Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, yesterday former majority leader Tom DeLay announced that he is resigning from the House. His former aides, Michael Scanlon and Tony Rudy, have pled guilty to crimes for their involvement in the Jack Abramoff corruption affair, and other aides to Mr. DeLay and even other current Members of this body remain under investigation.

Last November, Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham resigned from Congress for taking over $2 million in bribes from a defense contractor. He is now serving an 8-year prison sentence for his crimes.

The House Ethics Committee is broken and has done no work in the past 15 months. The committee managed to have its first meeting of the 109th Congress last week. On Sunday, The Washington Post said, ``The panel's inactivity in the face of scandal is itself scandalous.''

Today's bill is characterized as important campaign finance reform by the House Republicans. The question is, what effect would this bill have on the countless scandals that are currently engulfing Washington? The answer is nothing.

This bill does nothing to address those very serious charges of corruption. It would do nothing to prevent another Jack Abramoff or Duke Cunningham scandal.

Further, in addition to doing nothing, the bill actually makes it easier for scandals to occur by opening up the flood gates and removing all limits on State and national party committee spending in the Federal races.

Since this bill does nothing to reverse the Republican culture of corruption, let us look at this bill on the merits to see what it actually does.

What this proposal would do is curtail the free speech rights of millions of Americans. The bill would limit the ability of average citizens to band together and speak out about issues, both during and beyond election. It limits participation in the electoral process.

In 2004, 527 organizations helped to educate and register voters across the country. Now in 2002, the Shays-Meehan-McCain-Feingold bill actually was real reform with a clear purpose. It took Members of Congress out of the business of asking lobbyists and special interests for large, unregulated donations.

527 organizations, however, are not made up of elected officials. In fact, 527s are barred from coordinating with

office holders, candidates or public officials. By law, these groups are independent, and I am not aware of any allegations that there was any illegal coordination between 527s and political parties in 2004. If there is, I would urge people with that knowledge to go to the Attorney General or to the FEC and report on this conduct. If there is some, there are mechanisms for enforcement, but the remedy to a nonproblem in that area is not to shut down free speech.

In fact, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court upheld limitations on contributions as appropriate legislative tools to guard against the reality or appearance of improper influence stemming from candidates' dependence on large campaign contributions. Buckley also invalidated limitations on independent expenditures, on candidate expenditures from personal funds, and on overall campaign expenditures. The Court ruled that these provisions placed direct and substantial restrictions on the free speech rights guaranteed in the first amendment.

This bill directly contradicts the Buckley ruling. It violates the first amendment and will not withstand scrutiny by the Court.

Why are we considering this bill today? I suspect this is a last ditch effort for Republicans to keep their hold on power. They have read the polls. They know that most Americans are going to support Democrats this November, and the Republicans are losing on issue after issue. So they are going to try and change the rules which will keep them in power against the wishes of a majority of Americans.

Let me finish by reviewing the ethics rules that this Congress has passed this year. At the beginning of the year, shortly after Jack Abramoff pled guilty, House Republicans boldly pushed through their reform plan for Congress. What did their plan to crack down on ethics do? It banned former Members from lobbying in the House gym and on the House floor. So America, you can rest easy knowing that at least the cesspool of corruption at the Stairmaster is no more.

Today's bill is really a travesty. It is a joke. The country really should be embarrassed by the efforts this Congress is making, by the corruption that has been shown and I fear the corruption that is yet to be exposed in this body.

Mr. Speaker, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War to define military areas in which ``the right of any person to enter, remain in or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions'' are deemed ``necessary or desirable.''

By the spring of 1942, California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona were designated as military areas.

In May of 1942, Santa Clara Valley Japanese Americans were ordered to ``close their affairs promptly, and make their own arrangements for disposal of personal and real property.''

Official government fliers were posted around California, Arizona and Washington instructing families to report to various assembly centers with just the bare necessities, leaving behind their homes, their lives, and most personal belongings.

Because permanent camps were not yet built, large community gathering places, such as the Tanforan Racetrack in San Mateo County in Northern California and the Santa Anita Racetrack in Southern California became home to Japanese internees for several months before being moved.

San Francisco Bay Area Japanese Americans were forced to live in horse stables at the Tanforan Racetrack until a permanent camp was built for them.

Eleven thousand Japanese Americans and aliens were evacuated from their homes and incarcerated throughout the duration of the war.

Three thousand of those interned were Japanese Americans from Santa Clara Valley.

By the fall of 1942, most internees were transported to camps far away from home, to internment camps in Arizona, Northern and Central California, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and even as far away as Arkansas.

Most remained in internment camps until the end of the war--3 long years later.

The horror for Japanese Americans did not end upon their return to Santa Clara County in 1945 at the end of the war. Upon release, approximately 7,000 Japanese Americans moved to Santa Clara Valley.

Most had no shelter, food, money, much less a job.

Some returned to find their homes looted and destroyed.

The San Jose Buddhist Church offered what it could--shelter and hot meals for most families.

In Santa Clara County, the family of Bob Peckham (later to become Federal District Court Judge Bob Peckham) took title to the property of Japanese-American neighbors and was able to preserve property and return it at the end of the internment, so people in our area in some cases were saved the loss of their homes and businesses.

All of this happened before I was born.

But I remember very well learning about it even before it was added to the history textbooks.

My mother was a young woman in 1942. My dad was in the army and she was building airplanes at Douglas Aircraft for the war effort.

She told me about driving past the Tanforan Racetrack and how ashamed and guilty she felt. There were people locked up at the race track-- living in horse stables--who she knew had done nothing wrong. People who had been her neighbors had been rounded up suddenly and taken away.

My mother told me how helpless she felt. She knew what her government was doing was wrong but she didn't know how to change it. She felt powerless but also felt guilty and ashamed because of what the United States government had done.

She was a life long Democrat and cast her first Presidential vote for FDR . . . but she never agreed with what he did to her neighbors.

There was no apology, no financial support, no help from the Federal Government until many years later.

Finally, on February 19, 1976 President Gerald Ford formally rescinded Executive Order 9066.

And, at long last, on July 21, 1980 Congress adopted legislation establishing the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) to investigate the claim that the incarceration of Japanese Americans and legal resident aliens during World War II was justified by military necessity.

On August 10, 1988 the Civil Liberties Act was signed into law, authorizing payments of $20,000 to each person that suffered from internment and established the Office of Redress to identify, locate, and pay these individuals, 82,219 were paid.

