[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1281-1301]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Tillerson 
nomination, which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read the nomination of Rex W. Tillerson, of Texas, to 
be Secretary of State.

[[Page 1282]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 30 
minutes of debate, equally divided in the usual form.
  The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time has not been specifically apportioned 
to the Senator from California.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Feinstein pertaining to the introduction of S. 
240 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be yielded 5 
minutes for myself and then 5 minutes for the Senator from Arkansas to 
answer and perhaps object after I make motions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


       Unanimous Consent Requests--S. 240 and Executive Calendar

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I will speak and then make my two 
motions, and then the Senator from Arkansas can speak and either object 
or not, whatever he decides.
  Mr. President, earlier I spoke at length on the President's Executive 
order. I just want to repeat that this Executive order has made us less 
safe, less secure, put our troops in the field at increased risk, and 
was implemented in a way that has caused chaos and confusion across the 
country. Most fundamentally of all, it is un-American. It flies in the 
face of a grand American tradition of granting refuge to those fleeing 
persecution, regardless of their race, religion, or political views. It 
is dangerous. It is shameful. It is wrong. It must be reversed 
immediately. And I know that many of my colleagues agree with me. They 
know this is wrong. A dozen Republican Senators and counting, including 
my good friend, the senior Senator from Arizona, have expressed serious 
concern. One former Republican CIA Director said that it ``makes us 
less safe than we were on Friday.''
  So let's repeal the order and then sit down to discuss a smart, 
thoughtful, effective way to counter terrorism. President Obama wanted 
tougher vetting. Democrats are happy to look at proposals to that 
effect but not this ineffective, un-American policy that will do more 
to empower our enemies and inspire those around the globe who would do 
us harm.
  Now I am going to make a second unanimous consent request, and I will 
do them seriatim, as the UC allowed.
  The second request is, I ask unanimous consent that we delay the 
confirmation vote on Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson until 
these Executive orders are overturned and he commits to opposing them.
  So far, this is the most important foreign policy order of the new 
administration, and in the committee hearing for his nomination, Mr. 
Tillerson appeared--he wasn't 100 percent certain--to roundly reject 
the idea of a blanket travel ban just like the one President Trump 
signed. He said: ``I don't support a blanket type of travel ban on 
people coming to this country.'' He stressed in his opening statement 
that moderate Muslims are going to be our greatest allies in the fight 
against Islamic extremists. The implication was that he wouldn't 
support a proposal that would in any way alienate and inflame them. He 
said he didn't think it was helpful to suggest that Americans should be 
afraid of Muslims. That would suggest he might be wary about a policy 
that explicitly singles out seven majority-Muslim countries for 
different treatment under U.S. policy.
  Now, many of the comments Mr. Tillerson made to the committee are at 
odds with the President's policy. So Democrats and Republicans alike 
and the American people, most of all, deserve to know whether Mr. 
Tillerson would implement this Executive order or not because it seems 
to directly contradict comments he made under oath to a Senate 
committee. Key allies around the world are wondering whether the 
potential future Secretary of State supports this policy, and so are 
the American people.
  Here are some important questions: Did he have any involvement or 
consultation in the construction or drafting of the Executive order? 
How would he answer the outcries from countries around the world that 
are asking that President Trump rethink this policy? Does he think it 
would make us less safe? Does he think it would alienate moderate 
Muslim communities in the United States and around the world? And does 
he believe current green card holders should be subjected to another 
round of scrutiny if they come back to the United States, even though 
they have been vetted before?
  We need these answers from President Trump's nominees, and Mr. 
Tillerson's nomination is before the Senate right now, so it is 
imperative that we know what he thinks before moving forward.
  So, Mr. President, I am making two unanimous consent requests.
  First, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of Senator Feinstein's bill, S. 240, introduced 
earlier today; that there be 2 hours of debate equally divided; and 
that upon the use or yielding back of time, the bill be considered read 
a third time and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill; 
finally, that there be no amendments, motions, or points of order in 
order to the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object.
  If the Democratic leader wants to proceed.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I have a second unanimous consent request.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote on 
Calendar No. 2, the nomination of Rex W. Tillerson for Secretary of 
State, be postponed until Executive Order 13769 is rescinded and Mr. 
Tillerson has provided in writing to the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee information pertaining to his involvement in the development 
of the Executive order, as well as a statement declaring whether or not 
he agrees with the order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the first request of the 
Senator from New York?
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I object to the first request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there objection to the second request of the Democratic leader?
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, so once again we are hearing the Democrats 
and the media traffic in fake news. We heard a lot on this floor and 
over the weekend about a Muslim ban. This is a so-called Muslim ban 
that applies only to seven countries, and it does not apply to 
Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Nigeria--the five largest 
Muslim populations in the world. I have heard lots of claims on TV 
about 134 million Muslims who could be affected. Of course that leaves 
1.6 billion Muslims who are not affected.
  This is not a Muslim ban; this is a temporary pause of movement from 
seven countries, which President Trump did not pick from thin air. He 
picked from acts of this Congress and the Obama Department of Homeland 
Security--five countries in a state of near anarchy; a sixth country, 
Iraq, which has had a large part of its territory overrun by the 
Islamic State; and a seventh, Iran, which is the world's worst state 
sponsor of terrorism. Moreover, it is not a ban; it is simply a 
temporary pause for 3 to 4 months to evaluate whether Obama 
administration policies are strong enough to keep this country safe.
  We also heard claims that this is somehow unconstitutional. However, 
there is no free-floating global right of people around the world to 
come to this country. President Trump's order is nothing more than a 
temporary pause on migration from countries with very weak state 
institutions or which sponsor terrorism, while the

[[Page 1283]]

President and the administration take a more thorough review of our 
vetting procedures and the refugee program as a whole.
  Secretary Kelly has stated that it does not apply to green card 
holders. Secretary Mattis is reportedly advising that the long-term 
policy accommodate Iraqis with a documented history of serving with our 
troops, which I obviously support.
  In fact, a temporary pause for security evaluations is so sensible 
that in November 2015, after the Paris terrorist attacks, even the 
minority leader suggested that ``a pause may be necessary.'' It wasn't 
beyond the pale then, and it is not now. Moreover, the people who are 
enforcing our laws on the frontlines agree with President Trump. The 
union for Border Patrol and Customs Enforcement agents has stated that 
they support this order and two other related immigration orders.
  Yet here is the minority shedding crocodile tears over President 
Trump's immigration refugee policy, but where were those tears for the 
last 8 years when President Obama's foreign policy created all of these 
refugees? Where were the tears when President Obama overthrew the 
Government of Libya with nothing to follow? Where were the tears when 
President Obama withdrew from Iraq, leaving that country to fend off 
Iran and the Islamic State? Where were the tears when President Obama 
gave Iran $100 billion to continue its imperial campaign throughout the 
Middle East, to include overthrowing the Government of Yemen through 
its proxies? And most notoriously, where were the tears when President 
Obama stood idly by and watched Syria go up in flames? Spare me the 
tears now.
  If the minority is worried about the President's counsel and wants to 
make a difference in the real world, I suggest we get to work and we 
confirm Rex Tillerson to be the Secretary of State and Jeff Sessions to 
be the Attorney General. In the meantime, I object.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there further debate?


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Rex W. Tillerson, of Texas, to be Secretary of State.
          Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Richard Burr, Tom Cotton, 
           Jerry Moran, Pat Roberts, James Lankford, Johnny 
           Isakson, Bob Corker, Orrin G. Hatch, Thom Tillis, Dan 
           Sullivan, David Perdue, James M. Inhofe, Deb Fischer, 
           Cory Gardner, John Barrasso.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that the nomination of 
Rex W. Tillerson, of Texas, to be Secretary of State shall be brought 
to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. 
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
  (Disturbance in the Visitors' Galleries.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sergeant at Arms will restore order in the 
Senate.
  The Galleries will remain quiet.
  The Sergeant at Arms will restore order.
  Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 56, nays 43, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 34 Ex.]

                                YEAS--56

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Warner
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--43

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Heinrich
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). On this vote, the yeas are 56, 
the nays are 43.
  The motion is agreed to.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. 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.


                               Travel Ban

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is the 11th day of the Trump 
Presidency. To say that these have been tumultuous days is certainly an 
understatement. What happened over this past weekend really was 
unsettling to many people all across the United States.
  Candidate Trump made it clear that he had strong feelings about 
refugees and strong feelings about immigration, but I don't think 
anyone anticipated the Executive orders that were issued by the Trump 
administration, by the President, on Friday. The net result of that we 
saw across the United States at O'Hare International Airport, JFK, 
Dulles, many other airports. International travelers, en route, learned 
that the laws of the United States were being changed because of 
President Trump's Executive order. As a result, there was a lot of 
confusion and uncertainty, and hardships were created. Individuals who 
were coming to the United States as refugees were being turned away.
  For the record, this decision to indefinitely suspend the admission 
of Syrian refugees into the United States is not a decision based on 
fact. Since 9/11, since the war in Syria began, we have not had a 
single--not one--instance of terrorism by a Syrian refugee--not one. 
The United States has not stepped up as other countries like Canada 
have in admitting Syrian refugees. We have gone to great lengths, 
extraordinary lengths, to give background checks that are as consuming 
as one can imagine, to verify their identity and their safety to the 
United States.
  Overwhelmingly, these Syrian refugees are the victims of a deadly war 
which has gone on for years, and overwhelmingly they are children with 
their mothers. I have met them. I sat down with them in Chicago. It is 
heartbreaking to think that they have lived through war, may have been 
lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp, and then waited for years--
for years--to be cleared by the United States and be given a chance to 
come to this country.
  It has to be a heartbreaking process. Through it all, many of them 
have endured losses in their families that they will never be able to 
forget--injuries and deaths of people whom they love. These are men and 
women in Syria escaping a deadly war and the terrorists who have 
ravaged that country. They have tried to come to the United States for 
safety and security.
  The history of refugees in America is one that in modern version is 
very admirable, but unfortunately before--during World War II--it was a 
sad chapter in our history. Not only did we inter about 120,000 
Japanese Americans in camps during the war for fear that they would 
betray the United States, but during that war, time and again,

