[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 127 (Monday, September 8, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5376-S5378]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. CRUZ (for himself and Mr. Grassley):
  S. 2779. A bill to amend section 349 of the Immigration and 
Nationality Act to deem specified activities in support of terrorism as 
renunciation of United States nationality; read the first time.
  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise to address an issue of grave 
importance to the national security of the United States; that is, the 
threat from the radical Sunni terrorist organization known as the 
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or simply as the Islamic State.
  Now it claims to control territory in a grotesque parody of a nation 
state. ISIS is a study in oppression and brutality that is conducting 
ethnic cleansing against religious minorities in the region; that is, 
targeting and persecuting Christians and that is attempting to subject 
the local population to the strictest forms of Sharia law. ISIS has 
grotesquely murdered U.S. civilians and indeed journalists on the 
public stage. It should come as no surprise that the people of the 
United States are deeply concerned about this development. We are 
concerned about the inability of our government to anticipate this 
gathering threat. We are concerned about the brutal acts of oppression 
against the weak and the helpless.
  We are concerned about ISIS's seizure of financial and military 
assets that have fueled their murderous rampage. Above all, we are 
concerned about the threat ISIS poses, not only to our close allies in 
the region but also to our citizens and even here in our homeland.
  There has been a lot of talk in recent days about developing a 
strategy to combat ISIS. I would like to propose a couple of 
commonsense steps that we should take immediately to combat this 
scourge.
  First, the time has come--it is beyond time--for us to secure our 
borders. Representing the State of Texas, which has a border nearly 
2,000 miles long, I know firsthand how unsecure the border is right 
now. This week of all weeks, with the anniversary of the September 11 
attacks upon us, we can have no illusions that terrorists will not try 
to make good on their specific threats to attack America. As long as 
our border is not secure, we are making it far too easy for the 
terrorists to carry through on those promises.
  Rumored ISIS activities on the southern border should unite us all in 
the resolve to make border security a top priority rather than an 
afterthought or rather than something to be held hostage for political 
negotiations in the Congress. Second, we should take commonsense steps 
to make fighting for or supporting ISIS an affirmative renunciation of 
American citizenship. We know there are over 100 Americans who have 
joined ISIS who have taken up arms alongside the jihadists, along with 
thousands of others from the European Union.
  We also know they are trying to return to their countries of origin 
to carry out terrorist attacks there. We know this because on May 24 an 
ISIS member returned to Belgium where he attacked innocent visitors at 
a Jewish museum, slaughtering four people. It was reported today he had 
been plotting an even larger attack on Paris on Bastille Day.
  In addition, on August 11 of this year, an accused ISIS sympathizer, 
Donald Ray Morgan, was arrested at JFK Airport trying to reenter the 
United States. So we know this threat is real. That is why I have today 
filed legislation, the Expatriate Terrorist Act of 2014, which would 
amend the existing statutes governing renunciation of U.S. citizenship 
to designate fighting for a hostile foreign government or foreign 
terrorist organization as an affirmative renunciation of citizenship.
  By fighting for ISIS, U.S. citizens have expressed their desire to 
become citizens of the Islamic state. That cannot and will not 
peacefully coexist with remaining American citizens, the desire to 
become a citizen of a terrorist organization that has expressed a 
desire to wage war on the American people, has demonstrated a brutal 
capacity to do so, murdering American civilians on the global stage and 
promising to bring that jihad home to America.
  We should not be facilitating their efforts by allowing fighters 
fighting alongside ISIS to come back to America with American passports 
and walk freely in our cities to carry out unspeakable acts of terror. 
It is my hope the legislation I am introducing today will earn support 
on both sides of the aisle, that we will see this body come together 
and say: While there are many partisan issues that divide us, when it 
comes to protecting U.S. citizens from acts of terror, we are all as 
one. That is my fervent hope.
  The third thing we should do is we should do everything possible to 
make ISIS understand there are serious ramifications for threatening to 
attack the United States, for murdering American citizens. While 
damaging ISIS's financial assets is certainly a part of this action, 
because of the very nature of ISIS, the response must be principally 
military.

