[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18589-18590]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 PRESIDENT'S REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT PLAN

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the remarks of 
Senator Portman. I think he is touching on some critically important 
issues that all of us need to fully understand. As always, his insights 
are valuable and worthy of serious consideration by all.
  I would also briefly note that I do believe--and I spoke about this 
several weeks ago--there is a need for this country, as Senator Casey 
noted, to develop a bipartisan strategy, particularly with regard to 
how we deal with the rising spasm of extremism in the Middle East. It 
is a fact. It is happening. We as a country have to be able to work 
together in a bipartisan way to decide what action we may choose to 
use--whether it is military force, whether it is technological 
advancement, whether it is working with allies--to do whatever we can 
to increase more stability, more peace and tranquility, and less 
terrorism and violence. It is a big matter, and I am not at all 
confident that we have a strategy. In fact, we don't have a strategy 
that anyone can recognize as effective in this region, as a number of 
witnesses before the Armed Services Committee have testified, including 
former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, who served under both President 
Bush and President Obama.
  This President seems to have his own plan. He refuses to listen. As 
he traveled around the world recently talking about the attacks in 
Paris, I think it stunned our allies. This is not a healthy situation. 
There are millions of refugees. Good leadership, responsible 
leadership, should have anticipated this danger, and when it developed, 
have a sound strategy that deals with it in a humane way. It cannot be 
the strategy of the United States and Europe that when instability 
occurs anywhere in the world, when instability occurs in Syria or other 
places in the Middle East, the solution is for everybody to come to 
Europe or the United States. This is not healthy for those countries, 
it is not part of the historical tradition, and for reasons I am going 
to touch on, it is very bad policy.
  I think Senator Portman is correct that we are not where we need to 
be militarily, strategically, and in other ways, to help bring about a 
situation in which people can return to their homes and be with their 
families and not have to be running all over the world, marching 
through Europe, not knowing where they are going to go, in countries 
that will not and cannot support them. It is not sound policy.
  I want to address the economic and security threats imposed by the 
President's refugee resettlement plan and talk about it in some detail 
and explain why the more effective and compassionate solution is to 
resettle the region's refugees in safe zones in the region rather than 
flying them into the United States or Europe or other places around the 
globe.
  Each and every year, the United States issues green cards to roughly 
1 million immigrants. We admit approximately 500,000 foreign students. 
We distribute work visas to approximately 700,000 foreign workers and 
grant approximately 25,000 requests for asylum. Asylum is when a person 
arrives in our country and says: I can't go home because I will be in 
danger. A refugee is when somebody is in a foreign country--not their 
own country--and comes to our Embassy or to the UN and says: I am 
threatened here. I am not safe. I want to be a refugee and go 
elsewhere. If they are accepted, they are a refugee. If the others are 
accepted after they come to our country--perhaps illegally--they are 
asylees. We have brought in another 70,000 refugees on top of that each 
year in recent years.
  The fact is, refugees are among the most costly immigration programs 
for several reasons. Refugees are instantly eligible for all Federal 
welfare and entitlement programs. Most are low-skilled and frequently 
lack any formal education and many--most don't speak English.
  There is great cost involved in this. One estimate from an expert is 
that for every 10,000 refugees admitted, there will be a lifetime cost 
to the U.S. Treasury of $6.5 billion. This year, we are now going to 
accept 85,000. The President says he will accept 100,000 next year and 
maybe more. Now, 100,000 is 10 times $6.5 billion added to the debt of 
the country, because no extra money is being appropriated for Medicaid 
and for food stamps. The money is going to be added to the debt. It is 
not healthy. It is very expensive.
  There are enormous security concerns as well. We have seen a number 
of refugees implicated in terrorist activity inside the United States. 
We wish it weren't so, but it is a fact. Yet, in this environment of 
increasing Federal debt, wage stagnation driven by excess labor supply, 
and ISIS terrorists trying to infiltrate as refugees, President Obama 
has announced a unilateral expansion of the refugee program to begin 
admitting many more Syrian refugees. This is at a time when 83 percent 
of the voters say projected growth in immigration should be curbed, 
according to Pew polling.
  The President persists in his plan even though his own officials, 
testifying before the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National 
Interest, conceded there is no database in Syria with which to vet 
refugees.
  The administration briefed us last night, and they publicly stated: 
We are going to use biometric techniques. In the United Sates, what 
does that mean? It means they take your fingerprint and run it against 
the NCIC--National Crime Information Center--and see if you have 
warrants for your arrest or if you have been convicted of anything. You 
can't do that in Syria. You can take their fingerprints, but there is 
no database to run it against. So that is just puffing. That is spin. 
You can't run fingerprints in Syria, because there is no database to 
run them against. As his officials further concluded, there is no way 
to prevent refugees from radicalizing after their entrance into the 
United States, as has happened, unfortunately, with Somali refugees.
  It is an unpleasant but unavoidable fact that bringing in large 
unassimilated flows of migrants from the Muslim world creates the 
conditions possible for radicalization and extremism to take hold. This 
is what they are seeing in Europe.
  The FBI Director tells us there are now active ISIS investigations in 
all 50 States. They have a terrorist investigation involving ISIS in 
every State in the Union today. I think there are 900 open cases.
  Our subcommittee has identified dozens of examples of foreign-born 
immigrants committing and attempting to commit acts of terror on U.S. 
soil. It is happening every day. Preventing and responding to these 
acts is an effort encompassing thousands of Federal agents, attorneys, 
and prosecutors and billions of dollars in costs. They are directing 
their efforts away from bank fraud and Medicare fraud and toward 
watching terrorists. Their ability has been limited by restrictions on 
their ability to conduct surveillance. In effect, we are voluntarily 
admitting individuals at risk for terrorism and then on the back end 
trying to stop them from carrying out bad, violent designs.
  The former head of the Citizenship and Immigration Services union, 
which represents immigration workers who handle the casework on these 
evaluations for admission, issued this warning more than a year ago. 
This is important. This is the man who represents the individuals who 
do the work every day, and he got frustrated and he told the truth. 
This is what he said:

       It is also essential to warn the public about the threat 
     that ISIS will exploit our loose and lax visa policies to 
     gain entry to the United States.

       Indeed, as we know from the first World Trade Center 
     bombing in 1993, from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, from the 
     Boston Bombing, from the recent plot to bomb a school and 
     courthouse in Connecticut, and many other lesser-known terror 
     incidents, we are letting terrorists into the United States 
     right through our front door. . . . Applications for entry 
     are rubber-stamped, the result of grading agents by speed 
     rather than discretion. We've become the visa clearinghouse 
     for the world.


[[Page 18590]]


  We can't properly vet the people coming now. Yet we are still talking 
about adding more and more people to it.
  Senator Cruz and I sent the administration a list of 72 individuals 
charged with or convicted of terrorism-related offenses in just the 
last year. We wanted to know something. We asked for the immigration 
histories of each one of these individuals. Isn't that a good thing to 
know? We are policymakers. We are supposed to decide how to conduct 
immigration issues. As we evaluate how to improve our immigration 
situation, shouldn't we know how these terrorists--who have been 
arrested, charged, or convicted--got into the country?
  Well, stunningly, the administration has just refused to respond. 
They didn't respond because they don't want the public to know. They 
think if they can ignore these requests, then people will not know and 
will not begin to question how things are being conducted. Congress 
should not acquiesce to the President's refugee funding request when he 
refuses to even publicly disclose the immigration history of these 72 
terrorists, many of whom are involved with and directly connected with 
Al Qaeda and ISIS.
  An outright majority of the public opposes resettling Syrian refugees 
in the United States. In fact, voters across all parties wish to see a 
reduction of Middle Eastern refugee settlements. It is in the data. 
That is what people think. They are worried about this issue. Why 
shouldn't they be? We have had our own problems. We have had 9/11, we 
have had the Boston bombers, and many other instances, such as 
Chattanooga, and look at what is happening in Europe. I don't think the 
American people are mean or unkind. They are just rightly concerned. 
They want to protect their families, their Nation, and their interests, 
and I think we should consider their concerns.
  The safe and proper course is to focus on regional resettlement. One 
report says that for the price of placing one refugee in the United 
States, 12 can be helped in their homeland. Our goal must be to help 
refugees find safety and help them return to their homes, not for us to 
depopulate the region.
  How serious is this? Only this strategy will protect the security of 
the United States and the West, protect the finances of our country 
from further debt, and protect the long-term stability and safety of 
the Middle East itself. That is what our goal should be, and our 
President is not focused on this issue. It has been raised in committee 
after committee and nothing has been accomplished. He just sticks with 
the plan he has.
  What then is Congress to do to stop the President from carrying out a 
plan the voters oppose and Congress has not approved? The answer lies 
in the power of the purse. Each and every year the President submits a 
request to Congress to fund his Refugee Admissions Program. Only with 
these funds can the President carry out his plans. Congress, which has 
been run over time and again by this President, must not write the 
blank check the President is asking for. He can also bring in more 
refugees than he has currently indicated. Secretary Kerry has told the 
Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate they just may well bring 
in more than this.
  My colleague Senator Shelby and I outlined in a joint statement that 
the answer is for Congress to include in the year-end funding bill a 
clear requirement that the President must submit his annual refugee 
plan to Congress for approval. Senator Shelby is on that Appropriations 
Committee. Under this plan, Congress must approve how many refugees are 
brought in and from where.
  Mr. President, is it time to wrap up?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and ask for 1 
additional minute to wrap up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are facing a humanitarian crisis of 
monumental proportions. In large part, it is because the President has 
mismanaged the situation in Syria. He is the Chief Executive, he is the 
Commander in Chief, the military does what he says, and this has not 
been good. It just has not been good. It has caused danger, it has 
caused innocent people to be killed, it has caused people to have to 
flee, and it has also allowed the surge of ISIS and Al Qaeda-type 
terrorist organizations in Syria to be able to create an entire state 
of their own and to export their terrorism.
  We have to create safe zones in Syria and other places in the region 
where people can stay in their homes, and we need to work to end this 
fighting as soon as possible so people can go back home permanently. It 
cannot be the position of this country that we just bring in millions 
of people because of the dangers abroad. It just does not make common 
sense.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, as my colleague from Alabama prepares to 
leave, I want to wish him and his family a happy Thanksgiving holiday 
and I look forward to seeing him in 10 days.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, Senator Carper is one of our most 
delightful colleagues. He is always gentlemanly and calls us to 
consider and think on the higher things. I thank my friend from 
Delaware for that and his service.

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