[[Page 1284]]

the administration of President Roosevelt as well as Congress refused 
to allow those who were escaping the Holocaust in Nazi Germany to come 
to the United States.
  Here on this Senate floor where I stand, an effort was made by 
Senator Robert Wagner of New York to admit 10,000 Jewish children out 
of Nazi Germany into the United States so that their parents would have 
the peace of mind that they would not be killed by the war or the 
Holocaust. That measure was defeated on the floor of this Senate. Prior 
to our entry into the war, those who tried to escape Nazi Germany and 
come to the United States were turned away by the United States.
  The most notorious example was the SS St. Louis, which sailed from 
Germany, came to, first, Havana, Cuba, then to Miami, FL, and was 
turned away in both places with about 900 passengers who feared for 
their lives because of the anti-Semitism and the killing that was 
taking place in Nazi Germany.
  They tracked that passenger list. Several hundred of them were 
rejected by the United States. They were not given refugee status. They 
were forced to return to Germany. Several hundred of them perished in 
the Holocaust.
  It was after that bitter experience that the United States decided to 
try to set an example for the world when it came to compassion and 
humanity for refugees. We stepped up time and again to be that place of 
security and safety. We can point proudly to the fact that when the 
Cubans were fearful of a Communist takeover in their country, fearful 
for their lives and their rights and their liberties, they came to the 
United States in tens of thousands.
  Now Cuban Americans, a proud part of our country not only in Florida 
but around our Nation, can point to the U.S. refugee policy as the 
means by which they finally made it to the safety of the United States. 
Here we were in a Cold War with the Soviet Union; Cuba, 90 miles off 
our shore was being taken over by a dictator, Fidel Castro, who was 
declaring his loyalty to the Soviet Union. Yet we were readily 
receiving tens of thousands of refugees from Cuba in the midst of that 
Cold War. Talk about a chance--and taking a chance. Those men and women 
who came to the United States were not vetted for months, years, and in 
many cases not at all. They were allowed into our country. Thank 
goodness we did it. It was the right thing to do.
  Time and again, whether it was refugees coming in from Vietnam after 
the end of that deadly war or whether it was Soviet Jews, persecuted by 
the Soviet Union, trying to escape, coming to the United States, we 
opened our doors and said: The United States of America will set an 
example for the world when it comes to refugees. That defined who we 
were and who we still should be.
  Now this new President is ready to walk away from that. If we had one 
instance of a Syrian refugee coming into the United States after that 
vetting process who caused harm to our citizens or engaged in an act of 
terrorism--if we had one--then perhaps this President could start to 
make his case.
  All he has is fear, unreasoned fear, unproven fear. We recall what 
Franklin Roosevelt said to this Nation, standing right out here on the 
steps when he was inaugurated in March of 1933: We have nothing to fear 
but fear itself. It is fear itself that is motivating this President to 
make decisions inconsistent with more than 50 years of American history 
and inconsistent with American values.
  When you meet these refugees and you hear their heartbreaking 
stories, how can you say that there is no room for you in this country? 
Yet that is exactly what he said.
  Sadly, he not only came up with this Executive order, he did it in a 
fashion where the agencies that were supposed to implement the order 
really were caught by surprise. Now they are priding themselves on the 
fact that they can turn on a dime when given instructions that are 
important for national security. But in this case, where national 
security was not the motive--political security was the motive; I am 
talking in the crassest terms. In those cases, these agencies were 
forced to make split-second decisions, and some of them were horrible.
  A man who came to the United States from Iraq, from one of the seven 
countries designated by President Trump, came from Iraq after having 
risked his life for American soldiers. He was rewarded with an 
opportunity to come to the United States, was detained at the airport, 
questioned at length, threatened to be returned to Iraq, and finally--
after 19 hours--allowed to stay.
  There is story after story of families coming to see someone who was 
on the deathbed, their last chance to be together, and families who had 
gone overseas for what they thought were just casual or really easy 
trips who were subject to detention and some turned away. Why? It 
certainly was not in the interest of the security of the United States, 
and it was not handled in a professional manner. It was impulsive and 
not decisive. It was ill conceived instead of wise.
  Here we are today. As I stand here at this chair and this desk in the 
Senate, across the street thousands have gathered in front of the 
Supreme Court to express their outrage over the Executive orders issued 
by President Trump. I am happy to report that almost one dozen 
Republican Senators have joined us in expressing reservations about 
this policy.
  It gives me hope that maybe on a bipartisan basis we can rein in some 
of the excesses of this administration. God forbid we ignore the basic 
constitutional issue that has been raised by these Executive orders. It 
is no coincidence that these seven countries are predominately Muslim 
countries. It is no coincidence that President Trump went on a 
Christian broadcasting station and said preference would be given to 
Christians.
  The Constitution which we are sworn to uphold and defend, the 
Constitution which guides this Nation is one that was written at a time 
when religion was a divisive issue that led to people coming to the 
United States.
  I think in this section, our Founding Fathers probably showed more 
wisdom and more understanding of our future than any other on the issue 
of religion. They only said three things in the entire Constitution, 
three things over 200 years ago. They said that this Congress, this 
government, will not establish an official religion. They did that, of 
course, many of them having come from England, where they had a 
national church. They didn't want that in the United States. Most 
importantly, they said each person in America had freedom of religious 
belief, to believe what they wished or to believe nothing if they 
wished, and that would be an honored freedom under our Bill of Rights. 
The third element: Religion could not be used as a litmus test for 
public office. That is it.
  When you think of all the wars and all the deaths and all the 
persecution based on religion, the fact that we have largely escaped it 
is because of the wisdom of that document.
  Now comes this 45th President of the United States who decides to 
rewrite the book, to ignore this basic constitutional direction and 
mandate, and to say on the Christian Broadcasting Network: We are going 
to favor Christian refugees coming to the United States. That, to me, 
is unacceptable and unconstitutional, and inconsistent with who we are, 
what we are, and the values we treasure in this country.
  My mother was an immigrant to this country. I never knew my 
grandmother, who brought her over on the ship from Lithuania. I do have 
one thing now in my office upstairs that my grandmother carried with 
her to this country. It is a prayer book. We are a Roman Catholic 
family. She was a Roman Catholic in Lithuania. The Russian Orthodox 
religion was being pushed by the czar, who was dominant when they left 
Lithuania, and they banned Catholic prayer books written in Lithuania.
  I never knew my grandmother. I wish I had. She risked everything to 
bring that Catholic prayer book, that contraband from czarist-
controlled Lithuania into the United States. I have it upstairs. It 
means the world to me that this woman with limited formal education but 
unlimited courage was willing to risk a lot, bringing three small

[[Page 1285]]

children into this country, carrying with her that prayer book which 
might have gotten her imprisoned in Lithuania back in her day. So 
religion means a lot to our family, not just on a personal basis but 
what America means when it comes to religion.
  When this President is so casual with the constitutional guarantees 
of religion, I don't believe he is serving the United States or 
honoring the history that came before him.
  There have been so many issues that have come up during the 11 days 
of his Presidency, but President Trump's decision to turn away innocent 
people fleeing persecution, genocide, and terror and to ban immigrants 
on the basis of religion is the worst, in my view. This attack is not 
only un-American, it risks alienating 1 billion Muslims around the 
world. Some of the most conservative people in this country--I am 
certain Republicans--have said over and over again: Don't do this. 
There are Muslim countries that are allies in fighting terrorism, and 
if you alienate them, it is going to lessen our ability to stop the 
spread of Al Qaeda and ISIS.
  Furthermore, this is a recruiting tool. You know what is going to 
happen. Those who hate the United States are going to use this action 
by President Trump to verify their belief and their credo that the 
United States is anti-Muslim.
  There was a Republican President, George W. Bush, whom I disagreed 
with many times, but thank goodness, after 9/11, he had the wisdom and 
showed the leadership to come before the American people to say: We are 
not going to condemn the Muslim religion. We are going to go after 
those who corrupted it, but we are going to honor it as a religion of 
peace.
  How different President George W. Bush, that Republican President, 
was to President Donald Trump, this Republican President.
  Senator Dianne Feinstein is the ranking Democrat on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee. She has introduced a resolution, on which I am 
proud to be one of the original cosponsors, to repeal and rescind these 
reprehensible President Donald Trump Executive orders on refugees and 
immigration.
  We are in the midst of the worst refugee crisis in the history of the 
world. More than 65 million people have been forcibly displaced from 
their homes. The brutal Syrian conflict, which is the epicenter of this 
humanitarian crisis, has killed hundreds of thousands, injured more 
than a million, and displaced half of the population of that country. 
In some areas, children literally starve to death in Syria. This 
conflict has forced more than 4.7 million refugees to flee. Around 70 
percent of them are women and children who are looking for a safe place 
in this world. Half of Syrian children today are not in school because 
of this conflict and because of the forces that have dispersed them 
around the world. Millions in and outside of Syria need humanitarian 
assistance.
  Last week--the same week President Trump signed this awful Executive 
order on refugees--the United Nations issued an appeal for $4.6 billion 
to meet the basic needs of Syrian refugees and struggling communities 
hosting them in neighboring countries.
  Lebanon is a country where I believe half of the children in school 
today are Syrian. Jordan, one of our best friends and allies in the 
Middle East, has made more sacrifices on behalf of refugees per capita 
than any nation on Earth. What message does it send to our friends in 
Jordan that while they risk the security and safety and stability of 
their nation to absorb these refugees from Syria and around the world, 
that as an official policy of President Donald Trump, the United States 
no longer will even consider allowing a Syrian refugee to come to the 
United States? How can we in good conscience ask the King of Jordan to 
risk his monarchy and his country for refugees when President Trump 
says they are not allowed in the United States?
  Earlier this month, I am happy to report, more than 1,700 Jewish 
rabbis called on our government to maintain and strengthen the refugee 
program for refugees of all ethnic and religious backgrounds--not to 
halt it, pause it, or restrict it. This weekend, I was so proud of the 
Catholic cardinal in Chicago, Blase Cupich, who came out and said the 
Executive orders of Donald Trump are not consistent with American 
values and certainly are not consistent with the beliefs of the 
Catholic Church. Religious leaders all across the country are speaking 
out. They understand that this is more than a political test; this is a 
moral test of who we are as Americans.
  Many of the refugees who came to this country were fleeing regimes 
that were hostile to the United States. We gave them safety.
  Refugees are the most carefully vetted and investigated of all 
travelers. Before refugees are admitted into the United States, they go 
through security screening that is almost unheard of. All of that 
screening takes place before they can even consider being allowed to 
set foot in America, and Syrian refugees go through an even stricter 
review. Extreme vetting? I have news for this President: Syrian 
refugees and refugees all over the world are already going through 
extreme vetting.
  Shutting down the Refugee Resettlement Program won't protect our 
security. It plays into ISIS's argument that the United States is 
waging a war against Islam.
  Listen to what Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA and 
National Security Agency under Presidents Bush and Obama, said about 
President Trump's Executive order:

       It's a horrible move. It is a political, ideological move 
     driven by the language of the campaign and, frankly, campaign 
     promises--promises in the campaign that were hyped by an 
     exaggeration of the threat. And in fact, what we're doing now 
     has probably made us less safe today than we were Friday 
     morning before this happened because we are now living the 
     worst jihadist narrative possible, that there is undying 
     enmity between Islam and the West. Muslims out there who were 
     not part of the jihadist movement are now being shown that 
     the story they were being told by the jihadists--they hate 
     us; they're our enemy--that's being acted out by the American 
     government. And frankly, at a humanitarian level, it's an 
     abomination.

  That statement was not made by the Democratic National Committee; it 
was made by Gen. Michael Hayden, former Director of the Central 
Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency under Presidents 
Bush and Obama.
  If we are serious about protecting America, we should be serious 
about closing the real loopholes that might threaten us. Think of the 
hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors to the United States under 
the Visa Waiver Program who go through no vetting, not even 
fingerprinting, before they get on a plane to come to the United 
States. Want to close a loophole in security? Let's look at that one 
seriously.
  Instead of real security threats, President Trump is focusing on 
innocent people--children, women, families who are fleeing terrorism.
  Today's refugees, like millions before them from all over the world, 
will become proud Americans who contribute greatly to our society and 
economy.
  Albert Einstein was a refugee. Thank goodness he came to the United 
States. Today, so many of the leaders of our major corporations and 
high-tech companies are immigrants to this country and, in some cases, 
refugees.
  Building walls on our borders and fear in our hearts will not move 
America forward. Let's not continue the cruelty or deception of blaming 
immigrants and refugees for our security and economic challenges. Let's 
work together to build a better America for all Americans, including 
new Americans, no matter the color of their skin, where their parents 
were born, or how they pray.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, citizens across the country are very 
concerned. In fact, they are more than concerned; they are terrified 
that our President is degrading the fundamental values on which our 
Nation was founded: religious tolerance, freedom of religion, the 
ability to worship as you please, and a fundamental principle that we 
would be welcoming to refugees, that we would be a nation that embraces 
immigrants.

[[Page 1286]]

  Tonight Lady Liberty is crying. She said, ``Give me your tired, your 
poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,'' but our President 
has slammed the door on the tired and the poor and the huddled masses. 
It is an action the citizens in my home State have come out to protest. 
They have gone to the airport in Portland en masse 2 days in a row to 
say that we are welcoming to the world, that we are not going to slam 
the door shut on refugees, that we are not going to single out Muslim 
nations and say: We do not want you here.
  Indeed, I held two townhalls over the weekend. The first was in a 
gymnasium about this size. There were 600 people jammed into it. They 
are very upset and angry that our fundamental values are being 
disregarded by the President of the United States. Then I went to my 
second townhall. I thought 600 was a lot; there were 3,700 Oregonians 
who came out to my second townhall. Every one of them is wanting to 
send a message to President Trump: You are taking us on the wrong 
road--a road that hurts people around the world, a road that hurts our 
fundamental values, and a road that decreases our security.
  This Executive order, this Executive action from the President has 
had an immediate and painful impact--hundreds of people en route to our 
country detained at airports although they were legally traveling here. 
Many of them have been vetted on extended periods, some of them going 
through several years of vetting, and finally they have in their hand 
that visa that says, yes, I am going to have a country, and it is going 
to be the United States of America. And the President crushed that 
hope.
  Chaos and confusion abounded. Lawyers and protesters and advocates 
descended on airports everywhere across this country to tell the 
administration that there is no mandate, no public will for this path 
that is so destructive to our values. They came out to say: Mr. 
President, when you tear down women in America, we stand with the women 
of America. Mr. President, when you tear down the disabled, we stand 
with the disabled of America. Mr. President, when you tear down African 
Americans and Hispanics, we stand with African Americans and Hispanics. 
And, Mr. President, when you tear down Muslims, we stand with our 
Muslim brothers and sisters because this is the United States of 
America, where we value religious freedom, where we value religious 
tolerance. This is a nation of immigrants. If you are not 100 percent 
Native American, then you are either an immigrant yourself or you are 
the child or the grandchild or the great-grandchild of an immigrant. 
Most of us can track members of our family who came from the ravages of 
war or the ravages of drought or the ravages of oppression to come here 
to this soil, this land of freedom. James Madison remarked: ``America 
was indebted to immigration for her settlement and for her 
prosperity.'' This remains just as true today as it was in Madison's 
day.
  Here we stand, but the President of the United States has denied 
access to our Nation to a group of people based on nothing more than 
religious beliefs, betraying our values of religious tolerance and 
shutting the doors on refugees. The President has said this is not a 
ban on those of the Muslim faith, but of course it is a ban on those of 
Muslim faith because it is a ban on seven nations that are Muslim 
nations, with an exception made for individuals who are Christians so 
it is nothing more than a ban on Muslims.
  The President says this is about protecting our citizens, but let us 
be very clear about that. Numerous refugees have come to our land, 
numerous immigrants, and there have been zero fatal terror attacks 
carried out by the immigrants from the seven countries listed in the 
order. Zero. We have been attacked by individuals from other countries 
which are not listed in the order, from Saudi Arabia, United Arab 
Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon. Those nations aren't listed on this 
order. What we do know is that this ban does not make our Nation safer. 
National security experts recognize that it does exactly the opposite. 
By signing this Executive order, the President has betrayed our most 
fundamental values and principles, antagonizing 1.6 billion citizens of 
the world, and given our enemies ammunition for their false narrative 
that America is at war with Islam because that is exactly what they 
have used to recruit. That is exactly what they have used to increase 
and pour fuel on the fire to persuade people to attack Americans. The 
President has basically handed them this argument--this false 
narrative--and put our Nation at risk.
  Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said to National Public Radio 
this morning, ``In fact, what we're doing now has probably made us less 
safe today than we were Friday morning before this happened, because we 
are now living the worst jihadist narrative possible, that there is 
undying enmity between Islam and the West.''
  I share the value of Daniel Benjamin, the former Coordinator for 
Counterterrorism at the State Department, who said this: ``It sends an 
unmistakable message to the American Muslim community that they are 
facing discrimination and isolation,'' and that message, he said, will 
``feed the jihadist narrative that the United States is at war with 
Islam, potentially encouraging a few more Muslims to plot violence.''
  This is the wrong move in every possible way. It is ill-considered, 
it is hasty, it is dangerous, it is wrongheaded, it puts American 
citizens at risk, and it helps our enemies. Benjamin Franklin once 
said: ``Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little 
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.'' In this case, 
President Trump's Executive order has degraded both our liberty and our 
security--both our liberty and our safety.
  We have turned our backs on friends and allies who are helping us in 
the war against ISIS. The President has made it clear that he wants to 
take on ISIS as we had been, but he wants to amplify it, and he has 
sabotaged that effort with this Executive order.
  There are individuals like Hameed Khalid Darweesh, who worked for 
more than a decade for the United States as an interpreter in Iraq. Our 
interpreters place their lives at risk to assist our soldiers. They 
place the lives of their families at risk to assist the United States 
of America. This man risked his life for more than 10 years for us, and 
how is he greeted when he arrives here in our country? He is greeted 
with handcuffs. Muslim Iraqi interpreters like Mr. Darweesh have earned 
the right to come to America. They risked their lives and their 
family's lives. They assisted us in multitudinous ways.
  What about this ban on refugees? Refugees are the most thoroughly 
vetted of all those who come to the United States. If a terrorist wants 
to come to the United States, a terrorist wouldn't attempt to come as a 
refugee. It would be 1 to 2 years of waiting in miserable conditions in 
a refugee camp, with all kinds of vetting, and they might never get 
permission to come. If you want intense vetting, then look to how we 
vet refugees. Blocking women and children and interpreters from coming 
to our country who have been the most thoroughly vetted of all 
potential immigrants is simply wrong. In fact, the model for vetting 
refugees is intense. Women and orphans are just searching for a safe 
haven, but we have turned our back and we have slammed the door.
  America is better than this. For centuries we have been a beacon of 
hope to the world. We have been a beacon of justice, a beacon of 
compassion, and we must restore our Nation as a beacon of hope, 
justice, liberty, and compassion.
  Millions of Americans are coming out in the snow and the rain and in 
some places in good weather. They are coming out in any possible 
conditions to speak out and say: This is not America. This is not us. 
Change paths. Tear down this ban. Tear down this ban that has slammed 
the door on refugees. Tear down this ban which has placed our Nation at 
risk.
  Let us together put our Nation back on track. Let us together fight 
for the values that made America great for the last two centuries. Let 
us together

