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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today to ask unanimous consent to pass the SAFE KIDS Act. I want to thank my colleagues who have joined me in this effort as cosponsors: Senators Lee, Blackburn, Banks, Sullivan, Ricketts, Lummis, Budd, Rounds, Kennedy, Moody, and Sheehy.
This bill is real simple. It is about protecting the integrity of American citizenship. It is also about our protecting children from exploitation and trafficking, and it is about closing a dangerous loophole that our foreign adversaries are using to undermine our national security right now.
To be an American citizen is one of the greatest privileges in the world. It is a sacred covenant between an individual and our Nation. It comes with rights, privileges, and immunities that people around the world would do anything to have. It also comes with the responsibility to protect and defend those liberties for future generations.
Right now, our Nation is vulnerable because foreign adversaries have found a backdoor around our immigration laws. Right now, citizens of foreign adversarial nations can have children born on American soil and as citizens through surrogacy. They actually never have to come into our country. Think about how insane this is.
Under the current system, a foreign adversary could arrange a surrogacy contract to have a child born in America and be given all the privileges of being counted as one of us. Then they can take that child back to their home country and raise that child under the influence of a regime that hates America. It is getting all the perks of American citizenship without any responsibility. It is taking a future voter and raising them in a country that wants to destroy our way of life. We can't let that happen.
Think about the Ayatollah in Iran. He could arrange a contract with an American surrogate. The child could get American citizenship at birth, be taken back to Iran, and be raised by a regime that chants ``Death to America.'' Then, years later, that child could come back to the United States as an American citizen.
That is not some farfetched, science fiction scenario; it is exactly the kind of vulnerability our foreign adversaries look for. The Chinese Communist Party has already demonstrated that it will exploit every weakness in our laws and institutions to advance its interest. Recent reporting has exposed disturbing examples of wealthy Chinese nationals exploiting American surrogacy arrangements to father more than 100 children born in the United States.
We should be asking: What happens to these children? Who raises them? What are they taught. What country are they taught to love? And what happens when they are old enough to return to the United States? Could they attend our universities? Could they serve in our military? Could they receive security clearances? Could they run for President? These are real questions and a real vulnerability we face if we don't act today.
We should not be creating a pipeline through which foreign adversaries can exploit American citizenship, raise American citizens under hostile, foreign influence, and potentially bring them back into our country as Americans.
But this is about more than national security; it is about children. We have already seen the heartbreaking consequences when an international surrogacy arrangement goes wrong. I have seen it right here in my own State.
A recent dispute in St. Augustine, FL--it is hard to believe-- involving a surrogate mother fighting for paternal rights demonstrates the devastating legal and emotional consequences when kids are treated like this. Kyla Simpson had triplets almost 2 years ago. Now she is fighting her way through court for custody of them because the Chinese national on the surrogacy contract didn't show up.
Let me make sure I tell you how this bill works, what it does and doesn't do. It doesn't ban surrogacy. It doesn't ban IVF. It doesn't take away women's rights. It doesn't interfere with Americans who use surrogacy or IVF to build their families. These are all separate debates. This bill is very narrow. It is focused on commercial surrogacy arrangements involving our country's most dangerous foreign enemies. This is about preventing hostile foreign regimes from exploiting legal loopholes to obtain American-born children.
My SAFE KIDS Act would do two simple things: It would invalidate commercial surrogacy contracts involving designated foreign adversaries, including China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. Second, it would create a misdemeanor penalty for any broker who knowingly facilitates one of these prohibited arrangements. The way surrogacy works, there are groups that organize surrogacy contracts.
I cannot imagine why any Senator would oppose closing this loophole. Every Senator in this Chamber should be alarmed that this is currently possible under our laws. We should not wait for communist China, Iran, Russia, or North Korea to further exploit the vulnerability before we close it.
American citizenship cannot be bought. American children are not commodities. You do not need to be born here to be an American, but you do have to love what we have built. And we should never allow our foreign adversaries to turn our laws into weapons against the American people.
I urge my colleagues to support the SAFE KIDS Act.
3101 and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration. Further, I ask that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, so first off, I appreciate the comments from my colleague from Illinois. I look forward to working with him to try to solve this.
Let's remember what this is about. This is not about IVF. IVF has been a very positive experience for my family. It doesn't impact a surrogacy for an American citizen.
Actually, surrogacy has impacted my family and friends, so those are important opportunities for Americans to have children.
What this bill says, though, is if you are a national from people that want to destroy our way of life, you could be Xi in China, you could be Putin in Russia, you could be Kim Jong Un in North Korea, you could be the Ayatollah, you will not have the right to have a child in this country by surrogacy. They don't even have to show up in this country, and they could have a child. Why would they do that when they could do it in their own country? It doesn't make any sense to me.
So this is a problem. We need to resolve it. It has been a problem in this country. It has been a problem in my home State, and I look forward to working with my colleague from Illinois to solve it.
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