[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 171 (Thursday, November 19, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H8405-H8408]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SYRIAN REFUGEES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, these are the times that try men's souls.
  After so many Americans have given the last full measure of devotion 
for their country, for our freedom, for the freedom of so many others, 
we are at a time in our history when we have enemies reporting that 
they are entering the United States. That is confirmed by the Director 
of the FBI and others in this administration. As is now reported, there 
are active ISIS elements in every State in the Union.
  Some say, well, those who want to suspend bringing in Syrian 
refugees, wouldn't that be like telling the Jews during World War II 
they couldn't come to America? Actually, it would be more like saying 
we are going to suspend bringing Germans--we are going to keep bringing 
in German Jews because clearly they are being persecuted. We are going 
to try to save them from the Holocaust, but we are going to suspend 
bringing in those who appear to have similar backgrounds to the Nazis 
because we are not sure who is Nazi and who isn't.
  Can you imagine dealing with what France has dealt with after we 
welcomed with open arms Nazis before and during World War II, if that 
had been the policy of the Roosevelt administration? Thank God it 
wasn't. But, unfortunately, Jews were turned away before and during 
World War II.
  The President wants to continue bringing in refugees, continue the 
mass migration of illegal aliens into the United States. We have this 
report from yesterday by Brandon Darby and Ildefonso Ortiz. They report 
on eight

[[Page H8406]]

Syrians being caught at the Texas border in Laredo yesterday.
  The story says:
  ``Two Federal agents operating under the umbrella of U.S. Customs and 
Border Protection are claiming that eight Syrian illegal aliens 
attempted to enter Texas from Mexico in the Laredo Sector. The Federal 
agents spoke with Breitbart Texas on the condition of anonymity, 
however, a local president of the National Border Patrol Council 
confirmed that Laredo Border Patrol agents have been officially 
contacting the organization with concerns over reports from other 
Federal agents about Syrians illegally entering the country in the 
Laredo Sector. The reports have caused a stir among the sector's 
Border Patrol agents.

  ``The sources claimed that eight Syrians were apprehended on Monday, 
November 16, 2015. According to the sources, the Syrians were in two 
separate `family units' and were apprehended at the Juarez Lincoln 
Bridge in Laredo, Texas, also known officially as Port of Entry 1.''
  The President has also stated in recent days--it's been played over 
and over as the President condemns Republicans and conservatives and 
liberals and moderate Americans across the specter of politics, 
Americans who are concerned about one thing: the safety of their 
homeland.
  The President comes out and condemns, and he said: ``When I hear 
political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for 
which a person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted . . . 
that's shameful. . . . That's not American. That's not who we are. We 
don't have religious tests to our compassion.''
  It doesn't violate the rules of the House to point out when an 
elected official is ignorant. It is a violation to insinuate some ill 
motive. I am insinuating no ill motive. I am stating that the President 
is completely ignorant of what our laws are because the law is very 
clear, if you look at 8 U.S.C. 1158--and I need to tip the hat to 
Andrew McCarthy. I have got his article in front of me from yesterday, 
from nationalreview.com.
  He points out that under Federal law the executive branch is 
expressly required to take religion into account in determining who is 
granted asylum. Under the provision governing asylum--and again, that 
is 8 U.S.C. section 1158--``an alien applying for admission''--and this 
is the law--``must establish that . . . religion . . . was or will be 
at least one central reason for persecuting that applicant.''
  Now, there are other potential reasons that can be given for 
establishing the persecution, but religion is a very important one, and 
we have always looked at that issue as being important. If you are 
being persecuted for your religious beliefs in the world, that is 
always historically American to look at that fact and determine, yes, 
there is a religious test, and these people are being persecuted 
because of their religious beliefs, and only if we look at their 
religion and whether or not that religion is being persecuted can we 
determine whether they are entitled to asylum.
  So to answer the question that is raised by the ignorant statement by 
our President, the truth is, yes, it is American. It is the law. We 
need to know what religion you are to determine whether or not you are 
being persecuted for your religion.
  In another place, and this is over from 8 U.S.C., this is in section 
1101, and this is the section regarding refugee status, but to qualify, 
the applicant must be a refugee as defined by Federal law, and then 
that definition is what is at section 1101(a)(42)(A).
  ``The term `refugee' means (A) any person who is outside any country 
of such person's nationality . . . and who is unable or unwilling to 
return to . . . that country because of persecution or a well-founded 
fear of persecution on account of . . . religion.''
  Religion is important to take into account in determining whether 
someone is truly a refugee. It is American. It is not shameful. It is 
what we have done historically, and that is why I would have a Baloch 
minority in my office today talking to me about persecution against the 
Baloch people in Iran, because, as he says, Americans have 
traditionally been compassionate when people are being persecuted 
unfairly. And we have. And to take such persecution into account, we 
look at whether religion is a factor in their persecution. That is 
American. It is recognized even in Iran as being American and being 
unshameful--not only not shameful, but being to the glory and credit of 
the United States of America that we do care.
  Mr. McCarthy's article goes on. He says:
  ``In the case of this war, the Islamic State is undeniably 
persecuting Christians. It is doing so, moreover, as a matter of 
doctrine. Even those Christians the Islamic State does not kill, it 
otherwise persecutes as called for by its construction of sharia 
(observe, for example, the ongoing rape jihad and sexual slavery).''
  From my discussions when I have been in Nigeria with the poor 
Africans whose children have been kidnapped, they explained it was only 
the daughters that were being kidnapped and that the school was 
attacked.
  I asked: Was it attacked because it was a girls school and they don't 
want girls having education?
  They said they don't want girls having education, but that is not the 
reason they attacked it. They attacked it because it was a Christian 
school.
  So these radical Islamists associated with the Islamic State, they 
attack schools, particularly Christian schools; and after they attack a 
Christian school, the Nigerians explained they bring the children out, 
and if they are boys, they just go ahead and kill them immediately 
because they are Christian boys, and they don't want that to spread.

