mend the homeland security act of 2002 to authorize department of homeland security to establish a social media working group and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended? members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 375, the nays are 19. 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended and the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished combiss is vote -- this is the -- >> the unfinished business is vote on the motion of the the gentlewoman from indiana, ms. brooks, to suspend the rules and

pass h.r. 4289. the clerk: union calendar number 360, h.r. 4289, a bill to amend the homeland security act of 2002, to require the under secretary for management of the department of homeland security to take administrative action to achieve and maintain interoperable communication capabilities among the components of the department of homeland security and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 393, the nays are 0. 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection the notion reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: the ouse will come to order.

he house will come to order. he house will come to order. members will take their conversations off the floor. the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? without objection the gentleman s recognized for one minute. the gentleman is correct, the house is not in order. the gentleman is recognized for

one minute. mr. thompson: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to recognize fimco a small business located in punxstawney, pennsylvania, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary this month. it began as a technical service company catering to the coal industry. in the last few decades, they've diversified to keep pace with the growing demands in oil and gas, construction, recycling and industrial manufacturing. over the -- manufacturing. over the years they relied on a strong local work force, including welders, engineers, mechanics, engineers and support staff among other positions. these talented professionals manufacture and rebuild a wide range of technical components including for the recycling industry and also sustain a full service support team for a wide array of industries that rely on immediate technical expertise and support. today, it's a strong base of economic support for the punxstawney area and has over

130 employees. i want to offer my thanks to them for the extraordinary men and women who work to make their continued success possible. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the house will come to order. members are reminded to take their conversations off the floor. the house will come to order. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio seek recognition? without objection the gentlewoman is recognized for ne minute. >> mr. speaker, the obama administration appears to be negotiating the latest job-killing trade deal as happened under the prior two bush administrations and the clinton administration with nasa. ms. kaptur: our nation can't employ the nearly 20 million unemployee and underemployed

citizens without addressing what's happening to growing imports and lessening exports. here's a bumper sticker. out of a job yet? keep buying foreign. that was on a car in michigan as we came back here today. in 2013, america imported, get this, 369 -- $379 billion in petroleum products aloan. $309 billion in automotive, and $329 billion in consumer goods, which are not offset by exports. we are exporting jobs and importing items from other places. think of the jobs we could create here if we could live the slogan, made in america. for every billion dollars of goods exported our economy creates 5,000 jobs. for every billion dollars imported we lose 9,000 jobs. that's why we've been in the hole for the last 25 years. our middle class is shrinking, people are struggling out there they can't make ends meet.

we have a budget deficit because weave trade deficit. america doesn't need any more job killing trade deals. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. olson: mr. speaker, i'd like to share an email from a friend his -- who jail with is in israel with his wife right now. he writes, hamas has been setting off rockets for days now, 120 in the last two days. just a few minutes ago, the red alert was sounded. they built the iron

dome as it brought down the rocket. we hear the red alert tonight as we sleep. we get to the bomb room in time. what about tomorrow night? speak out on the floor of the house, hamas must be stopped once and for all. my friend, hamas must be stopped once and for all. pothba ma, please say these words with us, hamas must be stopped once and for all. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentlelady from massachusetts eek recognition? without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. 22 years ago, justice sandra day

o'connor stated that the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives. ms. clark: over the past week that fact has not only been lost by the supreme court, it's been under attack. the court's decisions undermine women's ability to pursue economic opportunity and equality. tonight, thousands of people are rallying in boston to protect this -- these basic rights. i stand in solidarity with them. we will not back down and will not accept anything less than full equality in our access to health care, the workplace, and the ability to determine the trajectory of our own lives. this esteemed body would do well to heed justice o'connor's words because the women of america

will settle for no less. thank you. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. burgess: mr. speaker, the president needs to come to the texas border. there is a crisis occurring there. i just returned from a trip to mcallen, the situation is grave. the influx of people is is putting a strain on our resources and threatening our system of public health. last week marked my second trip to tour the processing and holding facilities. i know other members of the texas delegation have made the trip as well. president obama, despite being in texas for fundraising this week, refuses to come to the texas border. the president's remarks in the rose guardsen last week did little to deter certain americans from sending

