[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 200 (Monday, December 1, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H4926-H4928]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NO IMMIGRATION BENEFITS FOR HAMAS TERRORISTS ACT OF 2025
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 176) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act with
respect to aliens who carried out, participated in, planned, financed,
supported, or otherwise facilitated the attacks against Israel, as
amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 176
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``No Immigration Benefits for
Hamas Terrorists Act of 2025''.
SEC. 2. ALIENS WHO CARRIED OUT, PARTICIPATED IN, PLANNED,
FINANCED, SUPPORTED, OR OTHERWISE FACILITATED
ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAEL.
(a) Participants in Hamas Terrorism Against Israel.--
Section 212(a)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8
U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)) is amended--
(1) in subparagraph (B)(i), in the matter following
subclause (IX)--
(A) by inserting ``Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Hamas''
after ``Palestine Liberation Organization''; and
(B) by inserting ``member,'' after ``representative,''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
``(H) Participants in hamas terrorism against israel.--Any
alien who carried out, participated in, planned, financed,
afforded material support to, or otherwise facilitated any of
the attacks against Israel initiated by Hamas beginning on
October 7, 2023, is inadmissible.''.
(b) Ineligibility for Relief.--Section 241(b)(3) of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1231(b)(3)) is
amended by adding at the end the following:
``(D) Ineligibility for relief.--Any alien who carried out,
participated in, planned, financed, afforded material support
to, or otherwise facilitated any of the attacks against
Israel initiated by Hamas beginning on October 7, 2023, shall
be ineligible for any relief under the immigration laws,
including under this section, section 208, and section 2242
of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations Act, 1999 (and any regulations issued pursuant
to such section).''.
(c) Conforming Amendment.--Section 237(a)(4)(B) of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(4)(B)) is
amended by striking ``subparagraph (B) or (F)'' and inserting
``subparagraph (B), (F), or (H)''.
(d) Report Required on Participants in Hamas Terrorism
Against Israel.--Beginning not later than one year after the
date of the enactment of this Act, and each year thereafter,
the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a report to
Congress, including the number of aliens who were--
(1) found to be inadmissible under section 212(a)(3)(H) of
the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(H));
and
(2) described in section 212(a)(3)(H) of the Immigration
and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(H)) and found to be
removable pursuant to section 237(a)(4)(B) of the Immigration
and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(4)(B)).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. McClintock) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Raskin) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and insert extraneous material on H.R. 176.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, although our political differences these days are vast,
there are still some things we come together on in this body. We
certainly did so during the last session. One of them was an enduring
opposition to Hamas and the terrorism they unleashed on innocent
civilians in Israel more than 2 years ago.
Earlier this year, the barbaric inhumanity of Hamas was revealed
again in the macabre and infuriating spectacle of returning the bodies
to the Bibas family. We last saw Shiri Bibas alive on October 7, 2023,
as she was seized, terrified and sobbing, begging for the lives of her
two little boys as they were dragged into the hell on Earth that Hamas
created. This February, their murdered bodies were treated as trophies,
and later we learned in a final act of cruelty that Shiri's body had
been substituted for another.
We all came together in this body last year and said that such
monsters as these must never be admitted into our country, never given
safe haven on our soil, and never tolerated where they are found.
H.R. 176 says that anyone associated with Hamas or Palestinian
Islamic jihad, in any capacity, or anyone who assisted these terrorist
activities in any form, will not be allowed in this country under any
circumstances, will be immediately removed if we do find them here, and
under no circumstances will we allow them to receive any immigration
benefit under our laws. We already single out Nazi collaborators and
PLO terrorists. This simply adds Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic
Jihad to that list.
{time} 1540
Madam Speaker, for reasons I find inexplicable, the Senate couldn't
be bothered to take up this bill in the last session. They will
hopefully find the time in this session.
Under current law, being a member of Hamas or associated with its
barbaric attack against Israel is not an explicit ground of
inadmissibility or removability. That is just not good enough. Anyone
who gave them support in any form should never be allowed into this
country.
During the Biden years, the number of known or suspected terrorists
encountered at the Southwest border soared to nearly 400. Too many were
allowed into this country. How many more were among the 2 million known
gotaways is anybody's guess. How many more are among the 190,000
Afghans allowed into this country with minimal or no vetting is also
anybody's guess. We found out last week that one is far too many.
Under the Biden administration, Hamas terrorists didn't even have to
sneak in across the border. President Biden simply let them in through
the front door.
As just one example, less than 2 months ago, Federal officials
arrested a 33-year-old native of Gaza, who was living in Lafayette,
Louisiana, for his alleged involvement in Hamas' attack against Israel
on October 7.
