Monday, June 21, 2010

Federal Lands on the Border: A Safe Haven for 'Bad Guys'

Rep. Rob Bishop

(Transcript: U.S. House of Representatives)

The U.S.-Mexico Border

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

   Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today during this specific time to talk about issues that are taking place on the borders of the United States. The issues I talk about are issues that impact both the northern border and southern border as well. But we have had quite a bit of hype in the media lately about things that are taking place on the southern border, so I would like to try to focus my attention primarily on what is happening between the border between the United States and Mexico. I also want to try to narrow the focus of the discussion tonight in some particular way because I'm not talking about everybody who is coming through the border, both legally and illegally. I'm talking about certain kinds of bad guys that are doing great harm to this particular country.

   Let me talk about the kinds of people for which we should be vastly concerned. I am talking about drug cartels and drug runners. The sad fact is that almost all the illegal drugs coming into this country are coming across Federal lands that abut our southern border.

   I'm talking about human traffickers. The sad reality is, those who are hijacking and kidnapping people, those who are running prostitution rings, those who are bringing people in here for unspeakable kinds of activities are coming through Federal lands on our southern border. If you go down to those lands, you will see the rape trees, established where those who are leading innocent individuals will take people across the border, physically abuse them, rape them, and then leave an article of peril on a tree as a memento, a reward, a symbol of their success in such a heinous activity. That is happening on Federal land along our southern border.

   And I also want to talk about the potential of terrorists who can come through Federal land on our southern border almost without any kinds of inhibitions. You see, not everyone who is coming through the southern border with Mexico are from Mexico or even Latin American. In recent years the Border Patrol has intercepted people from Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, people from most of the countries that are on our enemy watch list, those types of individuals for whom we should be suspect are the ones who are being captured and caught and detained. And the question is, how many are not being captured and caught and detained?

   We have found discarded apparel, backpacks with old Chinese passports that had been modified, that had been cut up, that had been reused. We are not really sure exactly why they were there and for what purpose they had, but we know that those types of individuals are coming across our southern border.

   So please let me try to emphasize: The reason there should be such concern is because of some of the kinds of people who are illegally entering this country, whose sole purpose--it's not to find a job or not to join a family--but whose sole purpose is to further the illegal drug trade, whose sole purpose is to further illegal human trafficking, and whose sole purpose could easily be for terroristic reasons.

   Now one of the ironies of our situation on the southern border is, if you look at this picture of the southern border, the land from San Diego over to El Paso, everything that is colored along the southern border is different kinds of Federal land. Well over 40 percent of the southern border is Federal lands, 4 million acres of which are in wilderness categories.

   I want to make a distinction between the southern border from El Paso to San Diego because if you go from El Paso down to the Gulf of Mexico, it's slightly different. First of all, you will notice from the map there is not a lot of Federal lands there, and the Border Patrol has a great deal more latitude and, consequently, a great deal more effectiveness on private lands, working with private individuals and local law enforcement, than they do in the areas where there are Federal lands; plus there's a river that makes a difference as well.

   So I want to concentrate on all of that colored area between San Diego and El Paso where it is the Federal lands that are causing the problem.

And they are causing the problem not for an unreasonable reason. I think we can all logically understand this. The Border Patrol is being very, very effective in urban areas. The Border Patrol is also being increasingly effective along the Texas border where they are dealing with local law enforcement and private property owners. And that means that if you want to come into this country illegally to do drugs, do human trafficking, or for terroristic purposes, you try to go through the area that is the easiest.

   The easiest access to this country has now become Federal lands along the southern border, and that means that even though this issue has been with us for many years and many administrations--going back to the Reagan years when we were talking about this particular issue--and even though the failings that I will be mentioning in this hour deal with this administration, they also dealt during the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, and years before that.

   The only difference though is that now the situation is being exacerbated because the success we have in urban areas and on the private sector land means that the bad guys are being funneled more and more into the Federal lands where it is simply easier access to get into this country. So the problem has always been there. The problem, though, is intensifying, and that is why we must look differently at what we are doing.

