[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 31, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S533-S537]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Travel Ban

  As a former prosecutor, I have long advocated for thorough vetting. I 
have supported strong national security measures. I believe the No. 1 
purpose of government is to keep people safe, but I don't believe that 
is what this Executive order did. In fact, it created chaos. I am on 
the bill to reverse and rescind this order. I know they have taken some 
steps to respond to all of the problems we have seen in every State in 
this Nation, but what really happened was--with the stroke of a pen--
the administration excluded entire populations from seeking refuge.
  I do think it is a bit forgotten that it is not just the seven or so 
countries that were identified by the administration. The refugee 
program has been stopped all over the world, and on Sunday I met with, 
along with Senator Franken, a number of our refugee populations. To 
give you some background, we have the biggest population of Somalis in 
the Nation in Minnesota. We are proud of our Somali population. We have 
the second biggest Hmong population. We have the biggest Liberian 
population. We have the biggest Oromo population. We have a number of 
people from Burma. These are all legal workers. They come over as 
refugees. They are legal when they come over. Many of them get green 
cards. Many of them go on to become citizens. We have people who are on 
work visas, people who are on student visas.
  The faces I saw and the people I met, these were their stories: an 
engineer from 3M who doesn't think he can go back to visit his father; 
a former marine from one of the affected countries who doesn't believe 
his brother can

[[Page S534]]

now come and visit him; two little girls in bright pink jackets who 
stood with us because they had waited for years for the arrival of 
their sister; the mother, a Somali woman within a refugee camp in 
Uganda was pregnant. She finally had gotten her papers to be able to 
come to America, get out of the refugee camp with her two children, but 
because she was pregnant when the papers came through, she wasn't able 
to apply for what would be her third child. The baby was born and she 
had a ``Sophie's Choice.'' Was she going to stay in the refugee camp 
with the two older girls or was she going to bring them to safety in 
America, in Minnesota, with so many friends and relatives whom she 
knew, and then have to leave the baby behind?
  She decided to leave the baby with friends at that refugee camp, and 
for 4 years she worked to get that baby to Minnesota. She got it done, 
and that baby was supposed to get on a plane and come to Minnesota this 
week, courtesy of Lutheran Social Services in Minnesota that had worked 
with the family. Right now, the latest news our office has had, that is 
not happening. Why? This 4-year-old is not a green card holder. This 4-
year-old is a refugee, a refugee who is coming to finally be with her 
mom and her sisters. To explain to what looked like about an 8-year-old 
and a 10-year-old why this is happening is really--there are no words 
to explain why it is happening.
  I truly appreciate it that some of our Republican colleagues joined 
the chorus to say the vetting rule had not been vetted. Many of them 
pointed to the implementation problems with this rule, and others, such 
as Senator McCain and Senator Graham, also talked about the fact that 
this was simply a self-inflicted wound in our fight against terrorism. 
We heard much of that.
  I know, from my colleagues, what this means to moderates whom we are 
attempting to work with in these Muslim nations as well as our allies 
all across the world.
  I leave you with this. This is about our economy. I remind our 
friends, and I know--I see Senator Rubio here who understands the 
economic value of immigration--that over 70 of the Fortune 500 
companies in America are led by immigrants, including in my State, 3M, 
Best Buy, Mosaic; that 25 percent of our U.S. Nobel laureates were born 
in other countries; that at one point I had the figure that 200 of our 
Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or kids of immigrants. 
That is our economy.
  There is the moral argument, best reflected in the story I just told 
of those two little girls in their bright pink jackets in the middle of 
a Minnesota winter, but then there is also the security argument. So we 
plead with the administration to reverse this rule, to rescind it.
  Certainly, we can work on more vetting measures. As we know, the 
refugee vetting already takes 18 months, 2 years, 3 years, more work 
with biometrics, but there is no reason to do this on the backs of 
people who have followed the rules, who have followed the regulations 
and have done what is right and simply want to be part of our country 
or, in most cases, are already part of our country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, we are here in the Senate debating what I 
believe is the most important Cabinet position that the President has 
to nominate, the Secretary of State. It comes at an important point in 
American foreign policy history. There is so much uncertainty and 
debate about our role in the world these days. A lot of our allies have 
questions. Our adversaries are obviously watching very closely.
