Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, when Generalissimo Fox leaves office this year, the illegal Mexican citizens in America better hope they find someone who cares as much about them as he does. Since the Sly Fox cannot take care of his own people, he makes his problem our problem.

He has encouraged their careers by sending them north to the United States so they can have a career; and when they had no ID in our foreign land, his answer, the matricula consular card, a Mexican ID card for illegals in the United States.

Then this Fox of Mexico started creating a vast network of American businesses and banks that will accept these cards so his illegals can open up a U.S. bank account and wire money home, that is right, back to Mexico.

Ironically, even Mexican banks do not accept this matricula card. But U.S. banks do, and they help illegal immigrants send home more than $12 billion every year, money that the United States Government ought to consider charging a 10 percent fee on, keep some of that money in America.

Mr. Speaker, be that as it may, the banks and businesses that do this are doing nothing more than encouraging illegal entry into the United States.

The Mexican Government may be controlling the United States immigration policy. In fact, since they are issuing IDs for people in our country from their country and making sure it is accepted, it is just like American Express, the matricula card is everywhere you want to be, without that yearly fee.

That's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, there are a select few men and women in this world who know in advance the exact time of their death. The crime victims are not in that group. Without time to prepare, they never get to say goodbye for the last time. They never get to hug their kids goodbye, their parents for the last time. The last person they usually see on earth is the killer, the one who steals their life.

One of those victims was Pensacola, Florida, police officer Stephen Taylor. He was handcuffing a bank robber that he had captured when another bandit named Clarence Hill cowardly shot Officer Taylor in the back, killing him. This was in 1982, 24 years ago.

Hill was tried and sentenced to death, and his sentence was proper. He was to be executed with a date and time predetermined by law. He knew when he was to meet his maker.

When at the very last minute he claimed that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, our Supreme Court today agreed that his civil rights might have been violated and stayed the execution indefinitely. The courts have to figure this all out, according to the Supreme Court.

Today the Supreme Court's wayward ruling will undo sentences and the sanity of grieving families.

Mr. Speaker, has the Supreme Court lost its way? Soon many murderers and child rapists and armed robbers will scurry to have their sentence stopped. They will claim their deaths might be too cruel and unusual. Cruel and unusual they are not. Mr. Speaker, 37 of the 38 States in the United States that use the death penalty use lethal injection, a hardly unusual means of death when most States use it.

Note the phrase is cruel and unusual punishment, not cruel or unusual punishment. Lethal injection drugs, those are the same drugs given to surgery patients every day, just in a different dosage.

But the people on death row who hope Hill's case will serve their lives have committed crimes more painful than any drug could be, holding someone's head under water, stabbing someone dozens of times till they bleed to death, raping, robbing and bludgeoning their victims until every cry is silenced. Those folks have earned the right to be executed.

I spent 22 years as a felony trial judge and 8 years as a felony court prosecutor in Texas. I have probably tried more cases and more death penalty cases than all the Justices on the Supreme Court put together, and I dealt with the Constitution every day, especially the issues of the Bill of Rights.

I have been down there in the trial court, down in the mud and the blood and the beer with vicious criminal cases, and I have seen the families of murder victims grieve and pray and hope that justice will occur in their case when some outlaw snuffs out the life of their loved one. The death penalty is proper in proper cases. Some people deserve that punishment. Hill is one of those people.

Mr. Speaker, his guilt is not in doubt, just the means of his execution is in doubt, according to the Supreme Court. You know we went from hanging criminals to the electric chair to the gas chamber to the firing squad to this, quote, put them to a quiet peaceful death, the lethal injection.

Now those that are more concerned about the way criminals die than they are concerned about the way victims die say this death will be and may be a little painful. This ought not to be. Criminals should not have more rights than victims. This case is 26 years old. That absurd delay in sentencing is cruel and unusual to the family of the victims.

Gunning down officer Taylor by shooting him in cold blood is cruel and unusual punishment for him, the victim. Lethal injection for this killer is neither cruel nor unusual, it is just justice.

