HALTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION (House of Representatives - March 04, 2003) [Page: H1507] --- The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 60 minutes. Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, it will be interesting as times goes by and as we begin the debate on the budget, which will come up in a relatively short order, it will be very interesting to hear our friends on the other side who have spoken so long and eloquently tonight about the issue of prescription drugs and the problem with the President's plan. It will be interesting to hear how they address the problem with the budget. My guess is, it is just a guess, of course, when the budget is presented, it will be attacked by our friends on the other side of the aisle for being too high and having too much of a deficit attached to it. I ask, I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if it would not be appropriate for all of us to think about the fact that the plan that is being put forward by the other side is one that would, oh, say a trillion dollars I think is the last we have seen that would attach to it in terms of cost. And my guess is again we will not hear much about that when we discuss the budget. At any rate, tonight I do want to talk more about a different issue than the budget. I want to talk about, of course, the issue of national security and the issue of immigration and how the two actually connect to each other. A great deal of debate is ongoing in the country about the activities that the United States will be involved with in a relatively short time perhaps in Iraq, whether or not we should be and whether or not the President is right to, in fact, address this issue in the way that he is choosing to do so. And that debate is appropriate and it is healthy in our Republic. Some aspects of it are healthy. But the one thing that I seldom hear being discussed by anyone, frankly, on either side of the issue of the United States involvement in Iraq is the actual threat that is posed by the action that we will take in that part of the world, the threat to our homeland, the threat to American citizens here in the United States. And the threat is real. No one, for instance, believes that our armies will be defeated in Iraq. No one thinks that we will fail in the desert of Iraq. Saddam Hussein does not think that we will fail there. No one believes that that is where the final victory in this huge endeavor we are involved with will be won. It is very possible, it is even predictable, I think, that various aspects of this battle against terrorism will be fought in a variety of places around the world, and we will experience casualties in places other than the desert of Iraq. [Page: H1508] And those casualties may very well be here in the continental United States. We know that Saddam Hussein and others have called for a greater level of terrorist activities be committed against American interests should we commence hostility in Iraq. And we know that that may very well be the commencement of hostility, that is, may very well be a catalyzing agent that will bring together many of the disparate forces in that part of the world in what is often referred to as a jihad against the United States, and we must be prepared for it. And we have heard how FEMA has put out various pieces of information and on the FEMA Web site people can go to it and figure out how to protect their homes and figure out what to do if they are at their business and something happens, some sorts of attacks occur, biological, chemical or nuclear. And we are preparing the Nation for this eventuality. We talk about it a great deal, and we should because it is a true possibility. It is, in fact, a probability. Now, we know that and we talk about that on the floor of the House, and we encourage Americans to be vigilant, and we ask them to take measures to protect themselves against these kinds of terrorist activities which we anticipate in the United States of America on our ground. It is amazing to me then that there is such a silence, almost one would say a deaf silence, emanating out of this body, out of the administration, certainly out of any sort of aspect of the media by and large, I guess I should say, some aspect of the media. Do pay attention to what I am going to say and suggest that it is, in fact, something Americans should be made aware of. But we hear very little discussion about the fact that our borders are porous and across them come people not just looking for a job, although many and in fact most do come that way and for that purpose. But many others come looking to do us great damage. And we talk about, we do pay lip service to things like the creation of the Homeland Defense agency and the reconfiguration of the INS and the Border Patrol within that umbrella agency we are calling Homeland Defense; and that I suppose is supposed to salve the concerns, that is supposed to make us all feel better and more secure: the fact that we are arranging the deck chairs, and that new boxes are being constructed with new names in them to oversee agencies with really important-sounding titles, all dealing with homeland security. But, Mr. Speaker, I just came back from a trip to the border, to the southern border; and I will tell you and I will tell anyone who will listen that our borders are not secure, that our homeland is not secure, even though we have an agency for that purpose. It is not secure. It is incredibly vulnerable. People still by the thousands come across those borders at their will. Again, most I am sure are doing nothing more than looking for the kind of life, a better life that our, perhaps your grandparents, certainly mine, came here for. They are coming illegally; and, therefore, they should not be given any sort of sustenance here. We should not encourage that. We should not reward that kind of activity. And I do hope that we will begin to understand that you cannot create a sieve on the border that allows only those people