[[Page 1287]]

fight for the richness of our culture and our community, the strength 
of our society that comes from being a nation of immigrants. We need to 
act and act urgently.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Daines). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, Mr. Trump's poorly drawn and implemented 
Executive order blocking refugees from the United States sacrifices 
fundamental American values and does not make us safer.
  For the first time in memory, the order imposes a ban on all refugees 
entering our country, many of whom are fleeing war or who risk 
persecution for their religious or political beliefs. The order affects 
many thousands of children, women, and men whom our government has 
vetted for years and cleared for rescue.
  President Trump's action--taken in the first days of his new 
administration, for political reasons, without regard for real world 
consequences and without the expertise of our national security 
professionals or even some of those appointed by the President 
himself--represents a rare, but shameful, departure from a 
constitutional heritage that has made America strong and a beacon to 
oppressed people throughout the world.
  For generations, immigrants and refugees have come to our country to 
flee religious persecution and to seek a better life. Indeed, these are 
the very people who founded our original colonies. Although, as now, we 
have occasionally failed to live up to our ideals, over generations the 
United States has accepted millions of refugees from around the world.
  My own family is part of this story, as so many people's families in 
this Chamber are. My mom was born in Poland in 1938 while Nazi tanks 
massed at the border. She and her parents miraculously survived the 
Holocaust--one of the worst human events in history.
  After the war, after arriving in Sweden and then Mexico City, they 
were able to come to New York City in 1950. They wanted to come to the 
United States because it was the only country in the world where they 
believed they could rebuild their shattered lives. And they did.
  This weekend, my mom joined hundreds of thousands of Americans to 
call on the President to change course, knowing that our family's 
struggles in Europe require us to recognize the danger and persecution 
facing families throughout the Middle East today.
  Out of a population of 22 million, almost 5 million Syrians have fled 
to neighboring countries--some to Europe--and have registered as 
refugees. More than half of those displaced are children.
  According to the United Nations, more than half of the remaining 
Syrian population--6 million of them children--require assistance such 
as food, water, and health care. Nearly one in four people in Lebanon 
today--tonight--is a Syrian refugee, and the fourth largest city in 
Jordan is now a refugee camp.
  In the wake of President Trump's refugee ban, it seems useful to 
ask--and I am sure the American people are asking--why are so many 
millions of people fleeing their homes, their countries, and their 
history?
  They are doing it to save their lives--and, in many cases, their 
children's lives--from ISIS's medieval barbarism and Assad's 
unrelenting brutality. They seek to escape the murder, rape, detention, 
and torture they suffer because of their religion or their ethnicity or 
both.
  Assad is their enemy. ISIS is their enemy. Today's refugees are 
fleeing the violence and extremism that threatens our own national 
security. Their enemies are our enemies. The same is true of the 
refugees from Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan.
  Does this mean we have an obligation simply to open our borders to 
them? Of course not. We have a national security imperative to ensure 
that no terrorist tries to sneak into the United States as part of the 
refugee program.
  I have long said that the burden of proof is not on the United States 
to accept a refugee. Rather, the refugee has the burden to demonstrate 
that they are not a threat to the United States. We have no obligation, 
nor should we, to take anything on faith. It is for this reason that 
refugees are more thoroughly vetted than anyone else entering the 
United States. They must pass stringent screening standards to ensure 
that they pose no threat, a process that can take up to 2 years.
  First, the United Nations screens them and collects biometric data. 
Only those who pass that test are then referred to the United States. 
And, by the way, no refugee knows at that stage of the process to which 
country they will be referred--to the United States or to any other 
country that is accepting refugees. After that, multiple agencies--
including the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the State 
Department, and our intelligence agencies--conduct rigorous screenings. 
This process includes repeated biometric checks, several layers of 
biographical and background screening, health checks, and interviews. 
Syrian refugees, in particular, receive enhanced scrutiny through an 
additional security risk review by specially trained officers.
  Out of the nearly 60,000 people referred to the United States, only 
about 12,000 have been accepted. Of those Syrian refugees accepted by 
the United States, three-quarters are women and children and half were 
under 13 in 2016.
  We are the leader of the free world, a republic founded on the 
premise of religious freedom and a society that for generations has 
called out to the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to 
be free. That is who we are. Yet, in the name of fighting terrorism in 
his first week as President, Mr. Trump has sacrificed what has made us 
exceptional and has banned these children and their mothers from our 
shores.
  These children are no different than Omran Daqneesh, whose distant 
stare from the back of an ambulance in Aleppo bore witness to the 
senseless violence he suffered; or Alan Kurdi, whose lifeless body on a 
Turkish beach condemned the worst savagery of humankind.
  Once he learns the details--if he chooses to study them--if President 
Trump wishes to make our vetting even more extreme than it already is, 
I guess he may do so. But banning refugees and prioritizing immigration 
by religion or ethnicity simultaneously abandons our principles and 
weakens our counterterrorism efforts. It sends the wrong message to our 
Muslim partners who fight with us in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, 
including civilians in those countries who have risked their lives 
alongside our troops. It also hands ISIS a recruiting tool by fueling 
their narrative that the Western and Muslim worlds cannot coexist in 
peace.
  If the President really wants to secure our borders and ensure 
extremists stay out of the country, there are far better alternatives, 
and they are alternatives that are not at war with who we are as 
Americans. We should work together to close security gaps in our Visa 
Waiver Program and partner with European countries to better track the 
flow of foreign fighters throughout Europe and the Middle East. We 
should also do more to counter the ability of terrorists to radicalize 
and recruit, both here at home and abroad. We should do more to equip 
our agencies with tools and capabilities to degrade the ability of 
terrorist organizations--in particular, ISIS--to persuade and inspire 
using social media. Congress should enact ideas passed by the Senate in 
2013 to strengthen border security, double the number of border agents, 
and address visa overstays.
  By tackling real vulnerabilities and investing in smart security 
solutions, we can secure not only our borders but also our values, and 
we will not repeat the darkest moments of our history when America 
turned away from those fleeing persecution around the world.
  A year ago, I came to the Senate floor to share a note sent to me by 
my

[[Page 1288]]

grandparents on my first birthday. It is a message that bears repeating 
tonight. The year was 1965--15 years after my mother and grandparents 
came to this country after surviving the horrors of the Holocaust in 
Poland. This is what they wrote:

       The ancient Greeks gave the world the high ideals of 
     democracy, in search of which your dear mother and we came to 
     the hospitable shores of beautiful America in 1950. We have 
     been happy here ever since, beyond our greatest dreams and 
     expectations, with democracy, freedom, and love, and 
     humanity's greatest treasure. We hope that when you grow up, 
     you will help develop in other parts of the world a greater 
     understanding of these American values.

