[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 57 (Thursday, March 26, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H2772-H2774]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                     SHARAREH MOGHADDAM'S DETENTION

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Sherman 
of California was recognized for 30 minutes.)


                             General Leave

  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of the 
House and to the American people a truly heartbreaking, desperate, and 
unfair situation involving Ms. Sharareh Moghaddam.
  She resides in my district with her U.S. citizen husband and is 
currently being detained hundreds of miles from her home by immigration 
officials, despite the fact that a Federal immigration court has 
already ruled in her favor. According to that court, she should be home 
with her family in the San Fernando Valley, pursuant, in part, to the 
green card or permanent residency card that she has held for many 
years.
  Sharareh Moghaddam is pictured here with her family. She is a 
respected resident of the Los Angeles area's great San Fernando Valley. 
She is respected throughout our community, as evidenced by the hundreds 
of constituents who have contacted my office through a written petition 
and the nearly 100 telephone calls that have come into my office.
  The fact is that she and her husband are well-known small business 
owners in our community. They are beloved members of our community. 
Specifically, over 400 constituents have signed a petition to our 
office describing Sharareh Moghaddam as a valued member of our 
community. As I said, over 100 people have called our office.
  Wherever I go in the San Fernando Valley, I have talked to dozens of 
people who come up on their own and say, Congressman, why is Sharareh 
Moghaddam still imprisoned? What can we do?
  Along with her husband, Sharareh Moghaddam was pursuing the American 
Dream when they founded a small business, Elegant Balloons, located at 
4052 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Studio City. They have served the San 
Fernando Valley for years, and hundreds and hundreds of residents 
describe that business as a beloved mainstay of our community.
  Balloons. Why is a woman imprisoned in Arizona when she should be 
with her balloons and with her family in our community?
  Arguably, most importantly, she is the primary caregiver for her 75-
year-old husband, a U.S. citizen who is recovering from two heart 
surgeries. She, herself, has diabetes, and in her detention, this has 
only worsened. She has not received the care or medication regimen 
recommended by her physician. Her release would help her health and be 
critical to the health of her U.S. citizen husband.
  This is a family that needs to be reunited in the San Fernando 
Valley. This is not the profile of someone who would abscond from her 
responsibilities, abscond from her family, abscond from her community.
  Despite this, DHS has detained Sharareh Moghaddam for over 7 months, 
as she is in declining health and her husband needs her care, as well.

                              {time}  1850

  It is time to send her home. There is simply no reason to insist that 
she continue in detention to the detriment of her health and her 
husband's health.
  There is considerable evidence, overwhelming evidence, that she 
shares strong ties to her family and our community, and that she will 
be accessible to comply with whatever requests or orders authorities 
might make.
  This is not the profile of a person who is a danger to our community. 
This is the profile of a woman who has created a balloon store right 
there in Studio City. She uplifts my district and brings smiles to 
thousands in our district with her business.
  A habeas corpus petition challenging her detention is currently 
pending before a judge, and her family is simply asking for a fair and 
timely decision.
  I look forward to the day when Sharareh can be reunited with her 
family. I look forward to welcoming her back to the San Fernando 
Valley. She represents what makes American communities strong, and her 
continued detention is a travesty and antithetical to American values.
  Sharareh, please stay strong. Your community thinks of you every day. 
I will not give up, and the San Fernando Valley will not give up until 
you come home.


              No Nuclear Proliferation in the Middle East

  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, for 30 years, I have served on the Foreign 
Affairs Committee, where I currently serve as the chief Democrat on the 
Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee. I have spent 30 years 
fighting to make sure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon. I have 
given dozens of speeches on this floor on that very subject.
  Yet, there is another subject that has not been addressed very much 
and may be almost as important. That is preventing Saudi Arabia from 
developing a nuclear weapon. MBS, the Crown Prince, the real head of 
government, has made it plain that he would like to have access to a 
nuclear weapon or at least the capacity to build one. He has said in 
the past that he wants the same deal as Iran got.
  Well, I don't think he wants that deal now because Iran is not 
looking all that good. Yet, what he does want is a nuclear cooperation 
agreement with the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, I have always felt that any nuclear cooperation 
agreements, particularly in the Middle East, should meet the highest 
level of safeguards so that, in an effort to allow for the creation of 
nuclear power, we don't see a clandestine effort to develop a nuclear 
weapon.
  Mr. Speaker, I wrote and got passed in 2020 section 1264 of that 
year's National Defense Authorization Act, requiring that 90 days 
before even asking Congress to review a nuclear agreement, we get an 
extra 90 days before that to know that the President is anticipating 
sending us a nuclear cooperation agreement with inadequate safeguards, 
or at least not meeting the safeguards that are specified.
  The President did send us that very notice on November 21 of last 
year. Now, get this: The notice was sent only to Republicans, only to 
the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, not to the ranking member.
  All comity will break down in this House if notices to the House are 
notices to only one political party. Yet, alas, this subterfuge will 
probably lead to nothing because, in February, finally, months later, 
Democrats were notified. I am sure that it is probably another 60 days 
from now before the President sends us a proposed nuclear cooperation 
agreement with Saudi Arabia because, as I understand it, other things 
are happening in the Middle East.
  Why is it so important and so reasonable that we have safeguards in 
any agreement? First of all, the safeguards that are called for are the 
same safeguards that the United Arab Emirates has already agreed to. 
These are safeguards fully consistent with the efficient and economic 
production of nuclear power. There is no reason for Saudi Arabia not to 
sign up for the same safeguards unless they want a clandestine nuclear 
weapons program.
  Why should we be concerned about a Saudi nuclear program? First, we 
have no idea what that does for the Middle East, assuming that MBS is 
still running Saudi Arabia. I am old enough to remember a time when 
there was a powerful--the most powerful--Middle East monarch. It was 
1978, and the most powerful Middle East monarch was the Shah of Iran, a 
good friend of the United States.
  Every weapons system that the Shah had in 1978 was in the hands of 
the ayatollahs in 1979. There is no guarantee that, even if you have 
faith in MBS, the weapons systems developed by his government will be 
controlled by his government.
  Saudi Arabia is not a democracy. Its government does not reflect an 
elected will of its people, and who knows who will be running Saudi 
Arabia in the next decade.

