Tancredo to Congress:
Enforce Immigration Laws, or Repeal Them

[Text of remarks by U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-CO, in the House of Representatives, June 9, 2003, abridged.]

r. Speaker, if there are laws in the books in America that are no longer valid and meaningful, repeal them. I urge this body to actually address this issue head on and bring a bill forward in this body that says we will repeal all laws regarding immigration. We will essentially erase our borders. We will eliminate the Border Patrol, close the stations, the ports of entry because after all, we cannot control it. And if people want to come to the United States, for the most benign or most wonderful reasons, the reasons that we can all applaud, let them come. Why should we call someone here illegal? Why should we draw any sort of conclusions about someone who came into this country without our permission? Let us just let them all come from wherever they want to come and as many as wish to come.

Now, I want that debated in this House. I want Members to vote yea or nay to this concept. If you vote ``yea,'' you are for erasing the borders. You can make that case to your constituents. Try and make that case. Some of us will be able to do so. Some of us will not be at all excited about that possibility and will vote ``no.'' I will not vote for such a bill, of course. I am a ``no'' vote because I do not believe it is good for America. I will tell Members I am a ``no'' vote on the issue of eliminating borders. I believe it goes to the very basic, to the heart of what we call our country, to the heart of national sovereignty. I will make the case as strongly as I can against any sort of bill that would in fact invalidate the borders. But that is exactly what we are doing, Mr. Speaker, every single day.

That is the problem. It is happening, our opponents, the people who want the elimination of borders, know they can accomplish their goal by pretending that they support national sovereignty and national security. They can stand up and suggest that all day long. They do not want to vote on this idea of whether or not we should erase our borders because in their heart of hearts many people want to, and many times they want to for political reasons. They know that people coming into this country as immigrants tend to vote for one party over the other. They tend to vote for the Democrats. The other side of the aisle knows that.

Again, this is not brain surgery we are dealing with here. It is politics 101. How do they gain supporters, especially when their side is losing? Where do they look? If the majority of Americans are now turning to the Republican Party or becoming more conservative and expressing that, where do the Democrats look for people who will support their efforts? Where do they look for people who support their efforts, for greater welfare and expanded government? They go to the immigrant class coming into the United States.

So it is not unusual, it is not illogical, it is not crazy for us to deal with it in that way, for political parties to look at it that way. So our friends on the other side of the aisle see massive immigration and say, I do not care whether they are coming here legally or not. They eventually become my voters, so I am for it. So I am going to on the one side of my mouth I am going to suggest that we need national security, everybody should come in legally, wink, wink. On the other side I am going to say we need your help, we need your labor, and vote for me when you get here, whether you do so legally or not.
On our side of the aisle, on the Republican side of the aisle, we have many Members who look at this whole thing and say there is an awful lot of cheap labor that is coming into this country, and that is good for business. That keeps wage rates low, prices low, and what is good for business, as Calvin Coolidge said, is good for America.

Mr. Speaker, in this case it is not good for America. I would challenge my opponents on the other side of the aisle and I would challenge my opponents on this side of the aisle that massive immigration today both legally and illegally is not good for America.

Now, as I mentioned, the first consequence of ignoring the fact that people come in illegally and break our laws is that is the wrong way to start off your citizenship in the United States. Of course it is not citizenship, your residency in the United States.

The second consequence of this law-breaking behavior, the consequence of entering our country illegally, is that they also enter our labor market illegally. It is this consequence that I wish to talk about this evening.

I want to ask you to consider, Mr. Speaker, some aspects of this underground labor market that is not getting much attention or discussion in the press and not much attention by this body or policymakers in general. In the first place, with the possible exception of a few agricultural jobs, it is simply not true that Americans will not do certain jobs because of their low status or because they involve hard labor. We have done these jobs throughout our history and well into the second half of the 20th century. Mechanization of agriculture over the past 100 years has led to a diminishing need for farm labor and our food is the least expensive in the world because of this. This trend was well established long before agricultural interests started relying on migrant labor and becoming more and more dependent on illegal migrant labor. Fewer and fewer Americans were needed to harvest our crops and there was an adequate supply of indigenous labor in the vast majority of cases. Harvesting peaches and tomatoes and strawberries is indeed very hard work. Mechanization has taken over in many crops but there is still a need for some amount of seasonal physical labor in some sectors of agriculture. Does this require 8 or 10 or 13 million illegal
immigrants? I do not think so.

There is another aspect of this that is very important to understand, Mr. Speaker, and, that is, when we allow massive immigration of low-skilled, low-wage workers, we have a tendency, therefore, to screw around with the market in a way. What we do is actually delay the implementation of the use of technology to accomplish certain goals. Specifically I remember when we used to have a bracero program in the United States. That was a program that allowed migrant workers, mostly from Mexico, to come in and do agricultural labor. And they had to return to Mexico and they could not bring families. When that program was ended, there was an outcry from the tomato growers in the United States. There was a massive sort of rush to legislative remedies. They wanted us to do something because they kept saying, it is impossible for us to actually do our job. We cannot possibly grow tomatoes, we cannot harvest tomatoes, without the help of this kind of labor. So we ended up in a situation where we went ahead and eliminated this bracero program. And what happened? Did tomato growers go out of business as they said they would? No. They were forced to actually invest in technology, to invest in different kinds of technology and actually develop some sort of mechanized approach to doing the labor that had been done heretofore by individuals. So today tomato growers in the United States are far more productive than they ever were before when they relied solely on individuals picking tomatoes. Now they can do it with machines, now they can do it more cost effectively, and they are more productive in the process.

