The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H8934-H8938 on Oct. 22, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 269 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 269
Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 97) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 1998, and for other purposes. The joint resolution shall be considered as read for amendment. The joint resolution shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the joint resolution to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Snowbarger). The gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my very good friend, the gentleman from South Boston, MA [Mr. Moakley], the distinguished ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and to include extraneous material.)
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, this rule makes in order House Joint Resolution 97, which makes further appropriations for fiscal year 1998. It is a closed rule providing 1 hour of debate in the House, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations.
The continuing resolution made in order by this rule is very simple and noncontroversial. It simply extends until November 7, funding for those agencies and programs that have not received permanent appropriations on the terms and conditions imposed by the previously adopted continuing resolution, which as we all know, expires tomorrow.
As we all know, approval of this continuing resolution is necessary to prevent a Government shutdown since only 5 of the 13 appropriations bills have been signed into law, although 2 more are pending Presidential action right now. Hopefully, by November 7, differences over the remaining appropriations bills can be resolved, and the Government will be operating under more normal conditions.
I also know that a number of my colleagues are troubled that the continuing resolution extends section 245(I) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
{time} 1030
I share their concern that in its current state section 245(I) may continue to encourage illegal immigration, although it is not the source of our illegal immigration program, and I am not convinced that allowing it to totally expire is the right solution. The issue needs to be resolved, preferably through compromise language that both opponents and proponents of the law can agree on.
My Committee on Rules colleague, the gentleman from Sanibel Island, FL, [Mr. Goss], has a thoughtful solution, and I hope it will be part of any discussions we have. Our Republican leadership is also working with both sides to resolve the differences.
But this rule, and the continuing resolution it makes in order, are not the appropriate vehicles for settling this dispute. It is totally appropriate to grant section 245(I) a 2-week extension because this and other issues pertaining to the Commerce, Justice, State appropriations bill are still being addressed in conference with the Senate.
Let us debate section 245(I) and all of the other differences that have yet to be resolved, but let us do it at the appropriate time and the appropriate place.
Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank my very dear friend, my colleague, the gentleman from California, Mr. David Dreier, for yielding me the customary half hour.
Mr. Speaker, we are doing the second continuing resolution because, despite the late date, despite the President's very clear decisions, my Republican colleagues still have not done their job and they still insist on playing politics.
The 13 appropriation bills should have been sent to the President for signature 3 weeks ago, but 4 of them are being stalled because my more radical Republican colleagues insist on attaching very controversial provisions to these bills. And as far as the President is concerned, those partisan provisions just beg his veto.
Mr. Speaker, the Government shutdown looming on the horizon may sound very familiar to us. Last Congress, when my Republican colleagues picked politics over pragmatism, they closed the Federal Government several times to the tune of hundreds of millions of wasted tax dollars.
For the sake of veterans and for the sake of Social Security recipients, Mr. Speaker, I hope they are not planning to do that again. But, Mr. Speaker, it is sure starting to look that way.
Today's temporary funding bill will keep the Government from shutting down for another week. We need this bill, Mr. Speaker, because my Republican colleagues have refused to pass the rest of the appropriation bills. Some Members, unbelievable as it may sound, some Members would rather watch these appropriation bills go down in flames rather than work with President Clinton and their Democratic colleagues to make sure they become law.
For instance, Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues are using the Commerce, Justice, State appropriation bill to stop the Census Bureau from using a technique called sampling, which most experts agree will give us a more accurate census count. But that accuracy, Mr. Speaker, will come mostly from improved counts of people in inner cities and rural areas, and as far as my Republican colleagues are concerned, those people are better off not counted because their presence might hurt Republicans at the polls.
My Republican colleagues are also forcing a showdown on President Clinton's national education standards. President Clinton is hoping to set standards for fourth grade reading and eighth grade math, but my Republican colleagues just do not agree with him. And over that issue, and over that issue alone, the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriation bill may never see the light of day.
On a better note, Mr. Speaker, I am glad my colleagues have included the extension of section 245(I) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act in this continuing resolution. This provision will allow immigrants the opportunity to stay in this country while their applications are being processed. And those are only the immigrants that are eligible for citizenship. Mr. Speaker, these people are hard working. They have families here, and we should not be uprooting them from their families and jobs while they are waiting in line, legally, to become citizens.