who are looking for a better life to come through it illegally, while simultaneously stopping those people who are coming here to kill us. I do not know how to construct such a sieve. I do not believe anyone does. [Time: 22:00] Yet that is exactly what we are trying to do today. We are trying our best, and the government really should be given credit, certainly the administration, for the diligence that they have exhibited heretofore, that we have been able to see actually, perhaps stop certain activities and events from occurring, and we should praise the efforts of our various intelligence gathering services and parts of the homeland security agency, because there are things that I am sure could have happened to the United States, very bad things that have been stopped by their diligence, and I commend them for it. Their job is overwhelming. It is made immensely more difficult because the borders are porous. We have embarked upon this interesting strategy that says we are going to try to find the people who have gotten into the United States and are here trying to do what they were sent to do, the literally thousands that we have been told are here in these sleeper cells, just awaiting orders to execute some act of terrorism against the United States, and we apply a great deal of our resources to that end, to trying to find them once they are here and stop them from doing what it is they are going to do. We do not do what is, I think, most logical thing, the thing that our constituents ask us to do every time I think almost any of us go home and have a town meeting. Somebody usually, certainly in my town meetings, will bring up the issue of border security and ask why we are not trying to stop them at the borders, why we do not try to stop the people from coming into the United States and doing bad things, why is it that we are concentrating on trying to do something about the ones that are here now, and here is the answer. It is an ugly answer, but it is the answer. The answer, Mr. Speaker, is that if we were to actually do what is necessary to prevent people from coming into this country to create havoc and to commit acts of terrorism, we would essentially end illegal immigration, and therefore, we will not do that. We will not secure the border. We will not defend American lives or property because it would end illegal immigration, and Mr. Speaker, there are many people in this body, there are people throughout the government that recognize the political peril that might develop as a result of doing what I suggest. There are large segments of the American population who could be offended by us securing our own borders. I do not understand how that could be. I do not understand how any American, any American regardless of the hyphen, what word we put before the hyphen, I do not understand how any American could say please do not defend our borders because if you do, fewer of my countrymen would be able to come in. Because if you feel that way, then that it is your countrymen that we are keeping out, then you are not an American, of course. You are connected, at least mentally, to another country. Politically, emotionally, linguistically, whatever, you are connected to another country and your concerns about our borders should not be taken into consideration. Anyone who believes themselves to be an American, it seems to me, would be willing to say, and in fact, they do in huge number, please protect the border, please stop people from coming into this country to do us great harm because it may be me, it may be my family that is the casualty and the casualties of the next terrorist activity, and because they have some sort of connection to our country, to the United States of America, because they want to see us survive, and they recognize that the world in which we live today is the world that does not, in fact, exist easily with things like open borders. The world in which we live, the kind of world we have lived in this United States for a couple of hundred years where we felt so secure from the problems of other countries, the oceans protected us and that we could defend ourselves by sending armies to other countries, that world is gone. It no longer really exists. Our Nation is at risk because our borders are porous, and no matter how many times somebody stands on the floor of this House or in front of the cameras at press briefings and says something like we are doing everything possible to defend the people of this country, no matter how many times they say it, it simply is not true. It is not true. I can tell my colleagues that anyone who lives on the border, northern or southern, will tell you that the border is porous and across that border is coming thousands, thousands of people over the course of a year, millions of people, and that they will also tell you, by the way, Mr. Speaker, that their lives are being essentially destroyed, that their way of life is being destroyed, that their ranches and farms and homes along that border are being destroyed, literally and figuratively, destroyed. We spoke to rancher after rancher in Cochise County on the border with [Page: H1509] Mexico, and they talked about having lived there for generations and how something different was happening in the last 4 or 5 years where they have always had the issue of, in the past, illegal immigrants coming across their border or that border and on to their land, and it is a few here and there, and they would give them food. They would give them jobs many times frankly, and these people would either move on or move back to Mexico at certain points in time, and it really was not much of a problem frankly. Something, they keep saying, has happened in the last 4 or 5 years, something very odd and very disconcerting, and what they say is that it is not just one or two people coming across. It is, in fact, hordes of people, thousands of people coming across the border, destroying the fences, depositing litter throughout the land and in areas that were heretofore