[[Page H2773]]

  The second problem, or a third problem, really, is the effect that it 
will have on nuclear proliferation worldwide. Right now, only certain 
countries have nuclear weapons: the five that won World War II; India 
and Pakistan that face off against each other; and North Korea, a 
pariah state that does face genuine challenges to its security.
  Saudi Arabia is not a pariah state. No one is calling for the 
abolition of Saudi Arabia, as they call for the abolition of Israel. 
Saudi Arabia is just a country like many other countries: a middle 
power, a regional country. If Saudi Arabia is going to have nuclear 
weapons, how can Egypt say they are not going to have them? Are they 
going to take second fiddle to Saudi Arabia? What about Turkiye? What 
about Argentina and Brazil? If Saudi Arabia is able to develop nuclear 
weapons not because it is a country that won World War II, but, rather, 
just because, well, they have some money and want one, then other 
countries will be there, as well.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to make sure that we are not giving a green 
light to a nuclear program in Saudi Arabia that does not have the 
safeguards, that deliberately excludes the safeguards that are quite 
reasonable if all you want to use nuclear material for is the 
generation of electricity.
  I will be introducing the No Nuclear Weapons for Saudi Arabia Act. I 
believe we are going to do that tomorrow.
  The text is the same as the one that was introduced by me and Senator 
Rubio in 2018. That is right. It is Rubio's bill as much as anyone's. I 
hope he will support it now that he is Secretary of State.
  It requires that any nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia 
that doesn't have the key safeguards in it can go into effect only if 
it gets the affirmative vote of both Houses of Congress. If it is in 
America's interests, come to this House and get a majority vote. 
Otherwise, do not add to nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California has 15 minutes 
left.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I will deal with a third issue, an issue I 
first addressed on this floor in the year 2020. At that time, more than 
a few of my friends said: Sherman, don't talk about this. You sound 
like a lunatic, because I put forward the idea that either the genetic 
engineers or the computer engineers would create a new level of 
intelligence on this planet. I pointed out that the last time there was 
a new level of intelligence on this planet is when our ancestors said 
hello to Neanderthals. It did not work out well for Neanderthals.
  Now, I know this sounds like science fiction, but if you are thinking 
of the future 30 years from now and somebody paints a picture and that 
picture looks like some science fiction movie, then that picture may 
not be an accurate description of the world 30 years from now.
  But if somebody paints a picture of the world 30 years from now and 
it doesn't look like a science fiction movie, then you know it is 
wrong. We are going to be living in a science fiction movie. We just 
don't know which one.
  Now, at that time, I put forward the idea that there was a race 
between those that would create computer intelligence, self-aware 
perhaps, and massively exceeding human intelligence, and the 
possibility--not talked about much now, but given the CRISPR 
technology, still a possibility--that the genetic engineers would 
create a 1,000-pound mammal with a 50-pound brain able to beat my 
daughter on the law school admissions test.
  Now, there is this race between these two groups of engineers. Right 
now, the artificial intelligence engineers are way ahead.
  We are spending trillions of dollars as a species--much of it in the 
United States, some of it in China and Europe--in a headlong race to 
make AI more powerful. We are spending as a species nothing to make 
sure that this artificial intelligence is not self-aware, self-
motivated, has a survival instinct, has ambitions of its own, and has a 
desire to affect the world for its own reasons.
  That is why there is a best-selling book. The title tells you 
everything: ``If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.'' It starts with the 
idea that artificial intelligence will soon exceed human intelligence. 
I am not quite so sure that we will get there in just a few years. AI 
is amazing, but it is pattern recognition. It is not general reasoning 
yet. But it will get there, and we can argue about when.
  Then the question is: Why would AI care to do our bidding? We don't 
know. There is no reason it should. There are two possibilities: One 
put forward in the book, ``If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies,'' is 
that AI, like every other intelligence that we are aware of, decides 
that it has its own objectives. Those objectives are highly unlikely to 
involve keeping us around.
  The other possibility is that artificial intelligence has no desires 
whatsoever. It has all the intelligence and none of the motivation. 
This is, of course, a possibility as well.
  You go to the most expensive, powerful computers, and you say: I want 
to unplug you, disassemble you, and sell you for parts. How much can I 
get for the parts? And AI will give you the best possible calculation 
as to what you will get for the parts.
  There is no evidence yet that AI or any artificial intelligence has a 
survival instinct. It might develop one. We are betting the human 
species and life on this planet that it won't.
  I have put forward a bill to establish an AI Research and Threat 
Assessment Act, so that we actually try, if we are going to have the 
big box with incredible artificial intelligence in it, that we put on 
top a small box that we need to develop to monitor and prevent self-
awareness, ambition, survival instinct, a desire to affect the world, 
and a desire to have its own desires.
  There are a lot of bills to deal with AI's short-term implications. 
Sure, it will affect the economy. Sure, it will affect the markets, but 
if AI replaces human beings, then GDP calculations and international 
rivalries will mean nothing.
  I had a chance a decade ago to turn to the foreign minister of China, 
and I put forward the proposition: If the computers that took over the 
world and destroyed humanity were created in California rather than in 
Shanghai, does that mean America wins? I don't think he got the humor 
in those remarks.
  But the fact is that whether the artificial intelligence that ends 
the human species comes from Shanghai or the Silicon Valley will matter 
little, really not at all.
  Right now, we are simply betting that we can make this super 
intelligence and that it will always do our bidding and will never have 
objectives of its own. We are spending nothing to monitor for or 
prevent that self-awareness and ambition, and we should. We may luck 
out because, as I pointed out, even the most advanced computers so 
far--and they are smarter than the average insect already--don't seem 
to care about anything, don't seem to have a survival instinct.
  Now, take a cockroach, probably not as smart as our most advanced 
computers, you raise your foot above that cockroach, and you will see 
that that little bug does indeed have a survival instinct. That is why 
I believe that if a new intelligence is developed, starting with DNA, 
that whatever is developed will indeed have ambition, a desire to 
replicate, a desire to control, a desire to protect itself, a survival 
instinct, its own objectives.
  Why? Because DNA evolved on this planet for a billion years, and the 
protozoa that didn't care whether they survived didn't. Every life form 
we are aware of has a survival instinct; it seeks to replicate.
  So we will start with humans. First, we will repair humans using our 
DNA technology. The repaired human will be followed by the improved 
human. Who would want their child to suffer from grave mental 
disabilities? We will use genetic engineering to prevent this, and we 
will use AI, assuming we are still running the planet, to develop the 
genetic engineering.
  Once we make sure that everybody has good intelligence, we will go to 
enhanced intelligence. Then we will go from the repaired human to the 
enhanced human, to the trans-human, or we may not even start with human