  Like so many immigrants, my grandparents knew how special these 
American values are and how rare they are. We cannot take them for 
granted or subvert them for a political moment. These values make us 
who we are.
  Edmund Burke once wrote: ``In history a great volume is unrolled for 
our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past 
errors and infirmities of mankind.''
  This is a time when we can learn from the past errors and infirmities 
of humankind. We cannot turn our backs on women, children, and families 
who risk persecution, starvation, or death.
  The President should rescind this Executive order. If not, the Senate 
should end the ban immediately and start a serious conversation on how 
to make our country safe again in a manner that is consistent with our 
fundamental values.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to follow that very 
eloquent speech by my colleague from Colorado and to be followed on the 
floor by our colleague from Massachusetts.
  We are here today with stories. Every one of us has a story going 
back one generation, maybe two or three, maybe five or ten, but we all 
have an immigrant story. Most of those immigrant stories are about 
people coming here to seek hope, opportunity, and, yes, safety; to 
escape violence and persecution; to come here for refuge.
  I met one of those refugees over this weekend in West Hartford at a 
Holocaust remembrance ceremony. Abby Weiner is a Romanian Jew who 
survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald but lost his parents there. He was 
honored by Voices of Hope at this Holocaust remembrance ceremony at a 
synagogue in West Hartford, attended by 500, 700 people. There was a 
massive outpouring of support for him and for the values that are 
represented by people who come here as immigrants fleeing persecution 
and violence, as he did in Nazi Germany. He said: The words came before 
the bullets and gas chambers. The words of Nazi Germany came before the 
bullets and gas chambers. Words have consequences. Edicts and orders 
have consequences.
  When I spoke, I told my own story--a proud story of my father, who 
also came here from Nazi Germany in 1935. He was 17 years old. He spoke 
virtually no English, he had not much more than the shirt on his back, 
and he knew almost no one. This great country, the greatest in the 
history of the world, gave him a chance to succeed. He was a proud 
American. How sad and ashamed he would be today to see actions by the 
President of the United States that ban a group coming to this country 
based on their religion--a ban that is antithetical to our history, our 
values, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
  I salute Sally Yates, who has taken a stand based on moral and legal 
principle in the highest tradition of the Department of Justice, saying 
that these orders cannot be defended and that the rule of law and 
morality is more important than the politics of the moment and the 
impulsive edicts of a ruler who apparently fails to understand that 
law--or, at least his administration does.
  It raises the question of whether the next Attorney General--she is 
only acting--will have the strength and courage to uphold the rule of 
law. Tomorrow, I will vote against our respected and admired colleague, 
Jeff Sessions, because I believe that the next Attorney General must be 
a champion--a steadfast advocate and protector of the rule of law and 
rights and liberties that are overridden and abridged by this order 
banning people from Muslim-majority nations, in effect a ban on a 
religious group.
  We are better than this kind of discriminatory edict. We know it 
harms mainly children and families fleeing violence and oppression. 
Refugees like those children have helped to shape and build this 
Nation. We are stronger because of our diversity. We are a nation of 
immigrants. Our strength comes from the talents, energies, strengths, 
and vibrancy they bring to this country.
  Often, when I am feeling down about our public life, I go to 
immigration and naturalization ceremonies. They occur every Friday in 
courts around the State of Connecticut. I welcome people who are 
becoming citizens, and I say to them: Thank you for becoming a citizen 
of the greatest country in the world. You are a source of strength for 
us, and you have taken a test that most Americans could not pass.
  They laugh because they know it is true. They will never take for 
granted what it means to be a citizen of this country. I look at them 
in their diversity, and I know that is America. That is our future.
  We will be less safe because of this order, which will alienate 
allies and deny us sources of intelligence to troops on the ground that 
we need to win the war against ISIS, and we must win that war. It will 
provide a recruiting tool to ISIS, convincing young people who may be 
tempted to join their ranks that, in fact, this country is engaged in a 
war against Islam, which is utterly and totally untrue. It will 
discourage people from within the United States who are part of the 
Muslim community from coming forth when they see threats and could 
provide information that would forestall an attack by violent 
extremists within our country.
  This order makes us less safe, but it weakens us mainly in a deeper 
moral sense: It is wrong. It is wrong for this great country, devoted 
and founded on the ideals of welcoming people seeking that beacon of 
hope and protection and opportunity.
  The Statue of Liberty is a symbol, but the ideals and the values are 
living. The damage that has been done to them can be repaired. We must 
repair it and reverse this order. That is why I have sponsored 
legislation that will rescind it, and why I am proud to join my 
colleagues today on the floor of the Senate to say: Rip up this order, 
Mr. President. With all respect, do the right thing. Be on the right 
side of history and the right side of our Constitution. Rip up this 
illegal order.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, on Friday night, President Donald Trump 
issued an Executive order that strikes at the very heart of our 
democracy.
  I wish I were exaggerating. I wish this were some sort of game. But 
the ban that imposes religious tests and keeps refugees and immigrants 
from entering our country is illegal, it is unconstitutional, it is 
immoral, and it must be overturned.
  The effects of this order were immediate and terrifying for people in 
Massachusetts and all across this country. My office got a call from an 
Iranian citizen who was traveling to Massachusetts to see his daughter 
who is currently receiving treatment for cancer. He was denied boarding 
in Germany and sent back to Iran. We heard from a woman who already has 
an approved immigrant visa but still hasn't found an airline that will 
allow her to board a flight to the United States. A Massachusetts 
resident called because her cousin who holds a student visa was not 
allowed to board a flight either. Another Massachusetts resident called 
because her Iranian sisters were denied boarding at London Heathrow. 
Both have their valid J-1 visas. One is a visiting professor at 
Harvard, and the other is a postdoc fellow at Harvard Medical. We heard 
from an Iranian student studying at MIT. She was denied entry on 
Saturday, and when she tried

[[Page 1289]]

to return on Sunday, after the temporary stay had been issued, she was 
denied boarding by Lufthansa. A Massachusetts student on a student visa 
called because his wife was denied boarding in Switzerland.
  None of these people are criminals. None of these people are threats. 
They are students at some of the world's top universities; they are 
doctors and scientists at some of the country's best hospitals. Most of 
them have already been vetted and granted the right to come to America. 
One is a father who wants to see his cancer-stricken daughter. They are 
husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends 
and neighbors. They are people. They are real people. They are part of 
what makes Massachusetts great, and they are part of what makes America 
great.
  Donald Trump's radical ban on Muslims isn't in line with American 
values or with our Constitution. It is also not in line with what the 
Republican Party stands for.
  In the months following the attacks of September 11, President George 
W. Bush made a point to remind the United States that we were not at 
war against Islam. In a speech in April of 2002, he said:

       America rejects bigotry. We reject every act of hatred 
     against people of Arab background or Muslim faith. America 
     values and welcomes peaceful people of all faiths--Christian, 
     Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and many others. Every faith is 
     practiced and protected here, because we are one country. 
     Every immigrant can be fully and equally American because 
     we're one country. Race and color should not divide us, 
     because America is one country.

  Do Senate Republicans agree? If so, then come down here and say so. 
Where are you? Where are Senate Republicans when their Republican 
President issues an order targeting one religious group?
  Let's be clear about what happened here. Keeping the details secret, 
working with a small group of operatives inside the White House, 
consulting no experts in diplomacy or homeland security, and getting 
advice from outsiders with no actual legal authority, President Trump 
acted unilaterally to issue this order.
  Make no mistake, while it may not affect every Muslim in the world, 
Donald Trump's Executive order is a Muslim ban, and it is 
unconstitutional. This is a crisis. The Senate should take up and pass 
Senator Feinstein's bill to overturn this illegal order right now. What 
is happening is shocking. It is shocking, but it is not surprising.
  Donald Trump is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. During 
his Presidential campaign, he promised ``a total and complete shutdown 
of Muslims entering the United States.'' That is what he said. Last 
year, it seemed like pretty much everyone agreed that this was not 
acceptable in the United States of America.
  Speaker Paul Ryan declared:

       A religious test for entering our country is not reflective 
     of America's fundamental values. I reject it.

  Where are you now, Paul Ryan? Have you rejected President Trump's 
order to impose a religious test for entering our country? Have you 
introduced a bill to overturn it? You have the power. Where are you?
  As Governor of Indiana, Vice President Mike Pence said: ``Calls to 
ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and 
unconstitutional.'' Where are you right now, Vice President Pence? Have 
you called to overturn President Trump's offensive and unconstitutional 
order? Have you asked Republicans to introduce a bill to overturn it? 
You have a platform. Where are you?
  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called a Muslim ban 
``completely and totally inconsistent with American values.'' Where are 
you right now, Mitch McConnell? Have you rejected President Trump's 
Muslim ban that is completely and totally inconsistent with American 
values? Have you introduced a bill to overturn it? You have the power. 
Where are you?
  President Trump ignored these Republican leaders. Today these 
Republican leaders will not stand up for what is right. President Trump 
may be willing to ignore the Constitution and the laws of the United 
States of America, and the Republican leadership in Congress may be 
willing to ignore the Constitution and the laws of the United States of 
America, but the American people are not.
  This weekend, Americans across this country came together to reject 
this sort of fear and hate. The American people showed courage, even as 
the Republican leadership hid out. Crowds of people raced to airports 
across this country to welcome immigrants and refugees and to demand 
compliance with court rulings that gave individuals and families 
temporary relief and to demand that this reckless order be rescinded.
  I was proud to stand with hundreds of people at Logan Airport in 
Boston on Saturday night and then with more than 20,000 people in 
Copley Square on Sunday. We had one of the biggest demonstrations in 
the country. I also want to say I am in awe of the hundreds of lawyers 
and translators who dropped everything and spent sleepless nights in 
airport terminals and courts fighting for justice. Because of their 
tireless work, we have already been able to undo some of the damage 
caused by President Trump.
  While I am encouraged by our victories in the courts this weekend, 
the Trump administration has derided these judges and, in some 
instances, refused to follow these orders. This is shocking and 
unconstitutional. Congress must act. We must act now. Congress must 
stand up and say to President Trump that this is not who we are. 
Congress must say to Donald Trump and to the world: We will not turn 
our backs on lawful immigrants and refugees fleeing murderers. We will 
not turn our backs on people who risk their own lives to protect our 
soldiers in Iraq and in the fight against ISIS. We will not give ISIS 
more recruiting material. We will not promote an imagined religious war 
between America and Islam. We will stand for our values, for American 
values, for human values. We will not be divided by hate and fear.
  Fifteen months ago, I traveled to the Greek island of Lesbos. This is 
the first stop for many Syrian refugees as they flee from the 
terrorists of ISIS. That was where I saw the shoddy, paper-thin river 
rafts that people cram onto, with nothing more than a hope and a prayer 
that they will make it across a choppy sea. I saw the little plastic 
pool floaties that people put on small children, hoping it would be 
enough to save them if the raft went down.
  I met a 7-year-old girl who had been sent out on that perilous 
journey alone. I thought about what horrors her parents must have faced 
to hand a wad of cash to human smugglers with only the most desperate 
dream that their little girl would find something better on the other 
side.
  President Trump is trying to shut the door on that little girl and on 
countless others who are fleeing for their lives. He is trying to shut 
the door on children, on doctors, on students, on engineers, on 
husbands and wives, on grandmas and grandpas. That is not all. 
President Trump is trying to shut the door on people who risked their 
lives helping American soldiers, people who face execution in the hands 
of terrorists if they are sent back.
  President Trump is even trying to shut the door on legal immigrants, 
on students and faculty, on people who work in Massachusetts and across 
this country, on people who have already been thoroughly screened for 
entry into the United States and have been granted permanent status to 
live and work in our country. This has nothing to do with security--
nothing.
  Little girls fleeing from murderers are not a threat. Elderly 
grandparents detained at airports are not a threat. Students and 
teachers and people who work in Massachusetts and across the country 
are not a threat. Iraqi translators who put their own lives at risk to 
protect American soldiers are not a threat. We should welcome them. We 
should welcome them with open arms. That is who we are.
  Voices from across the political spectrum, including many of my 
friends from across the aisle, have already stepped forward to 
criticize this order, but criticism is not enough. President Trump's 
Executive order must be overturned. We must overturn it.

