Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution. And let me note to my friend, Mr. Ackerman, that we understand that quite often throughout history, an accurate description of history and a look at history will show that there have been many sins committed against the Jewish people, and perhaps we can say the most recent one is the one that we are just now discussing with these rocket attacks.

But let us also realize that there have been sins committed against the Palestinian people as well. They are people, and they were there. And this is a dispute, this is a dispute between the Palestinians and the Israeli people that is being exploited by outsiders.

Let me say that in the past when Israel has been in the wrong I have not hesitated to criticize Israel. This is not one of those occasions. Israel is not in the wrong. And while we recognize there are people who have done good things and bad things, that there are heroes and sinners on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, tonight we are talking about a situation that was created intentionally by those people who launched rockets on Israel and left the people of Israel with no other choice but to respond militarily.

Those people who launched those rockets on Israel knew exactly what they were doing. In fact, about a month ago the word was spread that Hamas was on the verge of cutting a deal with Israel. Then elements in Hamas and Hezbollah ratcheted up the violence specifically to undermine any opportunity for peace in the region.

Peace will not be achieved in the Middle East unless we are bold enough not just to condemn terrorism, the terrorism specifically that leads to the type of violence and bloodshed and chaos that is now evident in the Middle East, but we must also back those who act when confronted with this type of violence, and in this case it behooves us to back Israel in what they are doing today as a result of those rockets and those attacks that were made upon Israeli citizens.

Our sights, however, should not just be set on Hamas and Hezbollah. The rockets that slammed into Israel were made in China. They were provided to the terrorists who launched them by the mullah regime in Iran.

Long ago, we should have been supporting those pro-democratic elements in Iran which totally reject the corruption, repression, incompetence, and, yes, terrorist aggression of the feudalistic mullahs who rule over them. Now is the time for us to back those democratic elements in Iran and put the Iranians on the defensive, rather than letting them supply missiles to undermine peace in the Middle East.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the King amendment. Mandating election materials and ballots be provided in languages other than English is a travesty and will lead to no good for this country and no good for the people who supposedly we are trying to help. It is a horrible, long-term attack on the unity of the United States of America.

When we come from various ethnic groups and races, what unites us, it is our language, the English language. We are hurting America by making it easier for people not to learn English. We are hurting those people by giving them an incentive not to learn English. This is multiculturalism at its worst. Bilingual ballots ought to be made history.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this legislation.

I have represented a southern California coastal district for 18 years. There has never been an oil spill caused by an offshore rig, and we have had offshore oil drilling off my district for decades. The one spill we had that polluted our coast came from a tanker.

Those who vote against offshore oil development are basically making us more dependent on tankers, which are dramatically more likely to spill oil upon our shores.

As a scuba diver and one of the two active surfers in Congress, I suggest to those opposing offshore oil development, get real. What you are advocating will make us more dependent on tankers. Thus, we will are more likely to have oil spills. Cloaking your positions in environmental rhetoric does not make it so. You are making us more likely to have oil spills by making us more dependent on tankers.

Support offshore oil development and a strong, independent American energy sector.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment. Our amendment would prohibit any funds made available in this act to the Department of Justice from being used to prevent the implementation of legally passed State laws in those 11 States authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

Our coalition of freedom-minded Republicans and Democrats on this issue is based on compassion for those who are suffering, a commitment to personal liberty and a firm belief in the principles of federalism.

The use of marijuana to relieve the pain of victims of a wide variety of medical conditions is well known and increasingly documented in the media and in medical journals. For many of these people, medical science has not been able to relieve their pain.

Just recently a friend of mine and a friend of many years passed away, Lyn Nofziger, and many of you here probably know him. He was Ronald Reagan's first press secretary. I went to see him after he got out of the hospital with his treatments for cancer.

He had his good days and his bad days. I saw him about a week before he died. And I asked Lyn about it, and he said, yes, sometimes it is bad, and other times it is not, but I could not get myself to eat, and I had the pain no matter what they did for me.

And I said, well, did you ever try that medical marijuana that we have been talking about and debating about? And he got a twinkle in his eye, and he said, yes, I did. And it brought my appetite back, and I slept like a baby. Do not tell me that we should have Federal law enforcement people come into a State where the people have voted to approve that if a doctor agrees and get in the way of Lyn Nofziger or anyone else who is suffering and use Federal money and Federal resources that should be going to fight crime in order to create that obstacle.

That is a travesty. Individuals who live in the 11 States affected by the amendment have been granted by the voters of these States the legal right to use marijuana to alleviate their pain if a doctor agrees. If the voters have so voted and a doctor agrees, it is a travesty for the government to intercede, the Federal Government, allocating our scarce resources to fighting this, getting in the way of someone using something to alleviate their suffering.

This is something which should be left to the States as American tradition dictates. Sandra Day O'Connor stated it best, and she stated that States should serve as a laboratory so that people can try certain new ideas out to see how they work.

Well, the Federal Government should not get in the way of what is going on in these 11 States to see how this works. The most recent decision of the Supreme Court has thrown the ball into the hands of the U.S. Congress. Paul Stevens, Justice Paul Stevens, made it clear: the voices of the voters may one day be heard in the Halls of Congress on behalf of legalizing marijuana. Eleven States have already acted.

I would hope you would all join us for the principles of federalism, compassion and individual liberty and not get in the way of the people who are suffering.

Mr. Chairman, we have people out there, not just Lyn Nofziger but others, and my mother suffered. I remember how she lost her appetite after suffering a debilitating disease in which she had to go through treatments.

This is a travesty to use scarce Federal resources. Join this coalition of people who are Republicans and Democrats who believe in federalism, who believe in compassion and believe in personal liberty. Let doctors prescribe these things, not Federal Government bureaucrats.

Mr. Chairman, this is our opportunity to state whether or not we believe that the United States of America is benefited by bilingualism.

In every other country of the world where we have permitted and they have actually promoted bilingualism, it has led to divisiveness and balkanization of countries and hatred between peoples.

One of the things that has created the unity of our country that is made up of so many different ethnic groups, so many different races, so many different religions, has been the English language. We are not doing anyone a favor by making it easier for them not to speak English. We are, in fact, doing a great disservice to those least fortunate people and those immigrants who come to our country by not encouraging them, by not giving them the incentive to learn English. It is a crime against those people and against their children.

More than this, what we have here is an expensive mandate. In my county, we have five different languages that are mandated, and two more on the way. In L.A. County, there are 10 different languages, an enormous expense in order to produce ballots and ballot measures and the descriptions of those measures for the population.

What are we doing this for? In the long run, it is damaging to our country. Vote against bilingualism. Support the Stearns amendment. If States want to do it, let them go ahead, but the Federal Government should not be mandating this and putting this burden on the States, something that, again, hurts the very people that they are claiming it is trying to help and will definitely in the long run hurt the United States as it keeps us divided into groups, rather than bringing us together as our Founding Fathers suggested that they wanted to have in the first place.

Vote against bilingualism. Vote for the Stearns amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment for the purpose of bringing equitable treatment to people who have inadvertently been made subject to the National Flood Insurance Program by the unintended consequences of a Federal flood control project.

This amendment protects families who have been included in a flood zone due to the completion of a Federal flood control project in Southern California. I have seen this situation firsthand, where homeowners were required to purchase flood insurance, even though the home in which they reside and have lived in for decades has never been subject to flood insurance before.

Ironically, this new flood insurance obligation came after the completion of a massive flood control project within sight of their own home. The Santa Ana River Mainstream Project is a multi-billion dollar Army Corps of Engineers flood control project in California's Orange and San Bernardino Counties. As a consequence of this Federal project, new flood maps were redrawn. These redrawn maps designated hundreds of households to be at risk of flooding which were not previously so classified. Many of these fixed-income residents cannot readily afford the newly required flood insurance and must choose between the new costly insurance and other necessities of life.

This downside, of course, does not diminish the tremendous good that has come from this and other flood control projects. In my district alone, the Santa Ana River Mainstream Project has made thousands of families safer and guarded billions of dollars' worth of homes and other properties from damage and destruction, all of this achieved by the Army Corps of Engineers on time and under budget. So I applaud the Army Corps' dedication and professionalism and would like to thank them for a job well done. Those people in the floodplain have seen their insurance bills eliminated or reduced.

