[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 171 (Thursday, November 19, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8116-S8119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. 2302

  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary 
Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 2302 and the 
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; I further 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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, moments ago I asked this body to take up and 
pass two commonsense pieces of legislation in response to the terrorist 
attack in Paris. The first, the Expatriate Terrorist Act, is 
legislation I introduced over a year ago--attempted to pass over a year 
ago--and that the Democratic Party blocked. That legislation provides 
that any American citizen who goes and joins ISIS, who takes up arms 
against America and attempts to wage jihad, by doing so, forfeits his 
or her U.S. citizenship. Existing Federal law provides for grounds of 
revocation of citizenship, and this piece of legislation would add 
joining terrorist groups such as ISIS to those grounds.
  Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has just objected to passing that 
commonsense legislation. As a consequence, and because of that 
objection, it means that Americans--and the estimates are it could be 
up to or over 100 Americans--who have gone and joined ISIS right now 
are waging jihad against America. As a consequence of that objection, 
it means those ISIS terrorists can come back to America using a U.S. 
passport and wage jihad against this country--attempt to murder 
innocent men and women in this country using a U.S. passport. That is, 
I believe, a profound mistake.
  The second piece of legislation I just asked this body to pass and 
the Democrats just objected to is legislation that would stop President 
Obama and Hillary Clinton's plan to bring in tens of thousands of 
Syrian Muslim refugees to the United States in light of the declaration 
of war from ISIS, in light of the horrific terrorist attack and in 
light of the admissions from the Director of the FBI, Director Comey--
who I might note President Obama appointed--who said the administration 
cannot vet these refugees to determine whether or not they are ISIS 
terrorists. Indeed, he said since they do not have the data on which of 
the Syrian refugees are involved with ISIS terrorism, they can query 
the database, but with no information in the database, he said they can 
query over and over again until the cows come home, but they do not 
have the information.
  Unfortunately, the Democratic Party, the Democratic Senators in this 
body have chosen to stand with President Obama and his absurd political 
correctness, his unwillingness even to utter the words ``radical 
Islamic terrorism.'' The President refuses to say the words ``radical 
Islamic terrorism.'' Hillary Clinton refuses to say the words ``radical 
Islamic terrorism.'' Not only do they refuse to say the words, but they 
are supporting a policy of bringing tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim 
refugees into this country knowing full well we cannot vet them to 
determine who is coming here to wage jihad. That is a profound threat 
to this country, and I hope we will stand as one. This ought to be an 
area of bipartisan agreement.
  I would note that the legislation I introduced includes an exception 
for persecuted minorities facing genocide--Christians, Yazidis, small 
minorities facing genocide. In response to my acknowledging genocide as 
a different circumstance, President Obama, 2 days ago in Turkey, 
attacked me directly. He said it was un-American to want to protect 
this country from terrorists and to want to help persecuted Christians. 
Then yesterday, President Obama attacked me again from Manila, saying 
it was offensive that I, and so many millions of other Americans, want 
to keep our children safe.
  Mr. President, it is neither un-American nor offensive to believe in 
the rule of law, to believe in standing up to radical Islamic 
