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   Why do I say that? Well, let me give you another statistic that is almost amazing, and again, it goes to the scope of this problem.

   Every year, as I say, there are millions of visas which are violated. We give out something near 30

   million visas a year, and that only represents a small portion of the people who come to the United States. There are over 550 million visitors to the United States every year. So less than 10 percent of that number end up being required to have a visa. So 30 some million visas , 35 million approximately visas are handed out every year and somewhere near 40 percent of those are violated in the course of the year. So somewhere near 12 million people every single year are here in some violated status; that is to say, they are here illegally.

   A lot of them still do go back home at some point in time. It is true, we do not end up with 12 million people a year, but we have ended up with 4 million. Massive problem, 12 million a year violated. What do we expect the INS to do? Well, I know that it is tough, that is a tough job, how are we going to keep track of them. Very difficult to do. It is a matter of resource allocation.

   How about this one, Mr. Speaker, forget about the 4 million who are here illegally, have simply walked away from their visa requirements and are just simply living life as they wanted to as an American citizen. Forget about that for a moment. Think about this.

   Of the millions of people who are here and who have violated their visa, we do get some of them into the judicial system. They are brought to the bar. It is usually, by the way, not for simply overstaying their visa. Usually it is for committing a crime, and in the process of arresting and finding out about them we realize, oh, by the way, they are also here illegally because they overstayed their visa and so they were brought to court, an immigration court, and an immigration law judge listens to the case and a decision is made, and he or she hands down a verdict, and the verdict could be that they are to be deported.

   So now we actually go through a couple of hundred thousand cases a year of people who violate their visa, come before a judge and are ordered to be deported, couple of hundred thousand a year approximately. Maybe 40,000 of that number annually will actually be deported. The rest walk away, turn around and walk away.

   We know that there are about a quarter of a million of these people out there. I think it is probably far higher, but right now even the INS will attest to the fact that there is at least a quarter of a million people wandering around the country, not just as visa violators, not just as overstaying, but they have committed a crime and they have been ordered to be deported and they are simply walking around the country.

   Why, Mr. Speaker? Because the INS could care less, pays absolutely no attention to it, turns around, walks away from the immigration control point and says you are essentially on your own. Why? Because they do not care. It really boils down to that. They do not care. It is not a big deal to them.

   I have heard from individual agents. I have heard from retired agents. We had an INS agent in my office just last week. He has been on the job a long time. He is still afraid of being fired if he becomes known publicly, and we are supplying him right now with all of the information necessary so that we can protect him if we have to through whistleblower laws because if I can get him to come public with his stories, many years, I will not say how many because that would help identify him, but many, many years in the INS as an agent who has worked in almost every aspect of immigration control. If I could just get him to tell his story publicly, people would be amazed. We would be amazed. The general public would be amazed. The INS would not even be slightly surprised because, of course, they know their own culture. They know that what I am saying here is accurate, that they do not care about people here

   illegally.

   A lot of sound and fury is going to be directed toward the INS right now as a result of what happened on September 11, and let me go to another article here. This one appeared in the Los Angeles Times on September 30. It says, The September 11 terrorists did not have to steal into the country as stowaways on the high seas or border jumpers dodging Federal agents. No audacious enemy, quote, inserted them commando style. Most or all appeared to have come in legally on the kinds of temporary visa routinely granted each year to millions of foreign tourists, merchants, students, and others. Nothing in the backgrounds of these middle class men from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere apparently aroused suspicion among the State Department's consular officers who review visa applications.

   Let me point out once again that even if there is something suspicious that had come up, by law, that could not keep them out, like if they had belonged to some terrorist organization. Jot down al Qaeda, I am a member. That could not have kept them out.

   Once here the 19 hijackers-to-be did not have to fret much about checkpoints and police stops, even after some of their visas expired and they became illegal immigrants. The suicide attacks that killed 6,000 and more have brutally exposed shortcomings in airline security and intelligence gathering, but the strikes also highlighted another vulnerability. This is the Los

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   It goes on to say that the entire system is principally geared toward meeting another kind of threat, people of modest means whose concealed aim is not to bomb or wreck havoc but to work illegally in the United States.

   Moreover, proposals by Congress to keep closer track of immigrants living in the U.S. have been delayed or blocked because of complaints that the new rules will be too restrictive. That the Members know has happened.