So when we import massive numbers of illegal workers into this country, or even legal workers who are low-skilled, low-wage workers, we need to actually again get involved and kind of skew the marketplace. We mess up the process that should lead to a development of greater use of technology and productivity. To the extent that American workers cannot be found for some seasonal agricultural jobs, that need can be met by a new guest worker program. I intend to introduce legislation to accomplish that goal very soon. A well-designed and properly managed guest worker program would allow migrant workers to come into this country legally, work as long as they are needed in jobs that are certified as requiring foreign nationals and then return to their homes. That is the important part we ought to remember about guest worker. Guest worker is a program that allows people to come into the country for a period of time, do a specific job, and return to their country of origin. That is a guest worker program. On the other side, you can have people come into the country and begin the process of becoming a citizen of the United States; that is called immigration. Two different things.

We are right now by far the most liberal Nation on the planet in terms of who we let come into the country legally, 1 million, 1.5 million every year. We are also, of course, the most liberal Nation in the world in terms of who we let come into the country illegally, 1 million, 1.5 million people every year, that we turn a blind eye to. We do so for the reasons I mentioned earlier, political advantage for the Democrats, a business interest for the Republicans. And so we ignore the law.

Once again I go back and say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, if you want to accomplish your goals and let people into the country at their desire, not in any way, shape, or form connected to our needs in this country, if you want to do that to the Democratic Party, fine. To Republicans, if you want to just have a massive influx of low-skilled, low-wage workers in order to reduce the cost of labor, fine, let us tell America that is where we stand. Let us have a bill that actually eliminates the borders, allows people to come at their desire, not in response to our need. Let us do that. Let us let Americans know how you feel about this. Unfortunately, I do not think we are going to get that bill in this session or the next session, because I have never seen it introduced by anybody on either side of the aisle.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a time when in America we have to determine what our needs are, what our needs are, and to what extent we want to disenfranchise and do things that do not benefit the American citizens of this country, so as to improve the lot of those people who are not citizens. How much of what we have in America do we wish to diminish? How much has to sink in order to allow this other part to rise? This is something we have to think about. It is harsh. I know that to many people, they feel that to be something that they would just as soon not think about, not deal with; but it is important for us to understand and deal with.
Is it right? Is it okay? If it is, if you believe so, if you come down on the side that says that we need to in fact allow for markets to work and simply have as many people who want a job in the United States to come across the border and get it, if that is true, if that is what we want, then eliminate the border. Erase the border. Forget about a border. Allow people to come to this country at their whim, at their desire. Allow them to come from every country in the world.
Now, what would happen, I ask? Would all of our lives be benefited? Would everybody in the United States be better off, the people living here, would they be better off as a result? Would the quality of our life go up, or would it be diminished? If it would increase, let us do it. Let us pass the bill. Let us put it on the floor; let us debate it. To the extent you can make the case to the American public that the United States should be open to every single person in every single country who wants to come here, then let us do it.

The thing I just hate, the thing that I rail against, is the idea that we are going to actually accomplish that goal, but we are going to sneak it through. We are not going to tell Americans that is what we want, that is the goal we are trying to accomplish, to reduce everyone's standard of living in order to accomplish this sort of idealistic libertarian goal of having markets actually determine all aspects of our society. Let us just say it. That is what I want from this Congress. That is what I expect from my colleagues and the President of the United States. I expect him to tell the truth about where we are going, about what they want to accomplish, because it is one or the other. We cannot have it both ways. Either you have unlimited massive immigration into the country, the elimination of the borders, or you do not.

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Mr. Speaker, I state that categorically, that we have, over the course of the last couple of decades, made it enticing for them to come to the country illegally; made it illegal to do so, of course, to come without our permission; but, on the other hand said well, if you can do it, if you can make it, we will look the other way. So, of course, millions do, and some of them get caught in this trap, and some of them die. It is our fault. We share the blame. So does the Mexican Government for encouraging this flow, for doing everything possible to move unemployed young Mexican workers into the United States to reduce their own problems in Mexico and to increase remittances from people who come to the United States and send money back to Mexico, which becomes a significant part of their own GDP.

They also encourage the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States from Mexico in order to have them, as I was told by Juan Hernandez, who was at that time the head of the ministry in Mexico called the Ministry for Mexicans Living in the United States. He said that it helps them influence our government's policy, the massive number of Mexican nationals living in the United States helps them, he said, influence our government's policy vis-a-vis Mexico. So Mexico has a role to play and is equally culpable for the deaths of the people that have come across this border and found themselves in horrible circumstances and died as a result or were harmed in the process.

Mr. Speaker, all of these people have some role to play and some degree of culpability, and I say to every single one of them, I challenge you to actually deal with this forthrightly. Stand up in front of the American public and state unequivocally that what you want is, in fact, a Nation where there are no barriers to immigration, where people can come at their will. Say that. It may win. It may win a majority of the votes in the Congress of the United States and the President may sign that kind of a bill. I, as I say, am a ``no'' vote, but it may happen. I just want the debate. I want it to happen in this body. I want it to be done in a de jure fashion, not in a de facto way.
I know that what we are doing in America today is in fact moving in exactly that direction. We are eliminating our borders, but we are not doing it through a legal process; we are doing it in a de facto way, by looking the other way. And there are many, many bad things that happen as a result of that desire on our part to look the other way. Well, I want to force this Congress, I want to force this Nation, I want to force the President of the United States to look at this straight in the eye, and say we are going to deal with it one way or the other. Open our borders or secure them. Those are the only two options open to us as a Nation. Take your pick. Vote on one side or the other. Let us get this job done. Let us tell the people where we really stand. Let us get this problem solved one way or the other.