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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 92 (Wednesday, June 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H5685-H5686]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

         IMMIGRATION LAW ADVERSELY IMPACTED IN FOREIGN AID BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Madam Speaker, I take the floor to talk about a very 
serious promise that I think has been broken. Early on, we heard a lot 
of people talking about how wonderful it was that we were going to have 
open rules, open rules when we discussed issues in this Congress, and 
everybody said, oh, that's great, and finally we are going to be able 
to discuss everything fully and so forth.
  Well, next week we are going to be bringing the Armed Services 
Committee bill to the floor, and I know it is now called the National 
Security Committee, but that bill comes to the floor. I have served on 
that committee for 22 years, and we have always brought it to the floor 
under an open rule. I hear this time it is going to be closed. They are 
going to narrow it down and it is going to be closed.
  Today we just ended the foreign affairs bill that has been on the 
floor. We used to call it foreign aid. Now it has got some other fancy 
title. It is basically foreign aid. But let me tell you, it is under a 
very narrow, narrow, narrow rule in which many of us are not going to 
be able to discuss some very critical issues in there.
  The issue that I wanted to talk about, and if we do not get to 
discuss this with an amendment, I hope people vote against this whole 
bill, is the portion of what we are doing to the immigration law. I do 
not even think it belongs in this bill, but we are severely modifying 
the immigration law to apply in a whole new way. Let me tell you what 
we are doing.
  Right now the immigration law says you cannot emigrate to the United 
States unless you prove that that law, the laws of the land, are being 
discriminated in how they are applied against you. There is a 
discriminatory application against you because of your beliefs, and, 
therefore, you are not being treated equally.
  Let's take it into some neutral area that many people won't get as 
impassioned about. Let's talk about conscription. If a person lives in 
a country that has universal conscription and you are upset about 
conscription and do not believe in the draft, you cannot emigrate to 
the United States on the basis that you don't believe in the draft and 
you are living in a country where there is a draft, so, therefore, you 
have the right to come here.
  You could come to the United States if you had been out leading the 
movement against the draft and because of that your country put you in 
jail or because of that your country did all sorts of other 
discriminatory acts toward you. Then you would be made a political 
refugee because you had been out exercising your political rights in 
your country and they had made a target of you. That is how we have 
enforced the law.
  However, in this bill, we are changing it vis-a-vis population 
policy, and we are saying that if a person does not like the population 
policy of the country that they are in, they can then come to the 
United States because they feel that they are going to be discriminated 
against.
                              {time}  2100

  Boy, is that a change. Boy, is that a major change. And I think that 
because we do not understand the great [[Page H5686]] body of case law 
that has grown up in this area we are apt to do very serious damage if 
we let this bill go through without dealing with this issue and trying 
to educate Members with this issue.
  The problem that I have is I am not on the committee so I do not know 
how I get recognized. There is a whole hour and 45 minutes left with 
any number of Members on the committee that have not even had their 
amendments recognized. And when the hour and 45 minutes goes, boom, the 
hammer comes down, that is it, vote on the bill, it is out of here.
  I just am very, very shocked that we have so soon forgotten our 
pledge to have open rules, and I think in the area of foreign affairs 
we have had open rules every time I remember. I know the distinguished 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] has a very critical amendment that 
he would like to offer that is on the front pages of every newspaper. I 
probably disagree with him on how I would vote, but I think he has the 
right to offer it, and I just find it very surprising that we are not 
going to permit that, and in an hour and 45 minutes tomorrow that is 
it, we are done.
  Maybe on this globe we may have all sorts of global issues 
discussion, there may be all sorts of different things that were not 
dealt with; they fall off the table and we adjourn.
  I just think the American people should be more than aware that there 
is a lot of talk about open rules, but I have not seen one in a long 
time.
  I am going to ask the gentleman from Maryland, has he seen any open 
rules wandering around this Chamber anywhere?
  Mr. HOYER. I have not seen any open rules, if the gentlewoman will 
yield, that really give open debate, and that is the issue. The 
gentlewoman mentions the 6 hours of debate or the hour and 45 minutes. 
The tragedy for the American public and for the House of 
Representatives is that of that hour and 45 minutes, 45 minutes to an 
hour may be taken up in simply voting, no debate, no consideration, no 
thoughtful exchange of ideas as to what is good and bad policy.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. The gentleman is absolutely correct. It is a very sad 
day.

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