Providing for Consideration of H.R. Iranian Leadership Asset Transparency Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for allowing me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so we can bring up my bill, H.R. 5256, the Expanding DHS Overseas Passenger Security Screening and Vetting Operations Act.

Mr. Speaker, everybody we have talked to within the Homeland Security arena says that, as Americans, we are safer if we can push our borders out. So the notion that we should wait on the bad guys to get here is a notion that obviously would put us in harm's way.

So what we are proposing with this bill is enhancing the ability for us to push our borders out. We have had examples of this. They have all been successful. So this is another effort to resource the opportunity to make sure that our borders not only are just safe, but as safe from American soil as possible.

So 15 years ago, Mr. Speaker, foreign terrorists carried out the most deadly and costly terrorist act on U.S. soil. We committed ourselves to creating the Department of Homeland Security. We resourced it. We put a number of agencies together. We are on a day-to-day basis tracking bad people all over the world, preventing bad people from getting into the United States. To the credit of our men and women, they are doing a good job, but we are only as good as the resources that we put to fight terrorism.

So this, again, is one of the tools in the toolkit that we have identified that we have to have, which is to push our borders out so that we can not only keep Americans safe, but we can, through our enhanced vetting process, keep bad people out.

So as the 9/11 Commission reported, the terrorists that carried out this heinous act on 9/11 were able to exploit legitimate channels of travel to the U.S. from countries around the globe. There is no question about that. To prevent terrorist travel, the Department of Homeland Security has made significant efforts to expand its presence and partnerships around the world to vet passengers well in advance of their arrival to the U.S.

For instance, Mr. Speaker, there are over 200 airports around the world. The last-point-of-departure airports, to speak of, where unless we can vet all those individuals who are trying to come here, they can't get on the plane. So what we are trying to do is continue to enhance that effort and others to make sure that anyone trying to get to this country--and we can identify that they are bad people--that we will keep them away.

My legislation, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5256, will strengthen these operations to deal with evolving terrorist threats, including the threats posed by individuals traveling without visas from European and other countries with visa waiver agreements with the U.S.

Now, to prevent these terrorists and other dangerous people from entering the U.S., Mr. Speaker, this legislation directs DHS to strategically expand its program that vets and screens travelers. It specifically authorizes key DHS vetting and screening programs. It also provides for an additional 2,000 Customs and Border Protection officers for not only overseas operations, but also to address domestic shortages, particularly at U.S. international airports.

Mr. Speaker, even as we absorb the events of this weekend where Americans carried out terrorist attacks in Minnesota, New York, and New Jersey, we must do all we can to prevent foreign terrorists, including an estimated 3,000 Europeans trained as foreign fighters by ISIL, from entering the United States.

Defeating the previous question, Mr. Speaker, will allow Members to consider my bill, H.R. 5256, that will do just that. Again, Mr. Speaker, we are only as good as we resource the Department to fight terrorism.

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