[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 171 (Wednesday, October 18, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5076-S5078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. RES. 413

  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I want to read here, briefly, from the 
law of the United States of America. This is the existing law; I am not 
trying to pass a law today. And it says: section 212(a)3(B), 
subsection--I am not going to read the whole number. The law of the 
United States Immigration and Nationality Act mandates that you are 
ineligible to enter into the United States if you endorse or espouse 
terrorist activity or persuade others to endorse or espouse terrorist 
activity or support a terrorist organization.
  What that basically means is, if you are a supporter of a terrorist 
group or you encourage others to support the actions of a terrorist 
group--a designated terrorist group--the statute defines what that is, 
you are not supposed to get a visa.
  And so it is reasonable to conclude that if you are already in the 
country--understand what I am talking about, I am not talking about 
American citizens; I am talking about someone who is a foreign national 
and that person is in the United States on a visa and that person is 
out there defending or encouraging others to defend and take the side 
of a terrorist organization, like, for example, Hamas or maybe 
Hezbollah or somebody else--if they are not supposed to have a visa to 
come into the country, once they are already here, if they do that, 
they should lose that visa. That is applying existing law.
  And so what I am going to come here on the floor and try to do today 
is pass something that I, frankly, thought was common sense, doesn't go 
any further than this, that basically urges--it is not even a new law. 
It is in the resolution. It basically says the Senate is asking the 
Biden administration, if they come across anyone who is here--a foreign 
national on a visa who supports Hamas--that that person's visa should 
be canceled, and they should be removed from the country through the 
proceedings involving removal.
  That is what this resolution does. It, obviously, does things like 
condemns anti-Semitism and condemns the horrible attack from Hamas. But 
all it basically says is if you are a foreign national in the United 
States, you are here on a visa as a visitor and you support Hamas or 
you encourage others to support Hamas, you should lose your visa and 
you should be gone. That is what I hope to be able to do here today.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of 
S. Res. 413, which is at the desk; further, that the resolution be 
agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. WELCH. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I want to 
make it very clear that there are 100 Members of the U.S. Senate who 
absolutely condemn the brutal attack by Hamas on innocent Israeli 
citizens; that absolutely condemn the kidnapping of Israeli citizens 
and some Americans; who absolutely condemn the vicious ``kill Jews'' 
philosophy of Hamas. And all of us have an opportunity--which I think 
all of us are going to take--to stand by Israel when it comes to going 
after Hamas.
  I hope all of us are also going to do everything we can to encourage 
that every precaution that can be taken to protect innocent 
Palestinians be taken because they, too, have been kidnapped by Hamas, 
who cynically use them as human shields.
  But I read the resolution of my colleague from Florida. This is not 
about enforcing the existing law. This is about compromising a 
constitutional right that Americans have enjoyed since the inception of 
our country. It is the First Amendment.
  And it may be something that people in this body may object to, but 
when a person is in the United States, they enjoy the protections of 
our magnificent founding document to be free from unlawful searches and 
seizures and, certainly, to be able to say things that we may find 
repugnant. There have been many things that have been said that are 
repugnant.

[[Page S5077]]

  But at a time of maximum stress--and we are in that right now--is 
when there is the maximum stress to compromise the right we have 
enjoyed of free speech protected by the First Amendment since the 
founding of our country.
  And we have had some recent experience with this. After 9/11 and the 
trauma that our Nation experienced with the loss of over 3,000 
wonderful people--in the Twin Towers, at the Pentagon, in 
Pennsylvania--there was a call to go after groups, to compromise 
rights. In hindsight, in those times when we did do the wrong thing, 
because we harmed innocent people in our anger--our justified anger, by 
the way--we don't want to do that again.
  So this resolution--however my colleague wants to characterize it--is 
about what happens in this country. This may be something my colleague 
disagrees with, but when a person is in this country, they enjoy the 
benefits of our Constitution and the right of free speech. I stand for 
free speech.
  My preference is that we focus on doing the things that this U.S. 
Senate can do to help Israel go after Hamas, to help all of the 
innocent Palestinians who seek to live in peace have that opportunity 
to do so.
  I object.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. If I may respond for a moment. I understand my colleague 
has to go. I know it is late and other things are going on. He is 
welcome to stay, obviously.
  There were a couple of mentions about how I characterized the 
resolution. I will just read from the resolution:

       Resolved, That the Senate [1] calls on the President of the 
     United States to enforce existing law to revoke visas and 
     initiate deportation proceedings for any foreign national who 
     has endorsed or espoused the terrorist activities of Hamas, 
     Palestinian Islamic Jihad--

  People whose rocket yesterday hit a hospital in Gaza and killed 
innocent people--

     Hezbollah, or other Foreign Terrorist Organizations--

  Which is a term that is defined by the State Department who issues a 
list of who those are--

     That participated in terrorist attacks against Israel and 
     United States citizens before, on, or after October 7, 2023.

