Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005

BORDER PROTECTION, ANTI-TERRORISM, AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CONTROL ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - December 16, 2005)

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Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner, Chairman KING, the Speaker, and the Rules Committee for allowing me to bring this amendment.

It is part of the CLEAR Act that we have been trying to pass for many years. We have passed many parts of it. In fact, the majority of the people in this body have voted for parts of it in the past, but we bring it today for the Members' consideration to do one thing: we are simply trying, as I have discussed this over and over with Chairman KING, we are trying in this amendment to direct local law enforcement to help us apprehend the 500,000 illegal immigrants in this country who are criminals who are under deportation orders from the American courts. And I point out to the Members, Mr. Chairman, that 100,000 of those are very violent criminals. That is the purpose of what we are trying to do. I look forward to a bipartisan support on this.

Many Democrats in here have complained the underlying bill does nothing to deal with criminal illegal aliens. This amendment does. Many Democrats have complained that there is nothing in here that helps local law enforcement. This amendment does. So I feel sure we will have a very good vote on this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me just point out that if you wish to vote against this bill, you are basically saying that you want to allow 500,000 criminal illegal aliens to stay on the street because 2,000 Federal officers simply are not going to remove them. It is impossible. It takes the 700,000 local law enforcement people out on the streets to help get this done, and we need to fund this. This amendment does that.

This amendment adds funding for SCAT, which is money needed desperately by the cities who deal with so many illegal immigrants.

Lastly and very importantly, it directs Homeland Security to put in place in all 50 States the Institutional Removable Program. Now, you want to vote against this? How about us sending a rapist to prison in this country and INS is not there to deport them the minute they get out? No, they turn them loose on our State. This very thing has happened in Georgia with a pedophile.

This amendment is a reasonable aspect of this bill that brings resources to the table, and it brings law enforcement, the people who can solve this problem, to help us out.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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