By then my neighbors and my parents neighbors who had been unjustly incarcerated--Ed Kawazoe, Jimi Yamaichi, Ted and Raiko, and many others--received at long last an apology. Some lived long enough to receive the compensation provided for in the law.

These efforts were celebrated in the community of Japanese Americans. But they were also celebrated in the broader community because Americans who were not incarcerated, like my mother, felt the shame and the guilt.

And while an apology could not undo the injustice and the compensation did not fully cover the loss, it helped that our country admitted the mistake and tried to make amends.

On March 4, 2004 H. Res. 56, introduced by Congressman Mike Honda, passed the House by a unanimous vote of 404-0. The resolution supports the goals of the Japanese, German, and Italian American communities in recognizing a National Day of Remembrance on the day FDR signed the infamous Executive Order 9066--February 19, 1942. It also seeks to increase public awareness of the events surrounding the restriction, exclusion, and internment of individuals and families during World War

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to join my colleagues today to honor a woman who not only contributed immensely to American jurisprudence, but also showed tremendous courage and perseverance in finding her way to the top of the legal field at a time when the legal field was virtually closed to women.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor graduated magna cum laude in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University, my alma mater. In just 2 years, instead of the usual 3 years, Justice O'Connor graduated third in her class at Stanford Law School in 1952 at a time, as the chairman has said, when only 4 percent of law school graduates were women.

Despite her impressive law school record and obvious talent, Justice O'Connor could not find a single law firm that would give her a job after graduation, but that did not deter her. She heard that San Mateo County in California, the county just to the north of my home, had once hired a female attorney and so she decided to go there in search of her first legal job, but she learned that there was not enough funding in place or a place in the office for her to work.

That did not deter her. She wrote a long letter explaining why she should be hired and offered to start work for free. She placed her desk in the same area where the secretaries sat. She got the job and before long a paid position opened up and she took it.

Justice O'Connor's perseverance did not end there. She went on to become an assistant attorney general for Arizona. She was appointed and later elected to the Arizona State senate, elected as a county judge, and appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Justice O'Connor has been a leader for women in many ways. She became the first woman to serve as the majority leader of the Arizona State senate and the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, paving the way and opening the door for the next generation of women to substantively participate in the field of law. In fact, I feel, as a lawyer myself, a debt of gratitude to Justice O'Connor for the groundbreaking path that she laid for all of us who followed.

But let us not forget that she was not only a symbol of hope for aspiring women lawyers all around the Nation, but she has also been a powerful contributor to our American jurisprudence, often the pivotal fifth vote on some of the most important issues in modern American history that came before the U.S. Supreme Court.

I strongly urge my colleagues in the House to unanimously approve this resolution honoring this extraordinary woman, and I look forward to a unanimous vote of support by the House of Representatives.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to acknowledge and honor Catholic Charities of San Jose's 25th anniversary of its refugee resettlement programs.

Less than 1 percent of the refugees in camps are accepted by Western countries for resettlement. Refugees who have already suffered unthinkable crimes and injustices are often forced to wait in camps for as long as 10 years before being interviewed for consideration. The very lucky few who are accepted for immigration to the United States often arrive with little to no money, few, if any, family and only the hope and dream of a better life.

To ease this very difficult transition, Catholic Charities meets these refugees at the airport and begins the resettlement process immediately. They and their team of committed volunteers provide financial support for housing, food, clothing and other necessities, medical care, case management and independent living skills training such as budgeting skills, housing assistance and food preparation.

In their 25 years of dedication and hard work, over 20,000 refugees have been assisted in their quest to build a better life for themselves and their future generations. Catholic Charities of San Jose provides these valuable services at no cost to the immigrant.

This program is one of many that Catholic Charities provides in its overall vision of transforming lives. This wonderful organization strives to empower meaningful, quality living through economic, familial and emotional stability. Catholic Charities serves people of all beliefs, cultures, ethnicities and ages and serves a diverse population from various ethnic backgrounds and provides services in 17 languages.

It is indeed an honor and a privilege to have a warm, welcoming and nurturing organization in my district that appreciates and honors the diversity that makes America, and specifically San Jose, California, a desirable place to live, work and raise a family.

Mr. Speaker, during the December recess I was surprised to read in a newspaper article that I was listed as a cosponsor of House Resolutions 635, 636 and 637 since I had not cosponsored any of these measures. I discovered that due to administrative errors, my name was mistakenly added to these bills by the Judiciary Committee staff. I never was a cosponsor of any of them but the only way to correct the committee's error under the rules of the House is to ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor even though I never asked to be added to these pieces of legislation. I could not correct these errors until the House reconvened, which is why I am taking this action today.

I have been involved in two impeachment proceedings against American Presidents. The first was in 1974, during the impeachment inquiry related to President Nixon when I served on the staff of a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Don Edwards. The second was in 1998, as a Member of the Judiciary Committee during the impeachment of President Clinton.

Impeachment of a President is provided for in the Constitution only in cases of bribery, treason or ``high crimes and misdemeanors.'' The latter phrase had a very specific meaning to the drafters of our Constitution and was meant to include misbehavior by a President that threatened the very nature of our government. President Nixon resigned before the Congress could vote on his impeachment, but the impeachment articles adopted by a bipartisan majority of the Judiciary Committee included behavior that was so lawless that it could threaten the very nature of the American government.

The partisan 1998 impeachment was based on personal misbehavior by the President and was, in my judgment, a misuse of the impeachment provisions in the Constitution. Use of impeachment for any reason that does not meet the standard set in the Constitution must be avoided by the Congress.

Serious questions have been raised about President Bush's actions in approving warrantless wiretaps by the NSA, as well as questions about both the Vice President's and the President's information that was provided to the Congress as the basis for the decision to initiate war in Iraq. These important questions need to be answered, and Congress should then consider the answers in a careful, deliberate and thoughtful manner. It is important that this process be done in a dispassionate way that avoids partisanship. This thorough analysis should, in my judgment, be undertaken before anything such as these resolutions are considered.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of House Resolutions 635, 636 and 637.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the California Democratic Congressional Delegation, I am proud to pay tribute to a woman who has greatly influenced the course of workers rights over the past 50 years, Ms. Dolores Huerta. On the occasion of her 75th birthday it is only fitting that we pause to honor Ms. Huerta's lifetime of courage and achievement.

