Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4437, Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4437, BORDER PROTECTION, ANTITERRORISM, AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CONTROL ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - December 15, 2005)
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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, all Americans have an interest in securing our borders, but this bill is neither genuine security nor fairness. It threatens American businesses, agriculture, and it certainly threatens to destroy border commerce and punish hardworking border citizens.
This is just the latest in a series of bad bills that appeal to the worst fears and prejudices of xenophobes rather than advancing meaningful immigration reform. It is a cynical bill because it is not comprehensive. There is no one-dimensional solution looking solely at law enforcement that can succeed. There is no wall that can be built high enough to solve this problem.
Over a century ago, my own great grandfather came from Sweden to Louisiana to chop sugar cane. He came for the same reason that many people come to this country today: to take on the most difficult jobs in order to have a better life. Until we address that economic concern with a meaningful guest worker program, we will not address immigration today.
To the extent that the border is inadequately patrolled, this is a direct result not of the lack of a law, but a lack of will by the Bush administration in its mismanagement of the Border Patrol. Last year, this Congress approved 2,000 additional Border Patrol agents, and President Bush responded by saying we only need 210 of those 2,000 Border Patrol agents for the entire country. In September, even our Texas Republican colleagues demanded that President Bush ``stop raiding our Texas Border Patrol'' and called the reassignment of agents to Arizona an ``outrageous action [that] is crippling border security in Texas.'' Today, instead of Border Patrol agents, the Republicans say we need to punish church workers who live their faith by assisting persons in need without first checking their visas.
The kind of measure we are offered is not new. It is part of a sad and recurring theme in American history. In the 19th century, it was the work of the Know-Nothing Party. Today, there are some in this Republican leadership who want to make the Republican Party the Know-Nothing Party of the 21st century.
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