   Two agencies, actually three agencies are responsible for that southern border. They include those who own the lands, which is the Department of Interior and the Forest Service, and those who are charged with patrolling and protecting those lands, which is Homeland Security, specifically, the Border Patrol. And my contention to you today is that those three agencies have collectively failed in their responsibility.

   A few weeks ago, a deputy sheriff from Pinal County, Arizona, comes to one of those sections of land which is wilderness designation, which means he no longer is able to stay within his vehicle--because, by our laws, we cannot have a mechanized vehicle in a wilderness area--so he has to get out of his car and walk into this wilderness area where he promptly walks into an ambush and is shot. Two weeks later, in the same area, the same wilderness area where the Border Patrol is not allowed to do their routine type of patrol work, two dead bodies of Americans are found in that exact same spot on Federal land.

   You look over at the Rob Krentz family where, through a wildlife refuge, once again, because it has an endangered species on it, Border Patrol is prohibited from going into that area. Unfortunately, the murderer of Rob Krentz was not prohibited from entering this country through that wildlife refuge. He confronted a rancher whose family goes back to 1907 in Arizona in that particular ranch. This is an elderly gentleman who was on a motorized vehicle on his own land. He did not have the opportunity of facing the issue of whether to fight or flee because he didn't have the capacity to do either. He had just had surgery on his back. He had just had a hip replacement, was scheduled for another hip replacement. He basically was immobile.

   And in years past, when a rancher confronted drug cartels, drug runners, the human traffickers, they would usually flee. But for whatever reason--and this is becoming more and more constant--for whatever reason, this time the drug cartel decided to stay there, and they killed Rob Krentz, and they killed his dog. And then he fled on a very out-of-the-way route to going back through the exact wilderness refuge from which he entered into this country. I'm sorry, this is an example of where we are failing.

   A Mexican rancher brutally murdered, bound and duct taped, was thrown into the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the U.S. side back in November. To this day, nobody has actually issued any kind of press release to allow anyone to know that that is happening. And the sad part is the examples I am giving you right now are not isolated. We have had several members of our Border Patrol who have been murdered in this exact same area. More and more individuals, both Americans and of Mexican extraction, are being assaulted, murdered, raped, and robbed in this particular area, and it is all happening on Federal land.

   So the question one has to simply ask is, you know, Why? Why would this, indeed, be the situation in which we find ourselves? And one of the problems that this Congress needs to address--because only this Congress has the ability to address it--is some of the internal conflicts between different Federal agencies. If you have the Interior Department and Forest Service who own the land, they have certain laws that we, in Congress, have wisely passed on how they must manage their land. Homeland Security, though, is responsible for border protection. They have other requirements and laws, and not always do those laws fit together easily. In fact, sometimes they are in conflict.

   It would be very simple to say, Well, common sense will tell you just to sit down and work out the issue. Unfortunately, we're dealing with the Federal Government, where common sense is not necessarily a high priority. Indeed, some of the land managers, working under the Department of Interior as well as the Forest Service, almost are doing their work as if they have blinders on. Dedicated to the task at hand and the legal requirement they have to consider the value and the protection of the land as their highest priority, and dedicated to fulfilling that legal requirement, they are sometimes oblivious to the real world that is around them. They forget that there are other missions that have to be there.

   So sometimes it is more important to protect 22 pronghorn goats on this land who are endangered than it is to consider definitely more than 22 young men and women in America who are obviously subject to the suffering and the pain that comes from the use of illegal drugs, which are coming through that exact same territory. It is almost as if we have this attitude within the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service that because those are their lands, they will allow the Border Patrol to go in there under certain circumstances. And yet, at the same time, we have had the criticisms filed with us that allowing the Border Patrol to go in there and monitor these lands and protect the border for this country sometimes takes up to 6 months just to get the permits to run the programs that they need.

   Now, we were told the other day that, Well, this is changing. We are working together better, that now we are coming together as Homeland Security and Interior Department and Forest Service. We have worked those out. No longer does it take 6 months to get the permits for the activities to take place. We're now doing those within 30 days, sometimes 60 days, occasionally a bit longer. Here is the question. We're talking about securing this border. A drug cartel does not wait 90 days from the entrance into the country before they continue on. They are not waiting for the bureaucratic wheel to spin so slowly in this country to get together and work together to solve this particular problem. And until we can come up with a new way of doing these issues, it will continue.