And that's the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for allowing me to make some comments on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tennessee is named the Volunteer State. It was some of those Tennesseeans who volunteered to help my State, Texas, become a free and independent nation back in 1836, another example that to be free it always costs something. We called upon those volunteers to make a difference in freedom, noting that every person serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is a volunteer. Many of them are on their second and third tours of duty, volunteered because they understand the importance of what they do.

We just recently learned that the United States Army has met not only its enlistment goals but more enlistments than they had predicted because many Americans, the young of our Nation, understand the importance of what is going on. They know there is a war going on out there, and it is a war against terrorists. It is a war the terrorists started, and terrorism is not something we desire; but it is certainly something we must destroy.

We cannot negotiate with terrorists. We cannot sit down at a conference table and say come let us reason together. It is not going to work because you see, terrorists are determined to kill people, not just soldiers, not just sailors or marines, but all people, any people that get in their way. And that includes their own people. That includes military and nonmilitary. It includes civilians, the old, the elderly, women, children. It includes people in hospitals recovering from sickness. Anybody they think will cause terror in the hearts and souls of the world they murder, and they kill throughout the world. That is the way terrorists operate, and the idea that we can even negotiate with them is almost as absurd as the idea that we can appease those individuals.

Appeasement comes up every time some nation, like our Nation, has to go to war to fight for our freedoms and liberties. It came up in World War II, and appeasement was talked about even in Washington, D.C., appease the Germans, appease the Japanese, give in, try to ignore. Of course, we saw what happens. Appeasement never works with terrorists because they are determined to become more criminal-like in their activity and promote their desires no matter what it takes.

I, like you and many Members of the House, have been to Iraq. I have seen the Iraqi people. I have seen our military and was fortunate to be there last year and when the Iraqi people had their first free elections in the history of their nation. It was quite the honor to be one of two Members of Congress to see that event.

Of course, the skeptics and critics say, as the gentlewoman from Tennessee says, the northeastern elites, they said the Iraqis do not understand freedom or democracy, it will never work; and every election starting with that first election and every subsequent election after that proved that Iraqis want freedom. They have tasted it, and they do not want to let it go. And they are fighting for it just as much as our troops are fighting for it.

Of course, I visited with our troops. They all say that we are winning the war on terror. And we are winning the war on terror. One thing that an Iraqi woman said to me at the voting booth, she had cast her ballot, had that purple stain on her finger, proudly walking down the street defiant of the terrorists because they said if you vote, the terrorists will kill you, and of course they did kill 57 Iraqis that voted that day. Anyway, she came up to me, she had tears in her eyes. I had an interpreter with me and she said to the interpreter and he told me, she said, We Iraqis are grateful to America for giving their youth to us.

What she was saying was she was aware, as the Iraqis are, that Americans die so other people can live and live free.

You know, 2,400-plus Americans have died in this war. Eight of those who have died are from my congressional district down in southeast Texas. I have talked to the families of those marines and sailors and airmen and soldiers that have been killed. Those families grieve in their own way, but they say to a family that they were proud of their son and they will be proud of America if America stays the course and finishes the job that their kids started in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finish the war, win the war, Mr. Poe, win the war. I heard that so many times. Win the war that my son died in.

And I say to those families and other families that this country will win that war on terror. As has been said here on the House floor, it is going to be a long war. It is not an easy war. It is an unconventional war because we fight by the rules of engagement, the United States. We go after the terrorists. The terrorists, unlike any other war in world history, are determined to kill anybody in their way, including the innocent.

But we will not let those that have died and those that will die, die for nothing because they are dying for something. They are dying for two things. They are dying for the welfare of the United States of America. It is in our best interest to take the fight to the enemy, and we are doing that. We are going to track them down wherever they show up in the world, and we are going to eliminate them. They are beginning to believe us that we will track them down. And we also are fighting this war because of that word freedom.

