THE CHALLENGING QUESTION OF JOBS LEAVING AMERICA
(House of Representatives - March 31, 2004)
[Page: H1779]
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House.
It is appropriate, I suppose, that we continue with the discussion we are having about jobs. It is an interesting one, it is a challenging one. It is certainly an issue that will be with us for quite some time, certainly during the next several months as we approach the election.
We know that there is a great deal of anxiety in the Nation, there is a great deal of concern about the degree to which the exportation of jobs from the United States, the outsourcing, as it is referred to, has affected our economy, has affected the unemployment statistics and affected Americans in ways that are quite alarming sometimes.
We wonder about exactly how it is that we can treat this issue. Number one, is it for real? The outsourcing of jobs has sometimes been described as a good thing from an economic standpoint. I heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about that and suggest that someone was being disingenuous in that description.
Well, Madam Speaker, I do not know whether or not the outsourcing of jobs from the United States does in fact cause a net loss in jobs. I have a sneaky feeling it may. I am concerned about the possibility that it does.
We recognize that there is a phenomena, a world economy that challenges us as never before in terms of trying to figure out how exactly to address the issue of jobs, how to protect them.
In the past, and for the last actually 150 or so years, a lot of people have been wedded to the concept of free trade as described by various economists, from Ricardo and Adam Smith, and we adhere, most of us, to the concept that free trade is good in the long run and produces in fact a more viable economy. That has been the mantra many people have chanted.
I do not hear, even from the other side, however, a resolution to this. I do not hear anybody saying, well, we should not have free trade, that we should establish some sort of economic barrier to free trade, we should establish tariffs.
They can and do rail about the fact that we are maybe losing jobs in this new economy, in this new-world economy, and that it is, of course, therefore the President's fault. No one has in fact, that I know of, come up with a plan that would suggest a protectionist policy be implemented, that in fact we should begin to look at things like tariffs to protect American jobs. That is a hard case to make, and it is one alternative, of course, to the present course of free trade.
We can begin to restrict America's trade policies. We can begin to erect barriers. We can begin to say to other countries that if they do not react in what we would call a fair way to our trade policies that we will in fact impose some sort of penalty, we will raise a tariff barrier.
We can in fact even adopt policies, tax law, that would be designed to prevent companies from or punish companies for offshoring jobs, for moving jobs from the United States to other countries.
Those are policy options. Now, would they stop the offshoring of jobs? Would people then say, okay, because I have to pay an extra tax for doing that, I will not adopt this particular procedure? Well, I do not know. In some cases, it may work; in other cases, it may not.
Because, in reality, the competitive world in which we live is one that does not care whether or not jobs are lost in any particular country. It does not matter. The economy does not have a conscience. The world economy does not look at a net loss of jobs in country A and a net increase in jobs in country B and say, there is something immoral about that. It just says, that is the way it has to work.
This is difficult for any Member of Congress, for any Member, any elected person in the United States to have to deal with, because our natural tendency is to say, here is what we will do to solve that problem. We will stop this. We will not allow jobs to be exported from the United States. We will do things that absolutely ensure that we will always have a very high standard of living and that our jobs will be protected. That is what we would like to do. But, of course, the problem is how to do that.
I assure my colleagues, nothing we heard tonight from the other side is a solution. Nothing. It is simply a series of complaints; and it is demagoguery to stand up on this floor or anywhere else and simply rail against the "loss of jobs" unless one is willing to come forward and say, here is what we will do to stop that. We will begin to impose protectionist measures. We will say to other countries that we will not allow your goods into our country because you are subsidizing them in your country, and it is unfair. We will punish corporations for sending jobs offshore.
Now, we can do that, we can say that, and we can even actually pass laws to accomplish those goals. But will they stop this phenomenon? Can we do anything to reverse what appears to be an inevitable change in the economic status of America and of America's workers?
I do not come to this floor to tell my colleagues that I have an economic model we can impose that I know will achieve the goal of keeping jobs in America and keeping our standard of living high. But I do have a suggestion that I believe we can look to and that all of us should be able to say, this may work. It is both logical and it is, in fact, the responsible thing to do.