   We had a meeting with these three groups again the other day in which they were proud that a communication tower, which was essential for the Border Patrol to be able to do their work in guarding the access and monitoring the access into this country, was not allowed to be put on the site the Border Patrol wanted because that would have been on wilderness designation. And once again, because of the laws we have passed, you may not put any new structure on a wilderness designation. So they were very proud. They were very proud that they had, after several months of negotiation, came up with a deal to move the tower to an area that was acceptable to Homeland Security and acceptable to the Interior Department. Now that sounds great that they did the deal--with one small caveat. The tower doesn't work in that area. There is now, by everyone's admission, a 3-mile hole in the coverage, which means in this effort to try to monitor what is coming in and out of American territory, there is now a 3-mile black spot where no one will ever know what is coming in or coming out. And I'm sorry, that's causing a problem.

   It is not unusual for the drug cartels, who are very sophisticated, to understand this concept. Therefore, with this 3-mile hole, that becomes the primary route of entrance. And the only reason

that that 3-mile hole exists is because, to obey our laws and to have, first of all, the concept of protecting the land upper most, you didn't put the tower where the tower would work. You put it on an alternative site.

      Now once again, perhaps years ago when only a few people were coming over occasionally, perhaps years ago when people who were there coming over to try and get jobs to milk cows or to change sheets or to pick tomatoes, occasionally that would not have been a problem. But as I have said, we are no longer talking about that group, those kinds of people coming in. We are now talking about effective, organized drug cartels having running battles with themselves as well as Mexican authorities on that side, and they are the ones who are now in increasing numbers coming through those black holes on the Federal land that we have simply created because we have not taken the blinders off to look at the overall picture.

   It is human traffickers and all the violence against women who are coming over in increasing numbers through areas that we are not allowing to be regularly patrolled. And the potential of a terrorist coming into this country through these areas that no longer have any kind of security simply because we are giving precedence to a land concept of wilderness or endangered species, and that takes precedence over securing our border and trying to protect the citizens of this country.

   Now, most people when you talk about this just shake their head in amazement and say, That is silly. That violates common sense.

   The only thing we have to say to those citizens who say that is, You are right, it is silly. And it does violate common sense. And that is why this Congress needs to do something about it because only we have the ability of taking all three agencies and making them work to see the large picture, the overall goal, and not simply what their narrow focus may be in their job requirement or their job vision.

   The question was made on whether the Border Patrol can do routine patrols along our southern border. Without dropping a beat, the representative from the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior said, Well, of course not. Only under certain circumstances, only when there is evidence of incursion will they be allowed to go into these areas because that is when they need to. Once again, if we are now inviting people to use these areas because we are stopping them other places so now they are coming on Federal land, one of the things that we need to do is make it much more difficult for someone to come onto this land illegally, and that means you need to have Border Patrol doing routine patrols.

   I think in the back of everyone's mind if we start thinking about what the Border Patrol could or should be doing as we envision it personally, we would obviously see a bunch of people in a motorized vehicle, armed, going up and down the border making sure that they are checking for signs of incursion and making sure that those who want to come into this country are having a second thought and saying maybe there is a better route that is not across Federal lands.

   So the first question one should ask is, Why not? Why aren't they allowed to be in there? For, indeed, if the bottom line means that our Border Patrol is not allowed to go on Federal lands to do their job, we are creating our own problem. Initially last week, I believe, or maybe 2 weeks ago, the President announced a new initiative to send 1,200 National Guardsmen down to the border. I am encouraged by his commitment to do something about it. However, once again one has to ask: If the Border Patrol are not allowed to go onto Federal lands, the National Guard will not be allowed to go onto Federal lands. I don't care how many thousands of people you send down there, if they are not allowed to do their job, if they don't have the access so they can do the patrolling, it doesn't make a difference. That is silly. It is not going to work. And that is the concept that somehow some way we ought to recognize. We ought to figure out.