Mr. Speaker, I hope this provision does not stop with the continuing resolution. I hope it will be permanently extended when we take up the Commerce, Justice, State appropriation conference report, if we take it up at all.
So Mr. Speaker, despite my opposition to the choice of politics over substance, I will support the continuing resolution. The American people deserve a government that is open for business, no matter how childish we get here in Washington, and I urge my colleagues to support this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Huntington Beach, CA, [Mr. Rohrabacher], my very good friend with whom I have worked closely on a wide-range of issues, including the problem of illegal immigration.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California
[Mr. Dreier]. He and I have worked on a number of issues over the years and we have a close relationship, but I might add the issue I will be talking about today is a bipartisan issue that crosses both sides of the aisle.
I had been planning to oppose this rule. I had been planning to stand up today and ask my colleagues to join me in opposing this continuing resolution because it included in it a provision which would grant amnesty to 500,000 to 1 million illegal aliens who are currently residing in the United States of America.
That issue is a significant issue. It is something that I did not receive an agreement on until just a few moments ago, that there would be an up and down vote other than on this rule. So today, while not opposing the rule, I am announcing to my colleagues and to those people who are listening that there will be an up and down vote.
The reason why we will not be opposing this rule is that there will be an up and down vote on 245(I) next Wednesday in the form of a motion to instruct conferees on the Commerce, Justice, State appropriation bill to insist on the House's, that means this body's, disagreement with the Senate's permanent extension of 245(I).
Now, we all know in the House a motion to instruct conferees is not a binding motion. It does not actually secure the change in law that we are trying to gain. But if we win that vote, we then have been assured by the leadership that there will be a binding vote in this body on the issue of 245(I). So between now and Wednesday this issue of 245(I) will be discussed.
Just a preview of how much I disagree with my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley] on this issue, is that we passed an illegal immigration reform bill last year with the intent of restoring respect for America's immigration law. By taking half a million to a million people who are in this country illegally, and permitting them to stay in this country for $1,000, we are breaking down the respect for our immigration law that we attempted to build last year in our immigration reform bill. It is totally contrary to that process.
What we are talking about is an amnesty, a new amnesty for 500,000 to 1 million illegal immigrants. I strongly oppose that. It is in the Senate's bill already, in their Commerce, State, and Justice appropriation bill. Again, this provision has been snuck into law. We will have a chance to vote on it.
There has only been one vote in the Congress of the United States on the issue of 245(I). That vote was a resounding no. And then 3 years ago it was, instead, snuck into another larger piece of legislation without a vote for even a conference report, that was not voted on by either the House or the Senate. So the only vote that we have ever had on 245(I) has been against it.
We owe it to the American people not to have a policy in place that is so controversial and so contrary, actually contrary to the wishes and contrary to the interests of American citizens and legal immigrants into our country, without having a direct vote in the House. We have now been guaranteed that there will be an up and down vote. The first vote on this will be Wednesday on the motion to instruct conferees. And if we win that, there will be a binding vote.
So I will be supporting this rule and ask my colleagues to join me and look forward to the debate on this issue next week.
Mrs. ROUKEMA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to including the provision on section 245(i) to extend amnesty to Illegals. Although, I accept the public commitment made by the House leadership on allowing an up or down vote on this issue next week. I stand with our colleague Representative Rohrabacher on this commitment to an up or down vote. When that vote comes, I urge my colleagues to vote against any extension.
Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act should not be extended. This rewards illegal immigrants who knowingly violated the law and permits them to remain in the United States and gain permanent status.
What message does this send to people around the world? It tells them that they are better off to break the law than to follow it. It sends the wrong message to law-abiding people in other countries who have legally applied for entry into the United States while remaining in their homelands for their visas to become available. It tells them to come to this country illegally and then adjust the residence status. Section 245(i) inundates the INS another endless set of applications, further creating a backlog to delay conducting background checks and investigating fraudulent applications.
I am concerned today that our benefits system acts as a magnet for many illegal immigrants. For example, many children of illegal immigrants receive a free education in U.S. public schools at the expense of American taxpayers, driving up the cost of education and taking resources away from U.S. children. The State of New Jersey alone spends an estimated $146 million a year to educate about 16,000 children of illegal aliens.