terrorism. And it is an astonishing statement that so many Democratic 
Senators choose to stand with a President who will not confront radical 
Islamic terrorism.
  Indeed, just this week Secretary Kerry rationalized the terrorist 
attack on Charlie Hebdo saying it was understandable why they attacked 
Charlie Hebdo. We should not be acting as apologists for radical 
Islamic terrorists. The very first obligation of the Commander in Chief 
is to keep this Nation safe. And I will say that any official 
responsible for bringing people in when they do not know if they are 
radical Islamic terrorists will bear responsibility for the 
consequences of their actions.
  ISIS has been plain. They intend to murder as many Americans as 
possible and they intend to carry out terror attacks here, such as that 
which happened in Paris. This commonsense legislation would have helped 
protect this Nation, but I am sorry to say the Democratic Party is 
objecting to it.
  I believe we should put America first, protecting America first. 
Unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle are blocking 
that effort.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I understand there is a limited amount of 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 7\1/2\ minutes remaining on the 
Democratic side.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the distinguished Chair.
  Mr. President, I am worried in this country that we hear rhetoric 
that is dangerous, and it is time to stop. It shames the very nature of 
what America is. These are ideas that are wrong, and I would say they 
are deeply anti-American.
  My grandparents--my Italian grandparents, my Irish great-great-
grandparents--heard some of this rhetoric when some in this country 
said they shouldn't come here: Don't allow these Papists into the 
United States; don't allow these Irish, who are opposed to the rule of 
Great Britain on their island, and they actually stood up and fought 
against Great Britain.
  The words back then, like some of the words today, come from a place 
of fear and hatred. I do not want to stand by quietly and see the 
victims of terrorism and torture be demonized just so people will have 
talking points for the local evening news. We are better than this.
  The bill my colleague, the junior Senator the from Texas, introduced 
an hour ago would prevent refugee protection for virtually all 
nationals of Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, regardless of how 
much they have suffered at the hands of terrorists and despots. Women 
fleeing gang rapes and children fleeing horrors we cannot even imagine 
would be closed off.
  A few weeks ago the world came together, stunned and heartbroken over 
the image of a 3-year-old Syrian child's lifeless body washed up on a 
Turkish beach. His tragic death focused our attention on the desperate 
plight of so many Syrians who have fled the horror of ISIS and Bashar 
al-Assad.
  We called it the humanitarian issue of the day. We called forth 
images of our Statue of Liberty and our proud history as a land of 
refuge for those fleeing persecution. I heard so many on this floor as 
well as from commentators in the news. Those who call now for us to 
slam our doors on even properly vetted Syrian and other refugees should 
remember that the people we will shut out are those very children who 
touched our hearts just weeks ago.
  Of course, we are horrified by what happened in Beirut and Paris, and 
we need an effective, thoughtful strategy for countering ISIS and other 
terrorist organizations. That is what we should be debating. What we 
have done so far is not working, and we should be talking about how 
more countries should be involved in this fight. ISIS is our enemy; the 
people fleeing ISIS are not.
  In fact, we have had discussions about other things that could be 
done. Somebody who is on a terrorist watch list but who is in this 
country legally can go to a gun show and buy all the automatic weapons 
they want, and they break no law. They can buy all the ammunition they 
want, and they