                              {time}  1500

  If, however, they are girls, the Nigerian Africans who were victims 
of Boko Haram explained, they don't kill them. No. But you couldn't 
really say they weren't persecuted because they are kidnapped and they 
are kept strapped to beds and they are repeatedly raped until such time 
as they are sold into sexual slavery.
  And this administration, according to some in Nigeria, has said: We 
may help you, but you have got to adopt a same-sex marriage provision, 
or we are not going to be such help to you.
  And as one Nigerian bishop said, to his deep credit: Our religious 
convictions are not for sale--not to President Obama, not to anybody.
  God bless them.
  The same effort was made to push Kenya into adopting same-sex 
marriage laws against their religious beliefs in that country. I was so 
proud of the Kenyan President. And I have heard other African leaders 
say they were so proud. They were also proud in Africa of the Kenyan 
President not being intimidated by President Obama's demand that they 
change their marriage laws to go against the teachings of the man whose 
profile is right up here above the main door to our Gallery--a man 
named Moses--who said he was speaking for God. And according to God's 
law, a man shall leave his father and mother and a woman leave her home 
and the two will become one flesh. That was to be marriage.
  When Jesus was asked about marriage and divorce, he quoted Moses 
perfectly--the man we have depicted up here in our House Chamber. He 
quoted Moses perfectly: A man shall leave his father and mother and a 
woman leave her home and the two will become one flesh. And then he 
added to Moses' perfect quote: And what God has joined together, nobody 
put asunder.
  Anyway, our President was in African in the past trying to push them 
into changing their laws, but unfortunately for people in areas where 
radical Islamist's have reigned, if you are a Christian, you are being 
persecuted for your religious beliefs. And if you are a Christian boy 
in a school that Boko Haram attacks, they will most likely just shoot 
you, kill you; and if you are a girl, they take you into sex slavery, 
in all likelihood.
  McCarthy goes on: ``To the contrary, the Islamic State seeks to rule 
Muslims, not kill or persecute them.''
  I think that is a very important point Mr. McCarthy makes. The 
radical Islamists are not seeking to kill or persecute Muslims like 
they are Christians. They are seeking to rule them.
  Mr. McCarthy goes on:
  ``Obama prefers not to dwell on the distinction between the jihadist 
treatment of Muslims, on the one hand, and