That said, it is still important not to accomplish something good for many at the expense of a small, yet significant, part of our community. As I have said, for some local people, upon completion of the flood control project, their flood liability inexplicably shot sky high. My amendment addresses this unfortunate and unintended consequence.

Under my amendment, homeowners not included in a flood zone prior to a Federal project but who become included in a Federal flood zone because of that project will be issued flood insurance at no cost to them. Households that were included in a flood zone prior to a Federal project but are put at greater flood risk because of the project will be provided flood insurance at a price formula that was in place before the Federal project was completed.

This is the least we can do to help these people out, making them whole, due to their suffering from a Federal project, especially when we realize that their neighbors enjoy the benefits of this Federal project in the form of lower or no insurance premiums and end up with safer houses and safer homes.

Mr. Chairman, we shouldn't be making a small group bear a huge burden in order to accomplish something good. My amendment will prevent the unintended harm done to a few as a result of a flood control project aimed at helping many. So I ask my colleagues to support this fairness amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Do you think if we have imposed a liability on someone, and they have not in any way contributed to that, that we should then----

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, we are not talking about establishing policy here. This is not the government's money or the program's money. We are talking about the people's money. The money comes directly from people's pockets. I personally think a lot of people out there will personally resent being called affluent or what you hinted at, more affluent people.

Let me note for my colleague many people affected by this are lower- middle-income people who live in trailers and the like. Why should we have these people pay a hefty penalty in order to help other people? All they know is that the Federal Government has established policies that end up costing them, perhaps the money they need for their children, perhaps the money they need for their grandchildren.

These are the policies we are establishing for a small group of people. That is unfair, and we should not condone those policies.

This will not put at risk the insurance program. It will make it fairer, and it will mean in the future that these things will have to be taken into consideration instead of just robbing some small group of citizens.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself my final 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, let me just note we have a chance to undo a grave injustice here. Some people, yes, have large homes. Some people have small homes who have been done this injustice.

It is wrong, it is unjust to take money from people and force them into a flood insurance program when they had bought their property based on totally different circumstances and we have changed the circumstances on them. This is not fair.

We have a chance to rectify it now. We can sit here and argue what budget it should come out of. That doesn't do them any good.

We need to try to rectify the situation for hundreds of homes in my area where the homeowners bought property knowing that it was not under flood risk, and we, through our actions, put them in jeopardy.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending

that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

It is good that the American people are able to hear this debate and judge for themselves who should be making the policies and which policies are best for our country.

I have been through this before. I worked in the White House with Ronald Reagan for 7 years, and I heard some of the same shrill voices that we hear today in those days. I heard the same gutting of the President of the United States for political purposes, but also for idealistic reasons during those days. I heard Ronald Reagan called a warmonger. I heard all of the charges that we hear today aimed at our President aimed at Ronald Reagan, and by some of the same people, I might add.

We have voices who are idealistically opposed to war and are in fact affected in their heart, perhaps more than others, when war does come, as it comes to all free people because without strength of purpose and willingness to fight there will be no freedom in this world. But when we fought communism, President Reagan stood firm when the shrill voices of defeatism and retreat attacked him personally and attacked our effort and tried to undermine that effort in the same way our effort today is being undermined by nitpicking, backbiting, and defeatism. Yet, he stood firm and, guess what? The world was amazed when the evil of communism collapsed.

Well, today we are in a war with radical Islam, which is every bit as much a threat and hates Western democracy every bit as much as the Communists did. We have made a stand in Iraq, and I would hope that people understand that had Ronald Reagan backed down, we would still be in the middle of the Cold War. And if we back down today, as is being advocated, what I consider to be a cowardly retreat, it will have consequences. It will not end the war.

Mr. Speaker, tonight, I am honored to take this floor to sing the praises and accolades for a man who inspired me as a young person and has continued to inspire me as I have served here in these past 18 years.

I have spent 18 years here in the House of Representatives, and 7 years before that I served in the White House under Ronald Reagan. And I am pleased to say tonight that during that entire time, I have never met a man of whom I was more proud than that of the chairman of the International Relations Committee, Chairman Henry Hyde. Perhaps Ronald Reagan. Perhaps. But Henry Hyde, of the people that I have worked with as a fellow colleague, there is no match.

Henry Hyde, of course, has been here since 1974, and has had a distinguished career as a Member of Congress, but more importantly, as a leader, as an American leader. Henry Hyde, as I say, inspired many of us by the fact that he is not just a political leader, not just a man of integrity, courage, and a person who works, to this day is working harder than most Members of this Congress.

But he is not just a political leader, but a moral leader of this country as well.

Henry Hyde is very well known. He has been known for many years for his views on what we call the prolife movement, the idea of protecting unborn children from the threat of abortion. And Henry Hyde has done more to inspire and inform people on this issue and, thus, if you agree with me and agree with Henry, done more to save the unborn babies of this country than any other individual that I can think of. That, alone, is a reason to applaud Henry Hyde and to be grateful that he has served in this body, saving so many unborn babies, and feeling so strongly about this issue that he was able to take the heat on an issue that, in the beginning, was far more unpopular than it is today. And I believe that he has created the national trend towards life that we see today.

Consistent with that, Henry Hyde has been a champion of human rights during his entire term in the United States Congress. He has been an enemy to tyrants, to gangsters, whether they be in Cuba, the Soviet Union or China. This has been part of Henry Hyde's patriotic makeup, a man from Illinois, a man from the State that gave us Lincoln, who freed the slaves and freed America from the sin of slavery.

I have seen Henry Hyde criticize Chinese leaders to their face and stand up for the human rights of believers in God in China. I have seen his courage, and his eloquence is famous throughout the world.

I have seen Henry Hyde take on the issue of proliferation of nuclear materials by the Communist Chinese Government when other people would have had him soft-pedal the issue in order to maintain a certain friendly relationship with those gangsters who control the mainland of China. But Henry Hyde is a man of principle.

Henry Hyde is a patriot. Henry Hyde was protecting our country through his patriotism when he was a young man and served in the military in World War II in the Philippines, and then in the State legislature in Illinois, and then here, on to the U.S. Congress.

Many people will remember Henry Hyde for the fact that he was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee when President Clinton was impeached. Here, too, was an issue that Henry Hyde could have sidestepped. Why should he take all the abuse of such a controversial issue?

Henry Hyde has taken on controversy because he believes in principle and morality. Henry Hyde took on the issue of the impeachment of President Clinton because he believed that President Clinton had committed perjury, that that was an impeachable offense, and that to compromise that standard would cause great damage to the future of the United States of America.

Henry Hyde is a man who stands for standards, stands for principles. He is a man who has worked hard, who has used his skill as an orator to make sure that we cement those American values that have made this country a great country, realizing that we don't have a perfect country, but that we always need leaders like Henry Hyde to help us perfect those imperfections.

So I gladly join with my colleagues tonight in a salute to the chairman of the International Relations Committee, a great American, a man who has served this country well, in the House of Representatives and throughout his life, Chairman Henry Hyde.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of today, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues for opening up this discussion on illegal immigration.

We heard a few moments ago another one of our colleagues describe Federal spending that is basically out of control at this moment as the single greatest danger to our way of life. I would suggest that one of the reasons that Federal spending is out of control is because illegal immigration is out of control, and we will never have the spending of the Federal Government under control until we stop the massive influx of illegal immigrants into our country.

Yes, al Qaeda is a threat; yes, Communist China is a threat. But I would suggest that the greatest threat that is clear and present in its danger to the American people is that of the massive influx of illegal immigrants into our society, an invasion, if you will, of America by foreigners who are coming here against our will.

The Senate passed an immigration bill earlier today. The fact that they passed an immigration bill reflects the fact that the American people are now aware of the dangers posed by this incredible influx of illegal immigrants into our country. Yet, we have our government passing legislation like that of the United States Senate, which will in the end do nothing but make this situation worse.

The bill that passed the United States Senate is a travesty. It is a cruel hoax on the American people, using the title ``Immigration'' to let people think that something is being done that will in some way curb this massive influx of millions of foreigners into our country. It will not. It will make the situation worse, and any rational analysis of that bill will lead to that conclusion.