But we will never hear, Madam Speaker, we will never hear our opponents, ever, suggest what I am going to suggest as a way of protecting American jobs, because their purpose is not to protect American jobs. Their purpose is to make political points. Their purpose is to make Americans, who are fearful of their own jobs and those who have lost jobs, vote for them, as opposed to the President or Republicans, just out of the fear. But there is never a solution that they propose, and certainly not the one that I am going to suggest tonight.
Madam Speaker, in this country today there are between 13 million and 15 million people who are here illegally. That is to say, they have come across the border of the United States without our permission. For the most part, they have come for the purpose of taking jobs. We hear this all the time, even from people on our side of the aisle, that the people who are coming here illegally are coming here simply to take the jobs that no one else will take.
Well, I do not know how it is in the districts of my colleagues or anywhere else in the country, but I will tell my colleagues that in my district there are many people who are out of work and who are looking for any job. They will take a job in the high-tech sector from which they were fired because someone came in to work for less money, or their job was outsourced, or they will take a job, many people, who do not have the kinds of skills that would allow them to even think about a job in the high-tech industry, they will take a job as roofers or as drywall hangers or as bricklayers or as, yes, even, believe it or not, people who would clean our houses or cut our lawns. They are people who are in desperate need of a job.
But we are importing millions of people to take those jobs. Why? Because they will take them for less money than the previous person was willing to take. It is a constant series of someone undercutting the person who was there for their job.
Now, this importation of cheap labor has an effect on our economy. And, yes, it is true that some commodities are less expensive and that we can probably get our lawns cut, our laundry done, our houses cleaned, and any one of a variety of other things for less money because there are so many people here who are willing to work for very little, and they have displaced the person who was doing that job for a little more. So to that extent it benefits a certain segment of our society. In the long run, however, I think it is a detriment to all of us.
So if we really wanted to address the issue of jobs, why would we not say that one way to do it is to, in fact, limit the number of people who are coming into this country illegally, why would we not say that we are going to defend our borders, stop the importation of cheap labor illegally into this country and even reverse the flow by levying fines against people, which is the law, of course. The law today allows us to levy fines against people who have hired people who are here illegally. And if we do that, we will, in fact, be able to reverse this flow.
People who are here illegally, if they are not able to obtain jobs and the social service benefits that we so liberally provide, they will return to their country of origin. We do not have to "round them up in cattle cars" and send them out or anything of that nature. These are the pictures that our opponents try to portray all the time of this horrendous experience. But, in fact, we could simply enforce the law and secure the border and achieve the goal of reducing the number of people who are here illegally.
But those people who do not go home under those conditions should, in fact, be deported, because that is the law. We may not like the law. There are a number of people on the other side who, of course, despise the law, but it is the law, and it is something that we must deal with. We can try to ignore it. We can try to pretend these laws do not exist. We can try to pretend the laws about immigration are nothing more than the selections on a Chinese restaurant menu: We will take one order of this, two orders of that, no rice, and be particular about which laws we will, in fact, enforce and which laws we will not. But that is not the way our society is built.
Madam Speaker, we are supposed to be a nation based on the rule of law and the respect for the law; and the law says if you are here illegally, you should be deported. The law says that if you hire someone who is here illegally, you should be fined; and if you continue to do it, you could actually go to jail. That is the law. In this body where we make law, this is supposed to be the place where we have the ultimate respect for the law.
Yet the members of the other side and even members of our own party would rather ignore the law, would rather suggest it does not exist and that we will look the other way. Because, on the one side, they are concerned about the votes that they would be losing if we stopped the flow of immigration, both legal and illegal, or reduced it; and on our side, oftentimes because we are fearful that we will stop the flow of cheap labor. In any case, the borders remain porous, and the numbers begin to overwhelm us.
Let me point out something that I find absolutely incredible. First of all, let me say, Madam Speaker, that when I go down and visit the border and talk to our Border Patrol people, which I do often on both the southern and northern borders, one of the things I hear most often is an admonition from them, and it goes something like this: Congressman, when you go back up there, please, please tell your colleagues, do not talk about, do not ever mention the word "amnesty" for the people who are here illegally. Because they say every time that happens up there, meaning here, the flood we are trying to stop on the border becomes a tidal wave, naturally, of people who are coming to obtain this "amnesty." If they can sneak in under the radar screen, if they can sneak in in time, they will get an amnesty. That is what they think. So the numbers become overwhelming.