  I hope that all of us--and I mean the Executive Branch to the 
Congress--recognize that as people around the world are watching what 
is happening on television, they see an America that is deeply divided 
and fractured right now. I think this needs to be a moment of 
restraint, both in action and in words. As we work through our 
differences, these vibrant debates are important to our system of 
government.
  It is one of the reasons that led me to ultimately support the 
nomination of Mr. Tillerson. I believe that despite some of the 
concerns that I had and have about his answers to some of my questions, 
it is vitally important for this country to have a Secretary of State 
in place at this moment.
  I have never had any doubts about Mr. Tillerson's qualifications, his 
intellect, his background. I have had some concerns about his answers 
to some very important questions, at least important questions to me, 
and what I hope will be important questions for a lot of Americans. 
That is what I wanted to come to the floor and speak about in 
conjunction with this nomination, and that is the issue of human 
rights.
  To me, human rights is critical both to our national identity, but it 
is also important to our national Security. In America today, we have, 
as we have done now for the past few centuries, contentious debates all 
the time about policies and about what kind of country we want to be. 
If you have watched the proceedings on the Senate floor or in committee 
over the last few days, you have seen a lot of that.
  Even as we debate these things among ourselves, and even as the 
American political rhetoric has become so incredibly heated--and we 
will have more to say about that in the weeks to come--I don't know of 
any other time where we have gotten to the point that when we disagree 
with people, we don't just disagree with them, we question their 
motives and their character.
  In fact, it is almost automatic today in American political 
discourse. You don't just disagree with someone; you immediately jump 
to why they are a bad person. In the months and weeks to come, I will 
have examples about why that is a bad idea. But as we are having those 
contentious debates, I hope that we never take for granted, sometimes 
as I think we do, that we live in a place where losing an election, 
losing a vote, losing on an issue, does not mean you end up in jail or 
disappear or are executed because that is the kind of stuff that 
happens in other places all over the world, even now, in the 17th year 
of the 21st century.
  As we have seen in recent weeks, this political dissent is part of 
our way of life. It has come to define our country. We protect it in 
our Constitution. It has made us an example to the rest of the world. I 
was reminded of this just a couple of months ago, right here in 
Washington, DC. After our most recent election, I had to a chance to 
visit with my opponent, Congressman Patrick Murphy of Florida.
  When I was finished with that meeting, I walked into another meeting. 
That other meeting was with a Cuban dissident. He is an opponent of the 
Castro regime, an individual who risks his life in the pursuit of 
freedom, an individual who does not just get bad blog posts or a bad 
article or a bad editorial or a nasty campaign ad run against him. No, 
this is an individual who routinely gets thrown into jail, and he has 
the scars to prove the beatings he has taken from the Cuban state 
police over the last few years.
  I was a little bit late to this meeting. I apologized to him. I 
explained that I had just been in a meeting with my opposing candidate, 
the man I had just ran against in the election. I could see the look on 
his face. It kind of struck him. He immediately, I believe, appreciated 
what that represented. He said--and I am paraphrasing: That is what we 
want for our country too.
  This is the essence of what has been America's example to the world, 
the essence of how our principles and our values have inspired others 
to seek their own God-given rights and how we have a moral duty to 
support--in our words, in our foreign policy, and in our actions--those 
aspirations of people all over the world.
  In a way, dictators and tyrants have never had it worse than they do 
today because we live in this high-tech information age. We often get 
to see the images of repression within minutes of it happening, if not 
in real time. We can monitor it; we can catalog the status of human 
rights in every city, in every country, on every continent.
  But as Americans, we are called to do much more than observe and 
record these atrocities for history. With this knowledge, it is our 
duty to act and to do what we can to support the people demanding their 
rights. We must hold those who are violating their rights accountable. 
I believe this is more important than ever because of the totalitarian 
resurgence underway in many parts of the world as democracy in every 
continent is under attack.

