Four storms hit Florida. and FEMA was ill equipped. In my opinion. it is ill equipped because it resides in an agency that should be focused solely on terrorism and homeland security. 0l 2000 FEMA should be able to respond to the needs of a natural disaster that we have experienced. Immigration has been mentioned repeatedly. Immigration is out of control. We recently read in the paper that employees of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service are facing misconduct charges ranging from bribery to exchanging green cards for immigration in return for sexual favors. It is not enough that we have illegal immigrants running around unfettered. we also have them committing serious crimes. Daniel Rodriguez Mendoza. a 21yearold illegal alien from Mexico. was recently responsible for killing the mother of two children in a traffic accident in West Palm Beach. Florida. He did not have a drivers license. He had no papers. and four times he had been previously ticketed for driving without a license. Each time. he was let back into the community. even after immigration officials were notified of him. but failed to do anything. Then there is the 20yearold young man in my district who was hit by a truck while riding his motorcycle in a small town on Fathers Day. He is now hospitalized. paralyzed from the chest down. The illegal alien who paralyzed him was caught. charged with the accident and then. regrettably. released. and now he has disappeared and has not shown up for his trial. Mr. Speaker. we are debating today money for the Federal department now responsible not only for protecting us from terrorism but also from illegal immigration and for helping in disasters. We need to make sure this money works. We should not have to be dealing with inept disaster programs and dysfunctional immigration enforcement. And I think most of my colleagues here would agree.
Identified stereotypes
Illegal immigrants are committing serious crimes.