their children to texas. his message was correct. but his tone was wrong. the president needs to be clear and direct. he needs to send a clear and direct message to the parents in central america. don't, don't send your children across the deserts of mexico to texas. as a texan i felt compelled to make this trip. but i realize my influence in this realm is limited. the president has the pup pit. the president can make the point -- pulpit. the president can make the point and the president of the united states needs to come to the border and speak in a clear and direction fashion to the parents of central america. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition? without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. jackson lee: thank you very much, mr. speaker. besides wishing this wonderful nation a happy birthday for the fourth of july and to all of

america, over the last week i spent time in brownsville, ton and mcallen. visiting the detention sifters but most importantly seeing the faces of children, innocent children who have come because of fear of their life. a hearing in homeland security, listening to state officials and to a bishop from el paso who indicated that the world is watching. these children need our help. they're not america's enemy, they're not a threat to national security. and i want to thank those many cities who have offered places. i believe the president is right to seek the amount of money to enforce the border, to provide more lawyers, more judges and immigration lawyers and to resources for cities and resources for these children. i believe that we have it in our heart to do and we can protect the border. i will say as well, mr. speaker, that children come in all sizes and i want to say that the crisis in nigeria,

with the kidnapped girls, still remains on our mind. #bringthegirlsback. let us bring an end to the terrorism of boko haram and let us help children wherever they are. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, each year hardworking american taxpayers send $18 billion to washington for federal job training and work force development programs. mr. fitzpatrick: while training unemployed americans is a worthy goal, even after spending billions of dollars, only a fraction of workers receive and complete the necessary training to get a job. that's not only an unacceptable return on investment, mr. speaker, that's an unacceptable outcome for the millions of americans who are trying to get ahead in this economy. a bipartisan majority in the house and senate is working to take action. to close the skills gap that's keeping americans from filling

the nearly four million available jobs right now. this week the house will finalize work on a bill that originated in this chamber. we will vote on final passage of the skills act, which modernizes and reforms federal job training programs to be more efficient and effective. this bipartisan action is a true jobs bill and i hope that this serves as a starting point for further senate action on the dozens of other jobs bills waiting in that chamber that would invest in our nation's cometive -- competitives -- competitiveness. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. aderholt of alabama for today and the balance of the week. and mr. culberson of texas for today. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the requests are granted. under the speaker's announced

policy of january 3, 2013, the gentleman from louisiana, mr. fleming, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. fleming: mr. speaker, 48 years ago this august marks my first practice as a football player for the famed meridian, mississippi, high school wildcats. after almost a half century, i still remember the fragrance of freshly cut due-covered grass juxtaposed against the pun jent odor of skim balm and the human stink of a sweaty locker room. 1966 was the first year of our newly appointed head coach, bob tyler, from a small town in north mississippi. my initial thought in first reading of him in an article in which he was quoted as saying

he believed in maintaining a high level of physical conditioning. i immediately knew that that meant we would be running our butts off. and we did. our first august practice was everything i expected and much more. we had a two-a-day and sometimes a three-a-day practices. first in shorts and then in pads. temperatures approached 100 degrees with 100% humidity. prayers for a quenching rain usually went unanswered. coach tyler kept some of the existing assistants such as jerry and the late earl morgan. and brought in new ones including charles garrett and robert tournage. charles mccoal mine, don evans were also assistants under tyler. august 1966, practices under coach tyler and staff seemed unique, even from the beginning. the level of organization, the excitement, over 100 young men

coming out to join our team and the professionalism and commitment to a strong work ethic and christian principles were evident from the beginning. there was also something else quite unique in the history of the football program. after the pass and of the civil rights act of 1964, meridian, mississippi, deep in the segregationist south, began to slowly integrate its public schools. that first tyler august, 1966, we were joined by james williams, the first black athlete in the wildcat football program's history. the following year several more african-americans, including robert bell, a defensive tackle, joined us. not very tall, but very wide and athletic, bell proved to be quite immoveble and hitting him seemed like slamming into rebar field with concrete. he went on to play for mississippi state. a relatively unknown head coach

