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   Secondly, we need comprehensive pay reform. Part of the problem is that INS and Border Patrol they are topped out at a G9 and anybody who has been there a while if they have an option like oh, tonight, more sky marshals, where do sky marshals come from? They come from Border Patrol and INS, but we just said we are going to hire 3,000 more of them but we are taking them and moving them to sky marshals. We have to figure out how we are going to get people in both places, which means, for example, recruitment bonuses.

   In San Francisco, because of the cost of living and the shortage of applicants, they had to have $5,000 bonuses and then they got the applicants. In the year 2000 they used $2,000 recruiting bonuses. Just sitting on the border is not the most exciting thing and then being held accountable if one person in every 500,000 slip through, it is difficult. If we do not pay adequately, we are not going to be able to recruit people. We also need law enforcement status for INS inspectors. They are expected to do law enforcement work; they are expected to catch criminals, and yet at the same time, we do not pay them that way.

   We also need to really raise the earnings caps, and we also need language

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   We also had a hearing this week student on visas in the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and let me make a couple of points with that. First, let me put it in context. The only real way we are going to stop terrorists and, for that matter, illegal drugs, is before it gets to the United States. One of the chief planners of the September 11 attacks was on a student visa, was not a student . How can we protect ourselves if people are here on visas that they have jumped, and nobody reports it? So I would suggest several things. First, let me state one other problem.

   Foreign students, of which we have hundreds of thousands, or we have at least several hundred thousand plus, apply to multiple universities, just like we do in the United States and our kids do. Presumably, the student may tell the university, I think most of them either put a down payment down, they pay it, they get a dorm, they get their classes, but right now, the government requires that the student , when they get their visa, say what university they are going to, but the university is not told they are coming, so the university could have a student headed for UCLA or Indiana University, the University of Notre Dame, and they might have it on the student visa, but the university may very well not know they are coming. So one thing we need to fix is to let the university know that the student got the visa in that university's name.

   Then, the university has an obligation to let the United States Government know: did the student actually check in and start classes? Did the student drop out? And/or did the student graduate? In other words, once they have completed the criteria on their visa or fail on the criteria of their visa, they are the first line of defense to let the government know. They do not have to be a law enforcement agency. It is not their job to go out and find the student , but the government does not know where to find them or whether they have even jumped the visa if the university will not help. The only way we learn usually is after they have committed a felony. That is how we learn whether somebody has violated their visa. So we need to get a better system with that.

   What I would suggest, because not every student is obviously a case at risk here, and we are not talking about American citizens or immigrants who have come to America and are going to college, let us get this straight. We are talking about people who are here because of the free nature of our country. Just like when our students go overseas, they are a guest in that country, and when they go overseas, there are certain criteria that they have to follow.

   For example, let me tie this to another incident, and I mentioned one of the terrorists. A number of years ago, when we were looking at stolen Chinese secrets which basically made us much more vulnerable to attack from China, the son of the equivalent of the head of the CIA of China had come to the United States. The way we turned this up in the Committee on Government Reform is we were investigating Johnny Chung and he worked for him. He was a lower level in the process of where the money got laundered and he was very open with us, and it may be, I am not saying the son was a risk, but the plain fact of the matter is he was enrolled at a university in Los Angeles, did not show up, we lost him. We lost the son of the CIA.

[Time: 22:45]

   Now, do Members think China, when George Bush, Senior, was head of the CIA, and George W., if he had visited in China to be a student , do Members think China would have lost George W., being a student there? I do not think so. It is incredible that at a time in the very period when our secrets were stolen, we did not know where the son of the head of their CIA was in the United States because it was not reported that he did not show up on a student visa.

   So this has happened before. It is not new, and it happens a number of times, but we are looking for a needle in a haystack in the terrorist question unless, what I would suggest is that they start with a simple process.

   The INS does not have enough people to look up everybody who jumps their visa. This is not just students, it also applies to workers and when somebody sponsors a visitor. They ought to be held accountable for notifying the government if they have jumped.

   We need to give additional dollars then to the INS. I said, we cannot get the borders covered, the basic work covered even for felons, so if we are going to put a new thing on them, we have to give them the money to be responsible.

   It is a waste of money to do this for everybody right now because everybody is not at risk, but how about if we start something simple: If you are a student from a terrorist nation, one that the State Department listed as funding or supporting terrorism , and there are seven, then those students ought to be tracked, those workers ought to be tracked, and those guests ought to be tracked.