   There is also one other issue that goes along with that that should be a special concern to this Congress in the way that we operate here because in one of the oddities that has developed over the years, we have Congress appropriating money to agencies of government who are then extorting that money from other agencies of government, i.e., for the Border Patrol to do their work, one of the things and conditions that is put upon them by the Department of the Interior is that they have to pay mitigation fees, which means this Congress, without knowing the details, appropriates money to Homeland Security for the Border Patrol who will then have to pay that money to the Department of the Interior for mitigation fees or to buy other lands to compensate.

   This Congress has no control over that process. That's wrong. This Congress has no say over that process, and that is wrong. And the idea of transferring money from one group to another without the oversight of Congress is wrong. It is illogical. It should not happen.

   Here is the irony: as a Member of Congress, when the Homeland Security budget is brought to this floor, I as a Member of Congress do not have the ability to come in here and transfer some of that money from Homeland Security over to the Interior budget. But the agencies are doing it, and they are doing it without reporting it to Congress, without understanding what Congress is about. Those agencies, by one extorting money from the other, have the ability to do something that Members of Congress cannot.

   And I am sorry, Madam Speaker, this is illogical. And I am sorry that we are going to authorize up to $50 million in this year's budget to give to Homeland Security so they can send it over to the Interior Department or the Forest Service, and the Interior Department or the Forest Service will, without ever checking on why we are doing that, what we are doing, and how this money is supposed to be spent. The money all comes from the same pot, and it should be Congress' decision on where that money is spent and how that money is spent. It should not be a matter of internal negotiations between the haves and the have-nots between different agencies, and that is a practice that has been going on in this administration and in the prior administration and the prior administration before that.

   The difference, though, is today the dollar amount is much more significant, and the issue is much more significant.

   Some of the news agencies made a major brouhaha yesterday by reporting a new sign that has been put up by the Department of the Interior. I believe this is on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. And what the sign says to Americans coming down to this American spot for wilderness protection for endangered species, as well as recreation opportunities, is very clear. And amazing. It tells Americans danger, there is a public warning, travel is not recommended because the area of American land owned by the Federal Government in which they would be entering is active drug and human smuggling areas. Down here the BLM encourages visitors to use public lands north of Interstate 8.

   How many other places in the United States do you have the United States Government putting up signs telling Americans not to enter into American territory because it is too dangerous for Americans to go into American territory, that drug cartels from foreign nations have taken over control of this territory, and you enter at your own risk? Unfortunately, this is not unusual. This sign went up this last week.

   For years, both the Interior Department and Forest Service have been recommending for people not to travel in these areas. And if you do, you go at your own risk. Ninety-five percent of the Organ Pipe National Monument is a wilderness area, and 90 percent of that wilderness area is controlled by Mexican drug cartels, and no American is allowed to go into that without some kind of armed escort.

   Further north I went to the Ironwood Monument. Once again, we were told and warned that it is a dangerous area, don't stop along the roads; continue on driving; try not to get out of your car and continue on foot in those particular areas.

   These are areas well within the border of the United States. And, sadly, this is not atypical. Going back to the year 2006, once again a different administration, but in 2006, the Department

of the Interior issued a report about this that was never released to the public. But in it it indicated that in the year before, 2005, there were at least five murders, two rapes, 39 armed robberies, and they are estimating somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 illegal incursions on this piece of property. I want you to know, those are the only ones that the Federal Government investigated; anything that was reported to local law enforcement was not included in those figures.

   Now, because this has now been spun out in the national media, and because the sheriff in Pinal County simply said there are areas in his jurisdiction that are out of control, and that area that is out of his control where he cannot provide protection are all Federal lands that are owned by the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service where he nor the local law enforcement nor the Border Patrol had the ability to do what they need to do to try and control that particular area, Interior Department sent out a memo today, a media advisory trying to put this into some kind of perspective.

   And what they said is that don't take this out of perspective. It is only a small area of the land that is closed to Americans. In fact, they put out this sign which is somewhat blurred, but they simply said, and this is the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, they are not closing all; they are only closing this portion down here that is the portion of America that no Americans can go into because it is too dangerous for Americans to go down there. They also then said that the amount of violence that takes place here annually year after year after year is decreasing, so we should be heartened.