then, bob tyler led meridian high to a fully undefeated season in his first year. the championship game was also quite unique in a couple of ways. our opponent, the jackson rams, still ran the old single-wing offense popular during the 1930's. the secret to their success was high school coaches of the 1960's had no experience defending against this. the then even archaic style of football. bob tyler had an old secret weapon too. defensive line coach earl morningen who played college ball -- morgan who played college ball during the single-wing era. he knew exactly how to destroy it. the other surprise of the game was a touchdown from the very first day of scrimmage, when a long bomb was lobbed from bob white to george. meridian high won the game and the big eight championship, equivalent to today's 6-a

championship. the 1967 season under tyler went much the same way. we had another perfect season except for a tied game with column bulls. nonetheless, we went to the state championship and defeated biloxi high. to make it two state championships in a row. with such sterling resume, bob tyler received considerable notice from colleges, as you can imagine. s.e.c. coaches pursued him and the great johnny vault, head coach of ole miss, recruited tyler to become assistant at tyler's alma mater and favorite team ever. it was rumored that vault was grooming tyler to succeed him as head coach. vault ultimately retired with health problems and tyler left for opportunity to coach under the legendary barry bryant of the famed crimson tide. it wasn't long before bob got his shot to become head coach of an s.e.c. football team. he went on to mississippi state

are we found great success during his five-year tenure. bob tyler was not only noted for his coaching, but for the talent he developed. smiley givehart, a great defensive end, went on to become an all-american at georgia tech. david bailey, a wide receiver, went on to set reception records under bear bryant. george raniger caught the winning touchdown for alabama during the famous 33-32 shootout with ole miss in 1969. coach charles garrett, tyler's right-hand man, took the helm for the 1968 season and had big shoes to fill. with tyler promoted to the s.e.c., garrett proved he had what it takes. meridian high school had a third undefeated regular season but lost out in the state championship rematch against a very fast biloxi high school team. garrett developed stars too. greg ames worth in three years as an ole miss running back ran

for 1,361 yards and 17 touchdowns. mack barnes, garrett's quarterback for the 1969 season, became a coaching star in his own right. he went on to coach meridian high championship teams as well. mr. speaker, though of meet oaker athletic -- mediocre athletic ability, i gained tremendously from my experience as a meridian high wildcat under both bob tyler and charles garrett and also their very able assistant coaches. any achievements i have made in my life and career must be credited to a large extent to what i learned on the practice field. concepts such as personal discipline, commitment to excellence, personal sacrifice for a unified team goal, preparation for success and the meaning of teamwork. it is said, it is a commitment to a bigger goal and opportunity for a young man to

learn more than blocking and tackling. don may offered this, my life lessons learned from my m.h.s. football days proved positive, hard work and dedication can enable an individual to accomplish any goal and achieve success throughout a lifetime. applying those lessons to my career and personal relationships has helped me achieve things i would not have thought possible. i now look forward, mr. speaker, to the scheduled gathering with many of my teammates and coaches of the meridian high wildcats who coached or played under tyler during the football seasons of 1966 and 1967. therefore i now hereby declare hat the period of 1966 and 1967 to be the coach bob tyler era. what is likely to be our final roll call will be held on august 23, 2014, in meridian.

amazingly, most of the coaches and players, including tyler himself, after nearly a half century are still living and will attend the reunion. some have gone on to glory before us, however, and will miss that final roll call and we will miss them. they include coaches earl morgan, buy ron mcmullin, as well as players such as mile j - smiley givehart, david murray, jerry, marsh walz, mike mcgee, woodson emens and possibly others. mr. speaker, i now close with these words. to a man, each of my brother wildcats, i am sure feel as i do, that moment of hard work, sweat, pain and sometimes disappointment, all of those things were worth it. and we are all better men because of it. such a common experience even a half century ago bonds us