Sixty-one senators voted for that bill in the United States Senate; thirty-six voted against it. Of those who were opposing it, all but four of them were Democrats. Yes, four Democrats basically opposed the bill. All the rest were in favor. The majority of Republicans then actually opposed the bill coming out of the Republican-controlled Senate.

Well, Mr. Speaker, the massive influx of illegal immigrants into our country has been no accident. In fact, those people who passed the Senate bill today, many of them are personally responsible for this travesty, this horrible threat to America.

It is, instead, this massive influx of illegals into our country, not an accident but a result of an intentional strategy on the part of America's political elite like those in the United States Senate, to have illegals come into our country in this great number.

Why is that the policy of the United States Government not to do anything to stop this influx? That is their policy. It is because the business community wants cheap labor. It is also because the movers and shakers of the liberal left in this country, consistent with their Tammany Hall traditions want more political pawns who are dependent upon government programs, and a massive influx of illegals into this country fit that billet very well.

So you have very powerful economic interests wanting cheap labor, and so they want to exploit these poor immigrants pouring into our country. You have got the liberal left that is trying to exploit them politically. These are powerful forces which are reflected in the votes in this body and in the United States Senate.

Well, these people got what they wanted. These are people that over the years have been deciding what policies we would have or not have, and they got exactly what they wanted.

Bear Stearns estimates there are now between 15 and 20 million illegals in this country, in our country, 15 to 20 million people who should not be here and are not here legally. Well, the downside of this folly is becoming ever more evident.

In education, we hear about overcrowding. We hear about the decline of quality in our schools. Well, the States are spending $7.4 billion annually to provide a kindergarten through 12th grade education to illegal immigrants. Without school-age illegal immigrants and the children of illegal immigrants, school enrollment would not have risen at all in the past decade. Our limited education dollars are being expended not for our own children's benefit but for the children of foreigners who have come here illegally. That is a crime against our own youth, spending billions of dollars which should be spent for their education instead going to the children of people who have come here illegally.

Our health care system is also under siege. Illegal immigrants account for 43 percent of those without health insurance in our country. So, at least $9 billion of our scarce health care dollars

are being spent on foreigners who have come here illegally.

So business gets cheap labor, the rest of us end up picking up the hospital costs, and as well as bearing the burden of closed hospital emergency rooms, as well as the insurance health care that we have to pay for our own families. This skyrocketing health care can be traced right back to illegal immigrants because what happens is when they do not have insurance, when they are treated, their bill is simply added on to our bill and sent to the insurance companies who we have to pay for.

Almost 30 percent of all Federal prisoners are foreign born. So our criminal justice system is breaking at the seams. That is one out of every three Federal prisoners is foreign born, and the estimates are at cost estimates of $22,517 are necessary to incarcerate an illegal immigrant for 1 year, and that, by the way, is just a small part of the price Americans are paying.

What do you think about the other price we are paying? The property damage, the theft that is traced to criminal aliens who are not supposed to be here? Who can put a price tag on the violent attacks that our citizens are bearing, the murders, the rapes? All of these are perpetrated by foreign marauders who should not be here but are only here because of the incompetence and the cowardice and, yes, the will of America's political elite.

Yet, less easily recognized, of course, the price we are paying is the quality of life for millions of American families who are being robbed of higher standards of living because the wages of the working member of their family or of both working members of their family, those wages are being bid down by hordes of people who are not even supposed to be here.

A study by Harvard University professor George Boros shows immigration accounts for the entire decline of real wages in some sector of our economy, and this has affected so many of our countrymen, but others at the top, of course, do not feel that pain. They, in fact, are being helped by illegals even as those illegals bid down the wages of those lower 50 percent of our countrymen.

Competition from the growing number of illegal immigrant labor over these last 20 years means American workers are earning an average of $1,700 less than they would otherwise be earning. Well, who is getting hurt? Unemployment among Americans with less than a high school degree, unemployment among that group is at almost 15 percent. They have been bid right out of the market by illegal aliens coming here, and whether we are talking about education, health care, food stamps, housing assistance, school breakfast, school lunch programs, all intended for struggling Americans, all of these programs are being drained to one extent or another by people who have come here illegally and paid little or perhaps even nothing into the system before they begin consuming these services.

It is estimated that the average illegal alien uses $2,700 more in government services than he pays in taxes, and that is those people who have been here for a while as well. What about the people who have just come here and they have children with them who enrolled them in school and have not paid anything into the system? All of this is coming right out of the hide of America's least fortunate citizens. This is a crime that is being perpetrated by America's elites onto America's least fortunate citizens. It is a betrayal of their fellow Americans for whom these programs were intended.

So I would suggest that we take a close look at what is going on and what has caused this illegal immigration.

First of all, let us note this. Since 9/11, protecting America against terrorism, which is also being impacted, our ability to protect ourselves against terrorism is being affected by this out-of-control flow of illegals into our society. Supposedly since 9/11 for the last 3 or 4 years, this has been our highest priority. Yet, over these 3 years, millions, millions have crossed our borders illegally. Every night we see evidence on TV that that flow continues unabated.

Who are these people flowing across our border? What is this army of foreigners who are coming across the border every day? Who are they? Are al Qaeda terrorists part of these people? Well, certainly we know that thousands of the people who have been apprehended at the border have not been Mexicans, and many of them have not been Latin Americans. Many of them have been people from Arab countries, but we can assume that the fact that we have a border and that so many of the people are getting through and so few of them are being stopped that this just has not escaped the attention of those people in al Qaeda who want to kill 10s of thousands of Americans if they get their chance.

So we expect they didn't take advantage of this opportunity to get into America?

Well, I would suggest that we have permitted a monstrous threat to come into being by permitting our borders to continue to be open just like a spaghetti strainer and letting all kinds of people, millions of people in, in these last 3 years, and now these people have embedded themselves in America.

Now, how many of them hate America? How many of them are terrorists? We don't know. If even 1 percent of the Mexican illegals that are coming into this country subscribe to this reconquista theory, that the Mexicans have a right to reconquer the Southwest, and at some point when they get to the point where they can start committing acts of terrorism in order to push their agenda, we have bitten off more than our next generation is going to be able to chew. We have set up the future generations of Americans for a terrorist attack the threat of which will pale in comparison, will make the al Qaeda threat we face today pale in comparison.

So let us note that by not coming to grips with illegal immigration, we have not even come to grips with the number one threat we were supposed to be dealing with, which was al Qaeda, after the 9/11 attacks.

Let me note, before we go on with this discussion, that we are not just talking about a border problem when we discuss illegal immigration. I feel all too often that people are talking about the border, the border, the border; and the fact is that this only focuses on America's southern border. There is a northern border where there is a problem as well.

I happen to believe that we are talking not about a border problem, but an illegal immigration problem. And it is not a Mexican problem; it is an illegal immigration problem. We have a northern border.

We also have large numbers of people coming to this country with visas, and they just mingle right into the population after they get off those airplanes. You never hear or see from them again. And we have no idea how many people have received visas to come to this country that have just overstayed their visas. This, too, has been a long-term problem that has not been worked upon and that the decision-makers in this country have not moved to correct the system to prevent millions of people from coming to this country and just overstaying their visas and becoming illegal residents of our country.

What we are talking about here is probably 4 to 5 million people. My Subcommittee on International Relations, the Subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight, had a hearing where it was estimated that at least 4 million people have come here and overstayed their visas. And who they are, we don't know, because we don't know who returned and who didn't. All we know is there are Chinatowns and towns with huge Asian populations springing up all over America, and it is inconceivable that all of these people are coming here legally.

Well, even if you just look at weak border protection, and we cannot just look at that, we have to look at the visa situation, but even when looking at these two weaknesses, that is not what causes the flow of illegals into our country. There are many countries that have very weak border systems, very weak visa systems, but you don't see illegals flooding into their country. You know why? Because in many of those countries they will kick them out immediately when they are discovered. That is number one. But number two, those countries do not give jobs and benefits to illegal immigrants.

