[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.
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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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