Ms. Huerta was born on April 10, 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico and was raised in Stockton, California amid the farm workers of the central San Joaquin Valley. Ms. Huerta's mother, Alicia Chavez, and her father, Juan Fernandez, instilled in her, through their own works, a drive to help and care for others. In her own life, Ms. Huerta has been an incalculable asset to the movement for the advancement of worker's rights and in particular, the rights of farm workers and their families.

Ms. Huerta began advocacy for workers and their families in 1955 when she created the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization, CSO, after encountering farm workers' hungry children while teaching in a public school. Early in her endeavors, Ms. Huerta successfully lobbied, in Sacramento, for the removal of citizenship requirements from pension and public assistance programs. She also helped pass legislation that allowed people to take their drivers license examinations in their native language and established the right to vote in Spanish.

Through her work with the CSO, Ms. Huerta met Caesar Chavez and together, in 1962, they founded the United Farm Workers of America, UFW. Ms. Huerta became the organization's First Vice President Emeritus. The UFW is perhaps best known for its role in the Delano Grape Strike beginning in 1965. The strike ended after 5 years of hard work and careful negotiations, which were led by Ms. Huerta, with the establishment of a 3-year collective bargaining agreement with the grape industry.

Among Ms. Huerta's many achievements are several outstanding awards. She was bestowed with the California State Senate's Outstanding Labor Leader Award in 1984 and her impact on the national workers rights movement was highlighted in 1993 when Ms. Huerta was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and received the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award, as well as several other awards. Although Ms. Huerta's efforts concentrated intensely on California, her impact on workers rights nationwide has been remarkable and merits our honor and admiration.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues--Reps. Becerra, Berman, Capps, Costa, Farr, Honda, Lantos, Matsui, Napolitano, Pelosi, Roybal-Allard, Linda Sanchez, Loretta Sanchez, Schiff, Sherman, Solis, Thompson, Waxman and Woolsey--join me in thanking Ms. Huerta for her tireless adherence to the improvement of workers rights across the United States. We are humbled to honor such a wonderful person who, for years, has been a great friend and inspiration to us all.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be here today in support of this measure. Since its passage in 1994, VAWA has been a success, and this measure, as has been mentioned, does reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

Earlier in this Congress, I introduced a comprehensive bill to reauthorize the act. It had over 120 cosponsors, and I would like to publicly express my thanks to all of the cosponsors and especially the women who came forward with their ideas. It really was not my bill so much as it was a compilation of all the creativity of primarily the women of the House of Representatives to put together a bill that really went pretty far in providing assistance to victims of domestic violence. And I want to thank the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee for including most of that bill in this reauthorization. Along with the prevention programs and the housing grants for battered women, these measures will help ensure that victims have the means to escape the cycle of domestic violence and also to prevent that cycle from happening in the first place.

There are a couple of provisions in the comprehensive bill that are not included. Most importantly, protections for workers and immigrants. And I am hopeful that, working together later in this Congress, we might be able to also address those issues.

We know that domestic violence and sexual assault cause harm not only emotionally and physically but also financially and professionally. Victims of domestic violence lose 8 million paid workdays each year, the equivalent of 32,000 jobs, and almost 50 percent of sexual assault survivors lose their jobs.

So we need to provide emergency leave, emergency benefits, unemployment compensation and job protection to address this important issue, not just the physical harm but the financial burden that accompanies this violence.

I hope that we can address these shortcomings in the future. But, of course, I do not want to detract from celebrating the reauthorization of what we are doing today. It is something that we can be proud of. And I want to especially thank Hilda Solis, who is the cochair, I believe, of the Women's Caucus, who put so much time and effort into this along with so many other Members of the House.

Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Chairman, I would just note, according to the State Department Visa Bulletin for next month, really this is primarily numerically the greatest number of individuals who benefit are from the continent of Africa. And because of immigration patterns, this is an important element of an opportunity for the American dream for would-be Americans who are coming from the continent of Africa. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Currently, illegal presence in the United States is not a crime; it is a civil violation.

People who cross the border without inspection commit a crime for improper entry but not an ongoing violation. The government can prosecute you for crossing but not for existing after having done so.

This section, section 203, makes virtually any violation of the immigration laws an ongoing criminal act. In one stroke, it would subject the entire undocumented population, estimate by some to be 11 million people, to criminal liability.

Now the amendment before us changes the degree of punishment, but it does not alter the underlying issue of criminalizing being alive in the country without documents. I would like to note that, in addition to adults, this would criminalize children who had no decision about coming to the United States.

I understand, although, I was not present in the course of the discussion in the Rules Committee, but that one of the Members of the committee raised the issue of an individual, a young student who was 17, who actually thought that he was an American citizen and found out, much to his surprise, that he was not.

That young man, under the underlying bill, would be a felon. Under the amendment, he would be a misdemeanant, but in fact, he is not a criminal at all. He is a kid who was brought here by his parents and who is in a bind right now. Making him a criminal is not going to make us any safer. It is not a reasonable thing to do. I oppose the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

In taking a look at section 203, the application of criminality is actually quite broad. If you are here in the United States holding a student visa, there are requirements, for example, that you take a certain number of units in order to maintain that status. If, for example, you fall below that, and I will say that there are many students who, for one reason or another, one quarter might fall below where they may need to be, you would be in violation of your student visa status. Under the amendment before us, you would not just be disappointing your parents who paid full tuition, you would be committing a misdemeanor.

If you are a businessman here and your return flight home is cancelled, causing your visitors visa, your B2 visa, to be expired, not only would you be in technical violation if you were 2 days late to the flight home, but you would also be committing a misdemeanor.

I do not think that is a reasonable approach. I also do not think that it has anything to do with keeping our country safer. You know, this debate started yesterday on the floor of the House. But it has been ongoing in the media for quite some time. The John and Ken show in California every day is taking about illegal immigration.

And we saw many Members, our friends on the other side of the aisle, touting that they were going to have this tough bill. And then, of course, today, we see that the Republicans are trying to back off on that a little bit.

So it is easy to say one thing to the red meat talk shows, but here, of course, we need to make some adjustments.

We think the adjustment is misguided, and it is not one that I can support.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of the time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman) for the purpose of entering into a brief colloquy.

We will soon discover.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the co-author of the amendment, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McIntyre).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I will support this amendment, and I was very sad to hear about the tragic situation that the Members have spoken of where a family was so devastated.

I would just like to note that when you look at the current Immigration Nationality Act, that individual should have been deported anyhow.

I do not mind changing law, even if it is redundant. I have never fallen prey to the argument that a redundancy is necessarily wrong. But I think it points out some of the discussions we had yesterday. We are working on a law here, but the real issue is the failure of the Bush administration to enforce the current law.