The United States of America has offered any illegal that comes here the

ability to receive a treasure-trove of benefits and a huge amount of money compared to what they would make in their own country, simply if they can make it across the border. And even if we fix all the holes in the border and make it strong, even if the President sends 6,000 National Guard troops to the border, which I think was just frankly not an offer that should be taken seriously, considering the jobs that the President suggested those National Guard troops would be doing. They wouldn't be carrying any weapons; so they are going to be basically driving people around and manning observation posts. Why don't we send a group of valets? Just hire valets from the private sector and send them down to the border.

The fact is that as long as we are giving jobs and benefits that so enrich the people from the Third World that hundreds of millions of them long to come to the United States, they will come. Just like there was the story of that baseball field. Build it and they will come. Well, give a treasure to people who can come here illegally, and they will come. There is no doubt.

Then, of course, what is another draw? Another draw is if they come, not only will they get jobs and benefits, but now, if the Senate has its way, they are going to have their status legalized. They can call it amnesty. You don't have to call it amnesty. The President seems to think he can talk to us and be taken seriously by defining amnesty as something that nobody in the world defines as amnesty: automatic citizenship. That is not amnesty. Amnesty is someone who is here illegally and we make their status legal. That is an amnesty.

And what will happen if we do that, as the Senate bill would have us do? Well, in 1986, we saw that it caused an influx of what we believe now to be at least 15 million illegals into our country. The amnesty as proposed by the Senate should bring another 20 or 40 million illegals into our country.

One other thing that really draws people from the Third World to the United States of America is that we give citizenship to the child of any woman who can make it across the border. There are illegal operations to bring women across the border who are about to have babies. Some of them are coming from Korea, some from China, and some from Mexico; and there are hundreds of thousands of babies being born in this country that will be granted automatic citizenship and have the rights of every one of our children. Then they go home and, do you know what, in about 15 to 18 years they are going to come back and they are going to demand to bring their families with them. So we will have another load of probably 10 to 20 million people demanding the right to come here.

We are destroying America's future by not coming to grips with this horrendous threat. At the very least, we have to cut off benefits, to make it hard for them to get a job. Do not, not, give automatic citizenship or an amnesty which will attract tens of millions to the United States.

Our government has failed us. The disastrous consequences of this massive illegal flow of foreigners into our country is becoming ever, ever more evident. And, of course, to add insult to injury, those elected officials who are supposed to be watching out for our interests have turned a blind eye to this fundamental threat to our way of life.

As I say, this invasion of foreigners into our country, this invasion of illegal immigrants into the United States has been no accident. A long time ago it was decided not to do what was necessary to stop it. Permitting a massive flow of illegal immigrants into our country, as I say, has been intentional on the part of America's elite. Yes, as I mentioned, the business community wants cheap labor and the movers and shakers on the left want political pawns. And they have got them.

But it is changing our way of life. It is not just giving these people power at the top of the scale and the political manipulators, it is changing the way of life for regular Americans. Middle-class Americans, as I say, are having their wages bid down. And many people right now can no longer afford to buy a home, people whose parents could afford to buy a home.

Young people, of course, don't mow the lawns any more. There was an L.A. Times reporter waiting on my front lawn saying, you know, who mows your lawn? Of course, I am gone 3 or 4 days a week, so I don't mow it all the time. But we rent, and the lady who rents her house to us, her brother actually does the lawn. So I explained that, and he was all frustrated because he wanted to try to catch me where I would have been using illegal immigrant help. And it is very hard not to. It is like trying to buy things not made in China.

But I said, well, I don't use illegal immigrant help. I try not to. And he said, well, what if I told you all your neighbors are using illegals to do their lawns? I said, you know, that would be really sad, because when I was a kid, I used to mow the lawns for pocket change. That is how I earned my spending money when I was a kid.

I think that we are changing our way of life now. We are changing our way of life. I used to work for a gardener that would go around and do landscaping for people. Those jobs now are all being taken up by illegals who have come into this country, and it is changing the way we live and the responsibilities that we give our children, and it is not good. This is not a good change.

Basically, people have been hiring nannies, foreigners to come in and take care of their children because it is cheap. Well, let me note, grandparents used to spend a lot of time taking care of people's children. I know in my household, my wife had triplets 2 years ago, and it has been a great hardship on us. But it has made my family so much more together as the grandparents, Grandpa Al and Grandma Gladys and Grandma Norma, have come in and helped our family.

But, of course, a lot of people just hire an illegal immigrant nanny. And by the way, they shouldn't be hiring illegal immigrant nannies. If they are going to hire nannies, they should hire American women.

I was on a program and there was a woman on that program who suggested that she couldn't find an American woman to do that job. Well, she was a very wealthy woman, and I will tell you what happened. There are lots of American women who would like to have helped her 5 hours a day to take care of her children for $20 an hour. But, no, she chose to hire an illegal for probably $50 a day. And who is worse off? That poor American woman who would love to supplement her family's income. And the illegal is a little bit better off. But who is really better off is this very wealthy American woman who saved $50 every day by hiring an illegal and then didn't have to even give them health insurance.

So this invasion of illegals is changing our way of life, and it is undermining the well-being of our people. And as I just mentioned, education, health care, and criminal justice all are under incredible pressure, incredible pressure, because of this flow.

Resources? Let's just put it this way: resources are being spent on foreigners rather than on our own people. And those who have been supposedly watching out for the interests of the American people have been turning a blind eye to this problem. Americans who are looking for help from their own elected officials have found no help from their elected officials, who are instead responding to these very powerful interest groups.

The United States Senate just answered the cry of the American people for help by passing a bill that will make the situation worse. That is right, make it worse. The core provision of the Senate bill, around which all the rest is organized and everything else is crammed in around it, but the core of the bill is a so-called guest workers program.

The guest workers program, as part of it, is a legalization of the status of those 15 to 20 million illegals who are now in the country. Yeah, they have to do this and they have to do that, but they end up immediately, if they are willing to do so, to sign up, they immediately have their status and their family's status legalized. The Senate bill changes the status of these intruders from illegal to legal.

Whatever you call it, if we legalize the status for those who skipped the line and came here in violation of our law, we are telling the hundreds of millions of foreigners waiting to come to America, they are waiting in line to come here legally, we are telling them they are a bunch of saps. And if we do

that, and we let these other people have their status changed to legal, we will start a stampede to America, as I say, just like what happened in 1986, only worse.

No matter what is done to strengthen the border, any benefit of doing that will be overwhelmed by dramatically increasing the pull that results from such legalization of illegal immigrants.

So the Senate bill makes things worse. As I say, the core of it is the guest workers program and legalization.

What about the rest of the bill? The rest of the Senate bill is just as bad. It guarantees in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Our kids may have to pay full price, full freight, if they cross State lines to go to school in another State. Illegal immigrants coming from another country do not have to pay that. They get in-state tuition. Now that is a way that we can deter people from coming here, give them a free college education.

All agricultural workers under this bill cannot be fired by their employers except for what the bill calls ``just cause.'' However, American agricultural workers can still be fired for any reason at all. We are giving more benefits to illegals than our own people. Who is the American Government watching out for? Ask the United States Senators that question, the Senators that voted for the Senate bill.

The Senate bill will make illegal immigrants eligible for Social Security. Let me repeat that. May I suggest that those people who are reading this in the Congressional Record or watching on C-SPAN pay close attention. Mr. and Mrs. America, the Senate bill makes illegal immigrants eligible for Social Security. Wake up America. What is that going to do to the Social Security system? The Senate voted to make illegal immigrants eligible for Social Security. Hundreds of millions of people who are living in poverty throughout the world with no pension that is available to them will now know that the United States Senate has voted to make illegal immigrants part of America's pension system; and if they can just get here, they can be part of America's pension system.

Oh, that is a good way to deter people from wanting to come here. We are talking about hundreds of millions of people are going to get this message: if they can make it here, they can get their hands on Social Security pension money. And let me note, Social Security is not just a pension system.

Social Security is also a survivor's benefit program. So when illegals come here and work, and if an illegal dies or an immigrant dies and he is part of the Social Security system, we are going to have to take care of that immigrant's children until they are 18. This is so easy to game this system. Mark my words, within 10 years if this becomes law, if the Senators have their way, we will be sending payments to people all over Latin America and Mexico and all over China to take care of the children who are the survivors of the people who are now dead who had worked in the Social Security system. This is a catastrophe in the making. It is mind-boggling that United States Senators who are supposed to be representing the interests of the American people have voted to give Social Security benefits to illegal immigrants. This is at a time when we are trying to keep the Social Security system solvent. We are struggling to keep it in existence so it can be used by our own people who have been putting money into it for their entire life.

