[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 38 (Monday, March 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1601-S1603]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    DISAPPROVING A RULE SUBMITTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to H.J. Res. 44.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
proceed.
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the joint resolution.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 44) disapproving the rule 
     submitted by the Department of the Interior relating to 
     Bureau of Land Management regulations that establish the 
     procedures used to prepare, revise, or amend land use plans 
     pursuant to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 
     1976.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


                               Travel Ban

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, earlier today, President Trump signed a 
new Executive order that bans travel to the United States from a new 
list of Muslim-majority countries and bans all refugees. This new 
Executive order includes some cosmetic changes, but these changes do 
not alter the fact that President Trump's travel ban is still 
unconstitutional and still inconsistent with the values of this Nation.
  This Executive order plays directly into ISIS's argument that the 
United States is waging a war against a religion. The President's first 
travel ban was blocked by multiple Federal courts, and his latest, I 
hope, will face the same fate.
  Let's consider how we have arrived at this point. During his first 
full week in office, President Trump signed his first Executive order 
that banned Muslims and refugees. This order resulted in chaos in 
airports across the country. Dozens of legal immigrants were detained, 
not because they did anything wrong or because they were any danger to 
our Nation. It was solely because of where they came from. There was an 
Iraqi immigrant who put himself and his family in harm's way by working 
with American troops as an interpreter, two disabled seniors--a husband 
and wife--and a 5-year-old child. These were people who were the 
victims of President Trump's first Executive order.
  The order faced widespread resistance from the American people, the 
courts, and even from the administration itself. Acting Attorney 
General Sally Yates said the Justice Department could not in good 
conscience defend the President's Executive order. So the President 
fired her.
  Now comes this new Executive order. We know that, over time, Ms. 
Yates was right. She stood for principle, and when multiple Federal 
courts blocked that Executive order, we understood that she appreciated 
the law, unlike those who crafted this terrible order.
  Rather than repeal the Executive order or defend it in court, the 
Trump administration is trying to evade these

[[Page S1602]]

legal challenges by issuing a new version but with some tweaks. The 
original Executive order banned travelers to the United States from 
seven Muslim-majority countries. The President heard the plea about 
this ban on Muslim travelers. He issued a new order today which does 
not ban travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries but from only 
six. This is still, nevertheless, an attack on religious freedom that 
risks alienating hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world.
  Our focus should be on people with suspected links to terrorism. The 
President will have no resistance from this Congress--from either side 
of the aisle--if he goes after actual suspects of terrorism, but this 
should be done regardless of the suspect's religion.
  This order--the new one--still blocks refugees from coming to the 
United States for at least 120 days, and it cuts by more than 50 
percent the number of refugees who will be settled in the United States 
this year. Turning away innocent people who are fleeing persecution, 
genocide, and terror is not the American way. It will not keep us 
safer. Sadly, it projects an image of America to the world that is 
totally inconsistent with where we have been as a Nation.
  No matter what spin the White House puts on it, the President's new 
Executive order is still fatally flawed. Multiple statements from the 
President himself and from several of his advisers have made clear that 
his intention is to bar Muslims from entering the United States and to 
give priority to Christian refugees. This violates the Constitution's 
establishment clause and the equal protection clause. Tweaking the 
language of the ban cannot remedy the President's original unlawful 
intent.
  During the Presidential campaign, the President issued the following 
statement:

       Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete 
     shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our 
     country's representatives can figure out what is going on.

  When the President signed his original Executive order, his advisers 
made clear that it was intending to carry out this campaign promise. 
Listen to what former mayor of New York City--and one of the closest 
advisers to Donald Trump--Rudy Giuliani said:

       I'll tell you the whole history of it: When President Trump 
     first announced it, he said ``Muslim ban.'' He called me up. 
     He said, ``Put a commission together. Show me the right way 
     to do it legally.''

  Rudy Giuliani.
  Now White House Adviser Stephen Miller has made it clear that his 
intention is to ban Muslims, and he says:

       These are mostly minor, technical differences. 
     Fundamentally, you are still going to have the same, basic 
     policy outcome for the country.

