[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18590-18592]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  ISIS

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, it has been quite a week. I think we have 
all learned a bit about Syrian refugees, the challenges they face, and 
the potential challenges they create for us in this country. One of the 
things we have learned is that it is not easy to come here as a refugee 
to this country. In fact, it is pretty difficult. It is not something 
one can do easily. If you want to come over thinking that you might 
wait a couple of weeks or a couple of months--you might wait a couple 
of years. You have to go through a vetting process with the United 
Nations. You go through a vetting process overseas with the U.S. folks. 
You have to have your information go through any number of databanks to 
determine whether you are a person of special interest and could 
potentially be a problem. It is a long process.
  I will be honest. If I were a bad guy over there, one of these ISIS 
folks trying to get into the United States and create mayhem, there is 
no way I would want to wait 2 years, go through a refugee program, and 
probably get bounced out somewhere along the line through all these 
background checks and access to intelligence databanks and personal 
interviews. I think I would find another way to get here, and there are 
other ways to get here. We have been talking about that more recently 
today and yesterday.
  One of the potential ways to get here is through what is called the 
Visa Waiver Program. It is an agreement we have with 38 different 
nations. The Visa Waiver Program started a number of years ago, and it 
has now grown to include 38 countries. It started off as a travel 
facilitation program, kind of like the TSA precheck or the global 
entries we have at the airports here in the United States. It started 
off as a travel facilitation program, and over time it has turned into 
an information sharing partnership with 38 different foreign countries. 
The idea is to make it a little easier for folks who we believe are 
trusted travelers to get into this country from several dozen nations. 
One of the things we don't focus on very much in this program is we 
believe it is to our economic advantage to facilitate travel and 
tourism for those visiting our country. That is hard to argue with. It 
also facilitates tourism and traveling to the other 38 countries.
  We didn't just enter willy-nilly into this agreement with these other 
38 other countries. There are certain requirements we have in terms of 
access about the people who would like to come to this country under 
the Visa Waiver Program. We have any number of different kinds of 
access to intelligence data files and databases, and we insist on that 
before we allow these countries to participate. If they don't want to 
do that, they are not part of the Visa Waiver Program.

[[Page 18591]]