Just as bizarre, the Senate bill makes any foreigner who is here as part of this guest worker program that they are setting up eligible for what they call the earned income tax credit. That means we are going to give them cash payments if they do not make a certain amount of money while they are here.

The final insult, the Senate bill also provides taxpayer grants to those nonprofit groups which are fighting against America's efforts to kick out illegals. It is going to pay money to these NGOs to help them legalize their status, which means fight our attempts to get the illegals out.

There are a number of other provisions to the bill. It also says all of these illegals that are going to be part of this guest worker program are going to have to be paid the prevailing wage. And of course government bureaucracy is going to determine what the prevailing wage is. Here we are talking about changing our way of life, we are going to have to set up a government bureaucracy of unelected officials to determine what the wages are to be paid for different provisions, for these various jobs.

This is not an immigration bill that has passed the Senate. It is a pro-illegal immigrant. It is a let us boost the number of foreigners coming into America dramatically. In fact, the Senate bill would increase the legal immigration into our country so dramatically it has been estimated there might be as many as 200 million more legal immigrants coming into our country than if we do not pass the bill.

I am very, very proud that our country permits more than a million legal immigrants to come into our country. They should have every right of every American. I am 100 percent for that. We can absorb a million legal immigrants. But to quadruple that and bring in their families and have all of these new provisions so there are 200 million more after 20 years, it sounds like somebody is trying to replace the population of the United States.

Who is being represented? Our government is supposed to be watching out for our interests, the American people, the American people of every race, religion, and background. The only thing that we have that ties us together is we are citizens and are loyal to each other. The government is not being loyal to the people when it seeks to bring in so many foreigners to bring down wages and undercut our way of life.

The bill from the Senate would be a disaster if it becomes law. But we are told over and over again we have to have this law because it is a comprehensive bill. America needs a comprehensive bill, we are told. Why? We do not need a comprehensive bill. We need things to go through Congress for which those people who vote for it can be held accountable. We do not need huge bills that can sneak things in and make things law that are bad for the people but hard for the people to understand because they are part of a comprehensive bill. No, let us pass several small bills.

The House has a great bill that we have passed. The bill strengthens the border and strengthens border enforcement and also makes employers, it holds them accountable and it enforces the law that employers cannot hire illegals because it forces them to check to see if the people they are hiring are here illegally or not, and it provides a system to help them check. That is what the House bill does.

The Senate bill on the other hand guts all of the enforcement provisions, guts those parts of the House bill that would strengthen the border and, instead, focuses on giving illegal immigrants Social Security, providing a guest worker program, and legalizing the status of those people, those 15 to 20 million people who are here illegally.

Why are they insistent in the Senate on this program which will so dramatically increase the number of foreigners coming into our country? We hear they say that they have to do this because there are jobs that Americans won't do. I suggest that Americans will do any job as long as he or she is being paid a decent wage. Yes, if you have to pay janitors more money, let us pay them more money. Is there any reason in the world why janitors shouldn't make a decent wage? Or why the people changing sheets in hotel rooms shouldn't be making a decent wage?

I worked as a janitor when I was young. Janitors are making the same amount of money now as when I was a janitor 40 years ago. Why? Because illegal immigrants have come into our society in great numbers and have bid down the salary that janitors can get.

Why is it that American women who can work for 5 hours a day while their kids are in school, would be willing to change those sheets for a decent wage, why are they being denied those jobs? We are being told Americans won't do it. They are going to bring more and more foreigners in to do those kinds of jobs. It will mean that the 50 million Americans between the ages of 20 and 50 who are not working, they are just going to be left right out of the market. They cannot come back as we used

to do and work part-time. They will not be lured into working because wages are higher. They are saying we cannot live without foreign labor. That is wrong. We can, but we have to pay our people a decent wage, and the American people deserve a decent wage. They do not deserve to have the market disrupted every time you have to pay more money to a worker, we just bring somebody in from the outside.

If it is free enterprise for the manufacturer, it should be free enterprise for the workers as well.

What about the crops? They say the crops are going to end up rotting in the field. That is not true. First of all, we will pay more. We will pay more, and you will get more people out there. But only 25 percent of all farm workers are foreigners anyway. So we have to come up with 25 percent who are foreigners. How about using prisoners to pick the crops? How about that? I kept saying that and people started laughing at me.

Well, I got visited by some people from the agricultural industry, and I asked, how would that work? We could have people who are in prison costing us tens of thousands of dollars to keep them in prison, they could earn their own way because they could go out and learn to pick fruits and vegetables, and they would be paid a market rate. They would be volunteers. This is not a chain gang. By the end of their incarceration, they may have earned $30,000 or $40,000, some money to pay restitution to their victim, some money to take care of the expense of taking care of them because they have committed a crime and maybe $10,000 or $20,000 to put in their pocket. That would be better for everybody than just bringing in tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of foreign workers.

Yes, we have a lot of people who can do those jobs, whether people in prisons or people who are disabled who could be trained if we didn't have a massive influx of people who can do it cheaper, but we have to be creative.

I am asked what is your solution. We keep hearing we are going to have to have legalization or normalization, or we are going to have mass deportation. There is no mass deportation. This is disingenuous. That is one of the things that has made me the angriest about the people on the other side of this argument, making these kinds of arguments that are totally irrelevant to reality. No one has ever suggested mass deportations.

But I can say if we simply cut off the jobs, cut off those jobs, make sure the employer has to check to verify that it is a legal that he is hiring, cut off the benefits so we do not have people having their children get free health care and education and housing, these people will go home if you cut off their jobs and benefits. It is called attrition. It will work. It does not need to work overnight, but if you sense the trend going in the right direction, attrition will work.

The Senate bill of legalization will cause a new massive flood into our society. We need to cut off the benefits, cut off the jobs. We need an ID card that makes sure that every American who goes to get his benefits, that the people know he is eligible because he or she is an American citizen. We need to make sure that the Social Security card is tamperproof, and that there is a way to check so employers can know if they are hiring an illegal or not. We can do that.

Mr. and Mrs. America, we can solve this problem. We can save our country. We can save our country for our children; but wake up, America. We are losing our country right now. We need all Americans to stand up right now and determine whether or not their elected representative is representing their interest or the powerful interests that have created this problem of a massive influx of illegals into our country.

Judge your representative, and if your representative is not watching out for America, is not watching out for you, kick him out. That is what democracy is all about. We have had too many people who have left it up to the elected officials.

In the next 3 months, America needs to be fired up and say we are going to watch out for our families and our country. That is not selfish. We care about people all over the world, but it is not wrong to take care of your family and countrymen first before you spend all of your resources on foreigners, and then bring down the standard of living of your own people.

I believe America is at a crossroads. This is an important bill. This will determine whether or not the American way of life, where huge numbers of people can live decent standards of living, we will be determining that by whether or not we permit this massive influx of foreigners into our country.

So I ask the American people who are listening, get active. Judge your representative and make sure that your representative is watching out for you. The question to ask is: Whose side are you on? If your representative is not on your side, Mr. And Mrs. America, kick them out of their job.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of today, I move that the House do now adjourn.

I want to thank you for the leadership you have been providing here. There have only been a few of us speaking up on this issue over the years. You have been a voice for reason and a patriotic voice, and there is nothing wrong with patriotism and believing in the United States of America and wanting to protect our people.

You have demonstrated today that we can control the border. There are between 15 and 20 million illegal aliens in our country. This is a dramatic threat to the well-being and security of our people. The education, the health care, the criminal justice system that is there to protect us, all are in the process of breaking down. You can see it in the Southwest in particular, but if we do not correct the situation, it will quickly spread to the rest of the country, and many of our friends in other States can see it happening in their States.

The wages of working Americans have been bid down, and less fortunate Americans have been knocked right out of their meager jobs as a result of this massive influx of illegals into our country. It is hurting the American people.

Just as alarming is the potential threat of 15 to 20 million illegals residing in our country. What potential threat? Well, one out of four of the prisoners of California's prisons are illegal, illegal immigrants. They have been convicted for murder, rape, and armed robbery. They are members of gangs. They deal in drugs and violence. And they should not even be here in this country. Our jails are bursting at the seams, and the criminal justice system is breaking down in California.