pristine in nature. They are now essentially the local landfill, but there is no EPA to govern the problem and to constrict the use of this particular land. People will come to what are called pick-up sites, Mr. Speaker, and they are all over the land in this area. There are places where people will cross into the United States illegally, continue on foot to a particular spot inside the United States where there is a road, and they will congregate there, sometimes in the hundreds. Over a period of time, maybe thousands will congregate in this particular area, waiting for their truck, semis, various other forms of transportation to get there, pick them up and take them into the interior of the United States. The land becomes essentially destroyed where these sites are. There is so much trash that a person literally has to be careful as they walk through there because of what they might step on or what they might touch. I mean thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of water bottles and trash and plastic bags because people are told they must discard everything. They must discard their backpacks, jackets, coats, shirts, whatever, get into these whatever kind of transportation is made available to them with as little as possible because they need more room. So they do not let them take in anything that they are carrying and they have to just simply drop it at that point. The land is devastated. If this happened anywhere else in the United States, the Sierra Club would be going crazy. We would be hearing from them on the floor of this House every single day. Somebody would be getting sued. I guarantee my colleagues that. The cameras from ABC, NBC and CBS would be there every night saying, look what these people are doing to our land; they are destroying this property. Yet, I really have not seen that kind of exposure of this particular problem. I have certainly not heard the Sierra Club or any of the environmentalist organizations out there in the United States condemn this activity and try to do something about it and suggest that maybe the government ought to take some action. The trash that is deposited is not only unsightly and becoming something that becomes very dangerous at certain points in time, but it is also, of course, something that these ranchers have to put up with, and it becomes an economic liability for them because cattle eat the trash. They try to consume the plastic, and of course, it will kill them in a short period of time. The human feces that is deposited in this area, oftentimes a rainstorm will occur in that, especially in that part of the country it occurs quickly. These arroyos fill up. The human waste is washed down. It gets into the water supply for cattle and eventually for human beings. It is a very dangerous situation, very ugly situation. I talked to ranchers who spend most of their day trying to repair their fences instead of actually conducting the ranching operations that are necessary to keep them afloat. Many of these ranchers are in bankruptcy. Then, of course, there are the even more dangerous aspects of this, because the people coming across the border, many of them are carrying drugs, illegal narcotics into the United States. They come with backpacks, 60 to 80 pounds on their back. Sometimes they come guarded by people carrying M-16s or various other automatic weapons. They come across the land in, again, droves, thousands. We have pictures of them. These are very dangerous people. These are people who do not simply drop everything and run when they are confronted by either a rancher or a border patrol. They will want to many times shoot it out with them, and they have done so. Even some of the people who are not necessarily directly connected to the drug trafficking have become very indifferent in their nature, very aggressive, very antagonistic to the ranchers in the area, have threatened them physically, have assaulted them, have broken into their homes, their barns, the buildings on their ranches, have vandalized the wells, have threatened the family members. Person after person we speak to is armed. Children go to school armed, 13- and 14-year-old kids. Their parents are afraid to send them that far alone or unarmed. Ranchers have to keep shotguns or other firearms by their door, and as one rancher said to me, nobody should have to live like this. We have lived here for generations. Nobody ever locked their doors. Nobody ever locked their cars. This was the idyllic and picturesque rural life that most people thought existed in this country. Everything has changed on the border. The government of Mexico has decided to move as many people into the United States as possible, as I was told by Juan Hernandez, who was the head of something called the Ministry for Mexicans Living in the United States, a newly-created ministry in Mexico. He was at that time the minister, and when I asked him the purpose of such an agency, I had never heard of such an agency before, he said, well, no, it is new, and I am the first minister, and the purpose is essentially to increase the flow of people into the United States from Mexico. I said, why do you want to do that? And he said there are several reasons. He was very, very candid. I must tell my colleagues I was astounded by how candid he was when he said, well, the reason why we are trying to get as many people into the United States as possible is so that eventually we will be able to affect American policy vis-a-vis Mexico just by the number of people who exist there. He said, of course, these people send money home to Mexico. It is called remittance and it accounts for almost 30 percent of their GDP. It is a very important function. It is a very important part of the Mexican government and the Mexican economy. It also serves another purpose, although he did not claim this, but it is certainly accurate to say that because of Mexico's enormous growth rate in the last 25 years, having doubled their population, they are now, and because they are still