  Stephen Miller.
  We are in the midst of the largest refugee crisis in the history of 
the world. More than 65 million people have been forcibly displaced 
from their homes. The brutal Syrian conflict--the epicenter of this 
crisis--has killed hundreds of thousands, injured more than a million, 
and displaced more than half of Syria's population. In some areas, 
children in this country--in the 21st century--are starving to death.
  The conflict has forced more than 4.7 million refugees to flee Syria. 
Around 70 percent of all Syrian refugees are women and children. Half 
of the Syrian refugee children are not in school. Millions in and 
outside of Syria are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
  We cannot forget the lessons of history. In 1939, the United States 
refused to let the SS St. Louis dock in our country, sending over 900 
Jewish refugees back to Europe, where many died in concentration camps.
  After that tragic moral failure in the United States--after we turned 
our back on Jewish refugees who were fleeing Hitler--the United States 
examined its conscience and came up with a new program. It came up with 
a new approach, and it was bipartisan. Since World War II, the American 
people have worked to set an example for the world by accepting 
refugees.
  Listen to those who have been accepted and made a part of America--
almost 400,000 Eastern Europeans after World War II, close to 400,000 
Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Vietnam war, approximately 650,000 
Cuban refugees after Castro came to power.
  Let me note, parenthetically, that, of the four Hispanic U.S. 
Senators today, three can trace their roots to this Cuban migration to 
the United States, and their families were refugees. They sit on the 
floor of the Senate and represent some of our great States. Yet, with 
this President, he is asking them and all of us to ignore this history.
  We have accepted more than 150,000 refugees from the former 
Yugoslavia. Over 100,000 Soviet Jews, who were escaping the persecution 
of their religion and looking for freedom, came to the United States. 
Many of these refugees were fleeing regimes that were hostile to our 
country. Some argued that spies and other hostile elements could be 
hidden among them.
  Think about the hundreds of thousands who came from Communist-
controlled Cuba into the United States. Were they subjected to extreme 
vetting? No. They were people who said: We have come here and are 
looking for freedom. We opened our doors, and they have made us a 
better country because of it. The United States was not frightened by 
the fearmongers when it came to these refugees joining us in the United 
States, and we shouldn't be today.
  Let's be clear. Refugees who come into our country this day are the 
most carefully vetted and investigated of all of the travelers to the 
United States. Before refugees are admitted to the United States, they 
have to pass careful, rigorous security screenings. All of that 
screening takes place before they even set foot in America, and Syrian 
refugees undergo a new layer of enhanced review before they are allowed 
to come to America.
  President Trump's own Department of Homeland Security has determined 
that his travel ban will not make us safer. Listen to this memo from 
the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and 
Analysis in President Trump's administration:

       Country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable 
     indicator of potential terrorist activity. Since the 
     beginning of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, the foreign-
     born, primarily U.S.-based individuals who were inspired by a 
     foreign terrorist organization to participate in terrorism-
     related activity were citizens of 26 different countries.

  The Trump administration believes they have found--first seven--now 
six countries from where they will deny terrorists access to the United 
States, even those who have gone through the vetting to be considered 
refugees.
  Listen to this. It is another memo from the same Department--the 
Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis--
under President Trump:

       Most foreign-born, U.S.-based violent extremists likely 
     radicalized several years after their entry to the United 
     States, limiting the ability of screening and vetting 
     officials to prevent their entry because of national security 
     concerns.

  The point is that it is not likely a terrorist is going to stand in 
line for 2 years to become a refugee to the United States and go 
through all of the background checks and live in a refugee camp for 
that purpose. Those who ended up being involved in terrorist activities 
were converted after their having arrived in the United States, and 
they included in their ranks many who were born in the United States.
  If we are serious--really serious--about protecting America, we 
should close the loopholes that make it too easy for foreign visitors 
and suspected terrorists to buy deadly weapons. Most people do not 
know, but we have not precluded--or stopped--those who are visiting the 
United States from buying weapons. Even if we have not checked them, 
there are no background checks when it comes to terrorism. We should 
focus on individuals who are engaged in suspicious behavior, not target 
entire Muslim countries or the entire refugee population.
  It makes no sense. Even President Trump's Department of Homeland 
Security says as much, but this President is determined to go forward 
with his Muslim ban. He is determined to build walls at our borders. He 
is determined to instill fear in our hearts.
  That is not how America works, and it is not how we will move 
forward. Let's not continue the cruelty and deception of blaming 
immigrants and refugees for our security and economic challenges. We 
should work together, in the spirit of post-World War II America, and 
set an example for the world in order to build a better America for all 
Americans, including new

[[Page S1603]]

Americans--no matter the color of their skin, where their parents were 
born, or how they pray.
  I yield the floor.
  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.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. 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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