Special Interest Alien Reporting Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa) for yielding and for his leadership on the Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Homeland Security already vets everyone it encounters entering the United States. Most of these encounters are routine, but some of these encounters require more investigation based on a dynamic assessment of the security situation.

Now, DHS does not publicly release who is getting enhanced screening or where it may be happening right now, simply because: First, merely being singled out for enhanced screening does not necessarily mean an individual poses a threat or has done something illegal; and, second, doing so would let bad actors know who DHS is on the lookout for. That information, in other words, is law-enforcement sensitive.

H.R. 275, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's tipping off terrorists act, requires DHS to make public information it has long deemed law-enforcement sensitive. That is because this bill requires Customs and Border Protection to publicly report who is getting extra screening and where that screening occurs in real time, which tips off terrorists and other bad actors.

Under administrations of both parties, DHS has never regularly published who it has considered a special interest alien. That is because who is considered special interest changes regularly based on DHS' security assessments.

This bill lets bad actors know in real time which nationalities are more likely to get enhanced screening and exactly where CBP has been stopping these migrants. Criminal organizations could then use this information to adjust their operations and try to avoid enhanced CBP inspections.

However, Democrats are for transparency, as Mr. Correa has already said, and there is nothing stopping DHS right now from publishing these numbers.

The Trump administration also could publish this data right now if they wanted to but continue to choose not to because the folks on the ground understand that security threats posed by such public reporting is bad.

If Republicans want the administration to publish information on who is getting enhanced screening, they should work with DHS to do so in a way that does not jeopardize Homeland Security, not with a messaging bill, which, if signed by the President, could tip off terrorists.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this dangerous bill.

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