looking, they still have an economy is that is anything but robust. They have a huge unemployment problem and they have lots and lots of very young people who are unemployed, and as certainly we know, what that means throughout anywhere, any country, it means instability. [Time: 22:15] And so they want to move these people out of Mexico and into the United States. Some people would even suggest that there are other reasons, that term "reconquista" is more than just an idle phrase; that people actually believe that they can reconquer that part of the United States, the southern part of the United States, by simply moving people into it. Well, there are many reasons why we are seeing this enormous number of people coming across the border, and Mexico may very well have their reasons for encouraging the flow into the United States. But we have absolutely no reason to accept this state of affairs except for the fact that we fear the politics. We fear the political reaction to any action we take to secure the border, both northern and southern. Well, that is simply not good enough for me, Mr. Speaker. That is not a good enough reason for us to abandon our borders. Because it is imperative, I think, for any nation, in order to call itself a nation, to be able to control its own borders; and we do not do that. We do not wish to do that, and we suffer the consequences: increased costs for American citizens. There is always this debate as to whether or not massive immigration of [Page: H1510] legal and illegal workers, low-paid, low-skilled workers into the United States is a benefit to the country. Well, I will tell you to whom it is a benefit. It is a benefit to those who hire low-skilled, low-wage workers and pay them very little. Those folks do, in fact, get a profit from this migration activity and from the fact that our borders are porous, and they can therefore hire people who are desperate. That is profitable for them, but it is costly for the United States. Many very reputable studies have been conducted that are designed to identify the actual costs. A lady at Vanderbilt University, a very well-respected economist, has stated often that the result of massive immigration into the United States of low-skilled, low-wage people creates profits for some, but costs for the many. And there is absolutely no way that the United States benefits in the aggregate from having millions of people here for whom housing is necessary, schooling is necessary, hospitals are necessary, and prisons are necessary. Twenty-five percent of the prison population in Federal prisons is made up of people who are noncitizens in this country. It varies from State to State as to how many noncitizens end up in State facilities or in local lockups, but it is a significant number. And these are very expensive costs. And they are not paid back by the "taxes that are paid by the people coming in." First of all, even if they were paying taxes, of course, we would recognize these are low-skilled, low-wage people. At one of these pickup sites I mentioned before, Mr. Speaker, that we were going through a couple of weeks ago on the border, we saw some paper, well, there was paper and stuff everywhere; and I happened to look down and there was a 1040, a Federal income tax form that someone had filed, and it was deposited in the rest of this trash heap in this pickup site. I picked it up and we were looking at it and it was a Mr. Delgado. And Mr. Delgado had filed taxes, a tax form for the previous year, in which he claimed, and I cannot remember now because I do not have it with me, but I think it was $8,000 or $9,000 in income that he had paid $1,100 or $1,200 in taxes. But of course he also claimed $2,400 in unearned income tax credit. So he got a refund, of course, of almost double what he paid. And this is not unusual. It is costing us not just the money that every city and State and the Federal Government has to put out for all the services and the infrastructure, but it costs us in terms of the tax claims that are made by the people who come in here and work often illegally. And my colleagues know as well as I do how this happens. Tax ID numbers are assigned. The IRS could not care less whether a person is legal or illegal. They will assign a tax ID number, and that is really all one needs to then make a claim for an income tax credit. So there is that one side of the immigration issue. There is this economic dilemma that we face and certainly an economic hardship that is placed on Americans to support massive immigration into this country. Then there is this other side, there is this thing we call the national security implications of massive immigration. And before I go to that, Mr. Speaker, I do want to talk about something else that is occurring. We are about to perhaps embark upon some action in the Middle East, and we are looking for friends around the world. We are very interested in getting countries in the Middle East to help us out. We have heard a lot about Turkey and the fact that we had offered them, well estimates go from $12 billion to $30 billion in aid, essentially a bribe, to have them allow us to station troops there. Their parliament recently turned down that request from the United States to station troops there, so this has caused a lot of consternation. But they are not the only government that is trying to hold the United States up in order for them to agree to allow us to do what we think we need to do for our national interest and for the interest of, in fact, the civilized world. Our friends to the south have been negotiating with the United States, because of course we need their vote on the Security Council in this resolution that is coming up. It is widely reported that some bargaining has been going on between the administration and Vincente Fox's government. The issue is, well, what is in it for us, is the way I think it has been put. What is in it for Mexico? What are we willing to give them to get their vote on the Security Council? This is the same government, Mr. Speaker, the same country whose president came here and addressed a joint session and talked about the need for trust. He used that word over and over and over again, I remember. We have to trust each other. We have to trust Mexico especially, he said. Well, in that vein, then, he is suggesting that some quid pro quo is necessary for them to support our resolution, or the British resolution in the Security Council; and what they are asking for is another push for amnesty for all the people living here illegally, all the people from Mexico living here illegally. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what arrangements have been made to get their vote; but I would suggest that this is not the action of a friend, of a nation that we are supposed to be able to trust. And I also assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I will certainly do everything in my power to stop any effort to provide amnesty for anyone here illegally, Mexicans or anyone else. It is the worst kind of public policy. Just before I came on the floor, I was talking to someone who was telling me about the fact that he is engaged, and he is trying to get the person to whom he is engaged here in the United States. It is a lengthy and difficult process, and he is of course doing it the right way. It is going to cost money. It is certainly going to cost a lot of time, and it is a big inconvenience. And I wonder what we would tell him and anyone else who is actually trying to do it the right way if we were to in fact then grant amnesty to the, what, 10 to 13 million people here who have done it the wrong way. What message does that send to all of the law-abiding citizens of this country and/or law-abiding prospective citizens to this country? It tells them they were suckers; and that is it, that they should have simply snuck in. Why would someone not just sneak in? Why would anyone go through the hassle? And by the way, when we go down to the border, the border patrol will say every time, please do not even mention amnesty. Because every time we say amnesty up here, this flood they are trying to deal with turns into a tidal wave. It is terrible public policy, Mr. Speaker, and I will do anything I can to try to stop it. Again, I do not know what arrangements have been made. I know it has been widely reported that this is the kind of thing that is going on. The fact that the borders are porous is more than just an obstacle to those of us who want to adhere to the rule of law and encourage people to come into this country legally, to enhance the idea of national sovereignty. It is more than just a little obstacle along those lines. It is also a very severe and significant threat to the existence of the United States of America. Across these borders come people, as I have said before, with ill intent, and they can come across at their will. And many people are coming from areas of the world that are certainly known to spawn the terrorists about whom we are so greatly concerned. In fact, on the border they also have a term for that. They always refer to these people coming across, this new phenomena, by saying there are so many OTMs. That simply means "other than Mexicans," coming across the southern border. But it is not unique to the southern border. I guarantee it is happening on our northern border also. Many people are being reported, hundreds, sometimes more, who are actually coming from countries in the Middle East. And what we are noticing recently is quite a number of people coming up through Brazil in what is something called the tri-border region in South America. This is an interesting phenomenon, Mr. Speaker. A very interesting phenomenon, because it is something we hear very little about. In a paper, from which I am going to quote here, it is called "Tres Fronteras," which means "three borders," and that is why I say we refer to it now mostly as the tri-border area. It is Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil in South America. It was submitted by Lawrence J. Martines, a member of the IACSP, the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, and a variety of other organizations. It is entitled "The Nexus of Islamic Terrorism in Latin America." It starts off: "Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay once held the title of the contraband capital of South America. A seedy border town surrounded by jungle, where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. Millions of dollars in drugs have passed through Ciudad Del Este down the Parana River to the Rio de la Plata and eventually reaching the Atlantic seaboard. Upriver came illegal booze, jewelry, and black-market cigarettes. The narcotrafficantes and all-purpose smugglers fueled the economy of the region. According to a U.S. State Department document, thanks to Ciudad Del Este, impoverished Paraguay had both a higher consumption of whiskey than Scotland and a record supply of foreign cigarettes and jewelry. [Time: 22:30] "In the mid-1980s, a demographic shift began in South America," and this is the part that is quite interesting and something hardly anyone talks about. "Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and Southwest Asia began flooding into the region, including the Tres Fronteras. By 2001 the Muslim population south of the Panama Canal had skyrocketed to an estimated 6 million. Over a million currently live in Brazil, while Argentina plays host to 700,000. Much of the remainder live in Paraguay, Chile, Peru and Bolivia. In Ciudad Del Este, over 23,000 Muslims, mostly Lebanese, Syrians and Iranians, now control the economic and political life of the area which extends across the border to the city of Foz do Iguacu on the Brazilian side of Parana. "Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, and under major prodding from the CIA, police officers from the three adjoining nations swept into the area to scour for evidence that the tri-border region may have evolved into a haven for Islamic extremists. Paraguayan