[[Page S8117]]

break no law. They can go to the store, as did one of the greatest 
terrorists this country faced--the man who did the Oklahoma city 
bombing--and buy the components of a bomb, and they break no law. These 
are the things we ought to be discussing.
  I do not understand why Senator Cruz is on the Senate floor seeking 
unanimous consent to pass this bill. This very bill is on the Judiciary 
Committee agenda, and the committee is currently considering it and 
needed improvements to it.
  When the Senate Judiciary Committee debates this bill, we will have a 
lot to discuss. This legislation affects constitutional rights, and 
should be carefully vetted by the judiciary committee. Serious 
constitutional concerns have been raised by voices from across the 
political spectrum--from the National Review to the ACLU.
  Just yesterday I received a letter from former NRA president David 
Keene and Georgetown Law professor David Cole, in their roles with The 
Constitution Project. They urge opposition to this bill because it 
``serves virtually no practical purpose, raises serious constitutional 
concerns, and would do nothing to keep America safe.'' These are strong 
words, and I take these concerns seriously. Rushing a bill to the floor 
when that very bill is already scheduled for consideration by the 
committee of jurisdiction is not a responsible approach to legislating. 
And when legislation involves something as fundamental as citizenship, 
we should give the judiciary committee an opportunity to consider and 
debate this bill before it is brought to the Senate floor.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
several articles relating to the topic at hand.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                     The Constitution Project,