together forever. indeed, we were then as we are today and always, even when we no longer answer that roll call, we'll be known as the meridian high school wildcats, a true band of brothers. mr. speaker, today i want to express a heartfelt tribute to the leaders of our wildcat band of brothers. coaches bob tyler, charles garrett, and all wildcat coaches living and not, and to all of my brother players living and not, for all of you have done for our town, our school, and especially for me. with that, mr. speaker, i yield ack. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced spoifl january 3, 2013, the gentleman from iowa mr. king is recognized for 50 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. it's my privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the house of representatives and take up these topics that i appreciate your attention to and as the other members disperse across the hill and to their offices, as their staff are tuned in on television and those that are here in person, we've got some serious issues to discuss this country has been led down a path that has been, i think, in the end, destructive to our republic and it's important to focus on these issues that are getting out of hand. we are a great country. for the fourth of july, i sent out a tweet that morning to celebrate the fourth of july, happy independence day, united states of america is the unchallenged greatest nation in the world. and we derive our strength from western civilization, judeo christianity, and free enterprise capitalism. there are many other components

to those three parts i mentioned, of course, i sent out those mess -- that message, there are those who disagree. they don't think america san exceptional nation. our president makes the statement that, oh, yes, i believe in american exceptionalism the way the british leave in -- believe in british exceptionalism and the greeks believe in greek exceptionalism. it's an entirely different concept. not many -- many countries out there are proud of who they are, they're proud of their nationality and proud of who they are. borders, culture, and language are what tie a country together. and the other countries that see themselves, proud to be so as the british, as the greeks are, are not like the united states of america. they do have borders they do have culture they do have language, but none of them were formed around an ideal, an ideal of god given liberty. none of them were formed around

the rule of law. none of them have a bill of rights like we have a bill of rights, where you can look at the pill loofers american exceptionalism and read moat of them as you read down through the first 10 amendments, our bill of rights. pillars of american exceptionalism. freedom of speech, religion, the press and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. four pillars in the first eafment. the right to keep and bear arms, another pillar of exceptionalism. whatever our pain is as a result of people dying due to gun violence, and if i counted the casualties right, in chicago over the fourth of july weekend, it was 14 murdered and 82 wounded in gun violence in chicago, a product of lawless people that are violating gun laws they don't respect their gun laws, but we have the right to keep and bear arms because it's an obligation to keep our society in a position where we

can defend against tyranny. and yet, some don't understand that. they think somehow the second amendment is about having the right to defend ourselves or the right to hunt or the right to to collect or the right to target shoot. all of those things are ancillary benefits that come along with the second amendment and they're necessary so that we continue the culture of respect for arms and gun safety, but the real reason we have the right to keep and bear arms is to defend against tyranny. so far, we haven't seen a tyrant emerge in america that has brought about the need to utilize our second amendment to defend ourselveses from a tyrant that would lord it over us and our god-given liberty. now history moves on. different personalities emerge. i couldn't rule that out. for the future. and i couldn't rule it out for

current either, mr. speaker. but of all these pillars of american exceptionalism, the first amendment, the second amendment, the property rights that used to exist with utter clarity in the fifth amendment kilo cause of the decision have been eroded, and the trithe a quick and speedy trial, and the right to face a jury of our peers, and the rights of the federal government that devolve down to the state, all these, we couldn't have built a great country without this. we couldn't have built a great country if we didn't have that foundation that i mentioned in the beginning, if we didn't have the core of western civilization that emerge here's on this continent at the dawn of the industrial revolution. if we didn't have the age of reason that accompanied old english common law which is a descendant of roman law which is a descendant of mosaic law. if we hadn't had those pieces,

america would have never been. if we were not a judeo christian nation with a sense of morality and a sense of justice, a sense of forgiveness, a sense of redemption, and a sense of confession, if we hadn't had those pieces that are part and parcel of our culture and civilization, america would never bfment we wouldn't have held together. we wouldn't have been formed in the first place, wouldn't is have sustained ourselves through these trials and triplelations f the -- tribulations of the time since our founding. that's our important this country is yet we have many who don't understand this. many who refuse to believe the retail of history that's brought taos this point. many who don't respect this reality of history when i say that our founding fathers were almost universally of a solid faith, in fact a solid christian faith, i hear from the other side of the aisle over here, no, they were deists. they were deists, they really had a different way of look at

