/Davis.
It's bad news for America's future if the corporations learn to rely on foreigners for all their computer work. Americans, not foreigners, are the source of the technical innovations we need to stay ahead in the fast-moving computer industry. Of the 56 awards given by the Association for Computing Machinery for software and hardware innovation, only one recipient was an immigrant.
II. ''COMPREHENSIVE'' COMPROMISES ARE MISTAKES, TOO
Faced with the American people demanding border security, we now hear some voices saying, okay, we'll package border security with legalization and guest worker, and we'll even promise to deal with border security first. We don't believe them. We have to see proof that the border is closed to illegal aliens and to illegal drugs before we talk about anything else. These so-called compromise plans are heading down the same failed road as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act.
For example, the bill proposed by Rep. Mike Pence tries to play the game of asserting border security first followed by legalization of current illegal aliens and a massive guest worker plan. This has all the defects of the Senate bill and in some respects it is even worse because, as Pence wrote in the Wall Street Journal, ''There will initially be no cap on the number of visas that can be issued.'' These visas would be distributed at offices anywhere in the world under the cutesy name Ellis Island Centers. Anyone may apply for these guest-worker visas from anywhere in the world. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that 49 million Mexicans want to live in the United States if they get the opportunity. There may be 5 billion people in the world who would like to come to America.
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These Ellis Island Centers would be financed by private industry, which Pence claims would be more efficient than government bureaucracy. Business would, indeed, be more efficient than government in importing more foreign workers, but it would be like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop. Private industry has a built-in incentive to import as much cheap labor as possible.
Private industry would no doubt be happy to set up Ellis Island Centers in India, Pakistan and China to completely bypass any limit on H-1B visas and bring in an unlimited number of lower-paid engineers and computer techies to replace Americans. Private industry will be only too happy to set up Ellis Island Centers in the Philippines (where tuberculosis is rampant) and bring in an unlimited number of lower-paid nurses to decimate the U.S. nursing profession.
In dealing with the problem of the illegal aliens now in our country, Pence tries to avoid the amnesty label by requiring them to make what he calls ''a quick trip across the border'' to Mexico or Canada to pick up a new visa so long as a U.S. employer certifies that a job awaits him. Pence told Time Magazine that his bill ''will require the 12 million illegal aliens to leave.'' We'll believe that only if we actually see it happen.
What about the millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. today who do not have an employer willing to go on record as guaranteeing a job for a foreigner? These would include the relatives of jobholders, the day laborers, and the millions of illegal aliens working in the U.S. underground cash economy (an estimated 40% of the total). Pence's proposal is silent on this.
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The Pence plan provides that the guest workers, after living here legally for six years, can choose whether to apply for citizenship or to return home. What if the aliens don't choose either option but just remain? Will they be deported after they have raised a family and established roots? Six years is ample time to have a U.S.-born anchor baby and start family chain migration.
III. GUEST WORKER PLANS ARE IMMORAL AND UN-AMERICAN
Even if a guest worker plan actually works the way it is promised, it would be immoral and un-American. Theodore Roosevelt warned: ''Never under any condition should this nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit. We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than 50 years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being.''
Inviting foreigners to come to America as guest workers is equivalent to sending the message: You people are only fit to do menial jobs that Americans think they are too good to do. We will let you come into our country for a few years to work low-paid jobs, but you have no hope of rising up the economic and social ladder, and we do not expect (or want) you to become Americans.
Inviting foreigners to come to America to do jobs that Americans think they are too good to do would create a subordinate underclass of unassimilated foreign workers, like the serf or peasant classes that exist in corrupt foreign countries such as Mexico or Saudi Arabia. That's not the kind of economy or social structure that made America a great nation.
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Some people say that leaving our borders open to people who want to sneak into our country illegally is the compassionate and Christian thing to do. On the contrary, it is uncaring and immoral to close our eyes to the crime on our southern border.
Failing to close our border to illegals means giving up on the war on drugs because most illegal drugs come over our southern border and then are shipped all over the United States. Drug smugglers armed with automatic weapons, global-positioning units and night-vision scopes have become increasingly aggressive in protecting their illicit cargoes. Attacks on our Border Patrol agents have risen fivefold in the past year. Mexican drug cartels are even running illegal marijuana farms in our national parks, protected by booby traps and guards carrying AK-47s.
The smuggling of human beings over our border is an organized criminal racket that ought to be stopped, and the number of illegal crossings has significantly increased ever since the President began talking about his guest-worker/amnesty plan. That's no surprise; the amnesty we granted in 1986 vastly increased the number of illegal aliens.
The smugglers charge thousands of dollars for the promise to bring people across the border, and then often hold them for ransom until additional payments are made. Female border crossers are often raped by the same smugglers who were paid $2,000 for safe passage. Hundreds die from thirst and dehydration when crossing the desert or in locked trucks without air or water. How many people will have to die before our government closes our border so that smugglers and their victims won't believe the illegal racket is worth the risk?
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Legal immigrants must be healthy to be admitted, but nobody is giving a health exam to people sneaking across the border. Illegal aliens are bringing in diseases such as Chagas that were formerly unknown in the United States, plus bedbugs and diseases we had eradicated decades ago such as tuberculosis, malaria and even leprosy.
Failure to close our border to illegals means that Arizonans live in fear of the aliens who trespass across their land every night, destroying their property, tearing down fences, and killing their animals. Since President Bush lives in a house protected by a fence, why can't Arizonans be protected by a fence? The most moral and humanitarian thing we can do is to erect a fence and vastly increase the number of our border agents in order to stop the drugs, the smuggling racket, the diseases, and the crimes.