                                Washington, DC, November 18, 2015.
     Hon. Chuck Grassley,
     Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, Hart Senate Office 
         Building, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Patrick J. Leahy,
     Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee, Russell Senate 
         Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Leahy, and Judiciary 
     Committee Members: On January 22, 2015, Senator Ted Cruz (R-
     TX) introduced S. 247, the Expatriate Terrorists Act (ETA). 
     Representative Steve King (R-IA) simultaneously introduced 
     companion legislation in the House. According to the bill's 
     sponsors, the ETA is a common sense counterterrorism tool 
     that would strip U.S. citizenship from Americans who fight 
     with or support foreign terrorist organizations working to 
     attack the United States. The ETA would also purportedly 
     ``fill . . . statutory holes'' in the Secretary of State's 
     ``authority to revoke a terrorist's passport.''
       In fact, the ETA serves virtually no practical purpose, 
     raises serious constitutional concerns, and would do nothing 
     to keep America safe. We urge you to oppose it.
       Like previous iterations of the same idea, the ETA would 
     amend 8 U.S.C. 1481(a), which sets out limited circumstances 
     under which U.S. citizens can be denaturalized or 
     expatriated. The bill would add the following to the short 
     list of predicate acts that can result in loss of 
     citizenship: 1) taking an oath of allegiance to a foreign 
     terrorist organization; 2) joining a foreign terrorist 
     organization's armed forces while they are fighting the 
     United States; and 3) ``becoming a member of, or providing 
     training or material assistance to,'' a foreign terrorist 
     organization.
       The ETA also amends the Passport Act of 1926 to require the 
     Secretary of State to deny a passport to, or revoke one from, 
     anyone who the Secretary has determined is a member, or is 
     attempting to become a member, of a foreign terrorist 
     organization.
       Senator Cruz has said repeatedly that the ETA works a 
     ``formal'' or ``affirmative'' renunciation of U.S. 
     citizenship. To the extent he means to suggest that, under 
     the bill, a person would automatically lose citizenship 
     simply by engaging in the above conduct, he is wrong. The ETA 
     does not and could not achieve that result.
       Citizenship is a constitutional right, and the Constitution 
     prohibits the government from revoking a person's citizenship 
     against his will under any circumstances. As the Supreme 
     Court has explained, ``the intent of the Fourteenth 
     Amendment, among other things, was to define citizenship . . 
     . [and] that definition cannot coexist with a congressional 
     power to specify acts that work a renunciation of citizenship 
     even absent an intent to renounce. In the last analysis, 
     expatriation depends on the will of the citizen rather than 
     on the will of Congress and its assessment of his conduct.'' 
     As a constitutional right, citizenship can be knowingly and 
     voluntarily waived, but it cannot be taken away from an 
     individual absent such a waiver. Thus, to revoke a person's 
     citizenship the government must prove not only that he 
     committed an expatriating act prescribed in section 1481(a), 
     but also that he did so voluntarily and with the specific 
     intent to relinquish his citizenship.
       Given these requirements, the ETA will almost certainly 
     result in no additional expatriations. Unless Senator Cruz 
     expects citizens subject to expatriation proceedings freely 
     to admit that they joined or supported a foreign terrorist 
     group specifically intending to renounce their U.S. 
     citizenship, no one will in fact be expatriated. We doubt 
     that government officials would believe it an efficient use 
     of resources to try, especially given the broad reach of 
     existing laws that already provide harsh penalties for U.S. 
     citizens who engage in acts of terrorism.
       The bill's passport revocation provisions are similarly 
     unnecessary. There is no ``statutory hole'' to fill--the 
     Secretary of State already has the authority to deny a 
     passport to anyone whose ``activities abroad are causing or 
     are likely to cause serious damage to the national security 
     or the foreign policy of the United States,'' and to revoke a 
     passport on the same grounds.
       Not only is the bill practically useless, it also raises 
     serious constitutional concerns. The ETA makes membership in 
     or ``providing training or material assistance to'' certain 
     foreign terrorist organizations a predicate act to 
     expatriation. There are two constitutional problems with this 
     provision. First, neither ``training'' nor ``material 
     assistance'' is defined. Similar language in 18 U.S.C. 2339B 
     was ruled unconstitutionally vague until Congress added 
     specific definitions. Because Congress has not done so here, 
     this provision of the ETA suffers from the same 
     constitutional flaw.
       Second, unlike other crimes currently listed in section 
     1481(a) that can result in loss of citizenship (see section 
     1481(a)(7)), Senator Cruz's addition does not require proof 
     of a conviction as a prerequisite. That omission undermines 
     the constitutional right of due process. As the Constitution 
     Project's Liberty and Security Committee explained in 
     opposing similar past attempts to amend section 1481(a):
       [T]he language of 1481(a)(7) expressly requires a 
     conviction as a necessary prerequisite to denaturalization or 
     expatriation proceedings. This requirement protects the 
     constitutional right of due process, since one cannot 
     actually be said to have committed the acts specified in 
     1481(a)(7)--each of which are crimes against the United 
     States--until and unless those acts have been proven to a 
     jury beyond a reasonable doubt. As the Supreme Court 
     expressly held in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, Congress 
     cannot deprive an individual of his or her citizenship as a 
     ``punishment'' absent the procedural safeguards of a criminal 
     trial.
       The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) 
     and the United States' response to date raises a critical 
     question for Congress to consider, but it is not the ETA. For 
     well over a year, the United States has been at war with ISIL 
     and Congress has still not weighed in, notwithstanding its 
     constitutional responsibility to do so. Members should spend 
     their time debating and voting on this grave question, not 
     preoccupied with needless and likely unconstitutional 
     legislation.
       We urge you to oppose the Expatriate Terrorists Act.
           Sincerely,
     David Cole,
       Hon. George J. Mitchell, Professor in Law and Public Policy 
     at Georgetown University Law Center; co-chair of the 
     Constitution Project's Liberty and Security Committee
     David Keene,
       Opinion Editor, The Washington Times; Former Chairman, 
     American Conservative Union; co-chair of the Constitution 
     Project's Liberty and Security Committee.
                                  ____