this. thomas jefferson, a deist? go look at the memorial. you'll find more references to god in the jefferson memorial than you see as typos in there and there are two typos. thomas jefferson was a moral and religious man and it anchored much of what he did, as was true for all our founders. they didn't -- they were not atheist, they were not agnostics, they were not deists. they were rooted in a strong faith and deep understanding of history and they understood the flow of history. one of my trips out here to washington before i came here, mr. speaker, to serve in this congress, i went to the national archives and there was a long line waiting to see the constitution -- excuse me, the declaration and bill of right chrs on display underneath glass at the archives. eight inches of glass. that declaration of independence where our founding fathers pledged their lives. as i waited to walk through

there to see the original documents, for me it was the first time. as i waited, i watched, i read through the display that was at the national archives and this was a display of artifacts from the greek city state era. and there i learned, with the real examples before me, of how the greek city states had the purest form of democracy, at least at the time, and men of age had an opportunity to speak and to have their voice heard with their vote in the greek city states. but they had a problem with pure form of democracy. our founding fathers understood this. they learned that if it's just the masses if the majority can rule over the minority and there are no foundational or fundamental rights, then it's the tyranny of the majority that rules over the minority. and there's also the tyranny of the demagogues. the demagogues that had

perfected their artful oratory in such a way that they could move the masses in an emotional way, often against the best interests of the greek city state. when a demagogue emerged that drove the city state in a direction that wasn't prudent but was emotional and put the city state at risk, then they had the greek black ball system. the black ball system was that they would all line up to vote and there would be a gourd here, a piece of pottery here, that had a little neck in it and enough room to contain all the marbles and each one, then there was a discard pottery as well. and so the greeks would get, when they decided they were going to see if they were going ban arab demagogue from the city state, each of those in the city state that could vote, each one of these adult males, got a white marble and a blackmarrable in their hand and as they walked through, one of these potteries was the voting one and the other one the discard.

and no one could tell whether they voted to keep this demagogue in our city state by voting white or banish this demagogue from our city state by voting black. but if they dropped -- so maybe 100, maybe 1,000, however many were there to vote in the greek city state, maybe several thousand, as they walked through if they -- if three of them voted a black ball in the voting pottery, in that voting container and discarded their marbles in the other one if only three of them said banish this demagogue if the city state, they would banish him for seven years because he was a poisonous influence on their civilization, their culture and their society. that was one of the ways they held in check this raw, pure democracy that existed back during the greek era and our founding fathers understood that. and they understood also that these pure democracies had a way of essentially imploding and expiring, that they had a limited life spann, they thought

perhaps a couple hundred years. they didn't devise a democracy, mr. speaker. america was not devised to be a democracy. you can take a look here in this constitution and read in here that it guarantees a republican form of government. that's a representative form of government. it's not that everybody goes to the city center, to the coliseum and votes on national policy. we had that proposal, by the way, let's see, we had a presidential candidate from texas that pledged that we should actually go on the internet and all vote these policies so america could become close to a pure democracy. i didn't like that. i thought that was a bad idea. our founding fathers had a bright idea. it's a good, solid principled idea. give us the republican form of government. it was benjamin franklin when he walked out of the constitutional convention, a lady there asked him what have you given us? and his answer was a republic, madam, if you can keep it.

the republic is a representative form of government, you elect representatives to come to the house, be re-elected or not every two years, go to the united states senate, for six-year terms, with the idea that we would be a quick reaction force here in the house, and a longer term view, maybe a little cooling effect over in the senate and the balance of these two bodies, article 1 in our constitution, the most powerful and influential component of our three branches of government is congress. the united states congress. that's why it's article 1. all legislative power exists here between the house and the senate. article 1rk the legislative powers of the united states government are here. here, mr. speaker, in this house. and over the other end of the capital build -- capitol build, through the rotunda and over to the united states senate. all legislative powers. article 1. our founding fathers started with, and they crafted -- drafted the constitution, article 1, because they want --

our power comes from god and it's granted to those of us that represent this government from the people. of, by, and for the people of the united states. their powers that they derive from god are transferred here to this congress so we can express their will and bring forth the policies that they believe are the best and most prudent for the united states of america and it isn't just us being a reactionary force a barometer, take the temperature of our constituents, and somehow come here and reflect that in a national policy. that's not exactly the definition of our job. mr. speaker. here's what i owe my constituents and i urge my colleagues to adopt this policy. i owe everyone that i have the honor and privilege to represent my best effort and my best judgment. and my best judgment includes be home, be among the people i have