Let me tell my colleagues what has happened in one sector, one portion of our border, the Tucson sector, which, of course, as my colleagues know, is just one spot along a 5,000-mile border, north and south. Since October 1 of last year, which is the beginning of our fiscal year, to date, about 6 months, the number of people interdicted, the number of people stopped at the Tucson sector in the last 6 months has reached 211,450. That was as of a few days ago. They are stopping about 3,000 or 4,000 a night. Almost a quarter of a million people by now in 6 months have been stopped at the Tucson sector, on the Tucson sector of the border.
Madam Speaker, for every single person that comes into this country, I mean every single person that we stop at the border, 2 or 3, 5 or 10, we do not know for sure how many, but certainly a minimum of let us say 2, for every one we get, 2 get by us, minimum. It is probably far more than that, but a minimum of 2. That means that in the last 6 months, a half a million people have entered this country illegally just in the Tucson sector, and successfully entered the country. Madam Speaker, a half a million people in 6 months in one sector. This is, by the way, a 46 percent increase from this time last year.
In the month of March, apprehensions, with at this point 3 days still remaining, are 62,946, the month of March. That is up 34,100 from last year, an increase of 85 percent. Madam Speaker, 3,067 when this report was done, which was 3 days ago, 3,067 were caught yesterday, according to the Border Patrol. By the way, April and May are typically the peak months ahead of a hot summer. Madam Speaker, a half a million people came into this country illegally in 6 months in one sector.
Where do they go? Now if, in fact, they are just coming for the jobs Americans will not take, which is what we hear all the time, right? What are the 500,000 jobs those people are going to take when they get here that are just waiting out there? Right? Because, of course, that is what we are told is the case, that there are millions and millions of jobs going begging. Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues, in my colleagues' districts, are there thousands and thousands of jobs we cannot fill? I tell my colleagues it is not the case in my district.
I do not know of a district where want ads are going without response. Nobody wants the job. Thousands and thousands. 500,000 in the last 6 months. Where are they going? Where are they working? Are they, in fact, just taking jobs Americans do not want? Or are they, in fact, displacing American and/or immigrant labor who came here before them and doing so because they will work for less?
The President said in his speech that he wants to match every willing worker with every willing employer. But I ask the President to please think about that statement. I ask him to determine whether or not he really means that, matching every willing worker with every willing employer.
Well, I would suggest that there are billions of willing workers all over the world looking for the opportunity to come here and, in fact, undercut someone, underbid someone who is presently here for their job. Do we really believe that? If so, why do we even have immigration policy? If, in fact, our purpose is to simply let markets determine the flow of goods, services, and labor, why do we have immigration policies? Why do we say here is how many people can come into this country legally? Why do we not just say the border is meaningless, but if you get here, however you get here, you are here. You are a resident. You can apply for any job, you can obtain any benefit, you can even vote.
What is the purpose of a border if we are really and truly going to say whatever person is willing to work should be matched with any person willing to employ them? At that point in time it truly is a world economy, is it not? What sense does a border make under those conditions?
Why should we impose any restrictions? Why should we hand out visas? Because it does not matter, you see. If people are coming here to work and there are employers willing to hire them and they are willing to work for even less than that employer is paying at the present time, why should we interfere? It is just markets. It is just the way of the market and the world economy.
Well, Madam Speaker, I do not know whether we can begin to control the flow of jobs offshore, being exported offshore. I do not know because technology today, of course, makes it incredibly difficult to control the flow of work to worker. And you can push, you can move work to worker anywhere in the world because of technology. It is true.
I do not know whether there is any law we can pass, which is one reason our friends on the other side do not suggest them, because they do not know either; and they are petrified to say something like we will actually impose a tariff. They will not say it because they are afraid of the ramifications of it also. So they simply scream about jobs.
