American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUDSON. Mr. Speaker, America is a compassionate country. We are a good country. We have a long history of accepting refugees, people fleeing oppression and violence.

But we also have an obligation to the American people. As we welcome people into this country who are seeking asylum, we owe it to the American people to know who these people are. And when you have got a terrorist group like ISIS, who has said that they will exploit this refugee crisis to infiltrate America--this is an organization that has said their goal is to come to America and kill Americans--I take them at their word.

The number one responsibility of this body is to protect the American people. It is not me saying that we have challenges with the current vetting process; it is experts from President Obama's administration.

I draw your attention to the first quote here from Jeh Johnson: ``It is true that we are not going to know a whole lot about the Syrians that come forth in this process.'' That is definitely a challenge. That is the Secretary of Homeland Security.

I draw your attention to the next quote from Director James Comey of the FBI: ``We can only query against that which we have collected, and so if someone has not made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our databases, we can query our data until the cows come home, but nothing will show up because we have no record of that person.''

This is not me saying that. This is not Republicans saying that. These are officials in President Obama's administration saying that the current process is broken, that we are bringing in these refugees that we cannot properly vet.

So our legislation simply says: Let's stop this flow unless and until the law enforcement experts that President Obama has appointed, the FBI Director, the Secretary of Homeland Security, can vouch for the fact that we have a process in place that they are comfortable with.

How radical is that?

This is common sense, and that is why our polls show that as many as 75 percent of the American people support this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I know the President has issued a veto threat, but I hope that today in this House we can come together, Republicans and Democrats, and respond to the will of the American people and do our primary job to keep them safe so we can have a bipartisan vote that doesn't say no refugees, it doesn't say stop Syrian refugees, and it doesn't say don't ever let them in again. It says pause the program unless and until the law enforcement experts are comfortable that we have got a process.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation.

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