It is important that Iraq and Afghanistan be free nations. They have never tasted freedom. They have tasted it now; and as I said, they do not want to let go of it. President Kennedy said it better than I can. He said, you know, this country will bear any burden. We will pay any price. We will support any friend, we will oppose any foe to preserve liberty.

That is our mission statement given by President Kennedy over 40 years ago, and that is what our troops are doing.

Freedom has always cost. It always will. Good things have cost. It cost us 7 years of hard war against the British. After we gained our independence, gained our freedom, the British did not believe it, and they attacked us again in the War of 1812. They burned this building down, and they burned the White House. They burned every building in Washington, D.C. except for two because they were trying to make sure that America was not a free Nation. So we had to fight them again.

Freedom has cost this country, and it has cost other countries; and Iraq is one of them. We do not get freedom by sitting down at a conference table and saying, let us reason together so we can be a free people.

There is no substitute for victory. It is the only path to freedom, and I hope that folks in this Nation understand the great job our troops are doing and are as committed as they are to winning the war.

Down in southeast Texas, I have the distinction of having the Port of Beaumont. It is the number one military deployment port of cargo going to Iraq. It comes from Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, and it is the place where our troops come home. Most of the troops coming back to my area are National Guard troops. You see, down in southeast Texas when the National Guard comes home, we have parades for them. Schools and businesses close, and everybody turns out on Main Street waving the American flag. We are proud of what our troops are doing. We understand, as most Americans understand, they are doing a good job and they are putting their lives on the line for that simple word that people since the beginning of the world have wanted, and that is freedom.

So this country I do not think is ever going to flinch and it is never going to

flee and we certainly are never going to fear because we will never fail the war against terrorism, and I hope we will be successful.

I appreciate the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) allowing me to make these comments. I hope we will continue the dialogue and the perseverance to be successful and to spread the word not only in America but to those terrorists who live throughout the world that they can run, but they can certainly never hide because the American fighting man is going to track them down.

Mr. Speaker, this morning, freedom has found a victory. Like the days of the Old West, an outlaw has been eliminated and we can take down the wanted posters.

We weren't looking for a bank robber, a railroad bandit or even a horse thief. We were tracking a terrorist, a war criminal. High-tech helped find his hideout.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, militant mastermind who planned and ordered hundreds of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings of Iraqis and Americans, is dead. The prince of the forces of evil, the most wanted man in the desert of destruction, died like the outlaw that he was. He wasn't hung at the courthouse square like the days of the Old West, but he was the recipient of a U.S. military air strike, a strike that all but wiped out his desert gang of bad men, cutthroats and outlaws.

But like the days of the Old West, there are more outlaws in hideouts in the hot hills of Iraq, and they, too, will be brought to a fitting end. Their reign of terror will be brought to justice.

Freedom must always fight to survive, but freedom will prevail when the desert dust settles.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the work that the committee has done on this foreign ops appropriations bill.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment resets the spending of this bill, however, to the 2006 foreign ops appropriation bill. Considering the ballooning size of the government, this would seem to be a modest gesture. Some say that $597 million is just a small drop in the bucket. That may seem true to some people who write checks for a living, but I disagree.

You tell that to the people down in Sabine Pass, Texas which was leveled during Hurricane Rita, that $597 million is not a lot of money. These good folks are wondering why we are spending money all over the world when 40,000 of them still have blue tarps on their roofs. It would seems to me that charity certainly begins at home before we raise spending to many third world countries.

I'm not asking for a massive cut in foreign programs, I am asking that Congress consider aid that we spend all over the world. I receive letters and phone calls every day from people asking us to take care of their money. It is an important to these individuals, especially people who have recently been hurt by Wilma, Rita and Katrina.

We can keep asking Americans to trust us with their money as we send it all over the world, but some day, after we have gone well too far, the American people will tell us that they have probably had enough. We cannot continue to be the guns, bread and butter to the world. We must hold the line on money we give away to other nations and take care of our people first.