France and Germany have already demonstrated the folly of a guest-worker economy. They admitted foreigners to do low-paid jobs, and now both countries have millions of foreign residents who do not assimilate, who burden the social welfare system, and who become more disgruntled and dangerous every year.
Guest-worker/amnesty would help to perpetuate Mexico's corrupt economic system, which keeps a few people very rich and most Mexicans in abject poverty. Mexico is a very rich country with enormous quantities of oil, but the oil is entirely owned by the government. The wealthy Mexican elites are glad to export some of their dissidents and unemployed so they can get jobs in the United States and send back $20 billion a year to Mexico.
IV. BORDER SECURITY IS ESSENTIAL AND MUST COME FIRST
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When is our government going to protect us from the crime, the drugs, the smuggling racket, destruction of property, and the endangerment to U.S. residents along our border and to our undermanned Border Patrol?
President Bush bragged in his speech that ''we have apprehended and sent home about six million people entering America illegally,'' but he didn't say how many of those six million were repeats. Maybe a truthful figure would be one million people deported six times, while the number of illegal aliens in the United States increased by five million after Bush became President. The illegal alien who drove 100 miles an hour on Interstate 485 on the wrong side of the highway, killing a University of North Carolina coed in November 2005, had been returned to Mexico 17 times. Did Bush count him 17 times in his six million figure?
President Bush's choice of verbs shows that his talk of border barriers, technology and more agents are empty promises. All the good stuff that he proposed was prefaced by the words ''we will;'' he never said ''we are'' doing these things. Bush said, ''To secure the border effectively we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across. That's impossible. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that 46% of the population of Mexico would like to live in the United States, and 20% would come illegally if they could.
At least 85% of the illegal drugs coming into the United States are coming across our southern border. Our so-called war on drugs is a farce unless our government closes our southern border. There is, indeed, a drug war going on, but it is a war between rival Mexican drug gangs C with the U.S. government a bystander lacking manpower or weapons to take action. Are we going to continue to leave our border agents sitting ducks for Mexican snipers?
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Our government recently seized an enormous cache of weapons in Laredo, Texas. This included two completed Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), materials for making 33 more, military-style grenades, 26 grenade triggers, large quantities of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bullet-proof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, narcotics, and cash.
The Department of Homeland Security admits that there have been 231 documented incursions by Mexican military or police, or drug or people smugglers dressed in military uniforms, during the last ten years, including 63 in Arizona, and several Border Patrol agents have been wounded in these encounters. Our Border Patrol agents say they are often confronted by corrupt Mexican military units employed to protect and escort violent drug smugglers.
Meanwhile, the news media have shown us pictures of the sophisticated 2,400-foot tunnel running from Mexico under our border to a warehouse in San Diego. U.S. authorities recovered more than two tons of marijuana, and it is unclear how long the tunnel has been in operation or how many tons of drugs already passed through. It is believed that the drug cartel started building the tunnel two years ago. Why did it take our government two years to discover it?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an Officer Safety Alert on December 21, 2005, stating: ''Unidentified Mexican alien smugglers are angry about the increased security along the U.S./Mexico border and have agreed that the best way to deal with U.S. Border Patrol agents is to hire a group of contract killers.'' The alert states that the smugglers intend to bring members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang, known as MS-13, to perform the killings.
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MS-13 is one of the most brutal and dangerous gangs in the world. In addition to murder, MS-13 engages in mutilation, beheadings, chopping off of fingers, and torture. MS-13 is now estimated to have 10,000 members in 33 U.S. states and another 50,000 in Mexico and Central America. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said, ''MS-13 has shown that its members have very little regard for human life. Some of the atrocities they have committed are truly unspeakable, and it worries me to know that our agents on the line are now the targets.''
In reporting on Mardi Gras on February 27, CBS-TV Evening News aired a segment on how the tattooed MS-13 street gang has invaded New Orleans. CBS explained that they are vicious beyond anything New Orleans police have ever experienced, and will kill a policeman immediately rather than run the risk of being deported. MS-13 members are usually laborers by day and murderers by night. They came to Louisiana to take jobs as carpenters, plumbers, and other construction jobs (jobs that should be reserved for displaced Louisiana citizens).
The New York Times reported that 18,207 illegal OTMs (Other Than Mexicans) were the beneficiaries of the Bush Administration's scandalous ''catch and release'' procedure in the three months since Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff promised to ''return ever single illegal entrant—no exceptions.'' Catch and release means that the illegal OTMs are not deported but, after they are caught, they are released on their own recognizance with instructions to reappear a few weeks hence, with everybody understanding that they will disappear into the American population.
An estimated 400,000 people who have been ordered out of the United States, including many convicted criminals or those from terrorist states, are still living in the U.S. because federal officials have failed to ensure their removal.
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Immigration investigators busted a 16-member smuggling ring in El Paso that brought thousands of illegal aliens into the U.S. The smugglers charged the aliens $1,500 to $6,000 each, depending on their point of origin. Rig drivers were paid $300 for each alien they successfully delivered to Dallas. The illegals were squeezed into truck trailers; one had 79, another had 51 riding in a locked trailer with no food and one empty 20-ounce water bottle.
The Mexican government is facilitating illegal entry by distributing maps of dangerous border areas along with safety instructions and other tips. The maps provide details of the terrain, cell-phone coverage, and water stations.
Let's put border security in perspective. We currently have 37,000 U.S. troops guarding the 151-mile border between North and South Korea, but we have fewer than 12,000 agents to