  All Americans are weary of the long and costly wars in the last 
decade. We

[[Page S5377]]

are tired of sending our sons and daughters potentially to die in 
distant lands. No one wants to see an extended engagement in Iraq, but 
at the same time I do not believe the American people are one bit 
reluctant to defend our national security, to defend the lives of 
fellow Americans. The American people can see the grim threat 
represented by ISIS and the need for decisive action.
  We should concentrate on a coordinated and overwhelming air campaign 
that has the clear military objective of destroying the capability of 
ISIS to carry out terror attacks on the United States. We must remain 
focused on this clear military objective if we hope to be successful. 
We cannot engage in photo op foreign policy or press release foreign 
policy of dropping a bomb here, shooting a missile there, and not have 
a strategy that is dictated by clear and direct military objectives in 
furtherance of U.S. national security interests.
  We should be perfectly clear as well that any action we take against 
ISIS is in no way contingent on resolving the civil war in Syria. That 
conflict is a humanitarian tragedy, pitting a brutal dictator against 
radical Islamic terrorists. The sad reality is there are no good 
options for the United States in this fight. We may have had less 
radical options 3 years ago, but those are not currently available.
  The Obama administration had proposed arming rebel forces that 
contained terrorist factions associated with ISIS. Previously, we were 
told the rebels fighting alongside ISIS were our friends and Assad and 
Iran were our enemies. Now, in the face of ISIS, we are hearing Assad 
may be our friend, Iran may be our friend, and ISIS is now our enemy. 
This makes no sense. Indeed, it is a dangerous cycle reminiscent of 
George Orwell's ``1984.'' Orwell wrote:

       At this moment, for example, in 1984. . . . Oceania was at 
     war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. . . . 
     Actually . . . it was only four years since Oceania had been 
     at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But . . . 
     [o]fficially the change of partners had never happened. 
     Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always 
     been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always 
     represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or 
     future agreement with him was impossible. . . .

  This administration seems to have no sense of past or future. All of 
those familiar with the terribly human carnage inflicted by the civil 
war in Syria pray for its end. But the goal of our action against ISIS 
should not be to end it by supporting Assad. The enemy of my enemy is 
not always my friend. Sometimes the goal is the destruction of the 
enemy who poses an imminent threat to our national security, not the 
enabler of yet another enemy of America.
  It should also be clear that any action we take against ISIS should 
in no way be contingent on political reconciliation between Sunnis and 
Shiites in Baghdad. This administration has often become distracted by 
the hope to achieve this reconciliation, but the sad truth is the 
Sunnis and Shiites have been engaged in a sectarian civil war since 632 
A.D. It is the height of hubris, it is the height of ignorance to 
suggest the American President can come and resolve a 1,500-year-old 
religious civil war and have both sides throw down their arms and 
embrace each other as brothers. That should not be our objective, 
although we of course always hope for reconciliation and peace. We 
should not be so naive as to make defending our national security 
contingent on resolving millennia-old sectarian religious civil wars. 
Doing so, seeking to promote a utopia, seeking to transform Iraq into 
Switzerland is nothing less than a fool's errand.
  Likewise, it should be perfectly clear that any action we take to 
stop ISIS from attacking and murdering Americans is in no way 
contingent on consensus from the so-called international community. 
America is blessed to have many good friends and allies in the region 
and beyond who understand the threat of ISIS and are eager to do what 
they can to combat it. We welcome their support. But in order that this 
action be done right, it must be led by the United States, unfettered 
by other nations' rules of engagement that might impede our effective 
action.
  Achieving some preordained number of countries in a coalition is not 
a strategy. For as has often been remarked: In the most effective 
efforts, the mission determines the coalition, not the other way 
around. It is heartening to hear the voices from my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle, raising the alarm of the threat posed by ISIS. 
President Obama has signaled his intention of addressing the issue 
later this week.
  It is well past time for him to do so. His recent statements from his 
admission on August 28 that ``we don't have a strategy yet'' to his 
suggestion on September 3 that ``our best bet is to try to `shrink' 
ISIS's sphere of influence until they are a manageable problem,'' those 
comments are not encouraging. The objective is not to make ISIS 
manageable. The objective is to protect the national security interests 
of the United States and to destroy terrorists who have declared jihad 
on our Nation.

