Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005

BORDER PROTECTION, ANTITERRORISM, AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CONTROL ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - December 16, 2005)

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. 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.

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. 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.

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. I do.

The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from California is recognized for 5 minutes in opposition.

Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. 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.

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. 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.

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. 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.

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. 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.

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