   We ought to know if they have overstayed or violated the terms of their visa, and it ought to be reported to the government by their sponsor if they know that they have violated it. It is not their sponsor's responsibility to track them, but it is to let the government know, and the INS will track. There ought to be a penalty if you do not report.

   Furthermore, in addition to those terrorist countries, we ought to add Afghanistan. Right now Afghanistan is not on the terrorist list. It kind of surprised me when I heard that, because we do not recognize the Taliban. Since we do not recognize there is a government there, they are not on the terror lists.

   It would not be too hard to come up with another list, and that is if the country is not themselves a terrorist threat but there is reason to believe that that country is the home nation of a lot of terrorists.

   Let us take, for example, Saudi Arabia, where I believe 15 of the 17 were from; that then students from that country, even though their government may be completely innocent, that we track them. In other words, let us look at the facts. If you are a terrorist nation and certified as such by our State Department, or you are Afghanistan with the Taliban, or you are from Saudi Arabia right now, you are at much more likely risk if you have violated your visa, and we are not talking about people who are following the law.

   I would place a bet right now that the average American thought this was already happening. We would have thought that if there was a student from a country certified for terrorism and they had a work visa or a student visa or a tourist visa, Members probably thought that once they were here longer than they were supposed to be, or were not doing what they were supposed to be, that we know. Well, we do not. It is time we fix that right away.

   I also want to comment on the role of the Canadian parliament, the Mexicans, and the commerce.

   As I mentioned, we started this process through the parliament groups. Both sides of the border are interested in fixing this. We know the importance. The Plattsburgh Chamber of Commerce leader said that $1.4 billion in trade in that community of 80,0000 people.

   Fourteen percent of the people who work in the area work for a Canadian-owned companies. I have multiple Canadian-owned companies in Fort Wayne, which is 140 miles from the Windsor-Detroit border.

   We have become totally interconnected in big cities, and in Michigan Texas, Arizona, far more than Indiana. We all know there needs to be a

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   If we are going to have accelerated border passes, background checks, fast passes, they need to understand they are going to have to make changes in their countries just like we are, because the American people as well as the people in their countries are not going to tolerate living in fear of nuts.

   Now, I want to also talk tonight, in addition to the terrorism on the border, a little bit about our anti-narcotics efforts. In our subcommittee, we have oversight of narcotics. It is a lot like terrorism . We

   are going to learn how difficult it is to fight terrorism , because if Members think the drug war was hard, the antiterrorism war is going to be even harder because there are fewer people and they have more targets. At least in drugs we know the networks and know where it is coming from.

   Number one, it is coming from Colombia, the heroin and cocaine. It is then coming either through the Caribbean corridor or the Pacific corridor or by air. Depending on our successes, sometimes when we put the pressure on the Caribbean, it moves to the Pacific. When we put pressure on the Pacific, it moves to the Caribbean.

   It used to be all through the Andean Indian region, but Bolivia got most of theirs eradicated. We need to make sure that stays firm. In Peru, they got most eradicated but it is coming back. It has moved to Colombia. Chances are overwhelming, about 90-some percent, if you have heroin in your community, as every community basically does, if you have cocaine in your community, as every community basically does, it is coming from Colombia. We know where it is at. We have to get it there.

   They are having a war in that country. We have had a big controversy in this Congress about the so-called Plan Colombia. We passed over $1 billion, and if I have heard it once, I have heard it 50 times on this floor when we debated the Andean initiative this year, how can we keep pouring money into Colombia. Plan Colombia did not work.

   As we heard in our drug task force today from Rand Beers who heads international narcotics for the State Department, I am going to have to recall this from memory because I do not have it written down, but of the Blackhawks that we put in our package, four arrived in September, two for the CNP and two for the military, and six more will arrive by the end of the year.

   Of the Huey helicopters that we had in the budget, they are arriving in January.

   In other words, how can Plan Colombia fail when it is not there yet? I am tired of hearing how Plan Colombia failed. When we budget for a helicopter, we do not just pull it out of a Wal-Mart. We have to build it. There is a backlog of orders because we do not have right now as big a military establishment as we have had before. It takes a while to get the helicopters built, and the new Huey IIs, we do not just all of a sudden ramp up an assembly line like G.I. Joe. These are not little plastic toys. I did not mean a real person G.I. Joe, which we cannot ramp up, either. We have to do training.

   It is not a plastic toy. These are real helicopters which are complicated. It takes a while to get there.

