Speech #1040267285

Mr. Speaker. I support the passage of this important immigration conference report. The American people want and expect the Federal Government to do its job of controlling our borders. We have a strong obligation in protecting our citizens from illegal criminal aliens. who prey on them with drugs. and other crimerelated activity. I am particularly proud to support this immigration bill which includes some of my own initiatives directed at these serious threats from criminal aliens. engaged in both the illicit drug trade as well as international terrorism. The first provision provides clear authority to our National Guard units to allow them to move criminal aliens facing deportation to INS deportation centers. when these aliens have engaged in drug related offenses. In the past. many States did so effectively with their National Guard units. My provision restores that vital authority to our National Guard as part of its counterdrug mission. The National Guard can now help expedite the deportation out of the U.S. on Guard air flights of large numbers of these criminal aliens involved in the deadly drug trafficking in our communities after they serve their jail time. and before they can return to the streets. and once again in their trade in drugs. I hope many Guard units will do so. The provision recognizes the limits on the INSs inability to individually transport numerous criminal aliens for deportation. using INS personnel on commercial flights. We have provided one more effective tool in the war on drugs. the use of our National Guard in the deportation of criminal aliens involved in drugs. Nearly onefourth of our Nations jail cells in the United States. are occupied by criminal aliens. mostly those who have engaged in drug related offenses. We need more effective and creative tools to handle this crisis. I hope that our State and local authorities and the INS takes advantage of this assistance that the National Guard can provide. New York City Mayor Giuliani on "Face the Nation" recently said it best with regard to our Nations drug crisis. including criminal aliens. on what the Federal Government can best do to combat the serious drug problems facing our cities and local communities: What the Federal Government could do is to deport more of the illegal drug dealers that we have in our city (sic) unfortunately. very few deportations take place of the people who are actually selling drugs who are illegal immigrants and that would be very helpful. My provision helps do just that. Senator Dole has wisely urged an even greater role for our excellent National Guard already involved in the battle against illicit drugs. Today we provide the first installment on Senator Doles wise call for additional Guard action. My other provision in the conference provides for criminal asset forfeiture penalties for visa and passport fraud and related offenses surrounding misuse or abuse of these key entry and travel documents. Nine of the original indictable counts in the World Trade Center terrorist bombing involved visa or passport fraud. It was clear that those responsible for that bombing misused our travel and entry documents to facilitate their deadly terrorist blast. By this measure we have made those who would make and help create fraudulent visas and passports to promote terrorism and drug smuggling here at home. subject to even tougher penalties. The potential loss of the printers. copiers. buildings. and large financial proceeds of this massive illicit business in key U.S. travel and entry documents. should help further deter terrorism and other criminal activity. facilitated by these fraudulent travel documents. Although this is a good bill. I am hopeful that the sponsors will review provisions in the conference report that would greatly expand "deeming" for legal immigrants beyond the compromise agreed to in the recently enacted welfare bill. which combines the income of the immigrant and the sponsor for Medicaid eligibility determination. Regrettably. the deeming provisions may adversely affect many States with high immigrant populations. including New York. which are implementing welfare reform. The result may potentially cause a marked increase in the amount of uncompensated care for area hospitals and increase the costs of the Ryan White treatment program. I have brought this issue to the attention of Chairman SMiTH and have asked him to consider the contention that confusion is likely to result as the States implement the language of the two bills and I thank him for that consideration.