If we had the institutional removal program operating the way it used to, this person who killed people while driving drunk would not have been in this country. That person would have been deported.

So as I say, I do not object to the amendment. I appreciate the clarification because I think that was an important clarification, but it does once again point out the real ineptitude of the Department.

I remember watching just stunned after Hurricane Katrina came and devastated Louisiana and saying how inept is FEMA. I hate to admit it, but many of the elements of the Department of Homeland Security are just as inept as what we saw at that time, and the immigration functions are prime among them.

I worry that there are some things in this measure that are completely wrong-headed and there are some things in the bill that make some sense. The things that make sense will not be accomplished because the administration is so poor, they are so inept, they are so pathetic that they actually cannot administer the law.

As I say, I commend the gentlewoman and my colleague for bringing this amendment. I will vote for it. But, again, this will not solve the problem, which is basically incompetence in the administration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to note that in the underlying bill, there are no caps at all. I would direct the attention of the Members to page 152, 153, and section 706 of the underlying bill. There are no caps.

I would just like to note once again that we have a failure of administration. Last year, employers were sanctioned for hiring illegal immigrants only three times. So even if we were to change the law, the ineptitude of the administration does not mean that anything will change.

I object to this amendment for another reason in addition to what my colleague, Mr. Berman, has indicated. In the underlying bill, there is at least an effort to make some fairness for little companies versus big companies in terms of making a reduction for small companies. But in this case, in this amendment, Wal-Mart would have the same penalty structure as Joe's Pizza. And it seems to me that Wal-Mart and megacompanies, I would just like to note, in the paper Wal-Mart appears to be one of the biggest offenders, going out and hiring large numbers of undocumented people and, by the way, not treating them very well. They would have their sanctions capped, and they would be treated just the same as Joe's Pizza. So I think of this as the Wal-Mart amendment. Let them go ahead and do their dirty deeds with impunity. They will not have to worry. And I will tell my colleagues for a company as big as Wal-Mart, capping the fines at this level is just the cost of doing business.

And I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I do.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment requires the Department of Homeland Security to report to Congress on the problems caused by the automated employment verification system. However, I want to point out that this amendment will not fix the problems with the Employment Eligibility Verification System, even though this underlying bill will require all employers and employees to use the system.

The GAO has already told us, at the request of Mr. Sensenbrenner as a matter of fact, that the basic pilot program is not ready for widespread use,

that the DHS system is badly flawed, that it is unable to detect identity fraud; and this report, after the fact, is not going to change that.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I would just note that the GAO report identifies at tremendous length the problems with this system in the administration of the system. I would further draw the attention of all my colleagues to this report.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am listening carefully. I am trying to work in a bipartisan manner on this, but the underlying problem here with this bill and this amendment as well is the poor administration of our laws by the Department of Homeland Security.

I mentioned earlier today the pathetic performance of DHS during the Katrina disaster. And one of the things just that is seared in my memory is the, ``good job, Brownie,'' comment. And I think we have the same problem in the Department of Homeland Security and ICE.

The chairman, I am sure, will recall that when we worked on reorganization, he insisted, I did not agree at the time but I now understand why he did, that any applicant for the head job have a minimum of 10 years experience in managing a large and complex organization.

What ended up in the law was a 5-year minimum requirement in managing a large organization. Well, the President's favorite Democratic senator, Senator Lieberman, in opposing the new ICE director, Julie Myers, noted that, with over 20,000 employees, ICE is not only a big agency, it is a vital one. And Ms. Myers has virtually no immigration experience and also does not meet the minimum requirements.

We now have a crony in charge of the immigration service. She may be a lovely person, I do not know, but she worked for a Federal prosecutor for 2 years. She worked for Ken Starr when he was special assistant. Her husband is the chief of staff to Mr. Chertoff. And her dad is a general, General Myers, who we all know of and think is a very good guy, but these are not the qualifications asked for in the statute nor expected by America.

We need to move beyond cronyism into competence. And the fact that we have only had three enforcement actions in unlawful employment; that over 100,000 people have been cited and released and then failed to appear, and the department just continued to do that over and over again in the face of that failure-to-appear rate; the fact that we have not actually followed through on the institutional removal program which requires the immigration function to go out to county jails and to State prisons and to take individuals who have been convicted of crimes and deport them, that has not happened either. Those individuals instead in many cases were simply released because the Federal Government dropped the ball. The Bush administration has dropped the ball at the border.

We have not put the staff forward. We have no technology to implement not only the bills and this amendment but the underlying law. And why? It is competence.

I think it is a sad thing that this bill has been proposed. There are some good things in it. There are a lot of bad things in it. But it is really just to cover the fact that there has been a massive failure of administering current law by the Bush administration. If current law were adequately administered, we would not be here today. Perhaps the amendment is good. Maybe the gentleman has convinced me to support it. But it will not solve the problem.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, just two points. I go to the swearing in of the new citizens all the time, and I will say that when the oath, the part that comes ``renounce absolutely any abjure absolutely foreign prince potentate,'' it is pretty clear that they do not know what a potentate is, and I will bet you a lot of Members of this body do not know, either. So to freeze this language, I think, is a mistake.

Number two, there is another issue. To report back to governments when they get citizenship is going to be a risky venture for some. If we have to tell the Cuban Government that one of their former citizens has become one of our citizens, we put their relatives at risk to the Castro regime.

I would like to also note that there are some countries that permit dual citizenship. Among them, Israel. I really do not want to be part of an effort to tell Americans who also have Israeli citizenship that they have to renounce that. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, every country has a right to control its borders to regulate who enters, and that includes the United States of America. Several speakers have mentioned that this obligation or right has been elevated since 9/11, and I think we all acknowledge that is true. Unfortunately, the administration has completely dropped the ball when it comes to regulation of those entering the United States without authorization.

I want to talk about just one item, which is the citation and release of individuals who are apprehended, who then promise to appear for their proceedings and then promptly disappear. The failure-to-appear rate appears to be in excess of 80 percent.

We have heard psychologists say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If so, the administration has lost its mind because this citation release program has not resulted in individuals appearing as promised.

Does this bill do anything about that, about the hundreds of thousands of individuals who are in America who made a promise to appear? Unfortunately, no, it does not.

Now, I am a member of the Homeland Security Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, and I have gone through this bill in some detail. There are some things that have absolutely nothing to do with unlawful immigration.