The argument has been made that by allowing section 245(i) to stay on the books, the INS makes up to $125 million in revenue received from the $1,000 fee that aliens pay to obtain legal status. But, this money pales in comparison to the multi-billion dollar cost imposed on taxpayers as a result of the devastating consequences of illegal immigration.
The cost associated with providing Federal benefits to illegal immigrants is astronomical. While as a society, we should not turn people away from an emergency room or deny food to the hungry; but I do not believe we should reward illegal immigrants by allowing them to stay. While millions of others wait their turn in line, year after year to enter legally.
Although I understand that there are extenuating circumstances in some cases, I believe that anyone who is in the country illegally should be held to the letter of the law.
I urge my colleagues not to support any extension of section 245(i) and to vote against any extension at the appropriate time next week.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Sanibel, FL [Mr. Goss], the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process.
(Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from greater metropolitan downtown San Dimas, CA, the distinguished vice chairman of the Committee on Rules for yielding me this time, and I rise to support his rule.
By allowing the House to consider this 2-week extension of the existing continuing resolution, this rule helps to ensure that current government functions remain operational while the Congress completes the work on next year's funding measures. We all know that and we all know why we are doing this.
Mr. Speaker, we will hear much discussion today of one provision of the law that is still very highly controversial and that may be extended for 2 weeks under this CR. I oppose a long-term extension of that provision of the immigration law, known as section 245(I), which has been discussed already this morning, which allows aliens who are in this country illegally to pay a fee and then adjust to permanent legal resident status.
This provision was, in fact, slipped into permanent law 3 years ago without hearings, without public discussion, or without debate on this floor. That is not the way laws should be made.
As part of the immigration reform of the 104th Congress, section 245(I) was set to expire on September 30. In other words, we had a phaseout of that provision, to be fair to all people who were put on notice. However, Congress extended the deadline for 3 weeks in the first continuing resolution this year to allow time for Members and the public to consider ramifications.
As that discussion is still continuing without resolution, the second CR includes another brief extension. I will support this one last extension in the hopes that a consensus can be achieved, and I believe it can. But I will not support a blanket extension, and I urge the House leadership to set aside time for full debate and vote on this issue.
In my view, indefinitely extending the 245(I) provision flies in the face of the reforms we passed last year by negating the consequences of illegally entering the United States. A permanent extension would further damage the credibility of our immigration system, which has for too long had its priorities reversed. For years, illegal immigration has been quick, while following the rules has been a slow and difficult process. Those who did it right, paid a penalty; those who did it wrong, got the rewards. That is backward.
In addition, a permanent extension would perpetuate an inherent conflict of interest for the INS, which is both tasked with deporting illegal aliens and requiring to process these people for legal residency. That is a tough decision for them.
While it seems there is no obvious middle ground, I have a proposal, which I understand the distinguished ranking member has spoken to already, to mitigate the impact on children under 18, who rely on section 245(I) to become legal permanent residents. In other words, reduce the impact on the families, which is a major concern for those of us in congressional offices who have been hearing about this.
{time} 1045
This proposal would grandfather in minors already present in the United States and who have approved pending petitions. But it would not contradict the reforms we enacted last year. This is an important debate and there are many issues involved. We simply cannot have a policy that tells people who have abided by the lawful, established procedures that they would have been better off to simply have come across the border illegally or to ignore our laws. That is not good governance, it is not what the people of this country are asking us to do. I urge support for this rule.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Del Mar, CA [Mr. Cunningham].
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way said that it is not amnesty. It allows illegals to remain in this country. That is amnesty. I do not care what semantics are, but it allows them to stay here and we are opposed to that. If you are here illegally, if you come into the United States illegally, we will legally deport you to whatever country of origin that you have, and that is our position. That is what we are sticking to.
I would also say to the gentleman when he talks about extreme Republicans that cause the President to veto bills, we passed Medicare over to the President. It was vetoed. The DNC through the unions and the White House, thousands of negative ads on the Medicare, and the Government shut down. It is the same Medicare bill that was passed in the balanced budget, but there are still extremists on the other side that do not want the Medicare reform. The same was true with the welfare reform, vetoed, and Government shut down, but yet welfare reform untraps people and we passed that.