  Yes, we have a First Amendment right in this country to free speech, 
but everyone acknowledges there are limits to it. For example, you do 
not have a First Amendment right to call on people to overthrow the 
government of the United States. You don't have a First Amendment right 
to do that. You don't have a First Amendment right to incite people to 
violence. And there is no First Amendment right to a visa. I am not 
talking about U.S. citizens.
  And, by the way, to be abundantly clear, this is very specifically 
written to talk about people who have endorsed or espoused the 
terrorist activities of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihads. This is not 
about people who support a two-state solution. This is not about people 
who are of Palestinian descent. It has nothing to do with any of them. 
People have every right to espouse those views. And I may disagree with 
them, but they have a right to do that.
  What no one has a right to do, especially a visitor--not an 
American--a visitor to the United States granted a visa for which there 
is no constitutional right--that we are going to allow visitors into 
the country the law says they are not even allowed to be in, but now 
they are here. They got in because, obviously, nobody goes into their 
interview and says: I am a Hamas supporter, by the way, in case you are 
wondering. So they let them in the country. Or maybe they became a 
Hamas supporter while they are here. But they are here as visitors on a 
visa, espousing, defending, and supporting a terrorist organization 
that just committed a horrible slaughter, but they have been doing it 
for a long time--not at this scale and scope like we saw in one day.

  This is not about the First Amendment. This is about people that are 
actively calling for the support of a terrorist organization that, if 
they could, they would slaughter Americans. If they have the capability 
to conduct an attack like that in the United States, they would. There 
is no constitutional right to that. And there is no constitutional 
right to a visa to remain in this country.
  That is what I am talking about. That is what all this is about. It 
goes on, obviously, to condemn the attack and all the other things, 
which I think would not be controversial. But that is specifically what 
this is about.
  The law is very clear. You are not allowed--it just makes all the 
sense in the world. Why would any country in the world say: We are 
going to give out visas to people who support terrorism? They wouldn't, 
and our law doesn't.
  But now that they are here, somehow, they are immune to the 
application of the law? Now that visa is somehow a protected document? 
A visa is just like if we have to get a visa to go to another country. 
It is a country saying: We will allow you in as a visitor for a 
temporary period of time.
  But there are all kinds of things that can get your visa canceled. 
There are all kinds of things that can get your visa canceled, like if 
you are here to do a certain kind of job and you are not doing that 
job, you are in default of the visa.
  There are all kinds of things that, depending on the visa you are on, 
can get your visa canceled. Shouldn't one of them be espousing support 
for terrorism? Shouldn't that be one of the criteria we use? We can go 
back and forth. We can talk about all these other concepts. I promise 
you that all across America--I don't have to take a poll. If you went 
up to the average person and asked them: Let me ask you a question. If 
someone is a visitor to this country, say they are here on a tourist 
visa or student visa or here on a visa as a visiting professor. They 
are here on a visa. And that person is out there supporting and 
encouraging others to support a terrorist organization that hates 
America, hates our values, but more importantly, that carries out 
violence; that espouses violence as their primary tool for activism--if 
you went and told somebody: Should we kick people out of this country--
not Americans--who are foreign nationals who are here on temporary 
visas and are out there supporting terrorism inside our country? I 
guarantee you, the overwhelming majority of Americans would say, 
absolutely--absolutely, we should. I have had Democratic colleagues 
come up to me and say that today.
  All this resolution does is--it doesn't even force the administration 
to do it. It just calls on them to do it. So I honestly don't 
understand the objection. I don't understand the rationale behind the 
objection. I hope we can maybe vote on it one day. Maybe we can get a 
vote on this, and that way everybody could be on the record.
  We shouldn't have foreign nationals in our country that support Hamas 
or Hezbollah or any of these other groups.
  I specifically tailored the language of this resolution to stick to 
the law and nothing more. I do not believe anybody should be out there 
committing acts of violence against people because of their ethnic 
heritage, because of their religion.
  I tell this to people all the time. Do people realize, for example, 
that in the Israeli Army right now, there are Israeli Arabs who will be 
called to go into Gaza and fight in the war? There are Israeli Arabs 
who will fight for Israel because they are against terrorism. Do they 
realize in the Armed Forces of the United States, there are men and 
women who are Muslims, followers of Islam who have fought for the 
freedom of this country? This is not a Nation where your value as a 
person or status of American is determined by your religion or ethnic 
background. I reject that categorically.
  We are heartbroken, for example, by a story that some deranged person 
knocks on a door and murders a little boy the other day screaming 
something about Muslim. That is a crime. I am glad he was arrested. He 
should go to jail. Anyone who does that should go to jail. That is the 
kind of violence that terrorists do.
  No one is defending or talking about anything like that. What I am 
saying is common sense. You are a visitor. You are not even an 
American. You are a foreign national. You are here because we gave you 
a visa to be here temporarily, and now you are out there defending and 
supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization. You need to go. That is 
what this resolution asks the administration to do.

[[Page S5078]]

  I hope we can get a vote on the Senate so at least everyone will know 
where everybody stands.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

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