[[Page H8407]]

of Christians, Jews, and other religious, on the other hand, because 
he--like much of Washington--inhabits a world in which jihadists are 
not Islamic and, therefore, have no common ground with other Muslims . 
. . notwithstanding that jihadists emerge whenever and wherever a 
population of sharia-adherent Muslims reaches critical mass. While 
there is no question that ISIS will kill and persecute Muslims whom it 
regards as apostates for refusing to adhere to its construction of 
Islam, it is abject idiocy to suggest that Muslims are facing the same 
ubiquity and intensity of persecution as Christians.
  ``And it is down right dishonest to claim that taking such religious 
distinctions into account is `not American,' let alone `shameful.' How 
can something American law requires be `not American'? And how can a 
national expression of compassion expressly aimed at alleviating 
persecution be `shameful'?''
  That is Andrew McCarthy yesterday, the NationalReview.com.
  ``The State Department Turns Its Back on Syrian Christians and Other 
Non-Muslim Refugees'' is an article by Nina Shea, November 2. She says: 
``Over the past 5 years of Syria's civil war, the United States has 
admitted a grand total of 53 Syrian Christian refugees, a lone Yazidi, 
and fewer than 10 Druze, Baha'is, and Zoroastrians combined. That so 
few of the Syrian refugees coming here are non-Muslim minorities is due 
to American reliance on a United Nations refugee-resettlement program 
that disproportionately excludes them. Past absolute totals of Syrian 
refugees to the United States under this program were small, but as the 
Obama administration now ramps up refugee quotas by tens of thousands, 
it would be unconscionable to continue with a process that has 
consistently forsaken some of the most defenseless and egregiously 
persecuted of those fleeing Syria.
  ``The gross underrepresentation of the non-Muslim communities in the 
numbers of Syrian refugees into the U.S. is reflected year after year 
in the State Department's public records. They show, for example, that 
while Syria's largest non-Muslim group--Christians of the various 
Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions--constituted 10 percent 
of Syria's population before the war, they are only 2.6 percent of the 
2,003 Syrian refugees that the United States has accepted since then.
  ``Syria's Christian population, which before the war numbered 2 
million, has since 2011 been decimated by what Pope Francis described 
as religious `genocide.' ''
  I want to insert at this point, Madam Speaker, that I have been 
advised that this administration is now saying that the persecution of 
Christians is not being deemed a genocide. Perhaps it is because this 
administration feels like if you are taking the young girls and putting 
them into sex slavery and you are not outright killing them--you are 
just raping them and putting them into sex slavery--then maybe that is 
not a genocide. You are letting the girls live.
  So maybe they are so callous that they would consider it is not 
genocide if you just rape and put these young girls who are Christians 
or from Christian families into sexual slavery.
  This article from Nina Sea says:
  ``Clearly, far more than a dozen members of Syria's religious 
minorities should qualify as refugees under the legal definition of a 
refugee as someone with a `well-founded fear of persecution based on 
religion.'. . . Instead minorities have difficulty getting to step one 
in the U.N. process. The religious terror that drove them from Syria 
blocks their registering. The Office of the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Refugees is largely limited to collecting refugee 
applications and making resettlement referrals from its own camps and 
centers--the burden of feeding creates strong incentives for this 
practice.

