Illegal Immigration
Floor Speech
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION -- (House of Representatives - May 23, 2007)
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Ms. FOXX. I thank the gentleman for taking on the task of serving as chairman of our Immigration Caucus. I appreciate the leadership that you have given to it and I appreciate the comments that you and Congressman Carter have made tonight. I have several points I would like to make.
The members of our caucus know that I am very keen on the use of language, and that language makes a big difference. And we keep hearing over and over from the supporters of this Senate bill that this is not amnesty. But I think it is important that we define the word ``amnesty,'' so I looked it up under dictionary.com unabridged.
The first definition: a general pardon for offenses, especially political offenses against the government, often granted before any trial or conviction.
And then I like this one, another one from Online Etymology Dictionary: pardon of past offenses, intentional overlooking.
I think that is what we are talking about here. And, again, I think it is important that we define what we are talking about. That is exactly what the Senate is proposing.
Now, the other thing that I want to say is that I am really concerned with the way this bill has come out. It is being debated in pieces. It was written in secret, sprung on us late in the day, and it didn't go through a committee structure as most of our bills do. It was brought straight to the floor of the Senate. The leadership of the Senate, the Democratic leadership of the Senate wanted to cram it through before the Memorial Day holiday.
Those kinds of actions are not the actions of people who are proud of what they are doing. If they were proud of this bill, they would have brought that bill to a committee, they would have debated it, they would have heard the arguments pro and con, and then they would have come up with something that was discussed openly with lots and lots of people. That is the way, as Congressman Carter says, our Republic operates. We don't operate in secret. We don't do things like that. We don't cram bills through in a hurry, especially when they are so controversial.
You know, you mentioned, we want to talk a little bit about our districts. I live in, I think, the most beautiful area of the world, the Fifth District of North Carolina. I am very blessed to live there. And I live among, I think, the brightest, hardest-working people in the world. And they are very intelligent, very conscientious, very patriotic people. They are upset about this proposal. They don't like it.
Since I came to Congress a little over 2 years ago, I have been telling everybody who would listen, this is the biggest issue in my district, it is the biggest issue in most districts. And why? Because the American people, and again particularly the people in my district, have played by the rules and they understand the importance of the rule of law.
I tell folks over and over what makes this country so special are three things: the rule of law, our moral underpinnings, and our capitalistic way of life. But you can't have moral underpinnings and you can't have the capitalistic system if you don't have the rule of law.
Now, we can do something about illegal aliens who are here in our country. People say, oh, we can't do anything about them. We surely can. What we can do is start enforcing our laws. We have not been doing that. Both Democratic and Republican administrations are guilty of it. I can't forgive our Republican administrations because they are guilty of it, too. But we can close down our borders and we can enforce the laws as they are now. And I think that what we have to do is we have to look at this issue of illegal immigration in a very careful, law-respecting way. The solution doesn't lie in wholesale amnesty.
And the President has said that this bill will treat people with respect. Well, I respect the President, but I have to strongly disagree with him. Because from what I have seen so far, this bill fails to respect the millions of people who have worked within the system and have immigrated to our country legally. And those people who want to come to this country legally, they are doing it the right way. These people have done it the wrong way. We are not going to reward, we cannot reward illegal behavior by uttering platitudes about respect and fairness. Our first principle on immigration reform has to be upholding American laws. If we do not do that, then our system will be fundamentally flawed.
The bill that the Senate is proposing is going to legalize these people immediately. They talk about triggers being in there, but the triggers don't really go into effect. And the triggers are nothing but laws that we have already had in place for a long, long time. And if this bill passes and is signed by the President, we will be, I think, doing severe damage to our country, not just in the short run, because I think that it will be both in the short run and in the long run. There will be a huge battle ahead of us if we pass this bill, because we are going to be facing more and more illegal immigration.
In addition, as I said before, the people of the Fifth District are very bright people. They know amnesty when they see it, and they know that if this bill or something even vaguely like it passes, it is going to dilute the meaning of citizenship in this country, and that is the last thing we want to do. We are the last best hope for freedom in this world; and if we don't enforce our laws and help people come here legally who want to come here, and deal with things on a case-by-case basis, we are simply going to destroy what it is that is wonderful about our country.
Congressman Bilbray mentioned that his mother was an immigrant but came here legally. My father's parents came from Italy in the early 1900s; my mother's ancestors came much earlier than that from Scotland. But the Ellis Island model was a very, very good model. People had to come here, prove that they were healthy, prove that they either had a job or had a sponsor for them to be here.
That worked wonderfully well in this country for a long, long time. And think that we have to have something akin to the Ellis Island experience again in this country, where we know that the people who are coming here are coming here because we need them here or they provide a benefit and they can be independent. They will not have to have public assistance.
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Ms. FOXX. I just want to ask one question. I think that you have touched on a very important point again, and that is that we here in the House of Representatives are the Representatives of the people. We are the people's House. And I think the Senate is completely out of touch with what the sentiment is in this country.
And I agree with you, the American people get it. The people of my district get it, and they are very, very bright. I think that we need to be listening to those people. And the House generally does listen to the people.
And I hope that they are going to send a very, very strong message to the Senators about how they feel about this, and turn this around in the Senate, because we need this bill to be killed in the Senate and not even come to the House of Representatives to be debated. But I know that we as Republicans are going to have some alternatives that we will be presenting in this House, and I hope that the majority party, which has made so many promises, none of which it has kept in this session of the Congress, will listen to the people and say, we are going to take up legislation that will do what needs to be done, which is protect our borders and provide for national security and give the people a true immigration reform.
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