Unanimous Consent Request

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, moments ago I asked this body to take up and pass two commonsense pieces of legislation in response to the terrorist attack in Paris. The first, the Expatriate Terrorist Act, is legislation I introduced over a year ago--attempted to pass over a year ago--and that the Democratic Party blocked. That legislation provides that any American citizen who goes and joins ISIS, who takes up arms against America and attempts to wage jihad, by doing so, forfeits his or her U.S. citizenship. Existing Federal law provides for grounds of revocation of citizenship, and this piece of legislation would add joining terrorist groups such as ISIS to those grounds.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has just objected to passing that commonsense legislation. As a consequence, and because of that objection, it means that Americans--and the estimates are it could be up to or over 100 Americans--who have gone and joined ISIS right now are waging jihad against America. As a consequence of that objection, it means those ISIS terrorists can come back to America using a U.S. passport and wage jihad against this country--attempt to murder innocent men and women in this country using a U.S. passport. That is, I believe, a profound mistake.

The second piece of legislation I just asked this body to pass and the Democrats just objected to is legislation that would stop President Obama and Hillary Clinton's plan to bring in tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to the United States in light of the declaration of war from ISIS, in light of the horrific terrorist attack and in light of the admissions from the Director of the FBI, Director Comey--who I might note President Obama appointed--who said the administration cannot vet these refugees to determine whether or not they are ISIS terrorists. Indeed, he said since they do not have the data on which of the Syrian refugees are involved with ISIS terrorism, they can query the database, but with no information in the database, he said they can query over and over again until the cows come home, but they do not have the information.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party, the Democratic Senators in this body have chosen to stand with President Obama and his absurd political correctness, his unwillingness even to utter the words ``radical Islamic terrorism.'' The President refuses to say the words ``radical Islamic terrorism.'' Hillary Clinton refuses to say the words ``radical Islamic terrorism.'' Not only do they refuse to say the words, but they are supporting a policy of bringing tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees into this country knowing full well we cannot vet them to determine who is coming here to wage jihad. That is a profound threat to this country, and I hope we will stand as one. This ought to be an area of bipartisan agreement.

I would note that the legislation I introduced includes an exception for persecuted minorities facing genocide--Christians, Yazidis, small minorities facing genocide. In response to my acknowledging genocide as a different circumstance, President Obama, 2 days ago in Turkey, attacked me directly. He said it was un-American to want to protect this country from terrorists and to want to help persecuted Christians. Then yesterday, President Obama attacked me again from Manila, saying it was offensive that I, and so many millions of other Americans, want to keep our children safe.

Mr. President, it is neither un-American nor offensive to believe in the rule of law, to believe in standing up to radical Islamic terrorism. And it is an astonishing statement that so many Democratic Senators choose to stand with a President who will not confront radical Islamic terrorism.

Indeed, just this week Secretary Kerry rationalized the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo saying it was understandable why they attacked Charlie Hebdo. We should not be acting as apologists for radical Islamic terrorists. The very first obligation of the Commander in Chief is to keep this Nation safe. And I will say that any official responsible for bringing people in when they do not know if they are radical Islamic terrorists will bear responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

ISIS has been plain. They intend to murder as many Americans as possible and they intend to carry out terror attacks here, such as that which happened in Paris. This commonsense legislation would have helped protect this Nation, but I am sorry to say the Democratic Party is objecting to it.

I believe we should put America first, protecting America first. Unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle are blocking that effort.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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