National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about an amendment--amendment No. 1628--to the Defense Authorization Act. This is an amendment I have submitted with Senator Peters, and it has strong bipartisan support.

This is about the threat of tunnels--tunnels used by terrorists. We saw those tunnels being used in the 2014 conflict that Israel had with Hamas. Israel found more than 30 terror tunnels that had been dug by terrorists to infiltrate and attack Israel.

The Israeli military said these tunnels were intended to carry out attacks, such as abductions of Israeli citizens and soldiers, infiltrations into Israeli communities, mass murders and hostage-taking scenarios.

In one disturbing attack in July of 2014, Hamas terrorists used one of these terror tunnels to sneak into Israel and then attack and kill five Israeli soldiers.

This is a picture of one of these terror tunnels. You can imagine, if terrorists can use a tunnel to come into your country, the feeling of fear that can create in the civilian population.

Unfortunately, terror tunnels are not a new problem. In 2006, terrorists used tunnels to capture Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. They used tunnels to take Gilad back to Gaza and held him captive for 5 years. Two other soldiers were killed in this same attack where these terror tunnels were used.

Again, this issue of terror tunnels is not unique to the conflict the Israeli people have been subjected to.

In fact, one of Israel's primary objectives in Operation Protective Edge last year was to destroy these terror tunnels that posed unacceptable risk to the Israelis and to their national security. That is why Israel has devoted so much attention to this problem and how to destroy these terror tunnels.

But not only are terror tunnels a leading security concern for the Government of Israel, tunnels are being used by terrorists in Syria and in Iraq. According to a public report yesterday, ISIS used several dozen tunnel bombs in Syria and used tunnels to help take the Iraqi city of Ramadi. On March 11, ISIS reportedly detonated a tunnel bomb under an Iraqi Army headquarters, killing an estimated 22 people. On March 15, a second tunnel bomb was reportedly used to attack Iraqi security forces.

Terror tunnels can also be used to threaten U.S. Embassies and forward-deployed U.S. military personnel. In addition, drug trafficking organizations and international criminal organizations continue to construct tunnels on our southern border in order to illegally move people, drugs, and anything else they think will advantage them into the United States. Drug cartels are exploiting vulnerabilities on our border. While this undoubtedly affects border communities and border States, it has consequences far beyond the border States.

In my home State of New Hampshire, heroin is killing people. It is a public health epidemic. I have spoken to law enforcement, first responders, firefighters, and public safety officials, and we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people dying in my State. According to a recent DEA report and drug control experts, heroin is most commonly being brought into the United States via the southwest border.

In many places on our border with Mexico, we have fences. Unfortunately, these criminals and their syndicates--by the way, we have heard from the commander of Southern Command, and he believes these networks could be used by terrorists if they wanted to infiltrate our country. Unfortunately, they are being dug on our southern border.

This is a picture of a tunnel built on our southern border that is used to smuggle drugs, smuggle people--smuggle anything criminals and other bad people want to move into our country.

In a 2-day period alone in April, two tunnels were discovered beneath the California-Mexico border. Again, these tunnels are often used to smuggle almost anything you can think of into this country, drugs being the most prominent thing smuggled in. According to public reports, dozens of smuggling tunnels have been discovered on our southern borders since 2006.

The amendment I have submitted to the Defense authorization, along with my colleague, Senator Peters from Michigan, is an amendment that builds on a provision already in the Defense authorization that I had included in section 1272. Our amendment promotes and authorizes greater cooperation between Israel and the United States to counter terror tunnels in Israel.

If we work with close allies such as Israel to develop better capabilities to detect, map, and neutralize tunnels, not only can we help defend Israel and Israel defend itself against terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, but we can also use the capabilities we develop together to better protect our own border, our own U.S. Embassies, and our forward-deployed U.S. troops.

My amendment specifically highlights the tunnel threat on our southern border. It calls on the administration to use the anti-tunneling capabilities developed to help Israel to better protect the United States, our people, our interests, and our border. In short, this amendment will help Israel, our closest and most reliable ally in the Middle East. It will help us defeat the use of terror tunnels. It will better equip officials on our southern border to find and shut down tunnels that are being used to smuggle drugs and that can be used to smuggle other dangerous items into the United States of America by these criminal syndicates.

Again, the commander of our Southern Command said he believes this network can also be used by terrorists.

Not surprisingly, this effort and this amendment have received strong bipartisan support. I thank all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have sponsored this amendment. This is a commonsense amendment, and I hope my colleagues, when it is offered for a vote on the Senate floor, will support this amendment so that we can work with the Israeli Government, that we can share our understanding of how to stop these terror tunnels and we can deploy that same technology on our southern borders to keep our country safe.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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