But, since 9/11, we are supposed to have been more committed to protecting America against threats like this. If not, at least against threats like terrorists. But for the last 3 years since 9/11, millions of people have crossed our border because we do not have the precautions that the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) has demonstrated we could have. Millions of people have crossed the border, and crossed the border from Canada, as well as come into our country with visas and have overstayed their visas.

How many people who have crossed the border illegally are al Qaeda terrorists? We do not even know. But we know that al Qaeda has pledged to take as long as it takes to come here and kill Americans by the thousands. Yet our government, this administration, yes, and the last administration before it, has done nothing to protect the United States of America from this obvious threat of having thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people coming into our country, and we do not know who they are. If even 1 percent mean to do us harm, we are in great jeopardy.

Well, let us note that the people crossing the border, and with this many people crossing the border it does represent a monstrous threat. But it is not just crossing the border. That is about 20 percent of the illegals in our country are here why, because they have overstayed their visa.

I held a hearing in my subcommittee, the Oversight Investigation Subcommittee which I am the chairman of, and we found about 4 million illegals in this country out of the 20 million have come here with visas and overstayed their visas. That has to be dealt with.

Again, there has been nothing done to try to change the system to prevent people from crossing the border or to fix the visa system, both of which are elements of our society that need fixing and have been neglected. In many cases, we have an administration making decisions not to do things that will solve the problem.

Well, what we have here is, of course, people streaming into the country. Well, the border alone is not the issue. Weak borders do not cause them to flow here. There are weak borders into other countries, but people are not flowing into those countries.

The reason why we need this kind of protection is because our government is offering jobs and benefits to those illegals who can manage to get to our country. If on this side of the fence we tell people on that side of the fence if they can get across, we are going to provide them with jobs and a treasure house of benefits, this fence has got to be a lot stronger than anyone can imagine.

The real solution is this fence, coupled with a cutoff of the jobs and benefits that we give to illegals which attract them over these barriers. If we do not do that, it is not going to work. When the President says he is going to send so many thousand troops down to the border, I guess National Guard troops, whatever benefit that will have will be totally overwhelmed if the President continues a policy that will permit these people to have jobs and benefits here.

Why would they not come here for jobs and benefits when they are poor? Most of these people are good people, but we cannot afford to have millions upon millions of good people coming here, much less the threat of al Qaeda and the terrorists I just talked about.

One of the reasons why so many people are here today is also because, in 1986, our government granted amnesty to those 3 million people who were illegally in the country at that time. If we grant another amnesty, and amnesty is nothing more than legalizing the status of someone who is here illegally, if we do that, we will have another massive flood. It has resulted in 15 to 20 million illegals.

If we have another legalization of status, I don't care what kind of fence we build, what we are going to have is 40 million illegals here within a decade or two.

This problem, to be solved, has to get rid of the magnet, and that is the jobs and benefits that we give to people throughout the world. And any legalizing of status will make the situation worse.

What has happened, what we have had, of course, is American government turning a blind eye to those people coming across the border, a blind eye to people giving them jobs, and even a blind eye to the regulations that would keep them from draining the scarce resources we have in our country away from our own people to provide education, health care, food, and housing to illegals rather than that money going to our own people.

Our government is supposed to be watching out for our people, and the government officials have turned a blind eye to this, and now they act surprised that so many people have come here.

The American people now know that this is a threat to their well- being. The American people are aware that something has to happen. But why isn't something happening? Why is there so much confusion in Washington?

That is because powerful forces are at work in Washington to prevent our government, the people who make decisions, the people who work with Mr. King and myself, the people who work in the executive branch, we have powerful interest groups at work here. Who are these groups? We have a business community that wants to bid down labor. They want cheap labor, and they are willing to basically destroy the essence of America in order to get cheap labor here.

Number two, there are people on the liberal left who want political pawns. They want millions of people here who are dependent on government programs so they can go right back to their Tammany Hall roots. This is their tradition of getting people dependent on government programs so they will give them power through the vote. They want political pawns, the liberal left; and the business community wants lower wages.

These are powerful interest groups that are at play right now and are preventing us from coming up to a solution to this horrible threat to America.

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill. Mr. King just referred to it. But that bill is not an illegal immigration bill. It does not even strengthen the borders. That bill would make illegal immigration worse. Anyone suggesting that they are for the Senate bill are telling the American people that they want to make the illegal immigration worse. They want more foreigners to come here because they are willing to, what, continue giving all of the jobs and benefits to illegals.

They, in fact, have guaranteed in the Senate bill education benefits for illegals. They have in fact given them better work guarantees, that you cannot fire them without cause, as opposed to Americans who can be fired without cause.

The Senate bill is wrapped around one center core, and that core is a guest worker program. That guest worker program is nothing more or less than amnesty because it includes legalizing the status of illegals in our country. That Senate bill, number one, will give these benefits.

By the way, the Senate voted to make illegal immigrants eligible for Social Security. Wake up, America. Your United States Senate just voted to give illegal immigrants, make them eligible for Social Security. What kind of draw will that be? Hundreds of millions of desperate people with no pensions throughout the world will do anything to get over this fence if they are going to get a pension like we give our own people.

By the way, the Social Security system is not just a pension system. It is also a survivor's benefit system. Now who is going to game that? What can you expect? Someone comes here. They are part of the Social Security system, and even if they do go home and all of a sudden someone declares they are dead, or maybe they do die, and we get the note from the coroner that says Mr. So-and-so died. He was part of the Social Security system there. His survivors are his five children. Please start sending the Social Security checks to his five children until they are 18 years old.

If the Senate bill is passed and if those Senators who voted for it, we will be spending billions of dollars in sending checks overseas for survivor benefits for people who managed to get into the Social Security system. This is an outrage. The Senate bill needs to be defeated. We have the option, and I will leave it at that.

We do not need to have a guest worker program. We do not need to provide benefits. Our solution is easy: Build this fence so they cannot get through. Cut off the benefits. Make sure no illegal is entitled to government benefits and make it hard for them to get a job and they will go home.

Anyone who claims we have to have massive deportation, that is the only solution, massive deportation or amnesty, that is a disingenuous argument. No, we can reverse the trend and after a few years illegals will start going home because they have a tough time making it here.

Again, I thank Mr. King for his leadership. We can come at this with a barrier. We can come at this by cutting off benefits, and we can save America.

I thank you very much, and associate myself with your remarks. I think what is really important at this point is that every American understands that the massive influx of illegal immigrants into our country has not been an accident. It is, instead, the result of an intentional strategy on the part of America's political elite.

Yes, the laws are not being enforced, just as you said. That is an intentional decision by someone that those laws are not enforced. The business community wants cheap labor. The movers and shakers of the liberal left, consistent with their Tammany Hall traditions want more political pawns who are dependent on government programs. They got what they wanted. Bear Stearns estimates that are there are between 15 and 20 million illegals now in our country.

By the way, one area I might disagree a little bit with my friend, although it is really not a disagreement, it is just not the border. Of the 15 to 20 million illegals, 4 to 5 million of them are visa overstayers, people who have come into our country on a visa and just overstayed their visa and melded right into the population. Many, many are from Mainland China, for example. And the decision of not having a visa system in which we check to see if anybody returns once they have come to the United States has been a conscious decision. We are not going to correct this problem.

Well, my own subcommittee held a hearing on that, and it was demonstrable that over the last two decades we have had a huge influx of people just overstaying their visa and becoming illegally part of our country.

The downside of all of this, 15 to 20 million illegals in our country, is becoming increasingly evident. In education we hear about overcrowding and the declining quality of our schools. The States are spending $7.4 billion annually to provide K through 12 education to people who aren't supposed to be here in the first place.

Without school age illegal immigrants or the children of illegal immigrants, school enrollment would not have risen at all during the past decade. So when you hear about overcrowding or the decline of our education, that is where it starts. Our limited education dollars are being expended not for our children's benefit, but for children of foreigners who have come here illegally. That is a crime against America's youth. Our children are being denied a quality education because of our cowardice or incompetence to deal with this issue.