I would also look at direct lending. The President wanted 100 percent of direct student loans in 1 year capped at 10 percent. It cost $7 billion annually more through the President's direct lending. But that was a pet program, so the Government shut down and the President said,
``We're not going to let the Government go until the extremists allow me to have 100 percent of the direct loans.'' There was a negotiation. Forty percent went forward. In 1 year, they could not account, the Department of Education, for $50 million, and we said, ``That's wrong.'' Also capped at 10 percent, $7 billion additionally a year. What happened with the 40 percent? We just so happened to put it in where you cannot grow the bureaucracy. We saved $10 billion. We increased IDEA, we increased Pell grants to the highest level ever. And you call those extremist ideas, but you want to keep adding big Government, you want big bureaucracy. It takes higher taxes to go forward and support it. We are not going to allow that to happen.
When you talk about a rule that allows illegals to stay in, that is also not an extreme position. Legals, yes. Illegals, no. I will support this rule. I had planned like the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] on Friday to vote against the rule because of 245(i). But I would also say to my colleague on the other side, for whom I have a lot of respect, when they want to get up and demagogue about the misinformation of the left, 100,000 cops. There are not 100,000 cops out there. You know it and I know it. But yet you say it over and over. When the DNC fights Medicare and welfare reform and a balanced budget was vetoed twice by the President and then comes forward and supports it, yes. But do not call us extremists for a balanced budget, for welfare reform and tax relief for the American people.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again I cannot let Members use the term ``amnesty.'' ``Amnesty'' is a definite term used in immigration. One-week, 2-week extension of deportation is not amnesty. I would hope that people would just use that term the way it is meant to be used.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As has been pointed out on both sides, this is a very simple, clean continuing resolution which allows us to ensure that the government will not shut down. Yes, it does have that 2-week extension of 245(i). The main reason it does is that we are in the process of working on negotiations.
The gentleman from Miami, FL [Mr. Diaz-Balart] has just walked onto the floor and he is in the midst of working on those, along with others who feel very strongly about addressing this issue. The gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] has said that we will have a vote next Wednesday on the floor. So the issue is, in fact, moot at this juncture. We should support this rule and support the continuing resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 269, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 97) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 1998, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
The text of House Joint Resolution 97 is as follows:
H.J. Res. 97
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 106(3) of Public Law 105-46 is amended by striking ``October 23, 1997'' and inserting in lieu thereof ``November 7, 1997'', and each provision amended by sections 118, 122, and 123 of such public law shall be applied as if ``November 7, 1997'' was substituted for ``October 23, 1997''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore [Mr. Snowbarger]. Pursuant to House Resolution 269, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston].
General Leave
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on House Joint Resolution 97 and that I might include tabular and extraneous material.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Louisiana?
There was no objection.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the initial fiscal year 1998 continuing resolution expires tomorrow night. Currently 5 of the 13 appropriations bills have been enacted into law and 2 others are pending at the White House. We have concluded conference on one additional bill which is pending in the Senate, leaving five left to finish in the House. Because these remaining bills will not be completed by tomorrow night, it is necessary now to proceed with an extension of the current short-
term continuing resolution so that government can continue to operate while we finish our work.
The joint resolution now before the House merely extends the provisions of the initial continuing resolution until November 7. The basic funding rate would continue to be the current rate. We retain the provisions that lower or restrict those current rates that might be at too high a level and would therefore impinge on final funding levels. Also, the traditional restrictions such as no new starts and 1997 terms and conditions are retained. The expiration date of November 7 should give us time to complete our work.
Mr. Speaker, while I am disappointed that we have to be here asking for another extension of the current continuing resolution, this is the right kind of action that we should be taking under these circumstances. It will be signed, and I hope that we can get on with completing our work by the end of this proposed continuing resolution. I urge the adoption of the joint resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely no reason for this continuing resolution to be here and for that matter there is absolutely no reason for this Congress to continue to be in session. To the best of my understanding, we are continuing to be in session past the leadership's original target date for adjournment for two reasons.