the privilege to represent, listen, listen, listen. take into account their concerns, their dreams, their aspirations, their grievances, and bring that back here with the best ideas that emerge from that and couple with that the things that i'm able to have the time to pay attention to on policy to analyze because i have the privilege to represent a lot of constituents that work for a living. they're busy, they turn in 50, 60, 70, 80 or more hours a week they do that to take care of their family they do that to build a necessary egg, they do that to prepare for their future and perhaps their retirement. they do that to build the capital to reinvest which creatings jobs, increases the standard of living, people i have the privilege to represent are busy. they don't have time to spend 60, 70, 80 hours a week paying attention to public policy, but they do have time to pay attention to whether i'm paying attention to public policy and that's my pledge, my best effort and my best judgment, including

incorporating all their best judgment into the things i can do and all the other things i have the opportunity to learn and if i find mist at odds with the constituents in my district, it's time to have an eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart conversation. should do what's right for god and country and state and district in that order. i have never found a conflict between that order of priority. my mother was alive, i told her, mom if there's a policy that is not so great for you but it's right for america, sorry, we're going to do what's right for america and we're going to find another way to take care of you, mom. that's the way we need to do business in this country. we need to look to the long-term best interests of the united states of america, we need to look back in our rearview mirror and see, how did we get here? what made us this great nation? what were the principles that our predecessors adhered to that became such a foundational rock that we can be this unchallenged

greatest nation in the world. what were they? what are they? what are they exists today? what are the principles that are being erode sod that america isn't as strong as some of -- eroded so that america isn't as strong in some of these areas as we used to be. do we still have freedom of speech? maybe not quite. i say that because freedom of speech used to compel us to utter the things we believed to be true is now restrained by the political correctness. the political correctness where a c.e.o. of a major corporation donated $1,000 to support a man and woman joined together in hopefully holy matrimony and loses his job as c.e.o. because there are people that believe that marriage is something other than between a man and woman. that's not what you call a free speech that erodes us all when you see that happen. . when you see the attacks that come, and i see them come primarily from the left, and there will be people that will take issue with the tone of

remarks or the word choices of remarks, but they aren't so much aggrieved by the actual function of what we're describing. for example, there are people that don't like the way some of us talk about abortion. they don't like to be reminded that i and millions of americans believe that human life is sacred in all of its forms. and that it begins at a moment and that's the most of conception and it needs to be protected with that great reverence for that sabling red -- sacred unique human life created in god's image, from every moment from its conception until natural death. they don't like that kind of dialogue. you'll never sea, you'll -- you'll never see a video of an actual abortion performed because the very sight of it is so appalling that the other side would object to the freedom of speech to demonstrate such a thing. they don't like the idea that we call illegal immigrants the

illegal immigrants. they don't like the idea that they get labeled as illegal aliens or criminal aliens. but nevermind that that's actually the legal term for those who are breaking our immigration laws. mr. speaker, you'll know that one of the to the topics that we're faced with as we went back to the fourth of july, as we go across this country, is the immigration issue. it's in front of us now again. it's not a new experience for a lot of us. we were at this topic at this time last year. we went through this debate in 2005, 2006 and 2007, before it finally died away and we bought a little bit more time to come back and revere and respect the rule of law again. but it's been so eroded. wherever i go the immigration topic comes up, mr. speaker. and we're watching the video now of the images of people coming across the border, many of them at mcallen, texas, i would take people back to what we've experienced in the past

and that intense immigration debate that took place, started when president george w. bush gave his amnesty speech, his comprehensive immigration reform speech. my memory says it was january 5, 2014 -- 2004. it was the launch of his re-election campaign, it was a calculation that he needed to reach out to the hispanic community and therefore calculated that if he would grant some form of amnesty and start the process of legalizing people that are here illegally, somehow they would embrace him as a presidential candidate. and i think it was an overreaction to what they saw happen in the year 2000, when george w. bush and al gore ran against each other and they got down to the recount in florida, with 537 votes being the deciding difference between who would be the president of the united states and who would drift off into history. that election, i believe, they looked at the county by county election returns on which counties went for george bush and which counties went for al gore and saw i believe what i

