Coronavirus

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we had a hearing this week, the Immigration Subcommittee of Senate Judiciary, and Senator Blumenthal was there with me and others. We listened to people from Hong Kong tell the story of what is happening because of the repressive regime in Beijing and what is happening to those in Hong Kong who are demonstrating in favor of democracy.

This hearing on the crisis in Hong Kong also raised a lot of questions about the United States and our own immigration and refugee policy toward those who are being persecuted.

At the hearing, there was some powerful testimony. I recall one of the witnesses, Mr. Chu, who said that he was aware of students--Chinese students--currently in the United States who have already been designated as enemies of the state by China and who, if they are forced to return to China, will face prosecution, imprisonment, and who knows. It was a very personal story because these people are friends of his who, through no fault of their own, only speaking out against the regime in Beijing, now will face long prison sentences if forced to return to China.

I am amazed, as I meet these people from China and Hong Kong, at the courage they show. Mr. Chu, for example, had come to the United States--been sent to the United States by his father at the age of 12 because his father had made a practice of helping the Chinese who had demonstrated on Tiananmen Square and providing the equivalent of an underground railroad for them to escape China. I guess the people in Beijing were on his heels, and so to protect his family, he sent his 12-year-old son to the United States, who has lived here for a number of years. He is an American citizen now.

This repression and the Chinese Government meddling in the lives of the people of Hong Kong are appalling. Thousands of protestors in Hong Kong have been persecuted for fighting for the liberties that we Americans routinely say we enjoy--freedoms of assembly and speech, the right to vote, due process, and the rule of law.

The national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party in June has enabled the ruthless abuse of protesters, political leaders, journalists, and teachers. Despite its name, the national security law is not about security; it is about fear--fear of the voices in Hong Kong calling for reform of democracy and freedom.

I believe my colleagues on both sides of the aisle share my feelings about the crisis in Hong Kong, but the question today is, What are we willing to do about it?

Last week, on a unanimous voice vote, the House of Representatives passed the bipartisan Hong Kong People's Freedom and Choice Act, which would grant temporary protected status to Hong Kong residents currently in the United States and provide an opportunity for refugee status to Hongkongers facing persecution.

At Wednesday's Judiciary Committee hearing, we received a clear message: Congress needs to pass the Hong Kong People's Freedom and Choice Act in the Senate now. We can do it. In fact, we can do it today. Think about the message it would send from the United States to Hong Kong and to the world if we sent this bill to the President's desk to be signed into law. It is bipartisan. It was unanimous in the House. It is timely, and it addresses a real problem.

Under the bill, Hong Kong would be designated for TPS for 18 months. To qualify for TPS status, eligible Hongkongers currently in the United States would need to first clear a criminal history and national security screening and pay a $360 filing fee.

Some of the critics have said: We can't trust the Chinese in the United States. They may be spies.

That is why we require, under the TPS, that anyone applying for this TPS status has to go through a criminal background check and a national security screening.

I want America to be safe--we all do--but just to categorically say ``If you are from China or from Hong Kong, you are a suspicious character, and we don't want you to stay here'' isn't fair. It isn't realistic.

Sixty-seven hundred students are here now legally in the United States from Hong Kong and China, and they were admitted to the United States under standards and investigations. They are students at our universities, and they would qualify for this important temporary humanitarian protection so that they aren't forced to return to a literally dangerous situation.

TPS can be granted by the President if he wishes, but the Trump administration has failed to protect Hongkongers in need.

This bill also establishes expedited refugee and asylum access for qualified individuals and their family members. This would enable persecuted Hongkongers to register with any U.S. Embassy or Consulate, or with the Department of Homeland Security if they are in the United States.

Refugees and asylees would be required to meet all legal requirements and pass background checks before being granted status in the United States. That is just not a minor administrative chore. We are serious about it. If you want to come to the United States as a refugee or asylee, we will do everything we can to make certain that you are no danger to anyone in the United States.

The refugee policies of this outgoing administration have put at risk Hongkongers who are fleeing Chinese persecution, not to mention millions of other vulnerable refugees. Since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, the United States has resettled on average of 80,000 refugees a year. That is our annual average since 1980. However, in the midst of the worst refugee crisis in history, the current Trump administration has set record low refugee admissions figures for 4 years in a row, culminating in the lowest levels in history this year at 15,000--from 80,000 to 15,000.

How many refugees has the United States admitted from Hong Kong in the last year? Zero--not one.

When you look at what the Communist Chinese Party is doing in China, threatening these demonstrators who are marching in the streets for things that we say over and over are the underpinnings of our democracy, and to think that we have not granted one single person in Hong Kong refugee status is hard to imagine. The Trump administration has decimated legal protections for Hongkongers and other innocent victims of persecution.

