American Safe Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the year was 1939, the Nazis were in control of Germany, and Kristallnacht had occurred. It was the night of broken glass. It was the night when the Nazi storm troopers literally invaded the shops and homes of the Jewish citizens who were living in Germany. They harassed, beat, and killed them. It was pretty clear where this was headed.
The Nazis had targeted Jewish people and those Jewish people-- innocent people--were going to be their victims. Some of them decided the only place to go was to leave Germany and to come to the United States of America. They boarded a ship called the SS St. Louis and set sail for the United States. First, they arrived in Havana, Cuba, seeking refuge to escape the Nazis. The Cubans turned them away. They next came to Miami, FL, and asked the United States of America if these 900 innocent Jewish citizens of Germany could seek refuge and become refugees in the United States. They were turned away. With no other alternative, they went back to Germany.
The Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, kept track of what happened to those passengers on the SS St. Louis--those people seeking refuge in the United States. At least one-third of them died in the Holocaust, killed by the Nazis. At that time, Senator Robert Wagner of New York came to the floor and asked: Couldn't we--at least as a nation--agree to allow 10,000 Jewish children to come to safety in the United States to escape the Nazis in Germany? His efforts were stopped and defeated. Even these children who would be Jewish victims of Nazi oppression were rejected by the U.S. Senate. It was a sad moment in the history of this Chamber and a sad moment in the history of the United States.
After the war, we reflected on what had happened. We realized that this great, strong, and caring Nation had made a serious mistake. Innocent people had died because we rejected these Jewish refugees from Germany. Therefore, after World War II, the United States decided to take a different approach and show leadership to the world when it came to accepting refugees, and since then we have. There have been exceptions, but we have said that our country is open--as most civilized countries on Earth are open--to those who face oppression, suffering, death, and are in need of safety. We have established a process for this, and it isn't easy. Each year it becomes more and more difficult and more and more challenging.
If you are a refugee wanting to come to the United States, be prepared. It will take at least 1 year of investigation--and sometimes up to 4 years of an investigation--before you might be allowed to come to this country. We go through background checks, fingerprints, biometric measurements, and photographs. It is a lengthy, frustrating, and difficult process. For people who come to our shores from foreign countries, there is no higher standard than the standard we apply to those who seek refugee status. Each year about 70,000 refugees are accepted in the United States. There are many more who want that opportunity, but only 70,000 can clear this process.
We come to this debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate aware of what has happened in Syria. Over the course of the last few years, the war that has raged in Syria has claimed over 200,000 lives. Half of Syria's 23 million people have been forced out of their homes--half of them.
I have a friend in Chicago. He is an extraordinary man. His name is Dr. Mohammed Sahloul. He is a well-respected practicing doctor. He came to the United States as an immigrant and now has an established medical practice. His family is from Syria--the Bahamut section of Syria. Because he feels so strongly about the war that is killing these innocent people in Syria, Dr. Mohammed Sahloul literally risks his life every few months to go to Syria and treat the victims of that war and violence. His wife Suzanne Sahloul works with the Syrian refugees who come to Chicago. The two of them have made a personal commitment to Syria, which was the birthplace of their parents. Dr. Sahloul returns from his visits to Syria and asks to meet me regularly, and I always say yes. As painful as it is, I sit there, as I did yesterday in a restaurant in downtown Chicago, as Dr. Sahloul shows me the photos on his iPad, one after the other, of the children he treated in Syria. These children are the victims of barrel bombs by President Assad and now of Russian bombing.
He goes to communities where people are literally starving to death-- starving to death in the year 2016--in Syria. He shows me their emaciated bodies until I turn away and can't look at it anymore.
I say to my colleagues in the Senate who follow this debate and know what we are voting on--the Syrian crisis we face today, I would argue, is the most serious humanitarian crisis of our time. What is happening to these people is unimaginable.
A few months ago I joined several of my colleagues and we went to an island in Greece called Lesbos. This is the stopping point for the refugees. Once the Syrian refugees have gone through Turkey, they cross a span of 8 to 10 miles of the Aegean Sea in plastic rafts. They put more passengers in those rafts than should be in there because the smugglers are getting paid 1,000 to 2,000 euros, or about $2,000-plus, for each of the refugees they can cram into these boats. They push them off from the shore in Turkey and point them toward the island of Lesbos. There are babies in those boats. The passengers wear lifejackets, which everyone is familiar with, but what do the babies wear? You can't put a baby in a lifejacket. Well, I saw what they wore. Many of them were wearing plastic water wings, the kind we put on our little kids when we put them in wading pools, and off they go into the Aegean Sea. Some of them don't make it. Some of them drown and die.
What would cause a family to pick up and risk their lives and spend $2,000 per person to take this deadly journey? It is because they are desperate and need a place to be safe. It is that basic.
So the President has said the United States will accept some of these refugees. Ten thousand is the number he said. Of course, each one of them has to go through a lengthy background check and will be asked all these important questions before they are allowed to come into our country--10,000. We know there are millions displaced and we know that that number continues to grow. Isn't it ironic that 10,000--the same number Senator Wagner of New York asked for when it came to Jewish children in Germany--is the same number the President has asked for when it comes to Syrian refugees.