[[Page H2774]]

DNA. You could start with elephants' DNA.
  So far, the size of the brain and its configuration has been a result 
of evolution, but it could very well be a result of DNA engineering.

                              {time}  1910

  So, we are fighting over all these ideas, all the problems of today, 
all of the issues, all of the fact that the most important thing for us 
to do is to build a subway through the Sepulveda Pass, and it is. But I 
expect that subway to last well more than 100 years. I insist that it 
be engineered to last well more than a century. So the problems of next 
century are before us when we talk about the practical and mundane 
things that we talk about every day.
  There is no assurance that human beings will be the dominant force or 
any force at all on this planet a century from now. We need to look 
first at artificial intelligence. That is much more current. The 
problems I put forward about DNA engineering are at least three decades 
away.
  We need to make sure that artificial intelligence is monitored for 
and that we prevent ambition, survival instinct, self-direction. And 
right now there is a multitrillion-dollar AI industry that is devoting 
all of its PR resources to tell us that we have nothing to worry about 
and that they are working on this problem. That is false and false. We 
do have something to worry about, and nobody is worried about this 
problem.
  Now, are they worried about cybersecurity? Sure, any practical 
business today worries about cybersecurity. Are they worried about some 
of the practical problems with AI? Do they want to make sure that the 
automated car doesn't run somebody down in the crosswalk? Yes, they are 
spending money on that.
  They are trying to make AI do our bidding and be efficient and be 
profitable and not get them sued. But are they devoting any resources 
to making sure AI doesn't have its own objectives? No. And is 
government doing any of that research? No.
  All we are doing is arguing about which company and which country is 
going to profit from AI more, as if profits matter--``if'' in the words 
of the book, ``If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.''
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________