Well, whining and screaming and complaining will not change a thing. It may get more of them elected, it may get more people to vote against the President and against Republicans, that is their purpose, that is all they care about. But it will not change the job situation in this country. But I suggest that everyone in this body, and the President could do something tomorrow to improve the jobs situation in our country without imposing a tariff, without taking one protectionist step, but they could begin to enforce the law, the law that is presently on the books that says you cannot hire people who are here illegally, the law that says you cannot come into the country illegally. That is all we need to do to improve the job situation in America dramatically.
Because, Madam Speaker, it is not just, by the way, people coming here to do menial jobs who are sneaking into the country. There are people paying thousands and thousands of dollars to be snuck into the country. They are not coming in, by the way, to work in the local 7-Eleven or in somebody's vineyard. They are coming in for other purposes. Some of them very nefarious purposes, some of them paying thousands of dollars to be here.
In fact, Madam Speaker, some Middle Eastern clients will pay $50,000 to be smuggled into the United States. As I say, they are not coming here to take a menial job. They are coming here for something else entirely. And I am fearful to think about what it is and how many are here and how many are coming here illegally, across those porous borders, alongside and in between and hidden among thousands of people who are coming just to take the jobs no American will take.
I dare us, I dare the President of the United States, I dare the Congress of the United States to test that theory. Just test it and see whether or not there really are all these jobs Americans will not take. Just test it. Let us see. And you know what? If we reduce the supply of cheap labor, yes, it is possible we will have to pay a little more for certain goods and services.
But, Madam Speaker, I am willing to take that chance. And I am willing to pay that price. Because porous borders are dangerous. They are dangerous to this country, they are dangerous to our economy, certainly, and they are dangerous, they are a danger for our survival. We must, in fact, do something to achieve some degree of security and control over our borders. It is imperative. It is the thing that distinguishes a country to be able to determine who comes and who goes and for what purpose and for how long.
And there is nothing racial about it; there is no ethnic issues, all the stuff that our opponents want to throw on this heap. You know all the epithets that they want to throw out. All the names that they want to call people who simply ask for secure borders will not stop certainly me, and I hope others, from raising the concern, from suggesting that it is imperative that our country secure its borders and uphold its laws.
If, in fact, we do not believe that there is a purpose; if, in fact, there is something wrong with our immigration policy; if we do not think there is a reason for us to actually have borders, have INS agents, have Border Patrol, then let us repeal them, repeal those laws. There is no purpose, is there, for them if we intend to ignore them?
There is a fascinating thing, Madam Speaker, there is a law on the books, we passed it in 1994 or 1996, I am not sure which, but it was a law that said this: That if any state or locality passes laws to restrict the ability of the State from obtaining--from the INS obtaining information, if you restrict the flow of information to or bar the flow of information from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, it is against the law. It says that is a violation of Federal law. Now, that is what we said. That is the law we passed. Unfortunately, we put absolutely no sort of penalty behind it.
And so, of course, States and cities routinely violate this law, passing what we call sanctuary city laws, telling their police departments, for instance, that they should not report when they actually arrest someone who is here illegally. They should not report that to the Federal Government.
Time and time again, by the way, we have situations where folks who are here illegally, commit a crime, they are caught, there is an adjudication, they sometimes are sentenced; but no one ever tells the INS, so, of course, the INS does not come and deport them, which is what they are supposed to do because they do not know they are there. And this person walks out on the street and commits another heinous crime. Time and time again this has happened.
There are literally thousands of cases where people who are here illegally and who should have been deported because they have committed a crime, but they were not deported because that crime was never, ever reported to the INS. And we have said that that is against the Federal law.
I tried to add a penalty to that in the last session of Congress and I was unsuccessful. I tried to say that no one could apply, no State or city, could apply for funds under the Homeland Security Act or when we were also passing the Justice appropriation, nobody could get funds, nobody could get grants if they had passed these sanctuary laws. I think we got about 120 votes.
Now, that is incredible to me. Here is a body that passed a law and said it was illegal to do something, but when we tried to apply a penalty to it, we could not get a majority of the members to agree to it. This is a travesty, Madam Speaker. This is a travesty. And it truly is something that we as a Nation have to think about in terms of calling ourselves, if we want to go around the world and talk about the fact that we are a Nation that reveres the rule of law. And, yet, we refuse to actually enforce our own.