After learning about the ongoing Hamas attack, the alleged terrorists
gathered a group of fighters and stormed into Israel to join the
barbarism. Less than a year later, he submitted a visa application,
which the Biden administration quickly approved, and he was allowed to
enter the United States.
After the October 7 attacks, Director Wray warned us that the FBI
``cannot, and [does] not, discount the possibility that Hamas . . .
could exploit the conflict to call on their supporters to conduct
attacks on our own soil.'' These words proved to be prophetic.
On June 1, 2025, Mohammed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national,
attacked pro-Israeli demonstrators who were marching in Boulder,
Colorado, in
[[Page H4927]]
support of the release of hostages held captive by Hamas. While
shouting, ``Free Palestine,'' Soliman attacked the peaceful
demonstrators with Molotov cocktails, resulting in the hospitalization
of at least eight people who suffered burns and other injuries. At
least one of the victims had survived the Holocaust.
According to the Justice Department, Soliman stated he planned the
attack for more than a year. He ``wanted to kill all Zionist people and
wished they were all dead'' and would conduct the attack again if he
had the chance. He, too, was able to enter the United States through
the front door, this time with a tourist visa, under the Biden
administration.
This can never be allowed to happen again, regardless of which party
controls the executive branch. While we have a President who is
committed to securing our borders, protecting our communities, and
restoring the enforcement of our immigration laws, now is the time to
act.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7,
which took the lives of more than 1,200 innocent civilians, and the
subsequent war of mass destruction in Gaza, have been nothing less than
a catastrophe for humanity.
More than 70,000 people have been killed to date, including an
estimated 20,000 children. Hostages kidnapped by Hamas were abused,
shackled in cages, and isolated in underground tunnels--in some cases,
for more than 2 years. Many were killed there.
According to UNICEF, the Gaza Strip is now home to the world's
highest concentration of child amputees. More than 80 percent of
buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed in the violence.
The world breathed a sigh of relief that a tenuous cease-fire was
finally reached and that all the living hostages were returned home.
Alas, the cease-fire continues to be breached. Violence and suffering
continue to afflict the people of the region, including escalating
vigilante settler violence in the West Bank.
Getting to a just and lasting peace in the region will require the
creative leadership and hard work of statesmen and stateswomen. It is
past time to break out of the brutal and circular logic of terrorism
and violence and war and instead address the underlying political
problems destabilizing the region. We must stay united around these
goals and committed to the continuation of a strong peace process.
Madam Speaker, in the meantime, we must all agree to the aim of this
bill, which passed the House with bipartisan support in the last
Congress. No one affiliated with Hamas, nor anyone involved in the
horrific and lawless attacks of October 7, should be admissible to the
United States or eligible for any immigration benefits whatsoever. That
is an obvious point of political and moral consensus in our Chamber.
However, I am afraid this is another missed opportunity for us to
work across the aisle in a bipartisan fashion because it departs
dramatically from the Judiciary Committee's traditional practice. This
bill is essentially what we call a visa sanctions bill. For decades, we
have relied on pre-negotiated, bipartisan, and bicameral texts for
every such visa sanctions bill. This legislation today departs from
this bipartisan practice by directly amending the Immigration and
Nationality Act, the INA, to impose visa sanctions.
To put into perspective just how anomalous this approach is, consider
our response to the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath of that catastrophe,
we revised our immigration laws to overhaul significant parts of our
immigration system, and we created the Department of Homeland Security.
Even then, we did not amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to
specifically reference the events of September 11 or to bar the
individuals involved in the planning or commission of those outrageous
terror attacks from entering or remaining in the United States.
The reason for that is plain. The laws that we have in place already
bar noncitizens who engage in terrorism or are involved with terrorist
organizations from entering the United States. For any of those
noncitizens who happen to be here, our laws clearly allow us to remove
them and prevent them from obtaining any immigration benefits.
These laws were designed to apply broadly to any individual or
organization engaged in terrorism without having to specify them by
reference to specific historical events or attacks.
Under sections 212(a)(3)(B) and 237(a)(4)(B) of the INA, any
noncitizen who has engaged in any terrorist activity, provided any
material support to terrorists, or is a member or representative of a
terrorist group or organization that enforces or espouses terrorist
activity is presently inadmissible to the United States and is
presently deportable. Hamas has been designated as such a terrorist
group since 1997.
We already plainly have the legal tools to keep any noncitizen
involved with Hamas, as well as any noncitizen who was involved in the
horrific terror attacks of October 7, out of this country forever or to
deport them from the United States if they are already somehow here.
