Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, protecting our Nation is one of the most important duties that we have as Members of Congress. If we fail this, nothing else really matters.
The conference report does contain some useful provisions, but it is incomplete, making it inadequate and therefore unacceptable. The agreement with the Senate gave away so much, and it includes some major steps backwards from the House-passed version of the bill and from the strides that we have made since 9/11.
[Time: 18:30]
Specifically, the report ignores important suggestions made by the 9/11 Commission and by many Members of this Chamber regarding immigration and the use of illegal identification cards.
We need to have closed borders with open doors for those who follow the law. Our offices are flooded with people asking for assistance because they are trying to come here legally.
The version this House passed prohibited convicted terrorists from receiving Federal benefits, and yet the agreement before us here today fails to prevent this injustice. Remember, the taxpayers out there are going to be paying taxes and some terrorists are going to be getting some Federal benefits. That is just unacceptable.
It has been 3 1/4 years since the terrorists used illegal identification to cross our borders and to attack Americans at home, and yet Congress still ignores meaningful immigration reform. We authorize some detention beds in here; but guess what, we did not fund them.
There have been so many immigration bills introduced since 9/11 that have died and had to be reintroduced again, only to die again. We are told that, oh, they will be taken care of next year. I sincerely hope that that is the case because this bill is a feel-good bill, absolutely. It is like buying a state-of-the-art alarm system, installing it in your house, never actually activating it and then you do not even bother locking your doors. Your home is not secure. Our Nation will not be any more secure under this. We need to secure our borders. That is a very important component that is simply missing from this bill.
I cannot support the bill in its current form and because it is so inadequate, because it does not address the very important immigration issue.
The problem with the conference report was that it ignored so many of the good immigration reform provisions that we had in the House bill. This bill is only part of what the 9/11 Commission recommended. I was a State senator. As my colleagues know, many of the terrorists came from Florida. We said the length of their driver's license expires when their visa expires. Guess what. This bill does not mandate it. So the 10 States that do not even have that provision, they are the States that the terrorists are going to go to. That is just plain wrong.
We do need to have uniformity in driver's licenses. We do need to make sure that the person applying for the driver's license, who has a visa, that the visa expiration date is the expiration date of the identification or the driver's license.
(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant, but vociferous, opposition to this legislation, fully named the National Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.
Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly, but adamantly, oppose this measure because it fails to deal effectively with the second heading in the legislative title. It is beyond titles and slogans and, instead, policies where we must concentrate ourselves. Mr. Speaker, much has been made, and I have heard previous speakers speak of the families who suffered such great loss on 9/11, speak of what this Nation confronted on that fateful day. Yet, perhaps in a triumph of legislative policy and the incrementalism so often a part of the system, we are ignoring the single best provision to prevent future acts of terror, understanding that border security and national security are one and the same.
Good people on both sides of the aisle, well-intentioned people rightfully say we need to restructure our national intelligence-gathering capabilities. I concur. But what we see now, Mr. Speaker, is laying a new foundation, building a new wall, but forgetting both a front door and a back door and a roof. We are leaving our doors wide open.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and proud to be an Arizonan. I was in Nogales at our border crossing not too long ago visiting with our friends from the Border Patrol. They told me of an interesting apprehension the day before. The gentleman they said was a native of Iraq who had claimed to come to the United States in 1978 with a green card. It was interesting, though, to hear the Border Patrol personnel speak of their detainee, because curiously, the Iraqi who said he had come to the United States in 1978 with a green card was much more fluent in Spanish than he was in English. We read in accounts of the free press that there are those who come from the Middle East, adopt Hispanic surnames, and seek to infiltrate. There are some adherents to the politically correct who would ignore or diffuse or understate the nature of this threat.
Mr. Speaker, I will not allow the national security of the United States to be jeopardized and undermined and placed on the funeral parlor of the politically correct. To those who say that it is incremental, it is a step in the right direction: well and good. But incrementalism in wartime when our national survival may be at stake is unacceptable. Either do it right, or do not do it.
It is sad, but necessary, to reject this bill because it fails to deal with preventing terrorist attacks by understanding that border security and national security are one and the same.