And so I say to my colleagues, I have told the President that if he does not believe in borders and if he does not believe in immigration law, then let us repeal them. It would be better to do so than to pretend as though we have them but only be selective in the way we enforce them.
Now, I am a "no" vote, by the way. I believe that immigration laws are important, I believe borders are important, but if I am in the minority in that, so be it. That is the way our government is supposed to work. But I want a full-fledged debate, and I want our colleagues to have to stand up on the floor and take a vote.
And I want the President of the United States to take a position on whether or not borders matter. Because if they do, then there are decisions that you have to make. If borders matter, then you have to defend them. You have to secure them. If they are of no consequence, then simply take down the barriers, take down the ports of entry, abolish the Border Patrol, abolish the INS, because there is no purpose for them. They are a very expensive sort of luxury to have to pretend that we have an immigration policy which we do not have the slightest intention of actually enforcing.
There are enormous implications to porous borders. There are political implications, there are cultural, there are economic, there are social, and there are national security implications. Besides that, there is another aspect to this: massive immigration into this country, into any country, actually, when that immigration meshes with, combines with a sort of, what I call a radical multi-culturalism, a philosophy that permeates the society, a philosophy that tells our children and immigrants that there is nothing of value in our country, nothing to hold on to, no heritage worth someone's allegiance, when we tell our own children in schools that there is no reason for them to have any attachment to Western Civilization or to the American experience; and we tell immigrants the same thing that they should keep their language, that we will actually teach them in the language that they have when they come here, teach their children in that language other than English, when we encourage them to stay separate, when we encourage them to actually keep their political allegiances to the country of origin. This becomes extremely problematic, and it goes even beyond the other issues of economy, of jobs, health care issues, social issues.
This goes to really the core of our society and whether we are going to be able to remain a Nation at all.
And this is happening, this cult of multiculturalism, it certainly does permeate our society. We see signs of it all over the place. As an example: at Los Angeles Roosevelt High School, an 11th grade teacher told a nationally syndicated radio program that she dislikes the textbooks she has been told to use and the State's mandated dated history curriculum because they ignore students of Mexican ancestry. She says because the students do not see themselves in the curriculum, she has chosen to "modify that curriculum by replacing it with activities like mural walks." Mural walks. These are intended to open the eyes of the students to their indigenous culture.
When on one of these walks they were confronted by one of the individuals who had made one of these painted murals, they became the teacher and went on to tell the children that their education is one big lie after another and that they essentially have no reason to be connected to the American experience and they should, in fact, hate it.
Now, this is one tiny example that is magnified 100,000 times around the Nation in a million ways.
In a textbook called "Across the Century," which is used for 7th grade history, the book defines the word jihad as "to do one's best to resist temptation and overcome evil."
In 2002, the "New Guidelines For Teaching History" in the New Jersey public schools failed to mention America's Founding Fathers, the Pilgrims, or the Mayflower.
In a Prentice Hall textbook used by students in West Palm Beach, titled "A World in Conflict," the first five pages of the World War II chapter cover such topics as women in the Armed Forces, racial segregation and the war, Black Americans and the home front, Japanese Americans being interned, and women and the war effort. Now, Madam Speaker, some 292,000 Americans died in that war, almost all of them white; but in the school text white male soldiers are represented far less in photos and words than all others.
A Washington State teacher substituted the word Christmas with the word winter in a carol to be sung in a school program so as not to appear to be favoring one faith over another.
In a school district in New Mexico, the introduction to a textbook called "500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures" states this book was written in response to the bicentennial celebration of the 1776 American Revolution. Not a bad idea. This is an interesting thing. But it was written "in response to the bicentennial celebration of the 1776 American Revolution and its lies." That is what the book was written for. Its stated purpose is to celebrate "our resistance to being colonized and absorbed by racist empire builders." The book describes defenders of the Alamo as slave owners, land speculators, and Indian killers. Davey Crockett is described as a cannibal. The 1847 war on Mexico is described as an unprovoked U.S. invasion. The chapter headings include, Death to the Invader, U.S. Conquest and Betrayal, We Are Now a U.S. Colony, In Occupied America, and They Stole the Land. This is a textbook used in New Mexico.