  Neither are the two things we already know that the President will 
propose in his new ``game plan''--namely, that he will not be 
requesting authorization from Congress for military action against ISIS 
and that his model is the counterterrorism policies pursued by his 
administration the past 5 years. Neither of these is encouraging. I ask 
the President to reconsider both of these points.
  While ISIS is obviously part of the scourge of radical Islamic 
terrorism that has bedeviled the West for decades, it equally obviously 
represents a new and particularly virulent strain. The President is 
reportedly considering an action that could last as long as 3 years and 
may require a range of actions. If this is indeed the case, then it is 
incumbent on him to come to Congress and lay out his strategy so that 
we and the American people are clear on it.
  I would note that the Presiding Officer has been particularly vocal 
and clear defending the constitutional authority of Congress to declare 
war. I would note as well that it is beneficial for the effort for the 
President to come to Congress, because in doing so it will force the 
President to do what has been lacking for so long, which is lay out a 
specific and clear military objective: What is it we are trying to 
accomplish that is tethered directly to the U.S. national security 
interests of America?
  The Constitution is clear. It is Congress and Congress only that has 
the constitutional authority to declare war. Any President, as 
Commander in Chief, has constitutional authority to respond to an 
imminent crisis, to respond to a clear and present danger. But in this 
instance, the President is not suggesting it. He is suggesting engaged 
military action, and it is, therefore, inconsistent with the 
Constitution for him to attempt to pursue that action without 
recognizing the constitutional authority of this body.
  It is my hope that he will do so, and it is my hope we will have a 
substantive and meaningful debate about the military objective we 
should be united in achieving, which is, namely, destroying ISIS and 
preventing them from committing acts of terror and murdering innocent 
Americans.
  Given the need to consider such action against a new actor such as 
ISIS, it also must be admitted that the Obama administration's 
counterterrorism policy has not been a success. They have labeled the 
2009 attack on Fort Hood in my home State of Texas as an act of 
``workplace violence'' even though the terrorist attacker Nidal Hasan 
recently asked to become a citizen of the Islamic State.
  They also missed connecting the dots that would have uncovered the 
radicalization of the Tsarnaev brothers that resulted in the attack on 
the Boston Marathon. It should be noted that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 
elder brother, worshipped at the same Cambridge, MA, mosque where the 
ISIS head of propaganda worshipped. This jihad can reach back and 
directly take the lives of Americans citizens at home.
  The administration has failed to respond effectively to the attack on 
our facilities in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, in which four 
Americans were murdered, including the first ambassador killed in the 
line of duty since 1979, an event that inaugurated Libya's spiral into 
terrorist anarchy that continues unchecked to this day. They completely 
missed the gathering threat of ISIS to the point that the President 
himself was under the misapprehension that the group was the terrorist 
equivalent of the junior varsity only a few months ago.

[[Page S5378]]

  We cannot afford to return to these destructive policies, given the 
acute threat posed by ISIS. It is my hope that this body will stand 
together as one in bipartisan unity to secure the borders and to change 
our laws to pass the legislation I am introducing today to make clear 
that any American who takes up arms with ISIS has, in doing so, 
constructively renounced his or her American citizenship so that the 
Congress, with one voice, can protect Americans at home. This requires 
clear, decisive, unified action, and it is my hope that all of us will 
come together supporting such action and that the President will submit 
to the authority of Congress seeking authorization to protect America 
against ISIS and to engage in a concentrated, directed military 
campaign to take them out.
                                 ______