I cannot tell you the amount of dysfunction that this president is advancing. We have now over 100 new members of this freshman class. I cannot even get laptops to my caseworkers in the Bronx and Queens so they can process the needs of our constituents. We cannot get their casework started because we cannot even get laptops in the hands of our district offices because the president has decided to hold the paychecks of everyday Americans hostage so that he can fulfill campaign, I don’t even want to call it a promise, a campaign fantasy that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of.
And not only that, but in the actual address, there was falsehood after falsehood and we have to make sure that we get our facts straight. Every day immigrants commit crimes at a far lower rate than everyday Americans.
Illegal immigration to the United States in recent decades has tended to depress both wages and employment rates for low-skilled American citizens, a disproportionate number of whom are black men. Expert economic opinions concerning the negative effects range from modest to significant. Those panelists that found modest effects overall nonetheless found significant effects in industry sectors such as meatpacking and construction.
Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the influx of immigrants. But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip. The monetary loss is sizable. The typical high school dropout earns about $25,000 annually. According to census data, immigrants admitted in the past two decades lacking a high school diploma have increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by roughly 25 percent. As a result, the earnings of this particularly vulnerable group dropped by between $800 and $1,500 each year.
Amends the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to direct the [Homeland Security] Secretary to provide at least two layers of reinforced fencing, installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors extending: (1) from ten miles west of the Tecate, California, port of entry to ten miles east of the Tecate, California, port of entry; (2) from ten miles west of the Calexico, California, port of entry to five miles east of the Douglas, Arizona, port of entry (requiring installation of an interlocking surveillance camera system by May 30, 2007, and fence completion by May 30, 2008); (3) from five miles west of the Columbus, New Mexico, port of entry to ten miles east of El Paso, Texas; (4) from five miles northwest of the Del Rio, Texas, port of entry to five miles southeast of the Eagle Pass, Texas, port of entry; and (5) 15 miles northwest of the Laredo, Texas, port of entry to the Brownsville, Texas, port of entry (requiring fence completion from 15 miles northwest of the Laredo, Texas, port of entry to 15 southeast of the Laredo, Texas, port of entry by December 31. 2008.
Mexican [Transnational Criminal Organizations] control the movement of heroin that enters the United States across the [southwest border], until it reaches its destination in cities all over the United States. The majority of the flow is through [privately owned vehicles] entering the United States at legal ports of entry, followed by tractor-trailers, where the heroin is co-mingled with legal goods. … Body carriers represent a smaller percentage of heroin movement across the [southwest border] and they typically smuggle amounts ranging from three to six pounds taped to their torso, or in shoes and backpacks.
Increasingly, Central American women crossing through Mexico to the United States become victims of sexual assault. Some women choose to sell their bodies for safe passage, but others aren’t given a choice. Migrant shelter directors told Fusion 80 percent of Central American women who make the journey to the U.S. are raped in Mexico.