               [From the National Review, Jan. 28, 2015]

                       How Not To Fight Terrorism

                           (By Gabriel Malor)

       Representative Steve King and Senators Ted Cruz and Chuck 
     Grassley have reintroduced the Expatriate Terrorist Act, a 
     bill to strip U.S. citizenship from terrorists. The proposal 
     sounds nice in theory, but it is also unconstitutional and 
     unnecessary, the latest in a sad line of civil-liberties 
     infringements justified by politicians trying to look tough 
     in the war on terrorism. Even if the bill did not have these 
     fatal infirmities, it would put the determination of who will 
     retain their citizenship in the hands of unelected 
     bureaucrats at the Departments of Justice, State, and 
     Homeland Security. On that ground alone, all Americans should 
     unite in opposition.
       The idea to strip citizenship from terrorists is not a new 
     one. In 2010, Senators Joe Lieberman and Scott Brown 
     introduced similar legislation, dubbed the Terrorist 
     Expatriation Act. Their bill would have amended the list of 
     expatriating acts in the Immigration and Nationality Act to 
     include material assistance to foreign terrorist 
     organizations. Legal scholars and civil libertarians pointed 
     out that the bill was neither necessary nor constitutional, 
     and ultimately it died.

[[Page S8118]]

       The new bill put forward by King, Cruz, and Grassley goes 
     further, adding membership, training, and oaths of allegiance 
     to the list of expatriating acts. They claim that this 
     legislation is necessary to protect the homeland from 
     radicalized citizen-terrorists returning from abroad.
       But citizenship is not a mere privilege. It is a right 
     specifically protected by the Constitution. Congress cannot 
     simply decide that individuals lose their citizenship when 
     they commit certain acts. Rather, to strip a person's 
     citizenship requires that the government prove not only that 
     he committed an act deemed expatriating by Congress but that 
     he did so knowingly and voluntarily and with the intent to 
     relinquish his citizenship. In the words of Justice White, 
     writing for the Supreme Court when this issue was settled 
     decades ago, ``in the last analysis, expatriation depends on 
     the will of the citizen rather than on the will of Congress 
     and its assessment of his conduct.''
       Senator Cruz's claim that his bill would make the act of 
     becoming a terrorist an ``affirmative renunciation'' of 
     citizenship is deeply misleading. To be constitutional, 
     expatriation can be accomplished only by intent to 
     relinquish, something that Cruz, a lawyer and litigator of 
     great skill, should already know. And if he doesn't mean what 
     he is saying, he owes it to the American public to tell us 
     how he believes the law would operate or if it would even be 
     practicable at all.
       On the issue of deception, King, Cruz, and Grassley say the 
     statutory change targets dangerous terrorist fighters who try 
     to return to the United States from abroad. The plain 
     language of the proposed legislation, however, is not limited 
     to those who actually take up arms. It applies to anyone who 
     merely claims membership in a terrorist organization or gives 
     an oath, training, or material assistance to terrorists, 
     regardless of whether he actually fights. And it is not 
     limited just to terrorists abroad; any of those actions taken 
     inside the United States would also trigger the citizenship-
     stripping provision under the express terms of the 
     legislation, leading to the deplorable circumstance of 
     creating stateless terrorists within the jurisdictional 
     boundaries of the United States.
       This is assuming the courts actually credit King, Cruz, and 
     Grassley's stated security purpose for proposing the law. If 
     the courts were to decide that the expatriation of terrorists 
     was intended to be a punitive act rather than a security 
     measure, a different and more stringent series of 
     constitutional prohibitions come into play, including the 
     Fifth and Sixth Amendment protections for criminal 
     defendants.
       King, Cruz, and Grassley are selling fear to justify an 
     unconstitutional deprivation of rights, and they are doing it 
     for no good reason. If the U.S. government has enough 
     information to identify citizen-terrorists abroad and 
     intercept them on their attempted return, it has enough 
     information to bring criminal prosecutions against those 
     individuals for terrorism when they try to reenter the United 
     States. The authority to intercept and detain such 
     individuals has already been granted by Congress to the 
     Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Justice, 
     of course, also has the authority to prosecute such 
     individuals. And so the stated purpose for the proposed 
     legislation is dubious, since the government's responsibility 
     for intercepting returning terrorists is settled law, which 
     has a side benefit of being constitutional.
       Even if this legislation were passed into law, because of 
     its constitutional infirmity it would never work as billed by 
     its proponents. Instead, it would mobilize an army of 
     bureaucrats at Justice, State, and Homeland Security to start 
     sniping away at Americans' rights of citizenship and travel. 
     For example, the Justice Department gets to designate or 
     decline to designate foreign terrorist organizations and so 
     controls the determination of who is subjected to losing his 
     citizenship. State Department officials have the authority to 
     determine who gets sent expatriation certificates. And 
     Homeland Security customs and border officers are responsible 
     for detaining and paroling or removing non-citizens, 
     including expatriated former citizens, who attempt entry to 
     the United States.
       All of these bureaucratic acts are subject to abuse. For 
     that reason they are also subject to various types of 
     administrative and judicial challenge, which typically drag 
     on for years at great cost. Such litigation and the 
     bureaucratic infrastructure to support it would be for 
     questionable benefit in light of the alternate means already 
     in place to intercept terrorists.
       In short, the Expatriate Terrorist Act is a 
     constitutionally suspect law. Well-established programs for 
     intercepting terrorists attempting to enter the United States 
     already exist. At best, the proposed bill would greatly 
     increase the power of government to use and abuse its 
     discretion to meddle with American lives. It does not 
     represent a genuine attempt to better our national security. 
     On the contrary, it is merely the latest in a series of 
     questionable infringements of civil liberties proposed by 
     politicians eager to exploit the public's fear of terrorism.
                                  ____



                               American Civil Liberties Union,

                                Washington, DC, November 18, 2015.
     Re Oppose Senator Ted Cruz's Request for Unanimous Consent on 
         S. 247, the Expatriate Terrorists Act, which Strips U.S. 
         Citizenship without Due Process and based on Suspicion

               Vote ``No'' on S. 247 as Unconstitutional


   S. 247 STRIPS AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP BASED ON MERE SUSPICION BY AN 
                      UNNAMED GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL

       Dear Senator: The American Civil Liberties Union strongly 
     urges you to oppose S. 247, the Expatriate Terrorists Act, 
     which is sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz. The bill would strip 
     U.S. citizenship from Americans who have not been convicted 
     of any crimes, but who are merely suspected by an unnamed 
     government official of wrongdoing.
       S. 247 is dangerous because it would attempt to dilute the 
     rights and privileges of citizenship, one of the core 
     principles of the Constitution. As the Supreme Court 
     explained in 1967 in Afroyim v. Rusk, ``the Fourteenth 
     Amendment was designed to, and does, protect every citizen of 
     this Nation against a congressional forcible destruction of 
     his citizenship, whatever his creed, color, or race . . . [It 
     creates] a constitutional right to remain a citizen in a free 
     country unless he voluntarily relinquishes that 
     citizenship.'' The bill is also unnecessary because existing 
     laws already provide significant penalties for U.S. citizens 
     who engage in acts of terrorism.
       An already unconstitutional federal statute, 8 U.S.C. 
     Sec. 1481, provides that an American can lose his or her 
     citizenship by performing either of the following broad 
     categories of acts with the intention of relinquishing his or 
     her nationality:
       acts that affirmatively renounce one's American 
     citizenship, such as taking an oath of allegiance to a 
     foreign government or serving as an officer in the armed 
     forces of a foreign nation; or
       committing crimes such as treason or conspiracy to 
     overthrow the U.S. government, or bearing arms against the 
     United States, ``if and when [the citizen] is convicted 
     thereof by a court martial or by a court of competent 
     jurisdiction.''
       S. 247 would add a new category of expatriating acts--
     ``Becoming a member of, or providing training or material 
     assistance to, any foreign terrorist organization designated 
     under Section 219.'' This implicates several constitutional 
     concerns.
       First, the material assistance provision added by the bill 
     would treat suspected provision of material assistance as an 
     act that affirmatively renounces one's American citizenship. 
     Thus, unlike treason or conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. 
     government, this provision would not require a prior 
     conviction. It would only require an administrative finding 
     by an unspecified government official that an American 
     citizen is suspected of providing material assistance to a 
     designated foreign terrorist organization with the intention 
     of relinquishing his or her citizenship.
       Second, this provision would violate Americans' 
     constitutional right to due process, including by depriving 
     them of citizenship based on secret evidence, and without the 
     right to a jury trial and accompanying protections enshrined 
     in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. In sum, the bill turns the 
     whole notion of due process on its head. Government officials 
     do not have the power to strip citizenship from American 
     citizens who never renounced their citizenship and were never 
     convicted of a crime.
       Third, the material assistance provision suffers from the 
     same constitutional flaws that plague other material support 
     laws, and goes far beyond what the Supreme Court has held is 
     constitutionally permissible when First and Fourth Amendments 
     rights are at stake. In 2010, the Supreme Court 
     disappointingly ruled in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project 
     that teaching terrorist groups how to negotiate peacefully 
     could be enough to be found guilty of material support. Even 
     if that logic might apply to criminal conduct, it should not 
     cause an American to lose his or her citizenship.
       For these reasons, the ACLU urges you to oppose S. 247. 
     Please contact Chris Anders at [email protected] or (202) 675-
     2308, if you have any questions regarding this letter.
           Sincerely,
     Karin Johanson,
       Director, Washington Legislative Office.
     Christopher Anders,
       Senior Legislative Counsel, Washington Legislative Office.