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  Even as I stand here now before you, there are political prisoners on 
this planet. They languish in Chinese prisons. Political dissidents and 
journalists are being silenced and targeted for murder in Russia. Those 
who seek democracy in Syria are being massacred. The United States has 
a unique responsibility to highlight, to expose, and to combat these 
grave human rights abuses around the world.
  Historically, we have been a compassionate country that has welcomed 
people seeking refuge from repression and atrocities. That is why I 
understand. I understand the concerns about refugees from certain 
failed states or governments who sponsor terror, places where very 
often it is difficult if not impossible to verify the identities of 
people seeking to come to the United States.
  I say this to people all the time. When you talk about changes in 
policies, there is a legitimate argument and a credible argument to be 
made that there are people we cannot allow into the United States, not 
because we don't have compassion for their plight but because we have 
no way of knowing who they are. You can't just call 1-800-Syria and get 
background information about the individuals who are trying to enter 
the United States. We know for a fact that there are terrorist groups 
around the world that have commandeered passport-making machinery and 
are producing passports that are real in every way, except for the 
identity of the person in the picture.
  So I do believe that we need to have very careful and rigorous 
screening, more than ever before, of all people entering the United 
States but especially those who are coming from areas that we know do 
not have reliable background information available to us.
  But at the same time, I cannot help, and I think we should not help, 
but to be worried about the impact of a 120-day moratorium on every 
single refugee from anywhere on the planet, refugees from places like 
the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Colombia, El Salvador, 
Vietnam, Burma, and, of course, Cuba, just to name a few places. These 
are among the most vulnerable people on the planet, living often in the 
most difficult and dangerous circumstances imaginable.
  I remind everyone: This is a moratorium; it is not a permanent 
policy. I understand that there are provisions available for waivers, 
and I find that to be promising.
  But I also want to everyone to understand that 120 days, for someone 
who is trying to get out of a place where they might be killed, may be 
1 day too many for some of them. I hope that that does not turn out to 
be the case. That is why I urge the administration, that is why I urge 
soon-to-be Secretary Tillerson, to exercise great caution in making 
sure that dissidents and others are not being turned away.
  By the way, I am pleased to see that the administration is heeding 
some of these calls already, early this week. We must understand that 
when tyrants and dictators oppress their people, we are all paying a 
price. It is happening all over the world. Vladimir Putin continues to 
institute Draconian laws targeting the freedom of expression and 
assembly.
  Earlier this year, my office and I highlighted the case of human 
rights activist Ildar Dadin, who was the first person imprisoned under 
Russia's new criminal provision that bars any form of public dissent.
  In China, rights lawyers are tortured. Labor activists are arrested. 
Tibetan Buddhist nuns are expelled from their homes, and churches are 
being demolished. Just earlier today, I met the wives of two Chinese 
rights advocates, who both pleaded for the United States to champion 
their husbands' cases in the hope that they can see their husbands 
again.
  In Iran, dissent, freedom of expression, and freedom of press is 
nonexistent, heavily restricted. Many continue to be jailed for simply 
exercising their fundamental human rights. The Government of Iran 
targets religious minorities, often jailing Christian pastors and those 
who gather to worship together in private homes. In Syria, one of the 
worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history, the Assad regime, 
with the assistance of Vladimir Putin and the Iranian Government and 
military, is committing war crimes against innocent women, children, 
men, and civilians in Aleppo and beyond.
  In Iraq, we have seen ancient Christian and Yezidi communities on the 
verge of extinction, all because of ISIS.
  In Venezuela, the Maduro regime continues to imprison political 
opponents while the country descends further and further into economic 
chaos and has now become on the verge of a total humanitarian 
catastrophe in the Western Hemisphere. In one of the richest countries 
on the planet, we are at the point of people literally starving to 
death.
  Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States on many key geopolitical 
issues, and we will have to continue working with them on those shared 
causes. But they also remain one of the most censored countries in the 
world. The government has intensified its repression of activists and 
journalists. In Saudi Arabia, women remain under the male guardianship 
system. They are banned from even driving.
  Globally, assaults against press freedom around the world are a major 
problem because, ultimately, the cause and champions of human rights 
need information to expose abuses and call for reforms. Without 
independent journalists, without information, tyrants and dictatorships 
can get away with so much more.