So this amendment reduces overall spending. But because it would be up to the bureaucrats to decide where those actual cuts would be, and that aid that is in the interests of the United States, like aid to Israel, aid that probably ought to be increased, and they may remove that aid and continue wasteful aid that we spend, for example, the $4 million we give to Tibet so that they keep their culture, maybe even aid to Egypt, and that gives them too much discretion, I think it is in the best interest that I withdraw this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, many Americans have joined Congress in the illegal immigration debate over the past several months. Important questions on guest worker programs, detention space, and the so-called catch and release programs have been discussed numerous times.

However, one overlooked aspect of illegal immigration is the delay or the refusal of foreign countries that we give aid to to accept the ordered deportation of citizens from the United States. Many of these ordered deported have been convicted of felonies, gone to prison and U.S. penitentiaries, and illegally entered the United States initially.

A report issued in April of 2006 by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General states, that ICE's Office of Detention and Removal is being forced to devote a significant percentage of its funded detention beds, 14 percent, to illegals whose countries are either slow or unwilling to take those people back after they have been ordered deported.

The report also states that thousands of these individuals end up then being released in America as our government continues to get stonewalled by so-called friends, but turn out to be uncooperative foreign nations.

The cost incurred in fiscal year 2003 by the U.S. due to the delay or refusal of the top eight nations, including India, was $83 million to American taxpayers.

In June of 2004, America had 136,241 illegals from those top eight nations with orders to be departed, but those governments refused to take those individuals. So what happened? Of that 136,241 illegals, 98 percent of those were released and are walking free on American streets because we cannot detain them.

These costs are sure to increase along with illegal immigration from offending countries. What do illegal immigrants have to lose if they know their own country will not take them back after they have been deported?

They make their way to America, they come here illegally, they break our laws, and they know their country will refuse to take them back. The United States should not have to foot the bill for illegal immigrants because their home Nations are constructing roadblocks.

It is time we offer a proper incentive to these uncooperative nations, our so called friends. This amendment would require recipients of foreign aid to accept and repatriate nationals who have been deported from this country.

Those nations that do not accept the transfer of their nationals would not be eligible to receive American aid. These nations cannot have it both ways. This is not about punishing any particular nation, it is about asking these countries to work with us and accept our assistance, also to respect our sovereignty and sanctity of our borders and take back their lawfully-deported citizens.

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

I understand there is a point of order and with that I will withdraw my amendment.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the first National Guard troops hit our Nation's border. They are not carrying the same guns and ammunition as the Mexican military on the other side, but they are driving bulldozers and road equipment. They are starting a project that people all across the country support, fortifying our border, helping to prevent the invasion of the drug smugglers and human traffickers that blatantly infiltrate our Nation.

Americans want to see our Nation strengthened. Mr. Speaker, Alexandra Gary from Riverwood Middle School in Kingwood, Texas, writes to me, ``I think we should stop trying to help people from Mexico come into America illegally. I think we should have a stronger border control. It is unfair to let so many people come to America illegally. It is almost like they are stealing. They sneak into our country and escape from paying taxes. They take people's jobs. The few people that we catch and return to Mexico just keep coming back. If we strengthen our borders, then no more can come in. All America needs is ideas and justice.''

Mr. Speaker, those simple but strong ideas of justice come from a 12- year-old, someone who has more stake in the future of our nation than anyone on the floor right now. And as a legal citizen, no matter her age, she, unlike illegals, has the right to speak her mind. Alexander understands we are being invaded. Now it is our government's turn to understand this simple but wise truth. And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I request permission to take Mr. Burton's time.

Mr. Speaker, it is the kind of ammunition you would expect a foreign insurgent to have, 150 armor piercing bullets and a rifle. But it was all too familiar what happened in this event. This individual with all this fire power being a bad father and a bad husband, he was pitted against police and his own family. He held them hostage, then lashing out at the lawmen sent to rescue his family. This domestic disturbance ended fatally, just as too many domestic disturbances end.