This approach is, alas, symptomatic of the syndrome we just discussed
in the last bill of the proliferation of redundant legislation and
redundant language simply to make a point.
The Judiciary Committee's standard visa sanctions language, which was
carefully crafted with the majority and minority on both the House and
Senate Judiciary Committees, would allow us to achieve all the aims of
this legislation without departing from negotiated sanctions language
and amending the INA in an unprecedented and incongruous way.
Amending the INA to impose visa sanctions sets a strange and
potentially self-defeating precedent where new statutory language
becomes necessary every time a new terrorist group or event emerges.
Nonetheless, we strongly support this legislation today, whose
purpose is incontestable and essential. I hope we can both pass this
bill and return to our bipartisan and bicameral practice for dealing
with visa sanctions whenever the occasion presents itself.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 1550
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, the gentleman says that the bill is
unnecessary because terrorists are already covered under the
Immigration and Nationality Act. This bill creates a new ground of
removability and a new ground of inadmissibility for aliens who carried
out, or participated in, or planned, or financed, or afforded material
support to or otherwise facilitated any of the attacks against Israel
beginning on October 7 of 2023.
In doing so, the bill treats the atrocities of October 7 on a par
with the Immigration and Nationality Act's current treatment of Nazi
persecution, genocide, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
Does anyone seriously argue that we should repeal the sanctions
against persons who aided and abetted the Nazi's Holocaust?
If not, then why would they oppose extending the same sanctions to
the Nazi's would-be, modern-day successors who just 2 years ago
slaughtered more than 1,200 innocent civilians, including children,
infants, and the elderly because they were Jewish?
Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close when the gentleman has
completed, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, again, we restate our support for this bill and its
purposes and only hope that we can return to the traditional visa
sanctions method of dealing with particular events. In the meantime, I
wonder if the gentleman would yield for a question.
I wonder how this legislation with the new language would apply to
the case of Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of the crypto firm Binance,
who was prosecuted for and convicted of and sentenced to jail for
taking money from a number of terrorist groups, among them Hamas, as
part of his crypto venture. He was convicted of violating the Bank
Secrecy Act and turning a blind eye to terrorists, including Hamas,
cybercriminals, and child abusers.
I am wondering if the new language would cover Changpeng Zhao, who
just
[[Page H4928]]
received a pardon from President Trump.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. First of all, I am not familiar with the case, so I
can't comment on that directly. I am quite confident that we have an
existing process for applying the law and a process for appealing the
application of that law through a writ of habeas corpus in the
judiciary if an individual seeks to contest it.
Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I am
prepared to close.
Madam Speaker, again, I strongly support this legislation. We need to
be doing whatever we can to eliminate terrorist forces and those who
are providing critical material support to terrorist forces all over
the world, which is why I raised the case of Changpeng Zhao, who is the
former CEO of the crypto firm Binance, who was recently pardoned by
President Trump.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, for 4 devastating years, our Nation suffered the
largest illegal mass migration in history. For 4 devastating years, we
were told that the laws had to be changed if we wanted to do anything
about it, and in the meantime anyone who illegally entered our country
could stay in our country and be supported by American taxpayers.
However, as President Trump said in this very Chamber and proved in
his first weeks in office: We didn't new need new laws. We needed a new
President.
The largest illegal mass migration in history must now be followed by
the largest legal deportation and repatriation in history.
New laws would be helpful to prevent a future Joe Biden from making a
mockery of our sovereignty and reopening our borders to the most
violent criminal gangs, cartels, criminals, and terrorists on the
planet, and it would be helpful to give a future President Donald Trump
the added tools to quickly and expeditiously prevent these same groups
from infiltrating our Nation, preying on our communities, and attacking
our people.
This law will stop the Hamas terrorists and their supporters who
perpetrated the most violent attack against innocent civilians since
the Holocaust from entering our country, as we already sanctioned Nazi
collaborators. Although they are a tiny fraction of those who do our
country harm, at least it does that.
To the apologists of the Democrats' open-border policies who say that
this is unnecessary and covered by other laws on the books, I would ask
these two questions: First, if that were so, then where were those laws
under Joe Biden?
Second, even if their argument was true and the legislation was
entirely unnecessary, then why would they object to sending a strong
message around the world that terrorists will get no quarter here?
Madam Speaker, if you have associated with Hamas, then you are
persona non grata in America, as you should be in any corner of the
world that values peace, justice, and human dignity.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of West Virginia). The question
is on the motion offered by the gentleman from California (Mr.
McClintock) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R.
176, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________