know i saw, mr. speaker, it was the blue southern tip of texas, south texas went for al gore. how could it be that a presidential candidate of the stature of george w. bush, a favorite son of texas, a governor of texas, could lose such a big chunk of texas on a county by county basis to al gore? i think they drew a conclusion that it was the hispanic vote that he had not done very well with in texas. and decided, this is how we're going to do better with the hispanic vote. and so they turned it up. they announced after george w. bush was re-elected in 2004 that they had carried -- that george w. bush had carried 44% of the hispanic elect rate. but -- elect rat. but upon further -- electorate. but upon further analysis, it comes down to an objective analysis that it couldn't have been 44% it. had to have fallen between 38% and 40%. and whatever that real number

is, i'm convinced, mr. speaker, it wasn't 44%. but we then saw john mccain, who was long known as an open borders john mccain, run for president. and he picked up 31% of the hispanic vote. so 7% or % or maybe as many as 9% of the hispanic vote was lost between george w. bush and john mccain. it never was 44%. if it was, it was even a lot more. then it was 13%. but i'm going to say instead, i'll pick that nnl at 39% and say that john mccain watched an 8% drop in the hispanic vote from george w. bush's high water mark are we reached out in a very positive and proactive way, down to john mccain at 31%. four years later, for the re-elect of barack obama, presidential candidate mitt romney came forward and he garnered 27% of the hispanic vote. that's really not disputed. so he dropped 4% from the 31% of john mccain, the open borders john mccain, to 27% for

mitt romney. and what happened, mr. speaker? we ended up with an autopsy report that said that somehow it was a calamity of, a freefall, a loss of a big chunk of the hispanic vote because mitt romney had said a couple of words that seemingly, allegedly had offended people. those two words being self-deport. now, if the language is so sensitive that you can't use a term like self-deport without losing the presidency, how in the world, mr. speaker, are we going to enforce the law? how are we going to reinforce the respect the for the rule of law if we can't in a delicate way say, you know ferks if we really do enforce a law, a lot of people will decide that they can't -- they don't have a legal presence here and they might decide they're happier if they'd wake up in their home country. somehow that's offensive to people? instead i would say, there's been a loss in the hispanic vote, certainly. not from 44% for george w. bush, pu from say 39% down to

john mccain. that's an 8% loss. only a 4% drop from that down to mitt romney. who knows which direction that's going to go. but it's completely disregards, mr. speaker, completely disregards the tens of millions of dollars that democrats spent calling republicans racists and getting a return on their investment by watching that be an effective, however sinful, tactic. and i've watched this for a number of election cycles, i've watched it my own race. when you pit people against each other, mr. speaker, when you identify people and say, you're in one class here, you're in another class here, you're in a group here, you're in a group over here, and the democrats know, they'll sort you out, they will say, well, your hair is blond and your eyes are blue so you belong here and yours is dark and your eyes are brown, you belong over here and you have a content in your skin, we're going to put you there.

we're all created in god's image. every one of us. and he has given us the distinctions so we can tell each other apart. and for us to identify those distinctions that are god-given identifying characteristics and use those to categorize people as something different than other people for political gain, mr. speaker, i believe is a sin. and it's against the interests of this country and we have fallen pray to those kind of -- prey to those kind of tactics. and we have a president who falls prey to those kind of tactics. and i would remind you, when you had officer crowley and professor gates in that instance in cambridge, massachusetts. when the president jumped in on what looked like it was a home burglary sir come stance and upon review -- sish circumstance, and upon review, officer crowley was fine, professor gates got a little out of control, and the president jumped in on something he never should have weighed in on and concluded that because the professor was of one skin color and the

officer was of irish descent, that somehow there had to be some kind of racism involved rather than the humanity of an officer who puts his life on the line to bring our safety to us and to protect and preserve the rule of law. so the president to get out of that deal had to have a beer summit at the white house. that lasted a little while. until arizona passed its sb-1070 law. which is their immigration law that was designed to exactly mirror federal law. not exceed it, not go beyond it, but exactly mirror federal law. and what happened? the president weighs in and says, well, you know, if you are a mother, a hispanic mother taking your daughter out for ice cream, you could potentially be pulled over and checked for your papers. that was a statement that brought a focus onto race and ethnicity. and the law specifically prohibblets such a thing --