   We do not know whether Plan Colombia does not work. We will know more in 6 to 12 months. What we know is the Colombians were bravely fighting a battle, and we had aid there, but not the size of the aid we are talking about.

   If we are successful in putting pressure on Colombia, we know the pattern. They are going to move to Ecuador, move to Bolivia, move to Peru, move to Brazil. So that is why this year the House appropriated $670-some million out of the President's $707-some million request, the bulk of which goes first to Colombia, that is the biggest battle; second to Peru; third to Bolivia, where we know they have been before and could potentially come back; and fourth to Ecuador, which is on a watch list.

   So what did the other body do? The other day they cut it another couple hundred million dollars, and they cut Colombia first, Peru second, and left in for Bolivia and Ecuador, which is fine, but they are three and four.

   If this budget does not get fixed, we will have put $1 billion into Plan Colombia, then cut the follow-up plan, and wasted the money, basically.

   What is the point? Can we not ever see past our nose? Are we going to be inevitably constantly repeating our Vietnam problems, where we get into, and this is not exactly like Vietnam, but when I say that, it is like the antiterrorism war or the war on drugs. We do just enough to fail. When we finally get ahead of the curve, we somehow decide we are going to be off on another adventure and do not finish the job.

   In the case of Colombia, we need this assistance because, first, we have to stop the terrorizing before we can plant alternative crops. People say they want to plant alternative crops. It is just like a kid on a street corner. If he can make $600 an hour as a lookout, he is not going to take minimum wage at McDonald's unless the risk of being a lookout is too high, and then maybe he will take the job at McDonald's. But we are not going to pay him $600 an hour at McDonald's.

   The same calculation goes into a coca grower. If they are going to plant palm hearts, they are not going to make the same as coca, but they want to plant legal things. They want a decent living for their family.

   If they are going to get shot, and when we were in Colombia and we talked to one of the members who had left the FARC, I will never forget this, Mark Sanford and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. BLAGOJEVICH), two other Members, we were waiting for the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker HASTERT), then Congressman, to arrive in his helicopter.

   We were talking to this young kid who just left the FARC. He was an enforcer. We asked him if he had ever shot anybody. He said yes. We asked, ``Why did you shoot him?'' He said, ``The guy was behind in his payments.'' What do you mean? ``He was a coca grower and he was not paying us the amount that he was supposed to pay us. I warned him twice and then shot him. He did not pay his bills.'' ``What do you mean, he did not pay his bills? You do not shoot him for that.'' We were told that, yes, we told him if he did not pay the tribute money we were going to shoot him. What did you do? He was an older man. We went to the restaurant. I went up behind him and we killed him. And he said, ``Look, he did not pay his bills.''

   Now, if you are a farmer and they are coming in killing your family or kidnapping them or maiming them, it is pretty tough to walk in and say, by the way, we want you to plant palm hearts.

   First, we have to get order. Then once we get order in Colombia, then we need to go in and help them get or make a living, because if we do not help them make a living, they are going to go right back to what they were doing before. That is why we have money to help build the legal system.

   Right now the judges are intimidated. They killed one-third of them back in the days when the movie Clear and Present Danger highlighted it. At the same time, they shoot the judges, and they have destroyed and killed much of the legal system. People are intimidated. There are brave souls fighting away, but we have to rebuild a respect for law and work with the people.

   Colombia is the oldest democracy in South America. Because of our drug habits, they have had serious problems in their country. We need to get the Andean initiative because if this process works in Colombia, it is going to move as it always does.

   People say if you legalize drugs in the United States it is going to go away, like the people who are making all this money are going to say, right, I am going to go broke now. No, they are going to step people up to other things. We are not going to legalize cocaine and heroin, even if we legalize marijuana, which would be a huge mistake.

   So it is important now. We are having a big debate in Congress. We understand if we cut back the Andean initiative, that the net result of this is going to be more terror on our streets at home, more cases like what we have heard in our hearings from mothers whose husbands were whacked out on drugs and came home and beat them

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   We visited juvenile detention centers and had some young guys tell us, one of them had killed somebody when he was stealing his car to fund his drug habit. The question was, why did you kill the person? He said, what does it matter? I will be dead by the time I am 25, anyway.

   So when we look at that, it is a tough thing. If we cannot get it in the source countries, then it moves out into the Pacific and the Caribbean. Then we come back to the border question I was talking about before. Once it gets to the border, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack in a city.

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