  Mr. LEAHY. I reserve my time, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time remains on each side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 3 minutes on the Democratic side and 
2 minutes on the Republican side.
  The assistant Democratic leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me say at the outset the initial 
unanimous consent request made by the junior Senator from Texas was a 
bill which he had pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. 
He did not attend that meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I 
wish he had. I think we should have all been there if we wanted to take 
this up and debate it. I objected on behalf of Senator Leahy and 
myself, and the Senator has spoken to the reasons for that objection.
  Let me address the second part of this bill relative to refugees. We 
will reflect in years to come about what happened in this world in the 
last week and 10 days. We will reflect on the terrible tragedy that 
occurred in Paris,

[[Page S8119]]

France, and in Beirut and other nations, which was led by the ISIS 
terrorists. We will reflect on those poor victims who died as a result 
of their terrorist acts. And we will also reflect on acts of heroism 
and wisdom that emerged from this terrible tragedy, heroism on the 
ground in Paris and other places by those who defied these terrorists 
and those who risked their lives to bring those responsible to justice, 
and the wisdom and compassion shown by leaders around the world not to 
exploit this situation.
  When President Hollande of France announced that his country would 
receive 35,000 refugees after this attack, he made it clear that he 
would not hold those innocent, helpless refugees accountable for the 
terrible misdeeds of these terrorists. When the nation of Canada said 
they would accept thousands of refugees, even after the Paris attack, 
they showed the wisdom and good sense to differentiate those helpless 
victims of terrorism around the world who are seeking refuge on our 
shores from those who perpetrated these terrorist acts. Then listen to 
the debate on Capitol Hill. Listen to the unanimous consent requests 
made this morning by the junior Senator from Texas. It is not 
consistent with that ethic. It is not consistent with those values.
  To say we will accept only refugees who are the victims of genocide 
would close the doors to Cuban refugees who came to the United States, 
trying to escape all of communism and what it meant to their families. 
It would have closed the doors to Soviet Jews persecuted in that 
country who were looking for freedom and came to the United States as 
refugees. I can list countless others who were not the victims of 
genocide, but they were the victims of persecution, they were from war-
torn countries, and they were the victims, as Senator Leahy has said, 
of gang rape and terrorism.
  Listen to what has been said on the other side of the Rotunda and in 
this Chamber today. It does not merit the kind of appreciation of 
American values that we insist on when we make these critical 
decisions. In time of war, in time of attack, sometimes rash decisions 
are made. I predict that in the course of history, as people in the 
future reflect on what happened in the Senate and the House of 
Representatives this week, they will hope that saner voices will 
prevail.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, the Senator from Vermont spoke against 
overheated rhetoric and in the very next breath accused me of being 
anti-American, echoing the attack President Obama gave standing on the 
soil of Turkey. Let me say that speaking the truth is not terrorism.
  My Democratic friends invoked their Irish and Italian grandparents. 
Well, when my Irish and Italian grandparents came to this country, they 
did not pose a terrorist threat because they were not seeking to murder 
innocent citizens. When my Cuban father came as a refugee, he was not a 
terrorist threat seeking to murder innocent citizens. This is an 
example of the Democratic Party's refusal to acknowledge the 
qualitative difference. Perhaps if they cannot see it, they can hear 
it, because in 2009 the Obama administration released Abu al-Baghdadi, 
the leader of ISIS. As he was being released, Abu al-Baghdadi turned to 
Army COL Kenneth King and said: See you in New York.
  ISIS intends to murder Americans, and if the Democratic Party cannot 
distinguish between ISIS terrorists and Irish and Italian and Jewish 
and Cuban immigrants, then they are ignoring reality.
  I would note that the Expatriate Terrorist Act is very, very similar 
to legislation that was introduced in 2010 by Democratic Senator Joe 
Lieberman and Senator Scott Brown, both of whom apparently, under the 
view of the Senator from Vermont, are un-American as well. I would note 
that at the time, then-Senator Hillary Clinton said about legislation 
virtually identical to my legislation:

       United States citizenship is a privilege. It is not a 
     right. People who are serving foreign powers--or in this case 
     foreign terrorists--are clearly in violation of the oath 
     which they swore when they became citizens.

  Yet President Obama and the Senator from Vermont apparently now 
consider Hillary Clinton's statement to be un-American. It is the 
essence of being American to say the Commander in Chief should protect 
the safety and security of this country.
  I would note that the assistant Democratic leader invoked President 
Hollande in France. President Hollande said he would support stripping 
French citizenship. We should protect ourselves every bit as much as 
the other nations on Earth.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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