   I think there should be another question that should be asked. As a policy for this Congress or this administration, How much of America's land should we accept as uninhabitable for Americans? What percentage of American property should we just say, okay, foreign entities, foreign substance groups, drug cartels, you can have 5 percent of our land as yours, we just won't bother you in that? Maybe 10 percent, 2 percent? What percent is acceptable to say that America can turn over our control of American land to cartels and groups from outside this country and it is acceptable? How many murders are acceptable before we are happy? Is five murders too many? If we only have three murders a year happening on Federal land, is that enough to satisfy what we are doing?

   Look, the bottom line is quite simple: what we have been doing is failing, and we have to do something different. We have to do something different.

   Part of it is to use common sense and say the Border Patrol should be allowed to go where the Border Patrol needs to go.

   I have here a picture of one of our Federal lands, once again in Arizona where you see traffic barricades. These traffic barricades, nicely put here, are cool; except the goal of these traffic barricades is to prohibit the Border Patrol from going into Federal land that has wilderness categories and wilderness designation. This is not to stop the bad guys from coming in, this is to stop our guys from coming in.

   At Organ Pipe National Monument, these fence barriers used to be our border between the United States and Mexico. These used to be put in there to stop Mexican cars from coming into the United States. Well, we have a different wall there now that is much more effective, so we don't need those. So instead, the public land manager in this particular area took these barricades and put them inside his territory, once again not to stop foreigners from coming in, but to stop the Border Patrol from going in. Somehow we have to realize that what we need to do is to allow the Border Patrol to have routine access, routine patrols, and not stop them from going into these territories.

   Now, once again, we have met with them and they say we are working these things out; everything is going to be fine. In fact, some of the gates we are now putting up have locks on them, and we are giving the Border Patrol keys to the locks; besides, if they really need to, they could just push through those gates. However, local security, the local law enforcement doesn't have a key to those locks. If a deputy sheriff in one of those counties is chasing a bad guy into that area, they are prohibited from that pursuit. Somehow we have to get common sense back into the situation because what we are talking about simply does not work.

   And there is an irony in this. The sole purpose of trying to stop the Border Patrol from securing our borders is because of the fear that they may cause damage to the environment, that a motorized Border Patrol truck could actually screw up the land or chase away an animal or do something else. So, therefore, we are prohibiting them from doing that except for some extraneous and unusual circumstances. But the irony is the bad guys, the drug cartels, the human traffickers, potential terrorists, they are not inhibited by any of that. So they go into that area, and they don't care what kind of environmental damage they do.

   Madam Speaker, you have probably seen these pictures before. This is a picture of Federal land. This is wilderness land where Americans are not supposed to go: no motorized vehicle is supposed to go; no wheeled vehicle is supposed to go; only on foot with backpacks or on horseback. That is for us. Unfortunately, the drug cartels and the human traffickers come in here and they leave all of their stuff behind. They change clothes so they can get picked up along the highway and go further inside the United States illegally.

   This is what is left behind. This is what the landscape looks like in these areas that we are trying to save for their environmental purpose. The irony is we are failing. We are failing because the people that need to be kept out are not being kept out and the people who could solve the problem are.

   One of the unique finds we found is that once again the Border Patrol--trying, I guess, to come up with some pocket change and pocket money for their activities--are going into these areas, and this cacti that has been cut down is an endangered species, which means it is illegal to cut it down. They didn't care; they cut it down, anyway. It is placed across a road, the purpose of which is to stop an American traveler in this Federal territory because they can't go over the cactus. Once they get to that spot, they are then robbed with armed gunmen.

   The irony once again is if the Federal Government were to go in there and try to pick up this cactus and move it off the road, that's a felony. That's illegal under our Wilderness Act. Sometimes, once again, we have to come up with other areas, what to do. We have placed water towers within Federal territory in an effort to try and make sure that those illegal visitors coming in here who happen to run out of water will not die. That's a humanitarian effort. However, what is so bizarre is the Border Patrol can't go anywhere near those water towers for fear of running off an illegal alien that may need the water. We are doing that.

