Amendments
AMENDMENTS -- (House of Representatives - September 14, 2004)
Under clause 8 of rule XVIII, proposed amendments were submitted as follows:
H.R. 5025
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Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I want to thank him and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) for offering the amendment.
Let me very briefly say this is not about terrorism and homeland security. This is about immigration. That is the bottom line, because I saw the Republican Convention, as I think many others did, and I heard the number one fighter against terrorism was George W. Bush. If that is true, then the statement of administration policy that all of us have says under the heading of matricula consular card, the administration objects to the provision that would prevent the Treasury Department from spending any funds to issue or enforce regulations that do not preclude acceptance by financial institutions of the matricula consular card as a form of identification. It goes on to say the administration, including the Department of Justice and the FBI, believe that it is appropriate that these regulations provide a flexible standard that accommodates local conditions as well as innovation and verification techniques, not a list of documents or methods that must or must not be used. The administration strongly opposes this provision and supports efforts to remove it from the bill during floor consideration. Hence the administration supports the Oxley-Frank amendment and understands this is not about terrorism. This is ultimately about immigration.
We have seen this siege time and time again, and what it is about really is not only about immigration. It is about targeting Mexican nationals.
And why do I say that? Because only the matricula consular out of all of the identity documents in the United States would be explicitly banned by this section of the bill. And yet those of us who want to fight terrorism understand that it is in the ultimate interest to have an identification of who is here and it is the ultimate interest to make sure that we cannot use the banking services unless we have information on who is using it.
Support the Oxley-Frank amendment. Understand that the administration supports it and support our fight against terrorism.