[[Page 1290]]

  For those who remain unconvinced, I would like to take some time this 
evening to talk about some of the people who are hurt by the 
President's reckless, heartless, illegal, and unconstitutional actions. 
As stories have poured into my office, on the evening news, on social 
media, we have heard time and again about the consequences of President 
Trump's reckless and illegal order, and I would like to share some of 
those stories in my time tonight. I want to read one.
  My staff and I have spent the weekend listening to and meeting with 
people who have been affected. I have seen firsthand the devastating 
effects of President Trump's actions. I want to start with a story of 
someone I met at Logan Airport on Saturday night. The story I want to 
read is from CBS Boston, ``Detainee Released After Federal Judge Grants 
Stay On Trump's Immigration Freeze.''

       Hamed Hosseini Bay was questioned at Logan Airport Saturday 
     while trying to get back into America after caring for his 
     sick father in his native Iran. Hosseini Bay has lived in the 
     Boston area for approximately nine years. After a judge 
     granted a case brought by lawyers from the American Civil 
     Liberties Union Saturday night, Hosseini Bay was reunited 
     with his wife and daughter, who had traveled with him to Iran 
     but returned two weeks earlier.
       He was not angry about his questioning.
       ``Everybody was friendly,'' Hosseini Bay told WBZ-TV's Jim 
     Smith. ``They had to do what they had to do. I'm grateful for 
     all the people back there, but it was chaotic.''
       Hosseini Bay's wife is now questioning what the future will 
     be like for her family in America. ``It's just terrifying how 
     my life has changed in two days, in three days,'' she said. 
     ``I don't know (about the future). Last week everything was 
     normal. I would pick up my daughter from preschool, she was 
     like everyone else, I was like everyone else. But now we're 
     different.''

  I met with this family. This is what President Trump's order means. 
It means stopping people like this and telling them that their future 
is different now in America.
  I am going to read another story. This one is from NBC Boston. 
``Protesters Rally as Doctors, Students Blocked From Entering Country 
After Trump's Orders.''

       At Boston's Logan International Airport, at least six 
     people from Iran were detained Saturday after their flights 
     landed in the U.S. A Federal judge in New York issued a 
     temporary stay late Saturday for all detainees affected by 
     Trump's executive orders, which barred all refugees from 
     entering the United States for four months, and indefinitely 
     halted any from Syria. Trump argued the ban is needed to keep 
     out ``radical Islamic terrorists.''
       A tweet by Samira Asgari, an Iranian doctor, stated that 
     she was denied boarding when she arrived for her flight to 
     the U.S. from Germany. In a Skype interview from Switzerland, 
     Asgari told us she had planned to come to the U.S. to start a 
     study at Harvard Medical School analyzing tuberculosis.
       ``My view of America of course, doesn't change because of a 
     decision a politician makes. My view of America changes 
     because the land that used to be the land of those who want 
     to be there, who want to do something good to the community 
     and take something good from the community--that picture of 
     America has changed for me,'' she said.
       Several students at Massachusetts colleges also tweeted 
     that they were being blocked from entering the country.
       In a statement, MIT officials said they're ``very 
     troubled'' that Trump's executive order is affecting the 
     university's community and are exploring options for helping 
     impacted students.
       Northeastern University in a statement to their community 
     offered support to their students, faculty and staff 
     reminding them of ``their commitment to each other.''
       We believe in the commitment to inform each other, but that 
     is what it is that Donald Trump is trying to destroy.

  Another story, from WBUR, a ``Somali Family Resettling In Lowell 
Worries For Other Refugees As Trump Promises Restrictions.''

       The order will have global implications, including for one 
     newly arrived Somali family now living in Lowell.
       The three Ahmed sisters from Somalia huddled on a couch 
     with their mother in a lobby of a busy office. Each woman 
     wore a brightly colored head scarf and winter jacket, and 
     each clutched a plastic bag carrying their personal 
     documents.
       They are the most recent refugees to be welcomed at the 
     International Institute of New England's Lowell resettlement 
     office. And, with Trump's refugee restrictions hanging in the 
     balance, they are likely the last Somali family to enter the 
     state for some time.
       ``My mom and dad fled from the conflict in Mogadishu,'' 
     explained Hawo Ahmed, 24. She and her twin sister were only 4 
     months old when their parents fled for Kenya.
       Hawo retold the story of her mother, Fatuma, and why she 
     and Hawo's father left in 1993 amid the Somali Civil War.
       ``She said that it was, like, conflict all over the 
     country,'' Hawo said. ``People were killing each other, like 
     tribes, different tribes were killing each other. Whenever 
     they see you, they kill you, and they even used to come in 
     the houses to rape the girls and kill them. So they had to 
     move.''
       The youngest daughter, Asha, was born in Kenya, where the 
     girls grew up, and went to school and learned English. Still, 
     they all very much consider themselves Somali.
       When asked about their father, one of the young women said 
     she watched him die in 2006 from an asthma attack. She said 
     the family didn't have enough money for a new inhaler.
       After beginning the refugee application process in Kenya 6 
     years ago, the family arrived in Manchester, NH, only a few 
     days ago.
       Hawo and Muna said their arrival barely felt real, like a 
     dream come true. And then, Hawo said, as soon as they got off 
     the plane, they saw the news about Trump's executive orders 
     on the airport television.
       ``Even tears were filled up in my eyes, because I felt very 
     bad for others,'' she said. ``They have more expectations, 
     some were even told where they are going, which city they are 
     going, and if they stop all the things, it's going to be very 
     painful. I just have a very sincere request to the President, 
     that he should drop out that idea. That is all.''
       Hawo said that they know many fellow refugees in Kenya who 
     are in the final phases of their application process.
       She said her aunt and cousin, who live in a refugee camp in 
     Kampala, Uganda, had only one more interview to complete 
     before they were hoping to meet them in Massachusetts. Now 
     they're not sure what will happen.
       ``I couldn't sleep last night just thinking about them, and 
     she has been in the process for so long, and we want, if you 
     can help her,'' Hawo said.

  That is what Donald Trump is doing to people around the world.
  Another story--WCVB TV.

       Trump's executive order worries Massachusetts family 
     awaiting loved one.
       With the stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump fulfilled 
     a campaign promise that temporarily bans more than 130 
     million people from entering the United States.
       Several people were prevented from entering Boston due to 
     Trump's executive order.
       ``We are very worried. We are very concerned,'' Omar Salem, 
     of Canton, said. ``I'm hoping for the best. I'm hoping that I 
     could get a text from him saying, `I'm here.'''
       Salem is anxiously awaiting his brother's arrival back in 
     Massachusetts. The Syrian-born, Boston-based orthodontist was 
     on vacation when the President signed the executive order 
     suspending visa entry from seven countries.
       ``We didn't know it was going to be that bad and that 
     shameful,'' Salem said.
       Salem's brother thought his green card would be enough to 
     secure his return, but the business owner is now facing 
     uncertainty.
       ``It always starts somewhere and we see it evolving to 
     become much bigger and much more sophisticated,'' Salem said.
       While Salem is hoping to see his brother soon, his heart is 
     heavy for the millions of refugees and visa holders, who see 
     the U.S. as a sanctuary of freedom and acceptance.
       ``I really call it un-American to do this with the stroke 
     of a pen,'' Salem said.
       The seven countries included in the executive order may be 
     just a starting point as the order left room for a broader 
     ban.

  That is what Donald Trump is doing around the world.
  Another story--this is a Facebook post from Niki Rhamati, a student 
at MIT.

       I just got back home (Tehran) and I figured I should break 
     the silence. I want to start by saying how grateful I am to 
     all the friends, faculty, alums, sorority sisters, staff and 
     admin at MIT and other parts of the US who have contacted me 
     in the past couple of hours. My inbox is flooded with 
     messages and emails of love and support. I am truly 
     speechless, grateful and proud to be part of the MIT 
     community. I have never been subjected to any form of 
     religious or racial discrimination at MIT. Our community is 
     extremely diverse, inclusive, supportive and accepting of 
     individuals and their backgrounds. But I cannot believe all 
     this love is coming from the same country that banned me from 
     entering its borders just a couple of hours ago.
       I don't want to get to the political mess that has created 
     this situation for me and many others. I just want to share 
     what millions of other people and I are going through, and 
     simply what it feels like to be an Iranian and targeted to 
     such racism and discrimination--things I have been very 
     familiar with most of my life.
       I currently have a valid multiple entry student visa that 
     I've used for the past year and

[[Page 1291]]

     a half and have traveled very smoothly (thank you Obama!). I 
     came home (Tehran) to visit my parents and family. I 
     suspected I would not be able to travel as easily as before 
     with the new President, so I extended my stay.
       Here's the story of what happened this past week. On 
     Wednesday, I woke up to the announcement of the new Executive 
     Order by President Trump that would restrict entry for Syrian 
     refugees and citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries 
     (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen) for 30 
     days. As BBC Persian, one of the reliable sources here, 
     contacted immigration attorneys and Politicians, this order 
     was read and interpreted as, ``issuance of any types of 
     immigrant and non-immigrant visas would be banned for 
     citizens of those countries for 30 days.''
       The President had not yet signed this order so the ban was 
     not yet effective. I changed my flight to another one that 
     would get me to Boston on Saturday night with a transfer in 
     Qatar. It was rumored that the President signed the Order 
     once I was on my way to the airport, and it was executed 
     while I was in my first flight to Doha. But I looked on the 
     White House website, BBC and Washington Post and nothing had 
     been published yet. When I got to Doha, I was stopped at the 
     gate for my U.S. flight.
       We found out that the ban (which is effective for 90 days 
     now instead of 30), included everyone currently holding an 
     immigrant, student or tourist visa as well as Green Card 
     holders. We heard a lot of people were deported at the 
     American border in different cities.
       About 30 other Iranians and I were stuck in Doha, waiting 
     for flights back to Tehran. Among them were old couples 
     trying to go and see their children in the US, 2 old women 
     trying to be with and help their pregnant daughters there for 
     their third trimesters, students who had just gotten their 
     visas and families who had sold their belongings back home so 
     they could build a better life in the US. All these people 
     had gotten visas legally and had gone through background 
     checks. The President had said that the goal of this Order 
     was dealing with illegal immigration. Do any of the people 
     sound like illegal immigrants?
       This will not secure the borders from the terrorism and 
     illegal immigrants. It will only increase racism in the 
     American society. The President is trying to make 
     Islamophobia a norm and policy by which he wants to lead the 
     country. There has not been a single terrorist activity from 
     those 7 countries listed above, in the US.
       If you feel like helping millions of people facing this, 
     please contact your representatives or senators in your areas 
     and ask them to fight against this absurd ban. Reach out to 
     friends and ask them to do the same. Please also let me and 
     everyone else know how we can contribute to this.
       As I was stuck in Doha, with other Iranians, I was telling 
     stories of interactions with many of the Americans I know. 
     Please know that I love and respect all of you because you 
     have always treated me with love and respect.