Section 404 of the act is something I want to mention because it is going to be important to a lot of Americans. This provision provides that the Secretary may deny admission to any person from countries that unreasonably delay or deny repatriation of citizens whom we have ordered deported. That is not about unlawful immigration; it is about people who are legal residents of the United States, husbands and wives of American citizens, who can be denied admission to the United States even though they are legal because the country they were born in has done something wrong. This is the new Chinese exclusion act which we repealed.

Mr. Chairman, every country has the right, even the obligation, to control its borders, and that includes the United States of America. Since 9/11, as many have mentioned, that obligation has taken on increased importance and significance, and all of us believe that we need to do a better job. The truth is that the bill before us today really does not do that better job.

We all watch TV, and we see the extravagant comments made, and some of them turn out to be correct. There is something called ``catch and release,'' and actually what it is, is individuals who are apprehended as they unlawfully enter the United States are cited and released with the promise that they will appear. It turns out that over 80 percent of the people who promise to appear do not show up. Now, when I was in local government, we had a failure-to-appear rate in single digits. We were alarmed at that. But even though the administration has seen this rate, they have not stopped doing it. Does this bill order the administration to go out and find those people that fail to appear and bring them in for processing to be deported or whatever the law requires? No, it does not.

When I was in local government, we would have individuals who were undocumented, without papers, who committed a crime, and they would be in our jail. And every week, the Immigration Service would come, and they would take those people away from our jail after their sentences were served, and they would deport them, which we thought was a pretty good deal. Recently, the ball has been dropped on that score. And so we have got people who have committed crimes, who should be deported, and they are not being deported. And sometimes they are being released from jail. Does this bill tell the administration to go out and find those people and bring them in, ready to be deported, as the law provides? No, it does not. It does not.

Does it order the administration to enhance its efforts so that criminals who are in jails who are supposed to be brought in for deportation are brought in? No, it does not do that either. It does not increase the resources.

And it does some things that I think are quite weird and unfortunate. I am a member of the Homeland Security Committee as well as the Judiciary Committee, and I have mentioned section 404 in both committees. Section 404 allows for the exclusion of legal residents if they were born in the following countries: China, Vietnam, Cuba, Ethiopia, India, Eritrea or Laos. Why is that? Those countries refuse to accept or unreasonably delay the acceptance of people whom we deport. The answer is not to exclude legal residents who were born in those countries.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I will have further comments as the day proceeds.

I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

It is interesting that in the face of a massive failure of administration of our border security, the Congress responds not with enhancing the remedies and its personnel so that we can enforce the law, but instead comes up with a bill to dramatically change the law.

I mentioned earlier, we have cited and released individuals who never showed up, 80 percent of the time or better. And what did the administration do? They just kept doing it. That is the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Well, changing the law is not going to change the fact that this has been a massive failure of administration. Making 11 million people without their papers aggravated felons is not going to remedy the failure of the administration at the border.

The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) mentioned that there was a provision that could criminalize churches. In fact, it is section 202 in the base bill. It provides that people who assist those who do not have their papers could be guilty of a crime and, in fact, requires the seizure of property. We know that some of our churches that are helping the homeless do not ask for papers when they hand out the soup. In this bill it requires seizure of their church properties.

I want to mention another provision I touched on earlier, and that is section 404 of the bill. It does not make any sense at all when we are talking about the need to secure our borders, which every country has a right and an obligation to do, to reinstate the exclusion of legal persons based on the place they were born.

There is a sad part of American history. In 1882, the 47th Congress of the United States passed a bill called the Chinese Exclusion Act, and that bill haunted this country, really, into 1943. It provided that people from China could not come.

In section 404, we are de facto reinstituting the Chinese Exclusion Act because we are saying that countries that do not cooperate with us, currently the State Department tells me it is China, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Cuba, then we have the ability to exclude people who are born in those countries.

Let me just give you an example. I have a lot of Vietnamese Americans in my district. Do you think the Communist government in Vietnam cares if we do not let a refugee from their country into the United States? Do you think that the communists in China really would be concerned if a Chinese citizen was escaping from China, because they are facing a forced abortion in China? Do you think that enhancing the Communist governments of Cuba, Vietnam and China is really about securing our Nation's borders? I think not.

This bill is defective in so many ways that a wide number of groups have opposed it. The minority leader, Ms. Pelosi, will submit the list for the Record.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), a member of the Homeland Security Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa).

(Mr. HINOJOSA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), who had a distinguished career in the Border Patrol before being elected to Congress.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished whip.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), our distinguished Democratic leader.

Mr. Chairman, we are fortunate in Homeland Security to have two of us who serve both on the Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security Committee, and I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), the ranking member of the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, remember at the height of Katrina, that tragedy, and we heard the words, ``Good job, Brownie.'' Well, we have someone equally qualified now in charge of the immigration function in the Homeland Security Department, and I think it is that level of competence that has led us to the problem that we face today, and that is that we have basically dropped the ball, the administration has dropped the ball at the border. They have permitted thousands, tens of thousands, of individuals to promise to appear and then simply to escape into the country.

This bill does not direct the administration to go find them and deport them or have their matter be heard. We used to, on a regular basis during the first Bush administration, the father Bush and the Clinton administration, persistently go and grab criminals after their sentences were served out in State and local incarceration facilities and deport them. The law provides for that. The ball has been dropped on that. This bill does not direct the administration to go find those folks who should have been taken in, who should have been deported.

Mr. Chairman, I have had some questions about section 404 of the act that I have mentioned previously, and I want to spend a moment on that. Incredibly enough, it provides that legal individuals, permanent residents of the United States, could be precluded, barred from reentry if they leave. Let me give you an example of how it would work.

Say your son falls in love with a gal who was born in Cuba. She becomes a legal permanent resident because your son is an American citizen. They go on vacation to London. They try to come back in. Your son gets in, but his wife, a legal permanent resident of the United States, is refused admission. Why? Because Cuba will not accept people who we deport. Now, do you think Fidel Castro cares whether your daughter-in-law is barred or not? I do not think so.

This is a ridiculous provision, and it is punitive towards people who were born in China, in Vietnam, in Cuba and in Ethiopia. It has nothing to do with securing our borders, but it does have a lot to do with the de facto reinstatement of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and has a very pernicious, very pernicious result for those who have fled communism in Vietnam and also in Cuba.