  According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, in 2016, 48 
journalists were killed and 259 journalists were jailed worldwide. In 
2016, Turkey, a NATO member, again, an important geopolitical alliance 
of the United States, but, sadly, they became the leading jailer of 
journalists on the planet, following a widespread crackdown on the 
press.
  The abuses and threats to human rights around the world are many. We 
could be here all night trying to break Senator Strom Thurmond's 
filibuster record, going country by country, case by case, and it still 
would not be enough time to do justice to all of the heroic figures 
around the world. But it is my hope that more of my colleagues will 
join me in doing so over time because it is important. Our voices here 
in the Senate give people all over the world confidence and motivation 
to stay the course.
  As famed Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky has said of himself and 
fellow prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union: ``We never could 
survive even one day in the Soviet Union if our struggle was not the 
struggle of the free world.''
  In essence, what he is saying is that these tyrants and these 
dictators, when they jail these people, the first thing they tell them 
is that no one even remembers you anymore. No one talks about you 
anymore. You have been abandoned.
  Today, I want to highlight one particular human rights case as part 
of the weekly social media campaign my office has been doing for the 
last couple of years called Expression NOT Oppression.
  Here you see a picture of a gentleman named Dr. Eduardo Cardet of 
Cuba. He is a medical doctor and the national coordinator of the 
Christian Liberation Movement, a group which advocates for democracy 
and freedom.
  Cardet assumed the role of national coordinator after the suspicious 
death of Castro critic Oswaldo Paya Sardinas. After allegedly stating 
in an interview that Fidel Castro was hated by the Cuban people--that 
is what he said--he was savagely beaten in front of his two young 
children and wife by Cuban state security on November 30 of last year. 
He has been in jail ever since.
  He has been charged--get this. He has been charged with challenging 
authority. He faces a 3- to 5-year prison sentence. Let me repeat that. 
He is officially charged with challenging authority. That is a crime in 
Cuba. His father has written to Pope Francis begging for his 
intervention. By the way, this is a reminder that even though Fidel 
Castro is dead, his authoritarian system still lives on.
  Dr. Cardet's persecution and the overall increase in repression in 
Cuba over the past 2 years is a reminder that the policy of rewarding 
the Castro regime, under the guise of engagement, with cash and 
concessions has not worked and must be strategically reversed here in 
the coming months.
  So I come here today in the hope that our President and our State 
Department and especially Mr. Tillerson,

[[Page S536]]

in whom I am entrusting my vote for confirmation, and all Members of 
Congress, for that matter, will add their voices in solidarity with Dr. 
Cardet, with all the Cuban people yearning to be free, and with those 
around the world who look to our Nation--to America--for leadership and 
often for nothing more than for us to lend our voice to their cause.
  As we move forward here with our Nation's work, we must continue to 
highlight these cases and to raise awareness of them. We must never 
forget that there are people all over the world who are challenging 
authority because they want a better life for themselves and their 
families. They should be able to challenge authority peacefully and 
then go home to their families, not be thrown in jail, tortured, or 
killed.
  Today I ask all to pray for those who are victims of their own 
government. I pray for the release of prisoners of conscience and their 
families, and I pray that our own country at this moment of 
extraordinary division on so many key issues can reaffirm its founding 
principles in calling for the sacred right of every man, woman, and 
child to be free.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate is considering the 
nomination of Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State. Mr. Tillerson is 
an intelligent, hard-working, and successful businessman. He is also, 
in my view, the wrong choice to be our Nation's top diplomat.
  To effectively confront the many challenges our country faces in an 
increasingly globalized and volatile world, we need a Secretary of 
State who, with credibility and conviction, can clearly and effectively 
articulate our interests and values and who has experience advocating 
for them abroad.
  We need someone who will work with the international community to 
combat climate change, bring to justice war criminals like Bashar al-
Assad, and stand up to corrupt, abusive regimes that violate 
international humanitarian law and territorial integrity as Russia has 
done in Syria and Ukraine.
  We need someone who will advocate for fundamental human rights and 
democratic values when they are threatened by friend or foe.
  I am unconvinced that Mr. Tillerson is that person.