   We have actually passed laws in this Congress, in 1996 specifically, that were designed to try to do something about the fact that we cannot keep track of anyone who is here, especially student visas and what happened? The colleges and universities got upset with us and said we are academicians, we are not paper shufflers, we are not supposed to be just filling this stuff out, and essentially they have not done it. They have not kept track of people.

   We are going to have to try to deal with that of course eventually, but they would not dirty their hands, the universities, with trying to keep any sort of records and documentation of whether or not this particular alien here in the country, visa holder of a particular nature, usually a study visa, is actually doing what he or she said they were going to do.

   Going back to this article, what little is known of the hijackers' history in this country suggests a certain confidence that immigration law could be circumvented where necessary. Again, what an understatement. For example, it says confidential records indicate that two possible hijacking ring leaders, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, presumed pilots of the jets that hit the World Trade Center, overstayed their initial visas .

[Time: 19:15]

   Hey, you know, they and, what, 12 million other people that year.

   ``It is an abuse that can void the travel document.''

   Yes, it can, but, of course, somebody has to find them.

   ``But despite having no valid visas , both men left the country and were allowed to return on flights through Miami and New York last January, said an INS official who reviewed the records.''

   So, now, look what we have here, Mr. Speaker. Listen to this again. Not only do they overstay their visa, but, okay, you cannot find them. I know it is a problem. Oh, gee, there are 12 million. How are we going to find all the people that overstay their visas ? But these two guys, they were both on invalid visas , both left the country and were allowed back in, through Miami and New York last January.

   ``Other hijackers have been in the country on lapsed or otherwise invalid visas as, authorities say. Officials declined to provide more specifics.''

   That is certainly true. We have asked, my committee, my caucus, I should say, the Immigration Reform Caucus and others, have asked the INS for specific documentation about these 19 hijackers. I want to know who they are, I want to know where they came from, and I want to know what was their status in the United States. All we have is anecdotal information here and there, because what they sent me back was a press release issued by the FBI that listed all 19 of the hijackers. It had absolutely nothing to do with their visa status except for two here on some sort of study visas , and one of them had overstayed his, if I remember correctly.

   As many as 4 million, I mentioned this, legal tourists and others have become illegal immigrants, according to government and academic estimates. These are the people with visas who overstayed them and stay here. They never go home. Federal officials acknowledge that they have no idea where all these people are.

   In 1998, as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration, Congress passed a series of laws zeroing in on abuses of temporary-resident status, with changes including expediting the expulsion of convicted felons and bogus asylum claimants. But other congressional mandates were never put in place.

   One measure directed the INS to develop an automated system to track the entry and departure of all visa holders. Another provision called for the accounting of hundreds of thousands of holders of student and other temporary visas .

   However, Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that I have to report this, because, again, the powerful interests that I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, in this case it turned out to be the powerful special interests of businesses and commercial interests that violently, vehemently opposed any of the restrictions that we had passed, that were to be placed on people entering into the country so we could keep some sort of track of them. Especially people from the Canadian border states complained that the new reporting requirements on people exiting the country would slow down transport or commerce. The Canadian Government also balked. The plan was put off. Likewise, academic institutions also objected to more controls, as I mentioned earlier, on their growing population of foreign students. That plan too was put on hold. All these things had been passed, Mr. Speaker. All of them were simply junked.

   Now, here is an interesting aspect of this. One of the September 11 hijackers who went by the name of Hani Hanjour entered the country on a student visa ostensibly to study English at the Berlitz School in Oakland. There

   is no record that the Saudi ever enrolled, school officials say. No one checked. There is no law requiring schools to verify student visas . So we are now, of course, going to be looking at putting something like that in place.

   The fact is that the INS complains when these things are brought to their attention. They complain that they do not have the resources. They simply have not been able to develop enough resource allocation from the Congress. We have not given them enough money so that they have not been able to put enough agents on payroll and that sort of thing.

   The reality is, of course, in the last several years we have quadrupled the budget for INS; but it has gone essentially to waste. It has not gone into the area of enforcement. It has gone to, unfortunately, build a bigger bureaucracy in areas that have nothing to do with immigration enforcement.

   There are many questions that we have to ask INS; and we have to ask ourselves, Mr. Speaker, about this issue of immigration, especially in light of the fact that this threat of terrorism comes from an identifiable group of alien males between the age of 20 and 35 and that we can now get a profile. They can and do quite easily travel in the United States.

