American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his great service to our country in promoting our values and strengthening our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor in a very prayerful way today because we were all horrified at what happened in Paris, at what happened in Beirut, at what happened to the Russian airliner, to name a few recent incidences.
We recognize that that is horrible and that we have to protect the American people from it. To do so, we must be strong, but our strength must also spring from our prayerfulness for those who lost their lives or for those whose security was threatened physically, emotionally, and in every other way.
In our country, we have a relationship with France. They were our earliest friends. That is why in this Chamber of the House of Representatives, any visitor can see there are only two paintings. One is of our great patriarch, George Washington, our hero, our Founding Father.
The other painting in this Chamber is of the Marquis de Lafayette. It is in recognition of the friendship that the French Government extended to the Colonies in our war for independence.
Just imagine George Washington and Lafayette, a long, long friendship. So, while we are concerned about violence wherever it exists in the world, when Paris was hit in such a vicious way, in some ways, it hit home for us, not that the other lives were not equally as important.
As we come to the floor to talk about what we do next, we take an oath of office--every one of us--to protect and to support the American people and the Constitution of the United States. Keeping the American people safe is our first responsibility. It is the oath we take. If the American people aren't safe, what else really matters?
We understand the concern, the fear, in the country when an act of terrorism strikes. In fact, that is the goal of terrorists: to instill fear, to instill terror. We cannot let them succeed; so, we have to take the measures necessary to protect the American people and to be very strong in how we do it.
That is why I have a problem with the bill that is on the floor today. It is because I think we have a much stronger, better option to protect the American people, and that is in the form of the Thompson-Lofgren legislation.
Unlike in the Republican bill, the Democratic alternative applies tough scrutiny to all potential refugees, not just to Syrians and Iraqis, as the Republican bill is limited to.
The Thompson-Lofgren Secure Refugee Process Act would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to verify the identities of all refugee applicants. Any application that contains insufficient, conflicting, or unreliable information would be denied from day one.
The bill also requires that at least five Federal agencies--the Department of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence--check all refugee applications against their records. Any application that indicates a national security or a criminal threat would be denied--all. Not Iraq-Syria--all.
Two former Secretaries of Homeland Security--Secretary Janet Napolitano and Secretary Michael Chertoff--have written about the process that is in existence now and which the Thompson-Lofgren legislation respects. The process that is currently in place is thorough and robust, and so long as it is fully implemented and not diluted, it will allow us to safely admit the most vulnerable refugees while protecting the American people. Fortunately, they say, these goals are not mutually exclusive.
There are other things that we could be doing in a bipartisan way, and I would have hoped that that would have been a place we could have gone with this. One of them relates to closing loopholes in the Visa Waiver Program.
Today our colleagues on the Senate side are putting forth their principles, which state: ``If an ISIS recruit attempts to travel to the United States on a fraudulent paper passport issued by a country that participates in the Visa Waiver Program, that individual would avoid biometric screening and an in-person interview.''
How could we allow this loophole to exist if we are truly addressing this challenge in a comprehensive way?
If the Republicans want to make the Nation safer in the face of terror, there is another clear area in which we should act, and that is we should be voting on Republican Congressman Peter King's bill in order to close the appalling loophole.
It is outrageous that a person who is on the terrorism watch list--listen to this. If someone is on the terrorist watch list, he could walk into a gun store and buy a gun. His bill is called the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act.
The visa waiver.
Close the terrorist gun loophole.
According to the GAO, over the last 11 years, more than 2,000 suspects on the FBI's terrorist watch list bought weapons in the United States. Did you know that?
Ninety-one percent of all suspected terrorists who tried to buy guns in the United States walked away with the weapons they wanted over the time period with just 190 rejected despite their having ominous histories. Listen, 5 to 1, 10 to 1, they were able to get these guns.
Why can't we talk about guns when we talk about danger to the American people?
It is outrageous that we would be slamming the door to mothers and children while we still allow people on the terrorist watch list to walk in the door of a gun store and buy a gun.
With regard to those mothers and children, I join with labor, civil, human rights, and faith groups from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, from the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the evangelicals, and Jewish groups. I join them in saying that the Republican bill before the House today fails to meet our values and fails to strengthen the security of the American people.
Families in Syria and Iraq are desperately trying to escape ISIS' gruesome campaign of torture, rape, violence, and terror of the Assad regime. The Republican bill before the House today severely handicaps the refugee settlement in the future in our country. It slams that door again on desperate mothers and children who are fleeing ISIS' unspeakable violence.
As Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals, said: ``Of course we want to keep terrorists out of our country, but let's not punish the victims of ISIS for the sins of ISIS.''
Did you know this? Here are the facts.
Since 2001--just in the last few years--only about 2,200 Syrians have been admitted to the United States. Half are children, and 25 percent are seniors. All faced an 18- to 24-month-long screening process.
As the Refugee Council and its coalition of more than 80 faith, humanitarian, and human rights groups point out in their letter to Congress: ``Because so few refugees in the world are resettled, the United States often chooses the most vulnerable, including refugees who cannot remain safely where they are and families with children who cannot receive the medical care they need to survive.''
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