There are literally hundreds of examples that I could give of this cult of multiculturalism, this attempt to make children sensitive to other cultures by degrading our own. This is the concept that we live in this world where I am okay, you are okay cultures and civilizations; that everyone is the same as everyone else and that all things are relative. We cannot condemn or look down upon or criticize any other nation, culture, or civilization.
Well, this has seeped into the fabric of our society to the point where about a month ago I went to a high school in my district. It was recently built and in one of the wealthiest counties in America. It was a beautiful school, with all the finest trappings, and bright-eyed bushy-tailed kids who certainly were competent in skills in a variety of areas. They came in to talk to me. We had about 200 of them. And at the end of the conversation, they sent up several questions. One of them was, What do you think is the most serious problem we face as a Nation?
I said, Well, before I answer that question, I am going to ask you a question. Remember, 200 high school students. I said, How many of you believe that you live in the greatest country on Earth? Take a guess, Madam Speaker, as to how many raised their hand. Out of 200 students, and the question was, Do you believe you live in the greatest country on Earth, about two dozen said yes. About two dozen actually raised their hands.
Now, I found this incredible. And what I said was, I can answer your question now about what I think is the greatest problem. And this is it, the fact that 175 of you or so could not answer this question in the affirmative.
And many of them, Madam Speaker, I do not think for a moment were saying I hate America. Most of them simply could not feel comfortable about raising their hand because they may have been asked to actually defend the proposition, and that is what made them uncomfortable. I taught for many years, and I could see that look in their eyes: if I raise my hand, you might call on me, and I do not know if I can actually defend that proposition, that America is the greatest. What if you ask me to prove it? What if you ask me why I believe that it is? So it is best I just do not even raise my hand.
And it is because, Madam Speaker, that they have been taught that they should not dare suggest that this is something good, individually significant, and in fact the best. What would people think if you said you lived in the best country in the world? How would they react? How would I defend it? This is the product of this multiculturalist phenomenon.
And when you combine it with massive immigration into the country, of people who are not coming here necessarily to become American but simply to get the job no one else would get, and you tell them this same stuff, that there is nothing unique, nothing good, nothing of value, then we are creating a Balkanized society that will not know the answer to the question of who are we.
Who are we, is a great question. What is our purpose? What is the thing that we should all be gathering around? Are there any ideas or ideals that all of us, regardless of whether we are from Azerbaijan or Zimbabwe, whoever we are, when we come here to the United States, is there nothing at all that we should establish as being the primary thing people should adhere to; some ideas that are of value and that separate us from all the rest of the world; things like the concept of the rule of law; all of those things that are identified in the Bill of Rights, especially in the first amendment?
Those are uniquely Western ideas. This Nation, as opposed to all other nations, was founded on ideas. No other nation has that claim. In that respect, we are unique and wonderful. But we are also vulnerable. I mean, it is in fact ideas that we need to hold us together. It is not ethnicity. We do not all look the same and have the same background. We did not come here speaking the same languages or even worshipping the same God. So what other nations have to hold them together, the culture that they share in common, we do not have.
All we have, Madam Speaker, is ideas that made this country, and they are articulated in the Constitution and especially in the Bill of Rights. And it is imperative we tell our children in high school about them and that we transmit those values and ideas and ideals to them. It is imperative that we ask, in fact demand from people who are coming in to this country, that they also adhere to them.
That is not too much to ask. We are not asking people to change their religion. We are not asking them to change their cultural identity. We are asking them to rally around a set of ideas. We should be asking, and we used to ask that. We asked it of my grandparents. But we do not ask it any more. In fact, we attempt to stop it. There is this hatred. It is almost a death wish for the country, in a way, that continues to push us in this direction, this radical multiculturalist path.
There are certain ideas that supercede others, and I suggest that diversity is not one of them. I mean, the one thing that we supposedly all have in common should not be our love of diversity. There are other things that are more important. There are ideas that are more important, and we should teach our children about them, and we should teach immigrants to respect and adhere to them. We do not do this, I think, to our peril.