After threatening his wife, this family terrorist, Joseph Earl Walsh, turned his blazing gun on a well-known and well-loved peace officer, a servant of the people, leaving him to die while holding fellow peace officers at bay. This stand-off would last more than 3 hours, and when the dust and gun powder cleared the skies, East Texas Constable Dale Geddie of Tyler, Texas would be found murdered.

As a constable, Geddie was more than a law officer, he was an officer of the people. He carried a charge that dates all the way back to the Father of Texas, Stephen F. Austin, who started this band of lawmen to protect Texas settlers from the Indians. Constables are an elite corps of cowboy-lawmen, part of an organization really older than Texas Rangers. They date back to before the days of the Republic of Texas. And Constable Dale Geddie was known for upholding the charge to protect and serve.

He was a fine lawman and a fine human being. Friends have said that if you knew Dale, he was your friend for life. He was the guy who would take off his boots and give them to you if you needed them. Now it is Constable Dale Geddie's family, his wife and his two sons, who will need help during the loss of their good father and their good husband. Their father's fellow peace officers, with their badges draped in the black cloth of sacrifice, their hearts bruised, have lost a friend, a leader, and a hero.

Today we remember Constable Dale Geddie, his family and friends and fellow Texas lawmen, and as we remember them we also remember Smith County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Leon, who was also injured in this attack. Today we pause to say a prayer and give praise to all the other lawmen across the country who face the forces of evil, evil that hides in the hardened hearts of the heathen.

Mr. Speaker, peace officers are the last strand of wire in the fence between the people and the lawless. Constable Dale Geddie was one of those peace officers.

And that's just the way it is.

Ripped from the bodies of unwilling women, undergarments cling to branches of a tree just a few feet from the lawless U.S.- Mexico border, dozens of pairs of underwear thrown there by rapists.

These are called rape trees. Each pair is a trophy from a woman that was smuggled into the United States, victims that are heard screaming in the desert. They are raped, even gang raped by illegal human smugglers, then forced into silence.

These trees are a warning. Illegal immigrants evade our borders but crime doesn't evade them. Some become criminals. Some become victims. They are raped, robbed and murdered by other illegals, human smugglers and brutal criminals who then claim other victims.

More than 70 percent of their rapes, murders and child sex crimes are against Americans. One expert who studies sex crimes says about a hundred illegal sex offenders cross the border every day, leaving thousands of victims every year.

Rape trees are a warning to illegals not to talk. They should be a warning to Americans as well, to shout out against illegal entry and human smuggling.

And that's just the way it is.

Offered By: Mr. Poe

Amendment No. 10: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

reduction in appropriations

Sec. 5xx. Appropriations made in this Act are hereby

reduced in the amount of $597,000,000.

Offered By: Mr. Poe

Amendment No. 11: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

limitation on assistance to certain countries

Sec. 5xx. None of the funds made available in this Act may

be used to provide assistance to any country the government

of which does not accept the transfer from the United States

of citizens or nationals of such country who have been issued

a final removal order by U.S. Immigration and Customs

Enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, the silent ocean roar now covers the battlefields on the shores of France.

They fought for a people they did not know in a place they had never been and consecrated the soil of freedom by the self-sacrifice of their own blood.

There are 9,386 Americans buried on the cliffs of Normandy, France. 1,557 are still missing 62 years later. They gave their youth so Europe could have a tomorrow. They came not to conquer, but to set a people free. That D-Day invasion of France was the beginning of the liberation of Europe.

Those that served that day jumped from the sky in the darkness, or went ashore in the face of massive gunfire. They were the young Americans that went to land in Normandy on June 6, 1944. They defeated the evil forces of the Axis and they did not come back until it was over over there.