   We have done this kind of stuff, once again, going back through several administrations. But the cost is higher now, the issues are higher now, and the danger is higher now. We can no longer afford to continue on with that particular pattern. I would also warn you that right now, as we speak, in the Coronado National Forest, there is another wildfire.

   Most of the wildfires that are taking place on Federal land in the southern border area are not accidental wildfires; they are started by the bad guys, the drug cartels and the human traffickers, for two reasons: either they will start the wildfire as a diversion to take Federal forces to the fire so they can go the other way, or, much more practically, if they're in deep trouble, they'll start a fire to get somebody to come and rescue them. Most of the fires are started that way.

   We have one now in Coronado, which is called the Horseshoe Fire. Estimates are $10 million that it will cost the taxpayers to fight this fire caused by illegal aliens trying to come into this country, not for jobs or for family but to do harm; illegal trafficking, drugs and, once again, the potential of terrorism. That's what we need to deal with. That is the issue that is at hand.

   There is one last concept with this. Arizona passed a law dealing with illegal immigrants. It has been highly controversial. The merits or the rationale

of Arizona's laws notwithstanding, I have no intentions of even talking about whether I think it is a good or bad law. It is insignificant. What is the reality is that the law was produced because of the anger, the angst, and the anxiety that is caused by the funneling of thousands and thousands of drug dealers and human traffickers into the State of Arizona. Because we have done such a good job in the other area, we are now funneling them through those Federal lands. The Federal Government's action caused that law. And I would think it would be wise, before this Federal Government decides to go to Arizona and tell Arizona what they should or should not do internally with their laws, for the Federal Government to realize we are causing the problem and for the Federal Government to simply go down there on Federal lands and say, It is a Federal responsibility. The Federal Government will stand up. The Federal Government will ensure that we have control over this territory. The Federal Government will stop the worst possible invasion of this country by the people who are trying to do harm; mainly, once again, the drug traffickers, the human traffickers, and the potential terrorists. That should be what the 10th Amendment is about. That's the concept of Federalism. We are causing the problem and now we are criticizing local government who is trying to react to it; whereas, local government wouldn't need to do that form of reaction if we simply did our job first.

   Once again, look at the map. That's the territory, everything that's colored. That's an open invitation for people to come into this country because it is so easy. And that's the problem. And because it has been exacerbated, because it's happening to a greater extent, because the damage is worse than ever before, and because the potential harm to this country is so great, this Congress has to step up and decide that we will get these entities together and we will establish what the standards are. The standards should be very simple: that not 1 inch of United States property should be given over to a cartel, and Americans should never be told not to go into parts of this country because it's too dangerous for America. We should come up and establish a policy that the Border Patrol will have open and complete access and no other agency, especially Interior or Forest Service, will tell the Border Patrol what their job is and how they will do it; and that there will be continuous and routine patrols of our border until such time as the drug cartels realize that it is no longer easy to come into this country that way. That they will find some other route is obvious, but that this is our responsibility, our land, and that we clearly are failing, and that the problem is getting worse every day is our fault and our responsibility, and we must take control definitely on that.

   I hope this country recognizes what we're talking about, but, more important, I hope this Congress recognizes what we're talking about. I will say, I think this Congress has. The language in House bill 5016 which would solve this problem was passed in this body overwhelmingly on a bipartisan vote on a motion to recommit. The bill to which it was voted and attached is waiting over in the Senate with very little likelihood of being moved. Senator Coburn in the Senate attached similar language that would help solve this problem to an appropriations bill. It was passed by voice vote in the Senate, and then before it came to final passage over here in conference committee, the language was removed. Both bodies of this Congress have said what they believe should take place, and common sense from Americans tells us what should take place.

   Now is the time for us to realize we can no longer simply ignore this situation, and it's our fault. What we have been doing does not work. We need a better approach. We need to make commonsense situations. We need to have our land managers see the higher picture of what is important for this entire country, and we need to do it now, because the situation gets worse every day, every day we wait.

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"The U.S.-Mexico Border," Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), U.S. House of Representatives, June 17, 2010; Congressional Record, Pgs. H4621-H4625; 111th Congress, Library of Congress/Thomas