  If they change their mind during the course of our relationship with 
them as part of the Visa Waiver Program and become not very good 
partners in this, we bounce them out, they are no longer part of the 
Visa Waiver Program, and then those people have to go through the 
regular visa process.
  Anyway, that would provide another option. It is probably a more 
favored option for somebody who is anxious to get over here from Syria 
or for anybody who wants to do mayhem. That might be an option if they 
live in one of those 38 countries. People can go to U.S. consulates all 
the time in other countries. They ask to come here. Sometimes they ask 
to come here on a visa. It could be a tourism visa. A lot of people 
want to come to the United States as a tourist. It could be that they 
want to come here to study. Those may be perfectly legitimate, but in 
some cases they may not be. Folks come here in many other ways.
  We had an interesting hearing today in the Senate's Homeland Security 
and Governmental Affairs Committee. We had two witnesses from the 
Federal Government, and then we had five witnesses from a variety of 
different backgrounds. One of the things we asked were: Where do the 
real threats lie for our country? It could be Syria. It could be ISIS 
people from Iraq. It could be folks who have been radicalized from 
other countries who have gone to Syria to fight and have become 
jihadists and want to somehow get into our country and create not just 
mischief but mayhem. Everybody who testified said the primary concern 
should not be the Refugee Resettlement Program. Why would anybody want 
to go through that? It wastes 2 years. Maybe they will get through it, 
maybe not. If you are lucky, you get through it 2 years later.
  The 2,000 people or so who have come through that program from Syria 
this year, I am told they were mostly women and children, older men--
very old men. Out of the 2,000, in terms of the folks who are male and 
of fighting age, only about 2 percent fall into that category. They all 
have to provide family connections of the people they are related to 
and will be reunited with over here. That is part of the deal for 
getting in. It is not like every refugee who comes here would even be 
someone who would be expected to be of fighting age.
  One of the other things most of the folks agreed on was that one of 
the greatest concerns we ought to have for folks getting into our 
country and doing mischief here would not necessarily be folks from 
other countries. The concern is about the folks who are already here 
and may be natives to the United States who have become radicalized. We 
heard that again and again and again. That is a major concern, and that 
is something we have to be serious about.
  One of the best ways we can reduce the likelihood that folks living 
here would be radicalized and want to be a part of the ISIS army 
overseas or right here is to do what we are trying to do as a country; 
that is, to degrade and destroy ISIS militarily. And that would be not 
just us by ourselves--us using our air superiority, us using our 
ability to gather and disseminate intelligence, with direct strikes, 
and to provide help to the people on the ground, to the boots on the 
ground--not us--but to help other countries that are doing that sort of 
thing.
  My guess is--and this was confirmed by most of our witnesses today--
that the folks who most likely want to be a homegrown jihadist, be 
affiliated with ISIS, and do their job here in this country as opposed 
to over in Syria want to be on the winning side. They are not 
interested in affiliating with a loser. So the question is, What can we 
do to make sure that ISIS is degraded and destroyed?
  I will mention a couple of things that happened in the last couple of 
weeks that would suggest to me that at long last the coalition of 60 
nations is beginning to get its act together and make progress on the 
ground. Over the past year ISIS has lost 25 percent of its safe haven 
in Syria and Iraq. Our coalition has conducted more than 8,000 
airstrikes against ISIS. We have killed ISIS fighters at a rate of 
1,000 fighters a month.
  The Iraqi Security Forces have now liberated Tikrit, which is a city 
in Iraq that is Saddam Hussein's old hometown. It has been liberated 
from ISIS now. About 70 percent of Tikrit's pre-ISIS citizens have been 
returned to the city.
  With Syrian Kurdish forces on the ground and the United States in the 
air, the Syrian town of Kobane was kept from falling to ISIS, despite 
the fact that most analysts thought the town would fall within days 
earlier this year.
  Just last week in Iraq, Kurdish forces supported by the United States 
in the air took back the key town of Sinjar from ISIS. That strategic 
town sits on the top of a key roadway that connects ISIS's stronghold 
in Mosul with ISIS's capital in a place called Raqqa.
  Now these Iraqi Kurds are working with the Syrian Kurds, an Arab 
coalition, and the United States to fully sever that key supply line 
and isolate Mosul and Raqqa.
  In August, a U.S. drone strike killed a fellow named Junaid Hussain, 
one of ISIS's online propagandists who had helped to direct the 
homegrown attack at Garland, TX, last May.
  Just last week, a U.S. drone strike also killed Jihadi John, ISIS's 
chief executioner. Jihadi John has publicly executed dozens of people, 
including at least three Americans--James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and 
Peter Kassig.
  Last week, an American airstrike took ISIS's leader in Libya, a guy 
named Abu Nabil.
  Now, is that the ball game? No, it is not. Is that encouraging? Yes, 
it is. It has to be discouraging to folks with ISIS, and it has to be 
discouraging to fans here in the United States. The idea is to degrade 
them and ultimately destroy them, and I am encouraged that we finally 
seem to be on the right track to accomplishing that.
  The other thing we heard from our witnesses today is that there is a 
Federal program run by the Department of Homeland Security called the 
Office of Community Partnerships Countering Violent Terrorism. The idea 
there is to work with the Muslim communities throughout the country--
and there are a number of them--to counter the social media message 
that some find so alluring that is put up by ISIS. Part of the ability 
to compete with that and to degrade that message is to degrade ISIS on 
the ground.
  The other way to do it is to do what the Department of Homeland 
Security is doing in conjunction with Arab communities and Muslim 
communities throughout our country and in conjunction with, for 
example, the district attorney in Minneapolis, to develop a good 
partnership in saying: Let's see if we can't convince our young people 
living there not to want to go to Syria, not to want to go to fight, 
not to want to go anywhere, but just to live their lives and not to be 
jihadists in this country. It is a good program. It seems to be bearing 
fruit. It has been well accepted, I am told, by many in the Muslim 
community. We are being asked to help fund that through the 
appropriations process, and it is very important that we do.
  I will close where I started. It has been a bit of a wild and crazy 
ride this week. Every now and then I feel--when I was raising my kids, 
my boys, I would just say, why don't we just take a deep breath and 
chill for a little bit, and then figure out what to do. Given 
everything that has come across in the media and the scare that has 
been visited on so many people, it is probably a good time for us to 
just take a deep breath and to think about some of the things that I 
have said, some of what we learned in our hearing today.
  There are threats to this country that are real. They are probably 
not posed by the refugee problem. We are reminded by the Pope that we 
have an obligation to follow the Golden Rule and treat other people the 
way we wanted to be treated. We have an obligation, as we were reminded 
just two months ago by the Pope on the other side of the Capitol when 
he addressed a joint session of Congress. He told us to remember 
Matthew 25: When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was thirsty, did 
you give me a drink? When I was naked, did you clothe me? When

[[Page 18592]]

I was a stranger in your land, did you take me in?
  He posed to us sort of a moral dilemma and certainly reminded us that 
we have a moral obligation to the least of these in our society. We 
also have a moral obligation as leaders here in the Congress to make 
sure that we are not only trying to be true to that moral obligation to 
the least of these but the obligation that we have to protect the 
people of this country.
  The question for us as we approach Thanksgiving--maybe in the spirit 
of Thanksgiving--is that it possible for us to be true to both of the 
moral imperatives, to the least of those in our society and, frankly, 
outside this country, and the moral imperative to our country men and 
women to protect them. I think we can do both.
  As we leave here today to head for our homes and for Thanksgiving, I 
am encouraged we can do both, and that if we are smart about it, we 
will do that.
  I wish the Presiding Officer and all of our pages and all of the 
staff here a blessed Thanksgiving holiday. Thank you all for your 
service. I will see you in about 10 days. God bless you.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________