One, there appears to be a Senate Republican Campaign Committee dinner with a fundraising target of $5 million which is to take place on November 5 or 6, and I guess certain folks would like to keep the Congress around for that so there is good attendance at that dinner.
The second reason is because there are essentially four issues remaining on four appropriation bills which reasonable people ought to be able to resolve and which if left to this committee could be resolved within a week. There is no reason whatsoever why appropriation bills could not be finished yet this week or certainly early next if this committee were allowed to do its work on appropriation items. But we have four issues which are still hanging out there. Until somebody at a higher level than the committee decides which way this boat is going to go, we are going to be continuing to go in circles.
Virtually nothing has happened since we passed the last CR with the exception, I believe, of one or two noncontroversial appropriation bills. But we are still being held up on the issue of education testing. It would seem to me reasonable people could come to a compromise on that agreement. We are still being held up on Mexico City policy because the right-to-life folks in the Republican caucus will brook no compromise whatsoever and some of the population groups on the other side of the issue will also brook no compromise whatsoever.
Again, it seems if this House is willing to take back its duty and do what it thinks right rather than listening to outside lobby groups, this Mexico City issue could be resolved in about 5 minutes.
On the District of Columbia bill, we have those folks on the other side of the aisle who would rather see, as they have already been quoted in the newspaper as saying--and I am not talking about all the folks but some of the folks--we see some of those folks saying that they would rather see the entire District of Columbia budget held up for months rather than to compromise on the issue of $7 million for vouchers.
And then on the Interior bill, we have language which was inserted by the conferees with respect to Lake Clarke which was certainly not in either bill and which in my view is a huge threat to that spectacular piece of property, and that is holding up agreement. And so is the fact that the administration has come in with a number of items late in the day expressing their objections about those items when in fact many of them were not raised when we had top level discussions with the leadership on those issues. And so it seems to me that there is no reason whatsoever to continuing this session or to pass this CR except for the fact that we have a few folks around this town and in two cases a few folks in the other caucus in this House who would rather hold their breath and turn blue than get the people's work done.
There is not a whole lot we can do about that, but we are essentially getting paid each day between now and the end of this session for doing nothing. It seems that sooner or later, we ought to tell both the hardheads in this House and the Johnny-come-latelies in the administration that we are not interested in their continuing to hold up our ability to finish this session of the Congress. It seems to me that granting further extensions only encourages people to refuse to cooperate.
It appears to me that we are not going to be able to shut this place down until the extreme elements in this House on at least two issues have demonstrated that they are willing to go right through the end of the continuing resolution period before they are going to be willing to compromise. As long as we are around here, the administration is going to be continuing to ask for other items that they had not thought of before.
It just seems to me what we ought to do is pass this CR and say,
``Boys and girls, no more. No more. Get your work done. Come up here and compromise, recognize that you are not just elected to define differences, you are also elected to resolve differences once those differences are defined.''
As I said earlier, on the Appropriations Committee I am convinced the gentleman from Louisiana and I could reach agreement in about 2 days, maybe 2 hours on these items. It just seems to me it is ludicrous to pretend to the public that anything useful is going on because hardheads will not be reasonable.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 1100
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, much of what the gentleman from Wisconsin has said, I have to agree with. I think we could wrap up our business very rapidly, but for other reasons, we are not. I would say we are making progress. We are not sitting around doing nothing. The fact is we expect that today, for example, the Interior bill will be resolved and filed with the House, and the Labor-Health bill by the end of the week will, for all intents and purposes, be finalized and be ready for House action next week.
But in addition to appropriations matters, let me say that the Congress still has yet to complete action on the ISTEA legislation, which deals with funding of transportation projects. That will have to be done between now and the time that we adjourn, and a matter of great importance to the President, if not to the other side of the aisle, is this whole matter of fast track, which deals with the authorization of the President to negotiate trade deals with our Latin American friends and allies.
The President has said that it is very important to him and to the future of the country, and I tend to agree with him. However, if you do a nose count at this point, the fact is that the President has been very unpersuasive with his Members of his own party. Very few Members of the Democrat Party as of this moment seem to support that fast-track legislation, and it would fall on the shoulders of the Republicans to pass the legislation, which, frankly, puts us in an awkward position, because some of our Members do not favor it. And the last thing in the world that would be good for this country, and, in fact, for this administration, is if the matter were brought up to the floor and had an insufficient number of votes to pass.