  As an accomplished businessman, Mr. Tillerson's lone qualification 
for Secretary of State seems to be his success in tirelessly 
circumnavigating the globe to negotiate oil deals. There is no doubt he 
has helped ExxonMobil expand its business and made a lot of money doing 
so. But contrary to the view being promoted by the Trump 
administration, running a for-profit business is fundamentally 
different from running a large Federal agency.
  As the CEO of ExxonMobil, Mr. Tillerson worked closely with corrupt 
autocrats like Vladimir Putin who were actively undermining U.S. 
interests and acting in ways that were counter to our values. In doing 
so, Mr. Tillerson served his shareholders, but he disregarded the 
national interests of the United States.
  Unlike some in this body, I believe we should have relations with 
governments we disagree with. But I also believe that, in doing so, we 
must act in accordance with our principles and values. And I don't 
believe that being the CEO of one of this country's wealthiest 
companies entitles you to ignore those values for the sake of making 
money.
  Mr. Tillerson's confirmation hearing provided him the opportunity to 
reconcile his track record of a lifetime in the oil business with the 
responsibilities he would have as Secretary of State.
  In his testimony, he stated that ``American leadership requires moral 
clarity.'' I agree. But he was challenged by Senators Rubio, Murphy, 
and others who observed that despite this statement, Mr. Tillerson was 
unwilling to label the relentless bombardment and destruction of Aleppo 
by Russian forces as a war crime or the extrajudicial killings of 
thousands of civilians in the Philippines as a blatant violation of 
human rights, to cite only two examples of well-documented cases of 
atrocities he refused to recognize as such.
  I worry that Mr. Tillerson will too often be inclined to subjugate 
fundamental human rights to what he perceives as overriding economic or 
security concerns. There is nothing in the record to suggest that he 
recognizes that the protection of human rights is itself a national 
security imperative or that he would differ from the President on these 
issues that have become even more important since January 20.
  We also have no idea what Mr. Tillerson thinks about the President's 
misguided, discriminatory, and probably illegal decision to ban entry 
to the United States of all citizens of Syria and half a dozen other 
Muslim countries because he has been conspicuously silent, even though 
the State Department will have a key role in enforcing it. Our 
diplomats posted overseas will bear the brunt of the retaliatory 
actions by outraged governments in countries targeted by this arbitrary 
and self-defeating Executive order.
  Nor do we know what he thinks of the President's draft Executive 
order that signals a drastic reduction in our support for and influence 
in the United Nations. Will the President consult with Mr. Tillerson 
before issuing that order? Does Mr. Tillerson think it is a smart way 
to protect our interests and reassure our allies? We don't know.
  ExxonMobil, while Mr. Tillerson was CEO, lobbied to overturn section 
1504 of the Dodd-Frank legislation which is designed to stop the 
illicit flow of revenues from oil and gas extraction to corrupt 
governments. Senator Lugar, who played a key role in that bipartisan 
legislation, said at the time that stopping such corruption is a 
national security and economic priority for the United States. Does Mr. 
Tillerson think that shrouding in secrecy corruption involving hundreds 
of billions of dollars by governments who steal from their own 
impoverished people is in our national interest? We don't know because 
he doesn't say.
  My other abiding concern with this nominee is that we are being asked 
to confirm the head of the world's largest oil company to be the 
country's top diplomat, at a time when I believe the most challenging 
issue we and the world face is climate change resulting from the 
combustion of fossil fuels.
  Uniting the world to combat climate change will not be possible 
without unprecedented U.S. leadership. Leadership requires credibility, 
and on this issue, Mr. Tillerson has next to none. He has devoted his 
professional career--and become a billionaire in the process--to 
extracting and selling as much oil as possible. If, at his confirmation 
hearing, Mr. Tillerson had said that he recognizes the causal 
connection between burning fossil fuels and climate change, that he 
understands the grave threat it poses, and that he is determined to use 
the position of Secretary of State to build on the record of the Obama 
administration to combat climate change, I might feel differently. But 
he said nothing remotely like that.