   What is more alarming, Mr. Speaker, what is really incredibly annoying, is that however those people got into the United States before September 11, they could get into the United States on October 10. Six thousand are dead; threats of biochemical terrorism , nuclear terrorism , abound. We read in the paper, I hear one of my colleagues, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. SHAYS), over and over again telling the media that it is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when we will have to experience another one of these kinds of attacks.

   Every time I hear that, my heart sinks, because, of course, not just because of the fact that is a distinct possibility, but because of the fact that in this particular area, in this one area of immigration control, we have essentially done nothing to stop it, and the bill that we will see soon coming to this floor does essentially nothing to stop it, nothing with regard to immigration control.

   We will call it a bill to deal with terrorism , an anti-terrorism piece of legislation. But, Mr. Speaker, in terms of the most significant activity with which we as a Nation should be involved, that is, the protection of our borders, the protection of the life and property of the people who live in this country, our number one role, as I say often from this microphone, it is more important than all of the other things we do. It is more important than all of the other Departments that we fund. The role of the protection of the life and property of the citizens of the United States is paramount. And where does that begin? It seems to me it begins at our borders.

   We can certainly, and certainly should, go beyond our borders to find

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   Let me suggest something that could be done tomorrow. It would not take any activity on the part of this House. We would not have to pass any law, we would not have to go through a committee, we would not have to come to a vote, we would not have to deal with it at all. The President of the United States could pick up the phone and call the Governors of the various States that are on the borders, north and south, and ask them to deploy some of their resources in the form of National Guard troops on the border to help us defend that border.

   We do not have to even use the regular military of the United States, active duty military of the United States. We could, of course, employ without that. There is something referred to as the posse comitatus law which people suggest would be problematic if we wanted to actually employ troops on the border, active duty troops.

   We do not have to deal with that. We could go to every Governor and say would you please do that. I believe that most, if not all, of the Governors would agree to call up the National Guard and allow some of those resources to be placed on the borders, to help us defend the border. That could happen tomorrow.

   We could demand from Mexico and from Canada their help in defending the border. We could threaten, if they did not give us that help, that there would be ramifications, economic ramifications and others, diplomatic, if they would not agree to providing support and resources on the border, to help us defend our border. We could do that tomorrow. It does not require any action on the part of this Congress.

   Then the Congress has certain other responsibilities. One, we could establish a brand new immigration control authority. We could essentially

   abolish the old INS. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Speaker, it would be the best possible thing we could do. We could replace it and the various other organizations that are all out there unfortunately sometimes stepping all over each other; we could abolish those agencies. That would require, of course, congressional action, administrative approval; and we could combine them all in one border defense agency.

   We could take away certain responsibilities that are now given to the Department of Justice and INS, given to the Department of Agriculture, given to the Treasury for customs enforcement.

   Right now we have customs, and this is one of the more bizarre stories that has come to light during this debate. You can, and often people do, people who are attempting to come into the country illegally for various purposes, will stay behind, say, somewhere behind the border, say in Mexico in this case, watching through binoculars, watching the various lines. Because, you see, in certain lines, an INS officer will be in charge, and they can do certain things; but they cannot do other things in the course of their investigation of you as you cross the border.

   In the other line you may have a Customs official, and they are in the same situation. They can do certain things, but things that INS cannot do. But they are not together.

   So people actually watch, and this happens, Mr. Speaker; and it has been attested to more than once, people actually watch the lines to try to figure out which one is being watched by an INS agent and which one is being watched by a Customs official. Because the Customs official, by the way, or the INS guy, one or the other, I cannot remember which now, cannot open the trunk. That is within one of the regulations. One can do it, but the other one cannot open the trunk.

   So if you are going to smuggle drugs into the United States, for instance, you watch to see which line is the line that is being handled by the agent that cannot open the trunk, and that is the line you get in.

   This is again almost mind-boggling, but it is absolutely true, because we have got so many different kinds of organizations trying to run the border; and none of them talk to each the other, none of them share information with each other.

   The INS has at least three, sometimes they say four different kinds of computer systems, none of which talk to each other. If you were a person in Saudi Arabia that wanted to come to the United States and you go to get a visa application, there is no way for that counsel or official to check that application through a series of data banks that might come up with something that is important. They only have one. They do not have the State Department. They do not have the FBI's or the CIA's. They cannot cross-check. So, of course, many times, many times, if you are not on the State Department's list of bad people, but you happen to be on the FBI or CIA list, it is okay, no problem. You can get through, your computer will not identify you.

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