People are calling in wondering about this bill. They cannot believe that it is true. But let me explain how other provisions would work. The proposal is that individuals who are here without their proper documents, something none of us approve of, would become aggravated felons under this bill. If you are a 10-year-old and you came in here with your parents, you do not have your papers, under this bill, you are an aggregated felon. This will not make up for the Bush administration's failure at the border.

Mr. Chairman, although I do not oppose the amendment, I would note that we will support this amendment, and I would also like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned earlier, I do not oppose the amendment. Land line and cellular telecommunications can be severely disrupted in a time of natural disaster, and it is important to have satellite communications available so that they are a reliable alternative for first responders and others involved in natural disasters.

However, I would note that while I will be happy to vote ``aye'' on the amendment; we do not actually need this amendment to have the use of satellite communications. That is something that the administration could have done on its own. There are some other things that they ought to be doing that would really make a difference.

The U.S. Border Patrol needs additional agents, and we need new training for those agents. We need 2,000 additional agents in ICE and 250 additional detention officers. U.S. Marshals need 250 additional personnel and $50 million for vehicles, communications equipment, and miscellaneous equipment. U.S. Attorneys, we need 100 additional personnel on the southwest border and $30 million for additional office space. Why? We have talked about detention beds, but the issue is we need to be able to process these cases, not just hold people. We needs to bring charges against them, those who have an arguable claim, and then adjudicate that claim: either deport them or find that their claim is a valid one.

We need additional immigration judges. We need 2,500 additional enforcement personnel in the Coast Guard, and we need 25,000 detention beds. We need 1,000 investigators for fraudulent schemes and documents. We need at least 100 helicopters and 250 power boats for the Border Patrol and at least one police-type motor vehicle for every three agents for the Border Patrol. We need enough portable computers for every Border Patrol motor vehicle. We need hand-held global positioning systems for each Border Patrol agent.

We need night vision equipment for all Border Patrol agents working during hours of darkness. We need enough body armor appropriate for the climate and risks faced by individual Border Patrol agents. We need to reestablish the Border Patrol anti-smuggling unit. And we need to establish specialized criminal investigator occupations: one for the investigation of violations of immigration law, another for customs laws, and a third for ag laws.

We need to require foreign language training for all our officers in the Department of Homeland Security who come into contact with aliens who cross the border illegally.

Yes, this amendment is worth supporting, but we do not really need it to get satellite communications. We do need, however, to authorize the equipment and the personnel so we can enforce the laws at America's borders both north and south. Unfortunately, the underlying bill before us does not do that. It is not a real enforcement measure.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition; although I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of this amendment. The Department of Homeland Security IG has exposed improper conduct or wrongdoing of contractors who maintain Federal contracts with the department, and I think this amendment is along the lines of trying to make sure that the American taxpayers are not going to get ripped off like they have been in the past.

Take a look at the level of fraud in contracting that has occurred in the Middle East, in Iraq; I mean, hundreds of thousand of dollars of stolen money and the stories that are coming out of the taxpayers being ripped off by contractors in the gulf region after Hurricane Katrina. We know that the record is not a good one in terms of this administration choosing contractors who will not cheat us. So I do think it is important to have this amendment, and I commend the Congressman for bringing this forward.

In June, the Homeland Security Committee heard testimony from Joel Gallay who is the acting Inspector General of GSA. Mr. Gallay provided a detailed account of significant deficiencies he discovered in evaluating the efficacy of ISIS, and of particular concern to the IG was the procurement of remote surveillance equipment, the lack of progress in implementing the system and what he called the chronic inattention to the proper administration of the contract.

The IG wrote that the program was severely hampered by ineffective management that led to waste, and the report showed deficiencies in the ISIS contract management and in the training of government officials responsible for implementing the program.

Now, it is unfortunate that we need this amendment. We would like to think that our administration would not be inept; that they would have accountability; that they would know how to administer; and they would not have this rip-off of taxpayers that has been identified to the committee repeatedly. Unfortunately, that appears not to be the case, and therefore, I do support this amendment to try and stop this rip-off of the taxpayers.

As the philosopher George Santayana cautioned, Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

I hope that this amendment will be adopted, and that will help us from continuing to see the rip-off of American taxpayers in the arena of the Department of Homeland Security.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would just note that the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the ranking member of our full committee, worked very hard on this in collaboration with the majority. I would like to thank him for his extraordinary efforts on this, along with that of the author and the chairman.

As I say, we support this, although it is a sad day that it is so needed because of the poor administration at the department overall.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, but I will not oppose the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I will note that the amendment does not really accomplish anything; although, I certainly really would not want to oppose enforcing the law.

The gentleman mentioned some things that are deficient in the administration of our immigration laws, and they are not new things.

Let me just give you an example on reporting a change of address. Do you know how that is done? You fill out a piece of paper, and you submit it. Do you think it is possible to actually find those pieces of paper, the millions of pieces of paper? Anybody who came in and who is a legal permit resident, you could file it, but no one will ever find it.

We mention often the terrorists that came into our country and did such damage to us on 9/11. You know what? Those people, most of them were not admissible to the United States, but the poor officer at the border, he did not know that. He could not know it because the piece of information that would have told him that was on a piece of microfiche sitting in a bucket in Florida waiting to be translated into an actual database.

There is a lack of technology in the department, and nothing in this bill changes that.

Further, nothing in this bill orders the President to order his department to go out and get the people who promised to appear and then disappeared. Let us go find those people. Let us bring them to justice. Either they will be deported or they will have their day and find their remedy.

Nothing in this bill tells the department to go out and find the people who have been convicted of crimes, who were supposed to be deported, who instead were released from county jail or from State prison because the department failed to go pick them up. There is nothing in this bill that says, go every day, check with the jails, find out who is a criminal alien and who is about to be released and deport them. There is nothing in there. There are no resources.

So this underlying bill is a failure. The amendment is well-meaning I am sure, but it accomplishes almost nothing. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to oppose it.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would simply note that this amendment will not really cure the problems in this bill. It will not get the resources. It will not make the administration do its job. It will not cure the incompetence and lack of performance that we have seen at the borders, both borders, southern and northern, as well as our ports of entry.

It a good idea to enforce the laws. Unfortunately, the administration is not doing so. Nothing in this bill is going to help them do so.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca).

Mr. Chairman, I will not oppose the amendment, but I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I will support the amendment, but I am under no illusion that the amendment will actually achieve what the author hopes.