  To the contrary, when asked at his confirmation hearing if ExxonMobil 
concealed what it knew about climate change while funding outside 
groups that raised doubts about the science, Mr. Tillerson said he was 
``in no position to speak'' for the company, even though he had been 
the CEO until only a few days before. When asked whether he lacked the 
knowledge to answer or was refusing to do so, he replied ``A little of 
both.'' That should concern each of us.
  Based on his professional record and his responses at the hearing, I 
do not believe Mr. Tillerson is the right person to be representing the 
United States in negotiations to reduce carbon emissions, one of the 
defining issues of our time.
  I was also disappointed by Mr. Tillerson's responses to a number of 
other questions submitted for the record, including regarding U.S. 
policy toward Cuba and the right of Americans to travel there. By 
simply repeating the Republican talking points that he would act 
consistent with the Helms-Burton Act, he appeared to embrace a law that 
has failed to achieve any of its objectives and has prevented Americans 
from traveling freely to Cuba or U.S. companies from doing business 
there.
  Does Mr. Tillerson believe that Cuba, an impoverished island of 11 
million people who overwhelmingly have a positive opinion of the United 
States, should remain the country with the most U.S. sanctions of any 
in the world? He didn't say.

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  I hope that, if confirmed, Mr. Tillerson will evaluate our policy 
toward Cuba objectively and in a manner that favors diplomatic 
engagement--as the overwhelming majority of Cubans and Americans want--
over isolation.
  I understand that nominees are often unwilling to take hard positions 
or unable to discuss in detail at this early stage all of the issues 
they will be required to manage in their new job. But we should expect 
a nominee for Secretary of State to be willing and able to recognize 
and condemn horrific violations of human rights and to speak out 
against actions by foreign governments and our own that are obviously 
inconsistent with our interests and values.
  President Obama did not achieve every foreign policy goal he set out 
to achieve, nor did I always agree with President Obama's or Secretary 
of State Kerry's priorities. But we worked together, and with our 
international partners, we made notable progress over the past 8 years 
on human rights, climate change, reducing poverty, and many other 
issues--progress we must continue to build on. With nationalism and 
isolationism on the rise and democracy and fundamental freedoms under 
threat, we need a Secretary of State who has demonstrated a track 
record and commitment to more than economic enrichment.
  If Mr. Tillerson is confirmed, which I expect he will be, I will 
continue my longstanding support for the funding to enable the State 
Department to carry out its vital mission to protect and promote U.S. 
interests and values abroad. When he and I agree, I will support him. 
When we disagree, I will be vocal in my opposition as I was during the 
Obama administration.
  I hope Mr. Tillerson will also be a strong advocate for the State 
Department's budget and personnel, including by protecting the 
integrity of the Dissent Channel to ensure that alternative views on 
important policy decisions can be expressed and considered without fear 
of retribution. Even the best policies in the world are worth little 
more than the paper they are printed on without the funds and the 
people to implement them.
  We should always remember that the face of the United States is its 
people. Leadership is possible only through the hard work of the 
diplomats serving around the world to promote our values, defend our 
interests, and engage constructively with friends and adversaries. 
Their service, dedication, and expertise are the reason we are able to 
effectively confront an increasingly dangerous world. Our success at 
home is inextricably linked to their success abroad. That is why, just 
as we support the men and women of our military, so should we recognize 
and support the diplomats at the Department of State.
  The State Department's indispensable role, made possible by its 
outstanding workforce, is recognized by the many widely respected 
senior U.S. Armed Forces officials, current and retired, who have 
repeatedly called for increased funding for diplomacy and development. 
They know better than anyone that preventing wars is far less costly 
than fighting them and that wars rarely if ever turn out the way one 
predicts, as the past 50 years painfully illustrate.
  Regardless of whatever differences of opinion we may have, I hope Mr. 
Tillerson will consult regularly with Republicans and Democrats, as has 
been the custom with past successful Secretaries of State of both 
parties. I have been here a long time, and I would be the first to say 
that we have had outstanding top diplomats from both parties. I put 
James Baker in that category, and I sincerely hope that Mr. Tillerson 
proves me wrong and joins their ranks. We all want what is best for the 
American people and the Nation, and we are stronger when we work 
together and with other nations to find a common way forward.