History refers to those that died and those that lived as the Greatest Generation. They are our fathers and our grandfathers. They defended the honor of liberty and proved there is something worth fighting for, and there is something worth dying for. And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, she was buried alive in a landfill underneath massive concrete chunks. Human garbage is what Milagro Cunningham thought of this 8-year-old girl who he raped, choked and left to die in a dump.

Police do not know how she was able to find the strength to wiggle her fingers while trapped underneath these slabs of concrete. She was still barely alive, and wiggling her fingers was her silent cry for help.

Milagro Cunningham was an illegal from the Bahamas. He was arrested three times by police before he tried to kill this tiny girl. Not once did the police detain him for trespassing on American soil. They let him go each time. Then he ruined the life of a child. Mr. Speaker, this ought not to be.

Failure to enforce the laws of the border brings those bad people to America to break more laws. There are others. The Railroad Killer, Angel Resendez or Resendez Resendez as he is sometimes referred to, raped, bludgeoned, hammered, and even sledge hammered nine people to death. All lived within yards of railroad tracks throughout the plains of America.

Small town shops sold out of pistols. People who never locked their doors sealed their windows afraid of this killer on the loose. The killer? An illegal from Mexico. He hopped trains never knowing where he was going, but always knowing what would happen when he got there. To him every border, Mexican, U.S. or Canadian meant bloodshed and murder.

He was arrested and released numerous times. He was even arrested and deported. He was sent home after carrying guns, defrauding Social Security, committing burglary, trespassing, even pretending to be an American citizen.

But the border of Texas and Mexico is no border at all for this killer. He was only arrested for murder after he claimed the lives of nine American citizens. His first known murder victim was beaten to death just 2 years after his last deportation. The victim's girlfriend was raped and beaten, but she survived and was found near railroad tracks.

These deadly illegal invaders knew what they were doing, but they are not the only ones to track northward leaving a trail of trouble. Their bold and brazen border crossings and thousands of others like them mean 12 legal citizens will be murdered today, tomorrow, and every day.

Lawlessness on the border breeds lawlessness in the heart of America. And 13 legal citizens will die because a drunk illegal got behind the wheel of a car. That occurs today, and tomorrow, and every day. That is 28,000 homicides by illegals since 2003, 10 times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, this ought not to be. And there is more. Eight children will be sexually abused by illegal perverts who will cross the line, cross over our open borders. That is today, that is tomorrow, and it is every day. Lawless on the border breeds lawlessness in the heart of America.

Not all illegal immigrants are criminals. But some are. And when all cross the border, they break the law with their first step on American soil. And their first crime may not be their last.

Mr. Speaker, they are not just trespassing on our soil, they are laughing at our laws. They are violating our values. They are shattering our safety. Mr. Speaker, this ought not to be. It must be stopped with a sealed border, and a common sense immigration process that puts America first.

And to the pandering politicians who prefer a plan of patronizing the illegals to the detriment of citizens and illegal immigrants, shame on you for your un-American policy. That's just the way it is.

Madam Speaker, we have seen the protests of illegals who have colonized our Nation, parading through our streets, trying to intimidate America.

But they are not alone. Their shouts and demands are being met by a silent revolution. Countless native citizens and naturalized citizens are demanding to be heard as well. Their voice is being echoed across these lands.

Ernest Fichtner writes: ``My heart goes out to the Mexican people who

look north for a chance at life and liberty. But this problem sits squarely in the lap of Vicente Fox and his corrupt government.

``We are a Nation of laws and institutions. If the laws are not vigorously enforced, we are left with anarchy and open borders. . . .

``If America does the hard work now, the border integrity of this country will never again be subject to attack, not only from without but from within.''

Madam Speaker, we are a Nation of American citizens, not illegal invaders, not lawbreakers, not tax dodgers, not transients.

This land is our land. This land is not Vicente Fox's land. The last thing we need is amnesty anarchy.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today because the Federal Government has failed to protect our Nation's interiors from illegals. We allow thousands a day to enter illegally in this country and do not know where they are or why they are coming here. It is a common understanding among illegals that once they get past the Border Patrols, which only patrols the first inner 30 miles of our borders, and get into the United States, they are home free in America. There are not enough interior officers to capture illegals.