Over 5 years ago, before there was a Department of Homeland Security, I strongly suggested to the then immigration service that we engage in a biometric study so that we would have a secure biometric system that could be deployed and would be both with our immigration screening systems and also with other databases. We were told by the National Institute of Standards and Technology that they could accomplish that in 6 months for about $2 million. Unfortunately, we never did it.

So we now have biometrics that are incompatible in various databases, law enforcement, immigration, and certain other databases that we have. Consequently, even the system that we have on US-VISIT is not fully functional. I would like to note also that the databases that are utilized by US-VISIT are also not integrated.

It is true, we have caught some people who have committed crimes who should not be admitted to the United States through US-VISIT, and I count that as a good thing. But the 9/11 Commission was looking at the need to stop terrorists. The problem is that US-VISIT is completely disconnected with our databases relative to terrorists, and I do not think this amendment is going to fix that.

I would also like to note that the amendment suggests that we accelerate, I believe, the exit component of US-VISIT.

There is no exit component of the US-VISIT. Basically, it does not exist.

The situation with databases and technology in the department is simply dismal. We should be filing all immigration matters by biometrics so we do not have the confusion we currently have of names that sound similar, or, in some languages, first and last names get traded back and forth rather interchangeably. It is ridiculous that we have not done that; but it is not for lack of asking, urging and insisting.

And I will say something else about getting reports. I sit on the Homeland Security Committee. We are due so many reports by this department, I cannot even begin to count them. We were due a rail security report, I believe, it was last June. We are due reports on cybersecurity; that is several years ago. The department basically thumbs its nose at the United States Congress. It does not provide the reports required under current law. I suppose hope springs internal, and we should ask again, but this resolution will not cure the massive arrogance and incompetence of the department.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

As I said earlier, I plan to support the amendment. I think it is worth making clear: There is no exit system now. So why does that matter? People come into the United States, they put their fingerprints on the US-VISIT system. It catches some people, and it does not catch others. And then they come into the United States.

We have been talking earlier about making aggravated felons of those who overstay their visas, whether they be visitor or whatever. At the current time, and I do not see this changing any time soon, we do not catch those people. If they leave, we do not know if they have left or if they are here. Because we do not have a connection with our database, we do not know if they are connected with terrorism or not.

So the lack of functionality that we have in technology and the lack of deployment of additional technology has left us more vulnerable than we need to be.

I mentioned earlier this evening that some of the 9/11 terrorists were not admissible to the United States. The officer who inspected them could not know that because the fact of their ineligibility was on a piece of microfiche sitting in a bucket. You cannot search a database if it is on a piece of microfiche sitting in a bucket. We are not that much better off today than we were at that time. I am sure the gentleman is distraught about that. I am as well. I have been trying to get this changed for more than half a decade.

The timeline for a billion-dollar program is a good idea, but I do not have any real confidence that the department will perform any better after this amendment is adopted than it has in the past several years with a lot of pushing and insisting from Members, frankly, on both sides of the aisle. The incompetence just does not quit.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, we have numerous reports that are required. I sit on the committee, which is why I know this. They never do the reports. They are required by law to submit the reports. We have dozens, hundreds of reports that simply have never been delivered. I hope this is an exception, but I do not have a high level of confidence.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to rise in support of this very intelligent amendment. You know, most people do not realize that we actually have fewer beds, detention space in America today than we did on September 11. We have 700 fewer beds today than we did on September 11, 2001.

I have a bill that has not been scheduled for action that relates to unaccompanied minor children, and I would like to just mention the plight of one young boy, Malik Jarno, who came to the United States in his Boy Scout uniform to go to a Boy Scout jamboree. He is slightly retarded and he ended up, a long story I will not bore you with, being arrested. He did not commit any crime and was put in a jail, a 16-year- old boy in his Boy Scout uniform, put in a jail with adults. It is absolutely wrong to treat children in that manner.

The gentlewoman's amendment would make sure that children are treated appropriately while their matters are being reviewed. It does not say what the outcome has got to be, but just that we do not put children in prison with adults. Civilized nations do not do that. And I commend the gentlewoman for her amendment. It would also increase the ability to hold those who are not currently able to be held since, for reasons we cannot understand, the Bush administration has 700 fewer beds today than we did on September 11, 2001.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I know the gentleman is a decent person, and I respect that. But I do not know if he is aware of the government's dismal record of arresting the 16-year-old in his Boy Scout uniform having attended the International Boy Scout Jamboree and then putting him in jail with adult prisoners. The record is not a pretty one, and I just note that the Secretary retains full power to lock up anyone he wants to if they are a criminal, but we have a very serious problem.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I agree that we should get this information, and, actually, I believe that, under current law, the department is required to give us this information. In fact, there is an Office of Immigration Statistics buried in the bureaucracy of this department that is supposed to provide information to us on a variety of subjects.

I would just note that this is an agency that not only cannot administer, it is an agency that cannot count. We have had, for example, and it is a different issue, certainly, than terrorism, but I think several years in the last half decade where they have failed to count the number of visas when there were limits on employment visas, and then they say a big oops; they have given too many. And sometimes they even try to sneak around and deduct the overassessment from the next year's. They cannot count because they do not have any technology.

I think it would be quite a dandy idea to find out not only who has been apprehended from countries other than those who are immediately adjacent to us but a whole variety of other information, statistical information, about these individuals.

Again, I appreciate that the author is in good faith trying to make this happen. I will make him a side bet, maybe lunch, that we will never get this information any more than we get the information on the H-1B program that usually is due every year and usually we get it somewhere between 1, 2 and even 3 years late and wrong. I would like to get the information, but none of this is really going to happen until the inept administration of this function is improved. And I, regrettably, do not see that with the new Brownie coming on.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could ask the chairman of the committee a question: I understand from the Democrats on the Rules Committee that we have not yet received the manager's amendment that has been discussed so frequently on the floor today to the underlying bill. We have not seen anything. Do you have any idea when Members will see this manager's amendment that has been discussed today?

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I appreciate that.

Before recognizing my colleague, I just wanted to mention that on Mr. Castle's amendment there are several other issues that I think we need to consider, assuming they are going to pay any attention to this at all, which I have questions about. We do have expedited removal provisions, and the data-keeping is not very good there.

I would note also that part of our problem is that not only do we have inadequate enforcement at the border; we are just not enforcing the laws at the border, but we do not have the personnel to actually adjudicate matters once we have apprehended people.

