Issue Position: Protecting the Homeland

Issue Position

Terrorism represents a pressing national security risk, and I am fighting to ensure that our citizens are protected from terrorist threats both here at home and abroad.

As a former federal terrorism prosecutor, I know firsthand the threats that violent Islamist extremism pose. Inexplicably, President Obama continues to downplay the severity of these threats while releasing hardened terrorists from U.S. custody and pushing to close Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile, terrorists are recruiting foot soldiers right here on American soil. Rather than allowing the President's passive response to terrorism to continue, I believe that the first step in defending our homeland is acknowledging our enemies at face value. Our President had been receiving briefings on ISIS for over a year but still had the audacity to call them "junior varsity" just months before American journalists were beheaded. Since that time, we have witnessed a string of tragic acts of terror that reinforce the flawed nature of the President's threat assessment.

The President's proposal for Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to combat ISIS further demonstrates his continued failure to recognize the seriousness this threat. It weakens, not enhances our nation's ability to defeat this barbaric enemy. In the coming months, the House will likely debate this proposal and the scope of the United States-led campaign against ISIS. The conflict raging in the Middle East has significant implications for the United States, as we have already seen citizens from the United States and Western Europe recruited into the ISIS ranks.

As a U.S. Attorney, I served on the Attorney General's Advisory Subcommittee on Terrorism and National Security, where I helped formulate and revise the Department of Justice's anti-terrorism Strategies. I also served by special appointment in the U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation case, which was one of the nation's largest terrorism financing cases. In this role, I helped put individuals in prison who were funneling money to the terrorist group Hamas. As a Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, I am working to secure our borders and advocating for a national security strategy that recognizes the seriousness of terrorist threats. Additionally, I am grateful to have been named to the Homeland Security Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel.

On Protecting Our Borders:

The number one goal of the federal government as enumerated in the Constitution is to provide for the common defense, and this starts with securing our territorial borders. I'm committed to ensuring that we finally secure our border once and for all.

I recently traveled to the southern borders of California, Arizona and Texas to inspect border security measures, and I was able to gain first-hand input from personnel on the front lines of this effort. With this perspective in mind, I believe it's critical to we address our border security challenges with ground-level solutions that will actually drive results. Too often, Americans have been promised robust border security measures, only to see our southern border remain porous.

As border security relates to the broader immigration debate, I strongly believe in opposing all forms of amnesty. Our country already has an established process to come here legally, and to grant amnesty to those who illegally circumvent this process is something I simply cannot support.

As a U.S. Attorney, I led one of the nation's largest worksite enforcement actions, which resulted in the arrest of more than 300 illegal aliens in a single day. "Operation Plymouth Rock" led to the successful prosecution of hundreds of illegal aliens who committed identity theft and social security fraud to illegally gain employment in this country.

I am continuing these efforts in Congress as a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security and Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. I have been placed in a strategic position to support tough border security measures and to promote enforcement, not erosion, of our nation's immigration laws.

In the past we've seen drug cartels, human traffickers and potential terrorist enter through our southern border and threaten the safety and economic prosperity of law-abiding Americans. It's time that we crackdown on those who refuse to follow our laws and strengthen our existing efforts to protect our nation from the numerous threats lurking beyond our borders.

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