  This is who Donald Trump is trying to keep out of the country.
  Another story--this time from CNN.

       A Syrian teen was headed to MIT and then came the ban.
       Mahmoud Hassan was ecstatic when he got the acceptance 
     letter.
       All through high school, the 18-year-old had one goal in 
     mind: get an engineering degree from the prestigious 
     Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
       But Hassan is from Damascus, Syria. And Friday, he had his 
     hopes crushed through no fault of his own.
       When President Trump signed the executive order on 
     immigration, temporarily banning citizens from certain 
     Muslim-majority countries, Syria was one of the seven.
       ``Now Trump's orders will prevent me from going there,'' he 
     told CNN. ``My dreams are basically ruined.''
       Hassan had been looking forward to his journey to the 
     Cambridge campus in the fall. He says he had been offered a 
     scholarship.
       He's read and reread that letter from MIT dozens of times.
       ``Dear Mahmoud, On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it 
     is my pleasure to offer you admission to the MIT Class of 
     2021! You stood out as one of the most talented and promising 
     students in one of the most competitive applicant pools in 
     the history of the Institute.''
       Hassan doesn't know what he'll do next.

  This is who Donald Trump is determined to keep out of America.
  Another story. This one is from our office.
  A constituent from Concord, MA, came into my office in Boston just 
this morning--Monday, January 30, 2017. She came looking for more 
information on the current status of the Muslim ban, on behalf of her 
husband, who was originally born in Iran.
  She explained that when he was young, he received refugee status in 
Australia for religious persecution, as he was raised in the Baha'i 
faith. He now has dual citizenship in Iran and Australia and is a green 
card holder of 10 years here in the United States. He is the vice 
president of a startup company that requires him to travel outside the 
country often but has decided that, because of the latest Executive 
orders, to stay grounded in the United States until further notice. He 
is currently safe in the United States.
  Emam has also decided to begin his U.S. citizenship application, and 
the couple have two young children whom they are raising in the United 
States, afraid to travel outside the United States on business because 
of President Trump's ban.
  Another story. This is a story via the Wall Street Journal.

       Iraqi interpreter Laith al-Haydar received multiple death 
     threats for working with the American military at the height 
     of the war in his country. In return for helping the U.S., he 
     and tens of thousands of other Iraqis were promised U.S. 
     immigration visas.
       Nearly four years after he applied, the 41-year-old father 
     of two is still waiting for a visa--and now he faces a new 
     setback: President Donald Trump signed an order suspending 
     immigration from several countries with a Muslim majority, 
     including Iraq, and a temporary ban on all refugees.
       Mr. Haydar is among roughly 58,000 Iraqi applicants for 
     U.S. immigrant visas and refugee resettlement under the 
     federal programs that promised to fast-track entry for Iraqis 
     who worked with the U.S. government and other institutions 
     deemed critical to the U.S.-led effort in Iraq, according to 
     the State Department. A similar program for Afghans who've 
     worked with the U.S. government may also be at risk.
       At least one Iraqi and two Afghans who worked with the U.S. 
     government and also qualify for expedited immigration visas 
     were turned away from American ports of entry on Friday and 
     Saturday, a State Department official said, adding that 
     several more were prevented from boarding planes to the U.S.
       A substantial backlog of applications remains in part 
     because Congress limits the number of visas that can be 
     granted each year. Frustration with visa delays has now been 
     aggravated by Mr. Trump's executive orders.
       Critics of the visa ban say it abandons thousands of 
     valuable allies abroad and risks deterring such people from 
     working with the United States in the future at a time when 
     Mr. Trump is promising a more aggressive military posture 
     abroad.
       ``These guys laid their lives on the line alongside 
     American soldiers and got paid a fraction of what I made,'' 
     said Jake Thomas, a U.S. Army veteran who worked with Mr. 
     Haydar in Iraq and who now lives in Georgia. If they want 
     out, we need to honor our promises and get them out. Mr. 
     Thomas is one of several U.S. military officers who have 
     written letters to the State Department appealing for Mr. 
     Haydar to get a visa. He said he sympathizes with some of the 
     views regarding immigration that Mr. Trump campaigned on, but 
     he added that Iraqis like Mr. Haydar ``were singled out and 
     shot at for serving the United States and we made a 
     promise.'' Mr. Thomas said he knew of five Iraqi interpreters 
     who were killed in the 15 months of his last tour in Iraq, 
     including 3 who were gunned down in their homes for working 
     with the U.S. military.

  President Trump continues to ignore the damage he is doing to the 
safety of our country and our servicemen and servicewomen overseas. 
Brave men and women who risked their lives to help U.S. soldiers in 
Iraq have already been caught up in the President's unconstitutional 
order.
  I just want to associate myself with the man who said--who had been 
there, the soldier who had been there--that America made a promise. I 
believe in an America that keeps its promises. Donald Trump's order 
breaks our promises.
  Another story, this one from Marcolla via PRI:

       The Iraqi linguist who worked side by side with US troops 
     in Baghdad put her life on the line for America's war effort.

  Now her family is in danger back in Iraq and she fears her efforts to 
get them to safety in America are all but doomed.

       ``I'm scared. The chance to see my family reunited again is 
     very slim now,'' she says. ``People like me and my family who 
     helped and supported America, I believe we should be 
     reunited. The history of the United States is to support 
     people and help them, not to separate the families.''
       Marcolla was just 18 and living in Baghdad shortly after 
     American tanks rolled into the Iraqi capital in 2003. She was 
     recruited to work for the US military. Her role caught the 
     attention of Iraqi militants. They sought revenge. They 
     burned down Marcolla's house, kidnapped her father and 
     murdered her husband.
       Fearing for her life, she applied for a US visa. And in 
     2013, after seven years of waiting, she received the 
     permission she had been

[[Page 1292]]

     waiting for. But Marcolla had to leave her parents and 
     siblings behind, even though she says they too were in danger 
     because of her service with US troops. She says she tries to 
     talk with her family in Baghdad daily. ``Every day their 
     lives are in danger,'' she says. ``They have to change their 
     address, move from place to place. They live in the 
     unknown.''
       Marcolla is worried that the refugee ban proposed Wednesday 
     means her parents and siblings will never reach American 
     soil.
       ``We already been in extreme vetting,'' she says. ``I 
     understand and I respect the US rules and the safety and 
     national security. . . . I understand that and I respect 
     that. However, there are people in Iraq who have a long 
     history of supporting America in Iraq and Afghanistan--the 
     linguists, the translators--they deserve and they need their 
     papers to be expedited.''

  These are the people Donald Trump is keeping out of America.
  Another story from Mother Jones:

       ``Immoral,'' ``Stupid,'' and ``Counterproductive'': 
     National Security Experts Slam Trump's ``Muslim Ban.''
       ``At the moment we need them most, we're telling these 
     people, `Get screwed.'''
       While Trump's executive order claims to be in the interest 
     of ``protecting the nation,'' experts in national security 
     and counterterrorism who spoke with Mother Jones argue that 
     it poses potentially disastrous immediate and long-term 
     security threats to the nation and US personnel overseas.
       ``Not only is it immoral and stupid, it's also 
     counterproductive,'' says Patrick Skinner, a former CIA 
     terrorism case officer who now works at Soufan Group, a 
     security consulting firm. ``We've got military intelligence 
     and diplomatic personnel on the ground right now in Syria, 
     Libya, and Iraq who are working side by side with the people 
     imbedded in combat and training and advising. At no time in 
     the US's history have we depended more on local--and I mean 
     local--partnerships for counterterrorism. We need people in 
     Al Bab, Syria; we depend on people in certain parts of 
     eastern Mosul, Iraq; in Cert, Libya. At the exact moment we 
     need them most, we're telling those people, `Get screwed.'''
       Kirk W. Johnson, who spent a year on reconstruction in 
     Fallujah in Iraq with the US Agency for International 
     Development (USAID) echoes Skinner's fears: ``This will have 
     immediate national security implications, in that we are not 
     going to be able to recruit people to help us right now, and 
     people are not going to step forward to help us in any future 
     wars if this is our stance.''
       The US-led war on ISIS is but one front of a constellation 
     of fights against extremist groups that could be hampered by 
     Trump's decision. ``The US is officially banning people in 
     these countries at the same time we are trying to build up 
     local support to fight ISIS,'' Skinner said. ``It takes a 
     long time to build trust with these people. You have to start 
     over, say, `Okay, starting now, trust me.' How many times can 
     you get away with that?'' It also sends a message that groups 
     like the so-called Islamic State can exploit. Elizabeth 
     Goitein, the codirector of the Brennan Center's Liberty & 
     National Security Program, says, ``The message this projects 
     is that America sees Muslims as a threat--not specific actors 
     who are intent on committing terrorist acts. The message that 
     America really is at war with Islam will be ISIS's best 
     friend.''
       BuzzFeed reporters Mike Giglio and Munzer Al-Awad spoke 
     with five current or former ISIS fighters who cited Trump's 
     divisiveness as a factor that will weaken America. They added 
     that his rhetoric against Muslims will help them reinforce 
     their narrative that America and the West are fighting not 
     just terrorism, but Islam itself. ``Trump will shorten the 
     time it takes for us to achieve our goals,'' said one.
       Meanwhile, the very allies who have operated alongside US 
     personnel in war zones for years--contractors and translators 
     like Darweesh--are once again being abandoned. For the past 
     decade, Johnson has been leading an effort to resettle Iraqi 
     allies, many of whom, he says, face torture, kidnapping, and 
     death after collaborating with American soldiers. It all 
     started in 2006 when he heard from an Iraqi USAID colleague 
     who had been identified by a militia. The militia left a 
     severed pig's head on his door step, along with a message 
     saying that it would be his head next. Despite his years of 
     helping the United States, the US government offered no help, 
     and he had to flee the country with his wife.