Now, the expedited removal at the border, it is controversial among some, but I think not at points of entry. Judgments can be made. There are problems that the General Accounting Office has told us relative to asylum, the application asylum laws, that do need to be addressed. But it is not at all clear that these numbers are going to be folded into this, and I think we ought to be aware of that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition although I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I support this amendment. The amendment calls on the Mexican Government to work closely with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to take immediate action to prevent the occurrence of rape along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Rape is a horrendous crime. Every 2\1/2\ minutes somewhere in the United States someone is sexually assaulted, and only 36 percent of the rapes are reported to law enforcement in the United States. It is safe to assume that the rate of reporting is considerably less along the border.

The women who are crossing our border are extremely vulnerable, and they are unlikely to tell law enforcement officials that they were raped while trying to cross the border without their papers. The smugglers know that these women are vulnerable, and they take advantage of them. I think in many ways this amendment makes clear what many have been talking about today, and that is the need to gain control of the situation at the border.

I have talked today a lot about how dysfunctional the administration of our laws has been. We do not have enough Border Patrol agents; they are not properly equipped; we do not have enough prosecutors; we do not have enough judicial personnel; we are citing and releasing individuals and letting them go. We have a chaotic situation at the border, and we need to create an orderly situation at our borders. We need to take control of it. It is not occurring right now.

Part of that, and again this has been discussed, is to regularize the ability of individuals who want to come and be part of the American Dream so that they do not have to be with smugglers, vulnerable victims of crime, victims of rape; that there is some orderly manner for individuals to move back and forth across the border, to do the jobs that we know are not going to get done without them.

Earlier today, not on the record, someone said, Well, you know, if this bill passes, that is the end of salads in America. I think we need to contemplate the role that immigrant labor plays in the area of agriculture, fast food, tourism, the hotel industry, the tourist industry and the like. I think it is a mistake that the underlying bill does not deal with that issue.

I do agree, however, that the gentlewoman's amendment really calling on our two governments to coordinate, to fight this horrendous crime of rape is well intentioned, it is something I can support; and I hope it does some good.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would just note the most important thing in the PATRIOT Act is the sharing of information between law enforcement and intelligence. I support that reauthorization. I am a member of the Judiciary Committee, a member of the Homeland Security Committee. The Department of Justice has stonewalled Congress on telling us how they are using these powers.

I am a member of the conference committee. Republicans met secretly and separately away from Democrats on the conference committee. We have failed to cure the problems in the bill, and we have missed an opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, I think it's clear that the primary benefit of the USA PATRIOT Act we passed in 2001 has been the sharing of information between criminal investigators and intelligence officials it enabled. I support authorizing that information sharing capability in the original PATRIOT Act, and I support its reauthorization today. But this conference report on reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act fails in important ways.

Following the attacks of 9/11, this Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act to give our law enforcement and intelligence agencies new powers to fight terrorism. I voted for that law, but only after securing support for sunset provisions that allowed this Congress to revisit these issues under less trying circumstances.

Congress has not done its job in providing the thorough review we need of the PATRIOT Act. Nor has the Bush administration done its job in providing us the information we need to properly evaluate the PATRIOT Act. I have repeatedly sought access from the Department of Justice to the national security letters or NSLs it has issued under section 505 of the act, and underlying materials regarding its use of the material witness statute. I have been seeking access to these materials for over 6 months now, with no response from DOJ. I wrote to them again last month seeking this information, and again received no response. This is vital information about DOJ's actual use of PATRIOT Act powers, information which DOJ steadfastly refuses to provide. Yet with this conference report Congress blindly reauthorizes and makes permanent many of these same powers.

In fact, through the cracks in DOJ's veil of secrecy, we've begun to find some information about the PATRIOT Act. We've found out from whistleblowers that the FBI issues more than 30,000 national security letters each year. These are tens of thousands of letters, never reviewed by a judge, demanding information on countless people, the vast majority of whom may be Americans innocent of any terrorist activity. We don't know how many private lives are being swept up in these NSLs, because DOJ won't tell us.

This bill does not correct the problems with national security letters. It creates a new process for judicial review, but leaves that review subject to an extremely vague standard. There are no requirements for law enforcement to ``minimize'' its collection of NSLs; that is, there's no requirement for DOJ to segregate the vast amount of information collected on innocent Americans unconnected to any terrorist activity. An audit is provided which would allow DOJ to freely continue stockpiling information on Americans without providing any standard.

This bill also adopts too weak a standard for law enforcement to engage in business records searches under section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. The Senate passed unanimously what I thought was a very reasonable standard for law enforcement to meet in order to conduct these searches. The Senate required that these searches actually be relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation and related to the activities of an agent of a foreign power. But the conference report adopts a presumption of relevance that would essentially tie judges' hands and force them to grant any requested searches.

Adoption of 4-year, rather than 7-year, sunsets on three provisions regarding business records searches, roving wiretaps, and so-called ``lone wolf'' terrorists acting as agents of foreign powers is positive. Frankly, I would have liked to see 4-year sunsets applied to more provisions of the PATRIOT Act, such as the provisions regarding NSLs. I believe these sunsets provide Congress an important opportunity to review how the PATRIOT Act is actually being used. Given how reluctant DOJ has been to share information with us, these sunsets really provide the main source of leverage Congress has over the Department of Justice to obtain information we should be provided as an equal branch of government.

Mr. Speaker, I'm very disappointed that this legislation has removed the provisions we passed in the House providing for additional funding for first responders. This is vitally needed funding that local first responders need in the event of another terrorist attack or other disaster. This conference report drops all of these provisions passed by the House.

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against this conference report. Instead of rushing this bill to conclusion, we should give ourselves the time we need to get the PATRIOT Act right. I, along with some of my colleagues, have introduced legislation that would allow us to reauthorize the existing PATRIOT Act authorities for another 3 months, to take the time we need to correct the many deficiencies still remaining in this conference report. I urge that, instead of voting for a bad bill in order to meet an arbitrary deadline, my colleagues join me in voting for more time to turn this into a better bill.

Mr. Speaker, continuing my support for an overwhelming majority of free trade agreements, I cast my vote in favor the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA). In the past I have expressed serious concerns over copyright provisions contained in some free trade agreements negotiated by the Bush Administration that arguably constrain the ability of the United States to modernize our laws to reflect the realities of technology. I have been repeatedly reassured that notwithstanding these copyright provisions, the United States would still be able to modernize our copyright laws. I am also pleased that in other areas of the U.S.-Bahrain FTA, the President finally followed Democratic recommendations to ensure the adoption and enforcement of internationally-recognized basic standards for the people of Bahrain.