Similarly, our health care system is under siege. Illegal aliens account for 43 percent of those without health insurance in our country. At least $9 billion then of our scarce health care dollars are being spent on foreigners who have come here illegally.

Yes, business gets their cheap labor. The rest of us end up with closed hospital emergency rooms and skyrocketing health insurance costs, which can be traced, among other things, to the care that is given to illegal aliens, which is then simply added on to our bill and sent to our insurance companies.

The effect on our criminal justice system has been no less catastrophic. Almost 30 percent of Federal prisoners are now foreign born. That is one out of every three Federal prisoners. In California, for example, about one out of every four persons in our prisons are illegal. The estimated cost, of course, of incarcerating an illegal for a year is $22,517 per year.

And that is only a small price that the American people are paying. Think of the other price, the price of the theft and property damage that is traced to these criminal aliens. And who can put a price tag on the violent attacks, the murders, the rapes, perpetrated by these foreign marauders?

And less easily recognized, millions of American families are being robbed of a higher quality of life and a higher standard of living as wages are bid down by hordes of job seekers who are not even supposed to be here in our country. A study by Harvard University professor George Boris shows immigration accounts for the entire decline of real wages that has affected so many of our countrymen in the past two decades. Competition from the growing number of illegal immigrant laborers in the past 20 years means American workers are earning, get this, an average of $1,700 less every year than they would have otherwise been earning.

Now, who gets hurt? Well, unemployment among Americans with less than a high school education is at 14 percent. Fourteen percent of those Americans who don't have a high school education are out of work, with no hope. And who is taking their jobs?

Many of our citizens find they have a decline in pay in terms of real dollars. And who are these people who are mainly finding that their pay level is going down? It is the people on the bottom end of the scale. The less fortunate Americans we are trying to help are the ones who are being hurt the most by illegal immigrants.

So whether we are talking about education, health care, food stamps, housing assistance, school breakfast and lunch programs, all of which were intended for struggling Americans, all of these are being drained to one extent or another by people who have come here illegally, and in many cases these people have paid little or nothing into the system.

It is estimated that the average illegal alien uses $2,700 or more in government services more than he pays in taxes. That is coming right out of the hide of America's least fortunate citizens. This is a crime perpetrated by America's elite on America's least fortunate people. It is a betrayal of our fellow Americans for whom these programs were intended.

Now, we keep hearing we need these illegals. We need people coming in to do jobs that Americans won't do. Well, that is so much baloney. Americans will do these jobs. If Americans are paid a decent wage, Americans will do the jobs.

I was on a TV show recently where a woman said she couldn't find an American woman to help take care of her children. This was a very wealthy person who ended up hiring an illegal Mexican woman. Yes, she hired her probably at about $50. She wouldn't hire the American woman down the road who would be glad to work for her for $20 an hour while her own kids are going to school, thus paying her $100 a day.

Who was worse off? The worse off person is the American woman who would have loved to have worked for that job. Yes, the illegal got a little money, 50 bucks. Who is really better off? The rich lady who got that illegal at half the price she would have had to pay an American. This goes right down the line to so many other jobs.

We say now there are a lot of jobs, for example, in hotels. Yes, hotels, they say they need illegals to change the sheets in the hotel rooms. There are lots of American women who would love so help us with child care and help with changing the sheets in the motel room if we would pay them a decent wage. But we have hordes of illegals coming into this country bidding down those prices so those American women stay at home and have no job at all. Who is being hurt? Regular Americans are being hurt by this.

The open-borders crowd are now throwing their weight behind the current Senate bill. Wake up America. This is the same gang that brought this crisis upon us, and the Senate bill will make the situation worse.

Even the bill before us from the United States Senate is not an anti- illegal immigration bill. It is a pro-immigration, a pro-illegal immigration bill, because that will be the impact.

The core provisions of the Senate bill around which everything else orbits is the so-called guest worker program, and the legalization status of those 15 to 20 million illegals who are now in our country. The Senate bill changes the status of these millions of intruders from illegal to legal.

The President does not want to call that amnesty. I call that amnesty, and there is no other definition I know for it. You are changing the status from illegal to legal of people who have come here in violation of our law.

Whatever you call it, if you legalize the status of those who skipped the line and came here in violation of our country's law, we are telling hundreds of millions of foreigners who are waiting to come to this country legally, they are waiting in line overseas, we are telling them they are a bunch of saps.

We will start a stampede towards America, just like what happened the last time we legalized the status of people who were here illegally back in 1986. No matter what is done to strengthen the border, any benefit from strengthening the border will be overwhelmed by the dramatically increased pull which is a result of legalizing the status of these millions of illegals who are in our country.

Now, the rest of the Senate bill. What does it include? It guarantees in-state tuition for illegals. Your kid has to pay full tuition if he crosses a border of a State line. These illegals do not. Now that is a way not to give anybody incentive to come here to our country.

And agricultural guest workers under this bill cannot be fired by their employers except for what the bill calls ``just cause''. However, American agricultural workers can be fired for any reason. Oh, well, that is going to keep them away from our country, isn't it?

The Senate bill will make illegal aliens eligible for Social Security. Get that, America. Wake up, America. The Senate has voted to give illegal immigrants Social Security. Hundreds of millions of desperate people living in poverty throughout the world who have no pension system available to them now know that the United States Senate has voted to make them part of America's pension system if they can just get here.

This is beyond absurd. This is bizarre. This is horrible. We are including people who have come here illegally in America's pension system and expecting that not to attract tens of millions of other desperate people from around the world. And, of course, Social Security is not just a pension system for people. It is also a survivor's benefit program.

So when an illegal works here and then dies, we will take care of his or her children until they are 18 years old. The potential for corruption and the gaming of such a system boggles the mind. I can assure you right now, if this is put in place as the Senate has voted to do, we will be taking care and there will be payments from our Social Security system to millions of kids in China, and in Mexico, as people go back and their coroners claim they have died and their dependents are waiting for their check to be delivered.

And of course all of this is happening at a time when we are trying to keep Social Security solvent. Oh, yes, the Senate bill, of course, gives all employers amnesty too. So now employers are not going to worry about enforcing the law. Who cares if Americans are being denied the jobs? Who cares? Because actually employers now can hire people and these employers are now no longer held accountable for the illegals that they have hired.

And what is the final result? The insult, of course, is the Senate bill is providing money for those organizations that are helping illegals adjust their status. We are actually paying them to help fight our Government and our efforts to clear up the illegal immigration situation by sending illegals home.

There are a number of other provisions in the bill that should alarm small business. For example, this bill, the Senate bill, requires us to pay illegals the prevailing wage. And then, of course, we are setting up an entire bureaucracy to determine what that prevailing wage is for various different professions.

No, this will massively increase the bureaucratic power over our people and our country, and the private sector already. Illegal immigration has had a horrible, horrible impact on our way of life. Kids in my neighborhood do not cut the lawn any more. I used to cut the lawn. That is what I did for pocket change when I was a kid. Kids do not do that any more. Kids do not wash the cars any more.

No. What we have done is our values have changed because illegals have come in and changed our way of life. And we are told we have to bring them in because, for example, the fruit and the vegetables will rot in the fields without illegals.

Well, if we pay our American people they will do the job. And if they do not, we can be creative enough. For example, let us use prisoners to pick fruit, and pay them so that when they get out of prison, they will have $10,000 or $20,000 in their pocket and they will have contributed money to their own incarceration, or for restitution to their victims.

We can come through this without importing millions and millions of people from foreign countries to come here and do this kind of work. We can. We can run the United States of America without a massive flow of illegals or a massive new flow of immigrants into our country.

Now, I support legal immigration. I think legal immigrants, legal immigrants deserve every right as every American citizen. We have the most generous legal immigration system in the world. We permit more legal immigration into America than any other country in the world.

The Senate wants to up that by so much, that if the Senate bill passed, we are talking about 100 million to 200 million more immigrants coming into our country over the next 20 years. Read that correctly.

If you put illegal immigration on top of that, we are talking about hundreds of millions, perhaps 300 million people coming into the United States of America. Wake up, America. We are losing our country. We cannot permit this massive flow of illegals to continue.

And we cannot just dramatically increase the number of legal immigrants coming into our country, which would then overwhelm our ability to assimilate them. We can be proud of legal immigration. We should keep it at the level it has been at.