prohibits such a thing. but he brought race into that this equation yet again. and now we have a president who has two of his family members who have been -- who have received some form of amnesty. his aunty and uncle. his aunt has now passed away. but she lived in public housing for a long time, on the government doll. she was adjudicated for deportation at least once. perhaps morse times than that. the president -- more times than that. the president's presence in this country got her amnesty. did drunken uncle omar, president obama's drunken uncle who nearly ran over a police officer in that neighborhood and received his form of amnesty too. because after all, if you send him back to kenya and he happens to be related to the president, somebody will kidnap him and maybe he becomes -- let's say becomes held hostage for profit. so we surely couldn't send

somebody back, no matter how many times they'd been adjudicated for deportation, no matter how much they were on the government dole, no matter what kind of unexemplary citizen or resident of the united states, i have to restract what -- retract that citizen piece, illegal immigrants. the president's uncle, the president's aunt. they get asylum. they get amnesty. and the president reaches out and says essentially to the world, we're not going to enforce immigration laws. it's a progression on his part. it was bill clinton that did the most deportations. in the year 2000 he had more deportations than anybody in history before or since. more than george w. bush, more than ronald reagan, more than george h.w. bush. but as -- those high deportations that took place under bill clinton have diminished substantially under this president. they diminished under george wrnlt of w. bush and again nder this president.

this president has put the welcome mat out. he advertised to people in foreign countries, if you can get into america, you get to stay in america. that's been his policy. while they will announce he has more deportations than anybody else. it wasn't true the moment they uttered that. it's not true today. the president has confessed that they count differently than any other administration. we have a circumstance on the southern border that -- voluntary return. if someone neeks at america and -- sneaks into america and they're caught at the border they're offered a couple of options. one is, we'll take your print and picture but if you'll voluntarily return to your home country, then we -- you will not be barred from coming back into the united states on either a three or a 10-year bar. that's the deal. so a lot of them take that voluntary return and go back to mexico and try again. in fact, we checked the records wn at the border station and

this was several years ago, they had a single individual that attempted to come into the united states and had been caught 27 times. no penalty. here's your prints, we'll take your picture and send you back to mexico. you can -- sometimes they come back in the same day and they're call again the same day. we had testimony before the judiciary committee and the immigration subcommittee where the border patrol came before us and they -- i asked them, what percentage of illegal immigrants do you interdict till you stop at the border? their testimony said perhaps 25%. 25% is an abysmaly low number, mr. speaker. only 25% interdiction at the border. i go down to the border and i asked them down there, what percentage, what percentage are you interdicting here at the border, are you getting -- are you stopping 25%? and they would laugh and say

10% has to come first. 10% was the most consistent number i heard sector after sector, agent after agent. they think they're stopping about 10%. one of the i.c.e. supervisors said, i think it's 2% to 3%. so this 25% number, even if we accept it, then you have to multiply it times four to come up with the number of people that are coming across our border. if we stopped 25%, that means that 25 people come across, there's really 100 of them. and when you do the math, at the peak of our interdictions, which was during the bush administration, that came to about 11,000 a night. 11,000 illegal aliens, criminal alien, coming into the united states across our southern border every night. that traffic has slowed down a little bit because there are fewer economic opportunities.

but now -- so that 11,000 was about twice the size of santa ana's army. now the nightly border traffic is about exactly the size of santa anna's army. of course they aren't all armed. very fewer of them are. but we're watching what's going on in mcallen, as we're watching tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors come into the united states and that number was predicted more than six months ago by chris crane, the president of the i.c.e. unit, who said, we're going to see more than 50,000, i believe the number he gave was actually 60,000, unaccompanied minors companying -- coming into the united states in the next year. we've crosseded 50,000 and that number in july, august and september and that number is increasing, we think in the next fiscal year will be 120,000, not this 50,000. and the unaccompanied minors,