madam chairman , i thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding me time . 
i rise to acknowledge , madam chairman , that gang violence poses a problem in america . 
coming from the community that i come from in houston , we have had some tough times with gang activities , and we have been successful in eliminating or steering young people away from that gang violence . 
just recently , of course , as the ranking member on the subcommittee on immigration , we have had hearings on the ms-13 gangs . 
and i reached out to my community in houston to determine the influx of those gangs . 
those gangs are particularly focused in south and central america . 
many of the individuals are undocumented aliens that become engaged in that activity in california and places along the border . 
so i believe that we should have a comprehensive approach and look at this particular crisis , but at the same time , when i say comprehensive , i would suggest balanced . 
the concern i have of h.r. 1279 is that the bill and the legislative approach is not balanced . 
from the early time of my career , i recall that we have on the committee on the judiciary reached out , those of us who were democrats to reach out on this question of intervention . 
in fact , the first term that i was here , we did a national tour , if you will , national meetings of the subcommittee on crime . 
my colleague who is now the ranking member joined me on that , the gentleman from virginia ( mr. scott ) xz4003641 , where we traveled across the nation to talk about the importance of intervention on gang and juvenile crime activities . 
in fact , out of that came a legislative initiative , the aspect that i worked on was mental health intervention , mental health treatment , which we found to be very effective . 
in fact , during that time , my late colleague , a very committed former senator paul wellstone , who we tragically lost in an airplane crash , came to my district and visited the juvenile detention centers . 
we saw the sadness and the plight of those young men . 
some , yes , had perpetrated heinous acts , and they were detained , or they were incarcerated . 
but we also saw the hopeless and those who did not have a good family situation , those who had no intervention , those who were not given the kind of educational structure that they needed . 
this legislation unfortunately does not meet that balance-comprehensive test . 
for example , something that i find particularly troubling is the provision that the attorney general can charge a juvenile 16-years old or older as an adult for certain violent crimes and prohibits judicial review of the attorney general 's decision . 
this is not to suggest that that decision might not be confirmed or affirmed , but here we are talking about a 16-year old , and we do not know the circumstances of that violent act , the previous history of this 16-year old , and the attorney general does not get subjected to the checks and balances of that the constitution allows us to have , which is judicial review of that kind of difficult decision . 
i can not imagine , madam chairman , that we would have a bill that would not have those kind of protections . 
i had an amendment that was not made in order in particular that dealt specifically with the question of illegal transfer of a firearm to any individual the federal government had designated as a suspected or known gang member or a terrorist . 
it established a system whereby any individual inadvertently included on the gang terror watch list may have his or her name removed . 
so there is a question of mistaken identity . 
there is a question of a big sweep and adding people 's names to the list . 
we saw that with the pakistani registration lists after 9/11 . 
sweeping up large numbers of people from the pakistani community , and as i understand , not one single person on that list was found to be a terrorist . 
and it was stopped when the members of congress raised their voices . 
the mandatory sentencing , and i am delighted of the position of the gentleman from south carolina ( mr. inglis ) xz4006490 , i think that this congress should address that separately . 
and i have , in fact , written bills that have enhanced sentencing on particular notorious or vicious acts . 
i think that is appropriate ; but a blanket , mandatory sentencing that does not deal with the fact that you are looking at juveniles , some u.s. citizens , some not , really begs the question . 
so if we are going to look at terrorism , we are going to look at gang activity , we have to realize that still children are involved ; and we must have this comprehensive approach , because we are already known as the world power with the largest number of americans and others incarcerated . 
yes , incarcerate those who have been tried and convicted fairly for heinous acts and other acts ; but we have a record of incarcerating people for long , long years way beyond the time that it does anything other than pack the prisons and deny families of their loved ones and the ability of young people to be educated and to have an alternative life . 
this bill leaves a lot to be desired , and i hope we can go back to the drawing boards and actually fix it and have a comprehensive approach to fighting gang violence and , of course , gang involvement . 
madam chairman , i rise today in opposition to the legislation before the house today , h.r. 1279 , the gang deterrence and community protection act of 2005 . 
as founder and chair of the congressional children 's caucus , i undoubtedly recognize the need for us to legislate to create protections from the danger and violence produced by gangs . 
however , before we haphazardly amend the law to add excessive and egregious mandatory minimums and other penalties that apply to groups of people or young groups of people , we must clearly define the acts that we seek to penalize . 
that is the essence of crafting law that is `` narrowly tailored '' and that does not suffer from overbreadth . 
this bill is unnecessary because federal prosecutors have statutes such as the continuing criminal enterprise ( cce ) and racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act ( rico ) to prosecute gang crime . 
recent supreme court jurisprudence strongly suggests that this bill would exceed congressional authority under the commerce clause . 
h.r. 1279 unreasonably an unjustifiably removes judicial review of a prosecutor 's decision to try a youth as an adult . 
current law requires an in-depth review of multiple considerations by a federal judge of whether such a transfer is in the interest of justice . 