But, no, we have people who are not watching out for the interests of the American people. That is what we need to talk about right now as we close this presentation. The American people need to pay attention. This vote that is coming up on the Senate bill versus the House bill, which is based on enforcement and trying to stop illegal immigration, the Senate bill is a pro-illegal immigration bill. The American people need to look very closely who is watching out for their interests and who is against them.

Who is on their side and who is on the side of foreigners who wish to come here? Again, these people who want to came here are wonderful people. Even the illegal immigrants who come here are wonderful people. 95 percent of them are wonderful people.

Our job is not to take care of every wonderful person in the world, providing them a pension, providing them health care, providing their children with education. Our job is to watch out for the American people.

We accept no apologies for that. We should have no apologies that we put the American people's interests first. But that is not what has been happening. There has been some very powerful special interests, as I say, in business who want cheap labor, and on the left wing and liberal left wing of the Democratic Party who want political pawns out of illegals who come here and other people who immigrate here who are dependent on Government programs.

The American people have the power in their hands to control the destiny of this country. They must pay attention if we are to succeed in thwarting this threat to our freedom and to our prosperity. Wake up, America. It is time to hold accountable your elected representatives. Study the issues. See who is supporting this program in the Senate to give away our Social Security, and destroy that system. See who is supporting actual border enforcement and changing our visa laws so they can be enforced and protecting us from an overwhelming flow of illegals into our country, which lowers wages and threatens our way of life.

Hold those elected officials accountable, and kick them out of office if they are not representing your interests. They are supposed to be working for you. And with that I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House at this time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to alert my colleagues to a tremendously destructive attack being carried out upon our country. This attack is gravely damaging working Americans, especially those in the middle and lower incomes; perhaps as many as 50 percent of America's population has suffered or is being injured by this attack.

My colleagues need to be alerted to the horrendous situation that many Americans are finding themselves in as their standard of living begins to decline and our way of life and the prosperity we all enjoyed as young people seems now a distant goal. They need to be alerted, my colleagues need to be alerted because the suffering that is affecting many Americans is disproportionate. Yes, those in the lower incomes are suffering, but in fact many upper-income Americans have actually benefited from the malady that now has been damaging so many of the less affluent Americans.

Of course, what I am referring to is the mind-boggling, out-of- control flow of illegal immigrants into our country in these last two decades. Throughout our country, but especially in the Southwest, America's education, health care, housing, and criminal justice infrastructure is breaking down. It is breaking down under the weight of 11 to 20 million illegal immigrants who have flooded into our country in these past two decades.

These 11 to 20 million illegals are by and large good and decent people, people who have come here to better their lives. But our job is not to watch out for all of the good and decent people who can come here from throughout the world in violation of our laws. Our job is supposed to be watching out for the interest of the American people.

These 11 to 20 million illegals are good people, but they have been bidding down the wages of lower-income Americans, thus hurting these Americans and their potential for having a decent living. They are destroying the social infrastructure that our fellow Americans of lower income depend upon. Whether it is health or education, their children are losing out because the limited money we have for education is being spent on people who are not here legally and their children that they bring with them in order to enjoy this benefit. And we would bring our children if we were foreigners as well because we care about our families.

It is not their fault; it is the fault of the policymakers in Washington that permit people to come here and consume the limited resources that should be going to our own people.

It is time for a tough, anti-illegal immigration bill that would deny all benefits to those who are in this country illegally. Just beefing up the borders is not enough. No, border security is not the goal. What we are talking about is dealing with a real issue, and it is called illegal immigration as well as the 11 to 20 million illegals that are already here.

It is a bit disturbing to hear the ongoing debate in Washington. What they must ask themselves is: Who is watching out for the American people? Well, they need to watch and listen very closely to their Representatives. In the next few weeks, they should be very aware of what their Representatives are doing. And if their Representatives are not watching out for their interest and the interest of their families, the interest of the American people, then the American voters should vote in a way to express their anger or how they feel about that.

Illegal immigrants may be good people. And, in fact, the kids on the streets of L.A., I come from southern California; there are tens of thousands of them out on the streets. They are basically good kids. Yes, they were waving Mexican flags, and I did not like that, but they are basically good and decent kids. But I will tell you it is not the job of the Government of the United States to spend our limited education dollars on people who are here illegally from Mexico or anywhere else. Our limited education dollars should be spent on our own young people to try to maximize their value so when they get older they can earn a decent living, and especially a living where their wages are not bid down by tens of millions of illegals who will do the job cheaper.

Our limited resources should go to America's seniors. Yes, there may be good and decent people who have come here illegally. I do not care if they are good people, we need to spend our limited resources on our own seniors and our own young people.

This is not a hateful or a malicious type of approach to the problem. You can have love in your hearts, Christian love for other people, or any other kind of love for that matter, and care for other people, but know that you are taking care of your family and your neighbors and other Americans first.

America is a land of every race and religion. In California, we are especially proud of our Mexican American heritage. But we are talking about Americans, people who are tied together. If we do not consider that American citizenship or legal residency in our country means anything, we are degrading that very issue of citizenship and legal procedures that one goes through with respect to the law by giving benefits to millions of people who have come here in total disregard for America's law.

What we need to do is make sure that any law that passes is a strong anti- illegal immigration law and not just a border control law. And do not let anyone tell you, oh, we need these people because there is work that Americans won't do. Americans will do any job as long as the price is high enough, and they have been bidding down the amount paid to laborers by having millions of illegals coming into this country willing to work for less money. Do not let the agricultural business or any other business tell you that they cannot find people to do that work.

Yes, we would have to be creative. For example, there is no reason why the millions of young Americans who are in their 20s and early 30s, who occupy our prisons throughout the United States, should not earn some money, earning their own way, perhaps giving restitution to their victims and perhaps having some money when they get out of prison to start a new life by picking fruits and vegetables. This can and should be done. Everybody is brushing that argument off.

If we do not have illegals in this country, we might have to accept creative approaches. That is why we need strong illegal immigration legislation to get down to the business of helping the American people.

Mr. Speaker, last week I introduced a bill to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to limit the provisions of the United States military assistance and the sale, transfer or licensing of United States military equipment or technology to Ethiopia.

The bill requires that before the United States provides military equipment to the regime in Addis Ababa that our President certifies that the Government of Ethiopia is not using our equipment or assistance against pro-democracy advocates or peaceful civilian protesters in Ethiopia. Is that too much to ask?

It is an outrage that in Ethiopia that over 80 opposition leaders and human rights activists and journalists have been recently charged with treason, violent conspiracy and genocide. These prisoners of conscience face brutal captivity and the possibility of death sentences. They include 10 newly elected members of the Parliament and other officials of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party, also known as the CUD.

These brave souls face charges filed against them by a corrupt and repressive government. This same government blatantly stalled the last election, making a sham out of the democratic process. Five of those being charged with criminal behavior work for the Voice of America. One of those being held is Dr. Berhanu Nega. He is mayor of Ethiopia's largest city and has lived, studied and taught in America. Dr. Nega is an advocate of democracy. He faces the death penalty for his involvement in mass protests over the election fraud that took place in Ethiopia during their last election.

Now, in January, the British Government cut the equivalent of $88 million in aid in support to Ethiopia. This was due to its concerns about the governance and human rights issues arising from this disputed election. Other international donors have taken similar measures.

My legislation requires certification by the President of the United States that our military equipment provided to Ethiopia is not being used to beat down those who would bring honest and democratic government to that troubled land. In Ethiopia, it is incumbent upon us as Americans to be on the side of those struggling for honest and democratic government, not on the side of their oppressor.

No pragmatic strategy can justify the United States backing a regime that stole the last election and has brutalized their own people and will, at some point, disintegrate from its own corruption and incompetent ways. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing and supporting the democratic movement in Ethiopia, just as we did with a similar movement in Ukraine just two short years ago and in other countries throughout the world where the future was in play and human freedom was in the balance.

That is what being an elected representative of the American people is all about, standing for our ideals and our principles. And nowhere could that be made more clear than to stand with the people of Ethiopia, who are struggling to make a democratic government, to form a democratic government, and to have honest government and the recognition and respect for people's rights within their own country.