police rounded up numerous Arab immigrants and Paraguayan citizens who they claimed to have links to international terror groups. Among those arrested was Alejandro Weiss, the former Paraguayan consul to the United States of America. It was discovered that consul Weiss had sold over 300 passports, visas and cargo shipment authorizations at $8,000 a piece. These documents went to Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian citizens suspected of terrorist connections. These individuals and their cargoes have since melted into the rapidly growing Arab community within the tri-border region. Skipping to the end, On November 21, Otto Reich, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere made the following statement. "We have information that there are numerous people helping the Hizballah organization in the tri-border area. This includes financially helping terrorist groups in the Middle East." "Footnote: When taking a hard look at Islamic extremists in Latin America, one should not ignore Mexico. Within the last year, a former Mexican immigration official in Ciudad Juarez was imprisoned because of his involvement in smuggling hundreds of Iraqis and Palestinians into the United States of America since 1996. These Arabs apparently traveled up the land bridge from South America. Further, within the same time frame, Matamoros police arrested a migrant smuggler accused of sneaking numerous Pakistanis into the southwestern United States. "One must conclude from all this Islamic extremist activity south of border that we must increase vigilance at our back door. The threat is clearly aimed at our homeland via the geography of our hemispheric neighbors. Continued sneaking of terrorists into America through our porous southern flank is a given, unless there is a major military or law enforcement presence implemented there in the very near future." While we were down there and in other briefings I have had from Border Patrol agents and from the INS, they will show you the number of people that they have arrested, and they identify them by country of origin. Over the last year and a half, it is fascinating to see what is happening, because there is the typical number from Mexico, and then they go through all of the other countries from which we are grabbing people that are coming into the country illegally. In the last year and a half it was weird because Brazil just went off the charts. What is the idea there? What is happening is this. Brazil and the tri-border area is home to this group of Islamic extremists, they provide the transportation network that brings these people up through Mexico and into the United States. They come from all over the Middle East, they come through that tri-border area. They are culturated to a certain extent, and then moved into the United States. We have gotten all of these people with these Brazilian passports. It is a very odd thing. But the point I am making is this: The folks that are coming into this country are not just looking for a job cutting your lawn or replacing your roof. Some of them, many of them, are coming to replace you, your very existence. They are coming across porous borders, and the only way that it can ever be dealt with is, I reiterate, to provide a major military or law enforcement presence on that border, northern and southern. It means the commitment of our military assets to a task that one would think would be the most logical task, the first task, to protect the homeland. Homeland defense. There are 37,000 American troops on the border between North and South Korea. South Koreans tell us that they do not want them. There are demonstrations all of the time against American troops there. Mr. Speaker, I would certainly look long and hard at any proposal to bring those troops back home and put them on the border where I know they are wanted, and that is our border between Mexico and the United States and Mexico and Canada. There are Muslim groups in Canada. When we were on the northern border, we were told about a Muslim group in Calgary, Canada. Odd as that might sound, that is what we were told by the Forest Service officials that were playing host to our group. And the reason they identified this group was this group was responsible, perhaps not all 25,000, but the Muslim population in Calgary that was responsible for the transportation of the narcotics of the drugs into the United States. They put them together here to make methamphetamines. And then the money that was garnered from this illegal trafficking in narcotics went back to this group in Calgary, Canada, and was then used to support terrorist organizations all over the world. We were told that there is something like 100,000 Muslims in other major cities in Canada, including Vancouver. Again, an odd thing. Muslims in Canada and Brazil, yes, it is happening. It is documented. It is pretty peculiar, I agree, but it is a fact of life. It is not a fact that we want too much exposure on however because if most people in the United States understood this, knew this, there would be a call to do something about it, and their government would supposedly respond to that. I do not know that they would do it, but I know there would be a call to do it. Mr. Speaker, I have never seen a greater divide between what the people of this country want and what this government is willing to give them than in this area of immigration reform. The people want it. We are not willing to give it. Why? Because of the politics of the issue. What do we do instead? We not only open the borders and keep them open, but we encourage even more people to come across. States are now providing various amenities, benefits to people to come here and live illegally. The Mexican consul in the United States is going around lobbying cities and States to get them to accept the matricular consular. It is a card handed out to Mexican nationals. They have every right to do that, but then the Mexican consul has gone out and asked cities and States to accept