this policy is unwise and will increase federal prosecution of youth for minor offenses . 
presently , in both federal and state courts , juveniles who commit the most serious violent crimes are almost certain to be transferred to adult court through use of a judicial waiver . 
in effecting transfer to adult court , judicial waivers , as opposed to legislative or prosecutorial waivers , are the most common type of waiver device used . 
that is , the juvenile court judge decides whether or not to waive jurisdiction to adult court . 
however , section 115 of h.r. 1279 takes the waiver decision out of the judge 's discretion . 
as the judicial conference of the united states aptly suggests , section 115 `` could result in the federal prosecution of juveniles for myriad offenses. '' equally alarming , the legislation removes the current prerequisite that the transferred child have a prior conviction for an offense that would be a serious violent felony if committed by an adult . 
thus , a prosecutor could unilaterally decide to transfer a youthful offender with no prior criminal record who commits a simple drug trafficking offense , with no judicial review of whether such transfer serves the interests of justice . 
moreover , a move toward federal prosecution causes us great concern because as the judicial conference acknowledges , `` juvenile offenders require different and perhaps more extensive correctional and rehabilitative programs than adults and there is not a single , federal correctional facility to meet these needs. '' h.r. 1279 simply takes the wrong approach . 
instead of focusing on correctional and rehabilitative programs , it attempts to throw more youth in crowded adult prisons where these programs are lacking . 
h.r. 1279 reflects the politics of crime where you come up with a good slogan such as `` the gang busters '' bill and codify it . 
until h.r. 1279 , the judiciary committee had made great progress toward putting aside the politics of crime in favor of sound policy in the area of juvenile justice . 
i believe in fighting terrorism but not without a thoughtful approach . 
i would like to thank the gentlemen from massachusetts , mr. mcgovern for his austere words in support of the amendments that i offered at the committee on rules yesterday but were not made in order . 
these amendments were very substantive , as were those of my colleagues that were also denied debate . 
my first amendment would have struck section 10 of the bill . 
as written in the bill , a prosecutor could bring a capital case in a district that had only the most tangential connection with the crime . 
this amendment clarifies that the defendant must have committed criminal activity related to the capital case in the jurisdiction where the prosecutor seeks to bring the charge . 
for example , if a murder occurred in massachusetts with a gun stolen from mississippi , the homicide case could be prosecuted in mississippi . 
this allows prosecutors to forum shop and pick the location where they think they are most likely to be able to obtain a death sentence . 
studies of the federal death penalty show that a person prosecuted in texas is much more likely to be charged , tried , and sentenced to death in a capital case than a person who is prosecuted for the same crime in massachusetts . 
this bill will exacerbate these geographic inequities that exist in the federal death penalty system . 
the wide range of discretion in both what to charge and where to bring the charge will give prosecutors tremendous latitude to forum shop . 
this broad discretion will increase the racial and geographic disparities already at play in the federal death penalty . 
my second amendment would have struck section 115 of the bill which deals with the transfer of juveniles to adult courts . 
more specifically , my amendment will prevent the transferring of juveniles from juvenile courts to adult courts when a juvenile has committed an act , which if committed by an adult , would be a felony . 
if this section is allowed to remain in the bill , more children will become hardened criminals after being tried in federal court and incarcerated in adult prisons . 
currently under federal law , when the government recommends trying a juvenile as an adult in federal court various factors must be considered by the court before deciding whether the criminal prosecution of a young person is in the interest of justice . 
these factors include the age , social background , and the intellectual development and psychological maturity of the child . 
the decision by a prosecutor to try a juvenile as an adult can not be reviewed by a judge under this legislation . 
this unreviewable process of transferring youth to adult federal court is particularly troubling when juveniles are not routinely prosecuted in the federal system and there are no resources or facilities to address the needs of youth . 
my third amendment would have closed a glaring loophole which currently exists in our federal gun laws by making it illegal to transfer a firearm to any individual that the federal government has designated as a suspected or known gang member or terrorist . 
as many of you know , under current law , neither suspected nor actual membership in a gang or terrorist organization is a sufficient ground , in and of itself , to prevent the purchase of a dangerous firearm . 
in fact , according to a recently released gao report , over the course of a nine-month span last year , a total of fifty-six ( 56 ) firearm purchase attempts were made by individuals designated as known or suspected gang members or terrorists by the federal government . 
in forty-seven ( 47 ) of those cases , state and federal authorities were forced to permit such transactions to proceed because officials were unable to find any disqualifying information , such as a prior felony conviction or court-determined `mental defect ' . 
thus , producing a situation whereby suspected or known gang members were , and continue to be free to obtain as many guns as they desire . 
admittedly , section 114 of the underlying bill offers increased criminal penalties for the use of a firearm in a gang-related crime . 
however , `` after the fact '' criminal penalties are often of little use to victims and their loved ones . 
and , if we really want to curb this growing problem , we have to do something to prevent these individuals from gaining access to these dangerous weapons in the first place . 
madam chairman , again , i oppose this legislation and urge my colleagues to join me . 