For example, under the rule issued last week, Hongkongers could be denied asylum if they transit other countries on the way to the United States, if persecutors detain them for only a brief period, or if persecutors were not able to carry out their threats before the activist fled.

According to the testimony of the Hong Kong Democracy Council executive director, Samuel Chu, on Wednesday--I mentioned him earlier-- the people most immediately at risk in Hong Kong are the approximately 10,000 individuals who have been arrested by the Chinese Government crackdown.

Make no mistake. We know what the Chinese Communist Party is up to. As for these concentration camps--they call them reeducation camps-- that they created for the Uyghurs, we know what they are doing. They characterize them in many different ways, but we have seen this throughout history. The question is, What are we going to do about it?

We are going to protest what is happening to the people in Hong Kong, but will we take one step--even one small step--to provide them security and safety?

Not all of them are going to wish to leave Hong Kong, I understand that. Some of them can't. Some of them may receive assistance from another country. The British Prime Minister has offered a path to citizenship to up to 3 million Hongkongers eligible for overseas passports. The Australian Government has stepped in with visa options for students and workers from Hong Kong. Canada announced multiple new immigration measures supporting Hong Kong residents, including measures to help Hong Kong students in Canada.

I have a basic question. What are we going to do? You hear this about the British stepping up, the Australians stepping up, the Canadians stepping up. Where is the United States?

This is our chance today. Senator Blumenthal is going to make a unanimous consent request to actually have the United States do something.

One country cannot take in all the refugees from Hong Kong nor should it be expected to, but surely the United States of America, the most powerful nation on the Earth and, we hope, a model for democracy in the world, cannot protest what is happening to the innocent people of Hong Kong and the repressive regime of Beijing and then do nothing.

Passing the Hong Kong People's Freedom and Choice Act is urgently needed. The situation continues to deteriorate. We need to do it and do it quickly. We need to protect Hongkongers in need. Think about the message that it sends to the world if the United States agrees with Senator Blumenthal's request today and passes the measure that has already passed the House of Representatives and it becomes the law of the land. How will the Chinese Government pass that off as insignificant, when all of these countries are basically saying their treatment of the people of Hong Kong is abominable?

We should act quickly. The Senate Judiciary Committee has failed to raise another bill, the Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act, sent to it 6 months ago. So they have had their opportunity in the committee to do something. Under the Democratic majority, the House did their job and acted quickly with a bipartisan bill.

We have seen a lot of speeches on both sides of the aisle about how mad we are at the Chinese Government. The question today, in the next few minutes, is, Are we mad enough to do something?

Do something significant. I ask the Senate to join the House in passing the Hong Kong People's Freedom and Choice Act now. Let's send this bill to the President and send a strong message to the people of Hong Kong that they are not in this alone.

How fortunate I am to have a colleague like Dick Blumenthal. We see eye-to-eye on this issue. He jumped on the measure and said he wanted to move on it, and I thought, darn, I wish I would have been the first one, but I am happy to accompany him on this effort.

I sincerely hope that this is truly bipartisan. If our protest against the Communist Party of China is meaningful and bipartisan, it will be powerful

I yield to my colleague, Senator Blumenthal.

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Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

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Mr. DURBIN. I would ask the question through the Chair. Isn't it true that this bill that we are promoting, which just passed the House unanimously on a bipartisan basis, also protects the 6,700 students here in the United States with student visas from being forced to return to Hong Kong when our State Department is warning Americans it is unsafe for them to travel to Hong Kong? Is that not true?

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Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator would yield further for a question--and this notion that the Chinese in the United States are all suspect spies, is it really--is that the point you want to make? Is that really the point you want to make? Do we have background checks involved here? Do we have screening involved here?

We are all intent on keeping America safe, but to categorize a group of people as all potential spies--and, therefore, they are going to all be fed to the lions of Beijing if they are returned--seems to me to be fundamentally unfair and not consistent with what America has learned about immigration. There were suspicions in World War II about all those people coming from Europe, and they were turned away, many of them to their death. We can't make that mistake again. If there is any suspect person, there is a way to determine that with screening, criminal background checks, and the like.

So the 6,700 who are here, we were told at the hearing--I think you were there; it may have been a minute or two before you arrived--one of them is a student of Georgetown, for example, who now has a price on his head from the Chinese Communist Party, and the question is whether we are going to force him to return into imprisonment. I don't think we want anyone who is suspected of spying on the United States at all, but to dismiss all of these people as possible spies doesn't sound to me-- does it sound to you?--as consistent with who we are as a people.

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Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

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Mr. DURBIN. Can you tell me, if you are successful and if you hit Hollywood hard, how that provides any solace to the 6,700 Hong Kong students in America who are facing deportation back to prison in China?

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