So when I talk about the issue of immigration and immigration reform, it is not simply because I am concerned about jobs, which of course I am, and I believe it is a significant factor and something we should talk about when we talk about jobs. It is not just because I am concerned about the impact on our economy in terms of the health care costs and social service benefits that massive immigration imposes on us, although I am concerned about that. And it is certainly a concern about the costs we have to incarcerate. Twenty-five percent of the population of our Federal prisons, 25 percent, are people who are noncitizens of the United States. These are huge costs we incur.
Cheap labor is not cheap. Or I should say it is only cheap to the employer. It is not cheap to the rest of us. It costs a fortune. And those things we should talk about. But those things are not even the most dangerous aspects of massive immigration, both legal and illegal, until it combines with this cult of multiculturalism. That is the dangerous thing.
And this is a tough subject. It is very difficult sometimes, I know, to make this case because its requires us to really think about this in depth. You can make bumper stickers out of a chunk of this discussion, but you really have a hard time conveying this in a 30-second commercial. It is so much easier to use slogans and demagoguery, as our opponents are so able to do and so wont to do.
I do hope that we will think about this. I introduced a resolution a couple of weeks ago; and it simply states that all people, all children graduating from our schools, it is a sense of the Congress, should be able to articulate an appreciation for Western Civilization. What is so tough about that? And yet I do not know whether we are even going to get it on the floor of this House for fear someone will be offended by the discussion of whether or not our children should be able to articulate an appreciation of Western Civilization.
Now, you may say, well, who could be against that? How could anybody be against it? Why should we not be able to do that? Well, because, of course, we may be offending someone else. We are not saying that anybody should condemn any other civilization, should criticize any other civilization. We are just saying they should be able to articulate an appreciation of western civilization, which is what started this. I do not care again if you are here from Azerbaijan or Zimbabwe. Anybody coming here should eventually be able to articulate that appreciation. It is important because it does in fact establish a canon, a set of ideas, around which we should all gather.
I have introduced that resolution. I have also asked other State legislators all over the country to do the same thing. I think to date we have 15 or 20 State legislators who have agreed to do so in their individual States. I have several hundred people who have gone to our Web site, www.house.gov/tancredo, and gone to Our Heritage Our Hope page and there they can sign up, they can take a resolution, I have got a model resolution that they can take to their school board and have them pass it saying that their children will be able to articulate this.
I hope people will do that. I hope people will actually go to our Web site, take that resolution, go to their school board and ask them to adopt it. If nothing else but to hear the debate that will ensue. If nothing else but to hear somebody say, oh, no, we could not, absolutely could not ask a student or demand that of our students, that they be able to articulate an appreciation for western civilization. Would that not be an interesting debate? I hope they will do it.
Once again, it is www.house.gov/tancredo, go to Our Heritage Our Hope.
I hope they do it, Madam Speaker; and I hope all over this country we will begin this debate as to whether or not this is an important requirement and whether it is meaningful and whether our children and the people who come into this country should be able to rally around a set of ideas that separate us from all other places.
Because, Madam Speaker, I have absolutely no doubt about it, this is the greatest nation on the face of the earth. There is plenty of empirical evidence to prove it. Because when the gates are opened all over the world, which way and where do people go? You just do not see that many fleeing from the West to say, Pakistan or Zimbabwe or anywhere else, but you see millions flowing here.
People do speak and vote with their feet; and to the extent that they can get here, they will come, or to western Europe, because it offers something that they do not have. It offers hope. I do not blame them for trying to come. It is the hope and desire I think of most people to certainly improve the quality of their life economically.
But all I am saying is that, when you get here, there is more to being an American than just getting a job. At least there should be. It should mean more than that. Or else we are just a place of residence, that is all, not citizens. We are just a place of residence, people who reside here, not people who have an affinity for the ideas and ideals that made America what it is. This is my fear. It is one that is sometimes difficult to encapsulate, even in an hour-long speech, although I appreciate the ability that the House provides for us to come here on the floor and opine like this.
It is I think a very serious issue, and I hope and I pray that we will as a Nation begin to grapple with it and that even in this House we will begin to debate what it means to be an American and what we have to do in terms of our own domestic policy and our immigration policy to enhance that concept. It will determine not just what kind of a nation we are in the future that is balkanized, united or divided, it will determine whether we are a nation at all, and that is why we absolutely must enter into this debate.
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