So I expect that the President, if he is listening or if he reads the proceedings of debate on this resolution, should get busy and start calling Members of his own party to encourage them to support an initiative which he has advocated and proposed and backed for the last couple of years.
That is an important piece of legislation, and that must be tackled before we leave. If we do not have the votes, however, it will not be.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I have no additional requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Speaker, a small point, but I would ask the gentleman when he refers to my party to refer to it as the Democratic Party. That is, in fact, the name of our party. We do not call the Republican Party the
``Republic Party.'' It has been a practice of some Members of the Republican Party for a generation to call us the ``Democrat Party,'' but, in fact, it is the Democratic Party, and I would appreciate it if they would remember that.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, having grown up in Louisiana where the Democratic Party was of paramount significance throughout my entire life, I would only say that was what I was taught by my friends, neighbors, peers, allies, and Democratic friends. So that is why I used the term ``Democrat.''
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the name of the party is
``Democratic.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Berman].
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, first I want to rise in support of the continuing resolution and to congratulate both the Chair and the ranking member of the committee for the extraordinary work they do on this whole process. If everything went as they wanted, I think we would be moving through this whole process quite quickly.
But I took this time and came to the floor after listening to some really flagrant misrepresentations about one aspect of the continuing resolution and of the appropriations process, and that is the question of the extension of section 245(I).
I have heard it discussed as an amnesty provision and stay of deportation provision. Section 245(I) has nothing to do with that.
Section 245(I) of the law, in the immigration law, is only available to people who are already eligible to become permanent residents. It is not an amnesty, it only applies to people who, under our legal immigration system, are now eligible at the particular time to adjust status.
The only issue it deals with is where they can adjust status, whether they can adjust status in this country or whether they have to go back to their home country, take the airline, pay the airline, go into our consular office at our embassy or one of the Consulates in the foreign country, go in that morning, show their papers, pick up their visa, and in many cases on the very next flight.
What we did back 3 or 4 years ago is say this is crazy. We are pushing a great deal of resources into our beleaguered embassies abroad for work that is not particularly relevant to anything in our national interests. We are giving money to the airlines. Let us raise the fees for that adjustment.
Let the agency that is most equipped to deal with it, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, deal with it, in-country, for those people who are eligible. It simply permits these people who are eligible, who are in line, whose time has come, to adjust to legal status in this country as a permanent resident, to do that in the United States.
It does not give illegal immigrants the right to live in the United States. It is not a defense to an action for deportation. It is not a stay of deportation. It is not an American necessity. It does not declare as legal people who have come here illegally. It does not change the order in which a person's claim is adjudicated.
There is one single worldwide line for everyone who is waiting for their immigrant visa. There are category limits, there are country limits, and only when that person's number comes up and that person's time in line, he gets to the front of the line, can he then adjust his status.
Mr. Speaker, we produce now $200 million a year in revenue, essentially by processing the people in-country rather than giving even greater amounts of that money to the airlines and costing our State Department far more to process them overseas. This frees up our consular officials to do the key work of screening applicants for visas in those countries, looking for terrorists, looking for people with criminal backgrounds, ensuring they do not come into this country. It has them doing the work we should be wanting them to do, not simply processing the paperwork for people whose turn has come through the legal immigration system.
It is for that reason that an incredible array of organizations, almost every major business organization in the country, wants to do this. This is the most expeditious and sensible fashion for processing legal immigrants.
So, I just hope as the appropriators go to a decision on the Commerce-State-Justice bill, as we deal with this continuing resolution, that all of the scare tactics about amnesty and stays of deportation are seen for what they are. They are an effort to cloud the real issue in the 245(I) debate.
Section 245(I) produces $200 million a year by allowing people whose time has come to adjust status through the legal immigration system to adjust in the United States. Eighty percent of that money goes for enforcement of our borders and to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States, and it makes a tremendous amount of sense from every point of view and from every type of analysis. I urge its adoption.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Snowbarger). All time for debate has expired.
The joint resolution is considered as having been read for amendment.
Pursuant to House Resolution 269, the previous question is ordered.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, was read the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