What this shows us is we need a new approach, one centered on enforcing the Nation's interior. We send a mixed message when we say we are serious about border protection but give a wink and a nod to those who make it into the interior of this country. They know they will not be captured.

With the other Chamber passing sweeping immigration changes today that will undoubtedly place more of a burden on our Border Patrol, and even allow more illegal aliens to settle into the community, it is incumbent on this body to give communities more resources to clean up Federal failures. Increasingly, more of the burden of illegal immigration is falling on the shoulders of State and local governments to absorb the populations into their communities. The problem is particularly troubling in border communities and major trafficking routes in the Southwest. I know because I have been there and I have seen it.

Mr. Chairman, the first duty of government is to protect the citizens. The 287(g) program fulfills this duty. This program is a voluntary program that gives State and local enforcement, at their choosing, immigration enforcement training so they can protect their communities. The Nation has 750,000 State and local law enforcement, and they can be an effective force in assisting Federal authorities. The program is voluntary to local police if they choose to help enforce immigration laws.

For example, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the first in the Nation to enter into a 287(g) agreement, used trained officers to fight terrorism. Alabama has used these agreements to go after a growing human trafficking problem because the Federal ICE presence in Alabama was limited in their State to only three officers.

Los Angeles County is looking at the program to help identify and remove criminal aliens from their jails before they are released. This is a major problem as ICE estimates there are a half million criminal aliens in U.S. jails and prisons, and they have not been identified for removal to their countries. Without adequate action, many of these criminals could be released back into the community rather than being deported. A 287 agreement between ICE and local officials could result in more criminal aliens being identified and removed from the United States before they are released from jail and have to be rearrested.

Mr. Chairman, as a co-chair of the Congressional Victims Right Caucus, crimes committed by people who have no right to be here in the first place are especially troubling to me, especially if we have already had them in custody once.

Take into account the following cases: in Lake Worth, Florida, an illegal alien from the Bahamas named Milagro Cunningham took an 8-year- old girl to a nearby landfill where he proceeded to sexually assault her, choke her and leave her for dead in a rock-filled trash bin. Cunningham had been arrested three times by Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department prior to the incident and not once was his immigration investigated. If Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department had the authority under 287(g) and an agreement been in place, his status could have been verified and then turned over to Federal immigration for his removal from this country.

Angel Resendez, the notorious railroad killer, who sits now on Texas death row for 14 murders he committed in the United States, he came to this country illegally from Mexico. And during his killings, Resendez crossed the U.S. southern border with Mexico at will and managed to slip in and out of the hands of local law enforcement many times. Just think if 287(g) was enforced, we could have spared the lives of 14 people had local law enforcement had the training and authority to inquire into his legal status instead of letting him go.

The 287(g) programs can be expanded and modeled for any need, whether it is a task force investigating alien gangs such as the MS-13 or the document fraud rings or human smuggling.

While these examples show the great promise of 287(g) programs, the reality is Congress hasn't provided the funds to see how effective this program can really be. The authority has been available for 10 years, but since 2001 only funding has been allowed for 159 State and local officers. The fact of the matter is local law enforcement is going to come in contact with criminal aliens like Cunningham and Resendez during the course of their daily duties. Now, what are we going to do about that?

Today we have a choice. We can sit idly by and let these criminals slip through law enforcement's hands, or we can give our country's finest local and State in uniform the resources they need to protect and serve. We have the ability today to send a strong message that the lawlessness will not stand and we will preserve our first duty of government to protect the citizens.

This amendment today seeks to increase the 287(g) program by $41 million by removing the $41 million that is even above the President's request for the bureaucrat backup information technology center under the Chief Information Officer of the DHS. There is a growing need to expand these and I ask adoption of this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the proceedings had during the recess be printed in the Record.