Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008
Floor Speech
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 13, 2007)
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I have a question: Shouldn't all items in an appropriations bill, whether it be for an agency or for directed spending by a Member of Congress, should that not be voted on by the entire body, and shouldn't we have an opportunity to inspect as a body all spending in an appropriations bill, including earmarks?
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is correct. There is nearly $5 billion in the grant funds for State and local communities for first responders. It has been there for a couple of years.
I don't know why we don't insist that the authorizers in this body write the rules so that these communities can get their hands on that money and use it for the purposes for which it was intended. The money is laying there. I don't know why we are continuing to pour billions more into it when the hopper is full already. Let's fix the system and unclog the pipe that drains the hopper.
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. If the gentleman would yield.
At the end of the bill, we will have to see what amendments have passed, and then we will look at that and see whether or not that would fit into our across the board cut, and if it might be modified to that extent.
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the gentlewoman's amendment. I have some concerns about the offset, but I believe this amendment will help restore balance to ICE's enforcement resources as well as the agency's support for State and local officials. As I said when we opened this debate, I believe a fiscally responsible funding level includes sufficient resources to carry out all legislative functions and directions.
This amendment helps to restore some balance of resources to meet the bill's mandate for ICE to contact every correctional facility across the country, over 5,000 of them, at least once a month to identify incarcerated aliens that can be deported and to initiate those deportation proceedings. That mandate is a lofty goal. Over 5,000 local and State jails and detention facilities that you have got to contact monthly and talk to the jailers who are State or local officials and are not being paid to help you with this, it is an unfunded mandate, and who are also not qualified to judge whether or not a person that is incarcerated is an illegal alien. It is not their job, and they are not trained for it. So that is going to be a difficult goal to implement and one that is unfunded but, I think, worthwhile.
So I remain concerned that the bill presupposes that ICE can simply redirect resources from some other vital criminal investigation or fugitive operation to meet this unfunded mandate. I mean, ICE is understaffed as it is with personnel out there. You take a lot of personnel off of what they are doing now to check with every jail in the country, 2,000 of which hardly have any incarcerated aliens in them anyway, and you have got to take that personnel off of fugitive operations, catching people who are not in jail who are rapists and murderers and thieves, and deport them.
So the bottom line is we have got to have some more money for ICE to do this new chore. In fact, the bill even suggests resources can be drawn from the 287(g) program to meet this mandate. But then the bill reduces funding for that very program by almost 30 percent below the request.
So restoring the $9.1 million cut in the 287(g) program will provide additional funds to help State and local correctional facilities at the ID and processing of illegal aliens, the very priority the bill is trying to force. In fact, over 40 percent of the local law enforcement officers trained to date through the 287(g) program are from jails and correctional facilities in States like Florida, Arizona, Alabama, North Carolina, California.
Look at some of the notable results from the ICE's 287(g) program.
I am quoting from the Nashville City Paper printed April 24. ``If the first week's worth of figures hold up, the number of illegal immigrants deported in the first year of the national 287(g) program would be more than 4,200, or equal to 11 percent of Nashville's total, legal and illegal, Hispanic population, according to a City Paper analysis of the first batch of 287(g) immigration enforcement data.''
Bottom line, Mr. Chairman, the 287(g) program is too vital a program in the fight to secure our borders to accept the bill's $9.1 million cut.
I urge Members to support the Drake amendment.
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. If 287(g) would provide the training and the authority for the local law enforcement to do just as the gentleman has said, think of the law enforcement power that can be brought to bear on the severe problem the country faces of getting rid of convicts in the penitentiaries, as well as fugitives on the run and on the lam, and raping and plundering and robbing in the country. I think it's as simple as ABC. I don't know why we don't do more of it.
I thank the gentlelady.
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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to compliment the gentlewoman for being an aggressive leader on this subject. She is very knowledgeable on the subject and has done a great deal of work in backgrounding on the amendment she has brought forward. She is doing a great service to the country in this effort. I want to compliment and thank the gentlelady for a great job.
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