  ``In an email to me, Knox Thames, the State Department's new Special 
Adviser for Religious Minorities wrote that `many minorities have not 
entered the U.N. system because they are urban refugees.' That is, 
because they live far from the remote U.N. camps and aid centers, they 
lack the information and access to register. And, as is widely known, 
many non-Muslim refugees try hard to avoid these camps.''
  The reason Christians try to avoid these U.N. camps is that they are 
Muslim.
  In fact, in this article, it is pointed out:
  ``According to British media, a terrorist detector asserted that 
militants enter U.N. camps to assassinate and kidnap Christians. An 
American Christian aid group reported that the U.N. camps are 
`dangerous' places where ISIS, militias, and gangs traffic in women and 
threaten men who refuse to swear allegiance to the caliphate.
  ``Such intimidation is also reportedly evident in migrant camps in 
Europe, leading the German police union to recommend separate shelters 
for Christians and Muslim migrant groups.''
  The article goes on to point out:
  ``According to a recent UNHCR posting, 19,000 Syrians picked straight 
from `refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan,' have received U.N. 
approval and are awaiting resettlement in the United States. In 
October, President Obama ordered their expedited admission. Without 
further action, however, only token numbers of non-Muslim minorities 
will be among those rescued. George Carey, former Archbishop of 
Canterbury, called it right about the Christian refugees, and his words 
equally apply to Syria's other non-Muslim communities: They are being 
`left at the bottom of the heap.' ''
  There is an article from Todd Starnes, November 18--yesterday--
entitled ``Obama is Importing Muslims, Deporting Christians.''
  Well, if this is true, so much for his test--that we don't care about 
religious tests.
  But this article says:
  ``When individuals say we should have a religious test and that only 
Christians--proven Christians should be admitted--that is offensive and 
contrary to American values, the President said--just one day after he 
called such behavior un-American.''
  But as Todd Starnes says:
  ``What is offensive and contrary to American values is refusing to 
properly investigate those wanting to come to our Nation--especially 
those coming from regions that are hotbeds of Islamic extremism.
  ``Those of us who fear that Islamic radicals might be lurking among 
the refugees have been called every name in the book: bigots, 
Islamophobes, and un-American . . . But the President says such 
prudence only further enflames the Islamic jihadists.''
  The President warns that it is counterproductive and needs to stop.
  The truth is, I will insert parenthetically, what has been a huge 
recruiting tool for ISIL, ISIS, and the Islamic State, has been 
American weakness and unwillingness to confront radical Islam head up 
and call it what it is.
  We found back when we were engaged in Iraq that one of the big 
recruitments that was used by radical Islamists is they would go back 
to 1979 and the fact that Jimmy Carter did not after they attacked our 
Embassy and took over 50--51 people or so--as hostages. We did 
basically nothing to them.
  And they point out that we pulled out of Beirut after our Marines 
were killed there. And they go out and point out the 1993 attack on the 
World Trade Center under Bill Clinton. We really did nothing after that 
in response. And after the USS Cole was hit, we basically did nothing 
effective.
  And they go on to point out each time that America has been hit and 
we did nothing effective to counter the attack upon us, that is the 
biggest recruiting element that ISIS or any radical Islamist group has 
had, when they can show that they have attacked and we have been weak.
  And nothing has been shown to be less effective in responding to 
attacks against us, against Americans, against Christians, against 
minority groups, against moderate Muslims, then what has happened 
during this administration. Call George W. Bush what you will, but the 
fact is the world knew that while he was President, if you messed with 
America, he would strike back.

                              {time}  1515

  That is what led Qadhafi to abandon his nuclear efforts. It led him 
to open up his doors. You tell me what weapons I can keep. He was 
afraid we were going to invade them next.
  According to this article, it says, ``But the cold, hard reality is 
that Protestants, Catholics and Jews aren't

[[Page H8408]]

the ones beheading people. The Lutherans and Nazarenes aren't gunning 
down young folks in concert venues.''
  Nevertheless, the President remains steadfast. The Muslims will come.
  ``We don't have religious tests to our compassions,'' he told 
journalists from high atop his soapbox.
  But that is not entirely accurate. Last year the Obama administration 
led a fierce legal battle to have a German Christian family thrown out 
of the United States.
  The Romeikes fled their homeland in search of a nation where they 
could homeschool their children. A judge initially granted them asylum, 
believing they were escaping from religious persecution. However, the 
Obama administration waged a fierce campaign against the Romeike 
family, demanding they be returned to Germany.
  The family lost court battle after court battle, but, at the eleventh 
hour, the White House relented and begrudgingly let them stay.
  But just a few months ago a Federal Immigration judge ordered a dozen 
Iraqi Christians deported from a facility in San Diego. An Immigration 
Customs Enforcement spokesperson declined to tell the San Diego Union 
Tribune why the Iraqi Christians were being sent back to their native 
land.
  So the next time President Obama wants to lecture the Nation about 
religion, maybe he could explain why his administration is importing 
Muslims and deporting Christians.
  I realize that I just have a few minutes left, Madam Speaker. Our 
hearts, our prayers and thoughts have been with the people of France 
and Lebanon and Russia, victims of radical Islamist attacks and 
anywhere they have been occurring, Brussels, as well.
  There is great irony. On Wednesday of last week, the European Union 
announced what it had been building to for some time. In essence, it 
announced it was declaring economic war on Israel.
  Anti-Semitism has grown all over the European Union to levels I never 
would have dreamed, as a little boy, would ever come back to Germany, 
where we read and studied about the Holocaust and the persecution of 
Jews not just in Germany, but around Europe, and there were other 
countries that actually assisted the Germans.
  There were people like George Soros, who was Jewish, that helped 
finger other Jews. I never thought we would get to the level of anti-
Semitism where Europe, as a whole, as a group, would basically declare 
economic war against Israel. Incredible how anti-Semitism has grown 
there.
  And then, within 48 hours of them declaring war, siding with the 
Palestinian Muslims, siding with those--they are attacking the 
Christians and Jews in Israel and siding with the wrong people.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________