Sadly for these refugees, and many others, they couldn't have picked a worse time to come to the United States of America because, frankly, we are engaged in a Presidential campaign where many strong statements have been made about these Syrian refugees. It is hard for me to think about what I saw on the island of Lesbos--these families with children--and to square that with the descriptions I have heard from those who have called them terrorists in training. It couldn't be further from the truth.
So this afternoon, at 2:30 p.m. on the Senate floor, we will be asked to vote on a measure relative to the Syrian refugees. Let's call it for what it is. This is an effort to stop any Syrian refugee from coming to the United States regardless of whether it is a mother and a child because what it says is that before they can come to the United States, you have to have the personal signature and personal certification of the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Director of the Bureau of National Intelligence. It is physically impossible to ask the director of the FBI, who has the responsibility of monitoring FBI activities all across the Nation and around the world, to literally sit down and sign 100 personal certifications a day which would bring us to this goal.
This legislation is not designed to make us safer. It is designed to stop Syrian refugees from coming to the United States. I know we are living in a dangerous time in this world. I want us to do everything thoughtfully and sensibly and everything possible to protect the American people from any possibility of terrorism.
I still remember well when I was a Member of this body on September 11, 2001, and what America endured. I have not forgotten. I read, as all of us do, about terrorism in the United States and what it does to innocent people in San Bernardino and in many other places. But to exclude Syrian and Iraqi refugees and to say that we are not going to allow any of them to come in or put them through a standard of proof that we know makes it next to impossible is unfair and inconsistent with the values of the United States.
I made a point of meeting these Syrian refugees and their families who have made it here. I have invited my Governor in my State of Illinois and my colleagues to do the same: Get beyond the screaming rhetoric of the Presidential campaign and sit down and listen to their stories. They will realize that these are people who are desperate, who are looking for just an opportunity to be safe.
Yesterday, a number of them came to my office. Othman Al Ani, originally from Baghdad in Iraq, arrived in the United States in the year 2013. How long did it take him to clear the background check as a refugee? Four years--it took 4 years. He now works as a caseworker for the Iraqi Mutual Aid Society.
I met Wadad Elaly and her mother, Mrs. Elaly. In 2012, Wadad's father was killed by a sniper as he came home from work in Syria. The family moved out of the city for fear they would be the next victims. They went to Damascus, and then they waited, literally for over a year and a half, to go through the clearance.
Wadad is now a freshman in high school in the city of Chicago. She is a sweet, young girl who has seen more tragedy in her life than any of us would ever want to see. She and her mom want to make a life here, and she knows it is up to her to get a good education to make sure she can make that happen.
Mariela Shaker--an incredible story of a young girl who was growing up in the Homs section of Syria, whose parents were afraid that she was going to die from a bombing that was taking place. She applied and was accepted to go to a downstate college in Illinois, Monmouth College. She is a master violinist, a prodigy. She completed her degree there and now is at DePaul University working on a master's degree in music-- an amazing young woman. A terrorist? No, just a young women looking for safety and a future.
The stories go on and on. When I hear the statements made on the floor about potential terrorists, I think to myself: They haven't met these families, they haven't heard their stories, and if they did, they might reconsider.
I am opposed to this bill that came over from the House. I think this personal certification by the head of the FBI, certifying every single person, and a certification by the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Homeland Security are just being put in the path of these people to slow them down and stop them again and again and again.
What we have said, not out of compassion but out of commonsense, is let's address the things that will make America safer. Instead of zeroing in on a handful of Syrian refugees who are no threat to the United States, let's look to those things that actually are a threat. Let me give an example. Do my colleagues believe that a person whose name is on the no-fly list, the terrorist suspect list, should be allowed to buy a firearm?
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Mr. DURBIN. Do my colleagues believe that a person who is on the terrorist watch list should be allowed to buy firearms in the United States? Do my colleagues believe that a person on the terrorist watch list should be allowed to buy explosives in the United States? How about dirty bomb components? I don't think there is any question about it. The answer the vast majority of Americans would give is no. That is one of our amendments.
Do my colleagues think we should put more resources into protecting the United States through the Department of Homeland Security and through law enforcement, even local law enforcement, and the FBI? I think so. That is another one of our amendments.
A third amendment is going to change the effort and zero in on what we consider to be gaps in the law that allow the possibility of foreign travelers to come to the United States and engage in violence and terrorism.
The fourth one is pretty controversial, but I think we need a vote in the Senate. There has been a proposal by one Republican Presidential candidate, for the first time in the history of the United States of America, to exclude any immigrant of a specific religion, and that religion, of course, is for those who are in adherence to the Muslim religion. We should have a vote on that. I think it is important for us to be on the record. Those are the amendments we would like to offer.
We said to Senator McConnell: Bring up your Syrian refugee bill, if you wish, and give us these four votes. If you will give us these four votes--of course, you will want to offer some of your own amendments. Be our guest. But let's have a real debate about making America safe. Let's not just zero in on Syrian refugees. Let's zero in on ISIS, on terrorism, and on the real threat to the United States.
That is what we will decide between now and 2:30. Will Senator McConnell, who has said over and over that he wants to open the Senate floor to an amendment process, allow our votes on these measures? If he will, we can engage in this debate. If he won't, then, frankly, there is going to be resistance to moving to this measure. I hope Senator McConnell will join us and open this debate to a real sincere effort to stop the threat of terrorism in the United States.
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