these cards as an ID for the provision of benefits and services, and many cities and States have agreed to do that. That means that we are running a variety of immigration systems in this country. The Federal Government is saying here is what we give you. It is called a green card when you come into the United States legally, or a visa. And a city is saying I do not care about that, I will take this card given by the Mexican consul. [Page: H1512] Mr. Speaker, I wonder if an American consul official would go to a State official in Mexico or Canada and say would you please help me help people that are here illegally violate the Federal law, would you please help us. Well, there would be an international incident. The governments of Mexico and Canada would file a protest saying what are your consuls doing in my country trying to get people to break the law. That is exactly what is happening in America. Yet we have taken no action against it. [Time: 22:45] We have not even filed a protest. In fact, we do not want this to be known. It is happening in State after State. Colorado, my State, to its great credit, has passed through the House and through at least one committee in the Senate a bill to ban any acceptance of the matricular consular by the State and any local entity in Colorado. I hope States throughout the United States take this example and move forward quickly. I have introduced legislation to stop the Federal Government from doing this. Why would there even be opposition to this? Why would we be saying that we would accept for identification purposes anything but a U.S. or State government issued document? But we are doing it to accommodate illegal immigrants into this country because, Mr. Speaker, that is the only people that in fact need this card. The only people who need a card for identification purposes are people who are here illegally. Otherwise, you have something from our government. It is called, as I say, a green card or a visa. But if you are here illegally, you do not have that so you need this other card, and we are accommodating that. States and cities are doing it. Even the Federal Government is abetting it because we have not spoken out against it. We have not demanded that the Mexican consul stop this activity. The State House in Washington last week, I think, passed a bill giving instate tuition. If Washington goes ahead, they will join several other States, Utah, Texas, California, I cannot remember, I think there is another State, that have done that. I wonder if they recognize, and, by the way, this is something I hope that they hear, Mr. Speaker, that in 1996 this Congress passed a law saying that if any State does that, if they give instate tuition to illegal residents in this country, then they have to give that same rate to everybody who applies, all outstate applicants have to be given the rate that they give to an illegal alien applying. So that will end outstate tuition for anybody wanting to go to Utah, California, Texas and Washington, anybody in the United States who chooses to leave their State and apply to any of these States for college; and if they are told that their costs are going to be much higher than the State resident, they could sue. I would certainly encourage them to do so because, of course, this is an activity that is designed to thwart the will of the Congress and the Nation. How many immigration systems are we going to run in this country? And they are given driver's licenses and they are out lobbying for this. And everybody will say, But these people are just coming for jobs. Come on. It is good for the country. No, Mr. Speaker, there are major, negative implications to massive illegal immigration. Where are the ears to hear this? Why have we not as a body risen up and reflected the will of our constituents and demanded that these governments stop trying to infiltrate into the United States, stop trying to send their people in here illegally? There is a process to come into the United States legally. It is not the act of a friendly nation to encourage people to come across our borders illegally. Michelle Malkin, I cannot say enough about her as an author and observer of the political scene, has written a book called "Invasion" to describe this phenomenon, and it is an invasion. It is the accurate word to describe what is happening to us. In order to stop it, we need to put our military on our borders to defend our Nation against this invasion. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, how we can look our constituents in the eye, any of us, when we go home if we have not done everything possible to defend the country. That includes using the military assets of this country for that purpose. We do not have to place people arm in arm across the border. Technology now allows us to, in fact, monitor large tracts of land, be able to address the issue when it occurs, someone crossing a border; we have sensors that can identify a person as opposed to a deer or an animal coming across. We have drones, unmanned aerial vehicles we can use on our borders. I have seen it work. We tried it on the northern border for a 2-week stint, 100 Marines using three drones and two radar stations controlling 100 miles of border in some of the most rugged areas of the country. We can do it. It is not an issue of resources. People will say, it just costs too much. A Member of the other body indicated, and he is from Arizona, that we could not put troops on our borders because we are about to go to war. I would suggest that there is a problem there, because we are at war in a way, in his own State, I should say. Therefore, those troops could be, I think, appropriately used there. Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that I know is uncomfortable for many to deal with; but it is nonetheless a real issue, something that needs to be dealt with by this body and by the American people. I appreciate the time that has been given me this evening to bring it to the attention of this body. END