  ``We are not going to be able to recruit people to help us right now, 
and people are not going to step forward to help us in any future wars 
if this is our stance.''
  This is what Donald Trump's Executive order is doing. It is putting 
Americans at risk around the world.
  Another story from Newsweek: ``Spy Veterans Say Trump's Muslim-
Country Visa Ban Will Hurt Recruitment.

       President Donald Trump's temporary ban on immigrants from 
     seven Muslim-majority nations takes a major recruiting tool 
     out of the hands of US spy handlers, say a growing number of 
     intelligence veterans.
       For decades, CIA and US military spy recruiters have held 
     out the promise of eventual resettlement in America to induce 
     foreigners to turn coat and work secretly for the United 
     States against terrorist groups or repressive governments. In 
     reality, many were caught before they ever made it, but 
     during the Cold War countless Eastern Europeans living under 
     communist rule, and more recently, Muslims across the Middle 
     East, North Africa and Central Asia, have worked secretly for 
     US spy agencies on the promise that they or their children 
     would eventually be extracted. Another effective recruiting 
     tool for US operatives has been to offer their agents' 
     families medical care or education in the United States.
       Those inducements, a primary recruiting tool in Muslim 
     land, were effectively suspended with Trump's executive order 
     Friday to temporarily ban immigration from seven critical 
     targets of the U.S. spy agencies--Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, 
     Sudan, Libya and Somalia. The departments of State and 
     Homeland Security, the order stipulates, may allow entry from 
     those countries on ``a case-by-case basis,'' but it's a balky 
     arrangement not likely to appeal to the managers of the CIA's 
     highly secretive operations directorate, its espionage and 
     covert action arm.
       Intelligence veterans with vast counterterrorism experience 
     are expressing dismay about how the order will affect their 
     spy operations.
       ``These individuals often put themselves at the risk of 
     death for working with the U.S., and without the ability to 
     offer them safety, we will be reducing the likelihood that 
     those in countries targeted by the ban will work with us in 
     the future,'' Phillip Lohaus, a decorated veteran of the U.S. 
     Special Operations Command and CIA, tells Newsweek.
       ``We relied heavily on local translators, many of whom have 
     gone on to forge productive lives for themselves here in the 
     States,'' Lohaus added. ``Why would they take such a risk if 
     they knew that they would face retribution or death by 
     staying in their home countries?''
       ``Absolutely,'' agreed Cindy Storer, a former member of the 
     CIA intelligence team that tracked al-Qaeda leader Osama bin 
     Laden. ``It hurts,'' she said in a brief interview. ``Capital 
     h-u-r-t-s.'' Imagine, she said, if the ban had been in place 
     when Jamal al Fadl, a Sudanese Muslim and key al-Qaeda 
     operative, showed up at the American embassy in the mid-1990s 
     and volunteered to defect to the United States. FBI 
     counterterror agents brought him into the U.S., where he 
     provided ``a major breakthrough of intelligence on the 
     creation, character, direction, and intentions of al-Qaeda,'' 
     according to the official 9/11 Commission report.

  And that is what Donald Trump is putting an end to.
  Another story from the Washington Post: ``Dissent memo circulating in 
the State Department over Trump's policy on refugees and immigrants.''
  For this one, Foreign Service officers have written a memo--and they 
shared it with the Washington Post--in opposition to President Trump's 
Executive order. Here are excerpts from a leaked dissent memo by U.S. 
Foreign Service officers regarding the Executive orders:
  It will immediately sour relations with these seven countries, as 
well as much of the Muslim world, which sees the ban as religiously 
motivated. These governments of these countries are important allies 
and partners in the fight against terrorism, regionally and globally. 
By alienating them, we lose access to the intelligence and resources we 
need to fight the root causes of terror abroad before the attack occurs 
within our borders. It will increase anti-American sentiment. It will 
have an immediate and clear humanitarian impact. It will have a 
negative impact on the U.S. economy.
  Looking beyond its effectiveness, this ban stands in opposition to 
the core American and constitutional values. This ban stands in 
opposition to the core American and constitutional values that we, as 
Federal employees, took an oath to uphold.
  The United States is a nation of immigrants, starting from its very 
origins. The concept that immigrants and foreigners are welcome is an 
essential element of our society, our government, and our foreign 
policy. So, too, is the concept that we are all equal under the law and 
that we, as a nation, abhor discrimination, whether it is based on 
race, religion, sex, or national origin. Combined together, that means 
we have a special obligation to maintain an immigration system that is 
as free as possible from discrimination, that does not have implied or 
actual religious tests, and that views individuals as individuals, not 
as part of stereotyped groups.
  Banning travelers from these seven countries calls back to some of 
the worst times in our history. Laws enacted in the 1920s and which 
lasted

[[Page 1293]]

through the 1960s severely restricted immigration based on national 
origin and, in some cases, race. The decision to restrict the freedom 
of Japanese Americans in the United States and foreign citizens who 
wanted to travel to settle in the United States during the 1940s has 
been a source of lasting shame for many in our country. Decades from 
now, we will look back and realize we made the same mistakes as our 
predecessors: shutting borders in a knee-jerk reaction instead of 
setting up systems of checks that protect our interests and our values.
  We do not need to place a blanket ban that keeps 220 million people--
men, women, and children--from entering the United States to protect 
our homeland. We do not need to alienate entire societies to stay safe. 
And we do not need to sacrifice our reputation as a nation which is 
open and welcoming to protect our families. It is well within our reach 
to create a visa process which is more secure, which reflects American 
values, and which would make the Department proud.
  Again, this is a dissent memo circulating in the State Department 
over President Trump's policy on refugees and immigrants.
  And this is what Donald Trump's Executive order does; it makes us 
less safe. It is wrong.
  Another story, from a Boston Globe op-ed, Matt Gallagher, who is a 
veteran. The headline: ``Trump rejects the Muslims who helped us.''

       The bravest person I've ever known went by the nickname 
     Suge Knight. He was as physically imposing as the infamous 
     music producer, but he was calm and bighearted, with a smile 
     as wide as a canyon. A Sudanese Muslim, Suge served as my 
     scout platoon's interpreter during our deployment to Iraq in 
     2007 and 2008, and he went on every patrol and mission with 
     us, no matter the circumstances. He'd survived multiple 
     roadside bomb attacks, had lost three young children to the 
     bombings of the first Gulf war, and yet still believed in 
     America and what America represented to him and his family.
       Though he doubted he'd ever get to our country, he aspired 
     for his children to do so. ``Perhaps my grandchildren will go 
     to school with your kids,'' he once told me with typical 
     paternal charm. ``I'd like that very much.'' I felt the same. 
     We all did. He was one of us.
       President Trump's recent executive order on Muslim refugees 
     and immigrants works to ensure that such a dream never comes 
     true. Muslim allies, including interpreters like Suge in Iraq 
     and Afghanistan, have done more for the United States during 
     the past 16 years of war than most Americans will even think 
     of doing their entire lives. Yet we're abandoning them in 
     their hour of need, wrapping ourselves up in a big, billowing 
     flag of fear and pretending it's for safety. We're also 
     abandoning Middle Eastern refugees fleeing the very 
     terrorists we've professed to combat, who have seen their 
     homes and lives destroyed and now seek shelter on our shores 
     the same way immigrants have for generations.
       This is a national disgrace. The president's executive 
     order betrays American values and weakens our national 
     security all at once. Our country was founded as a haven. 
     Trump and his administration seem intent on turning it into a 
     medieval fortress.
       In November, shortly after the election, I joined a 
     nonpartisan group in Washington, D.C., to advocate for Muslim 
     refugees and immigrants--Veterans For American Ideals, a 
     project of Human Rights First. There was a gray pall over the 
     city, and a deep sense of uncertainty for what awaited, even 
     in Republican offices. No one knew then what we all know now: 
     Trump really did mean to do what he'd said on the campaign 
     trail.
       Time and time again, Democrats and Republicans alike told 
     us the United States already has in place the best and most 
     thorough refugee and immigrant screening process on the 
     planet. A prominent Republican adviser assured us that 
     Trump's ``extreme vetting'' idea was just a ploy to rustle up 
     votes. A national security official suggested that we should 
     be more thankful Congress had saved the Special Immigrant 
     Visa program for interpreters and translators who served with 
     the US military, and maintained that the amount of issued 
     visas was sufficient, despite the overflowing backlog of 
     requests.
       A shouting match ensued. Enraged veterans can have our own 
     sort of diplomatic style.
       I look back at that week with both pride and despondency. 
     On one hand, to see so many young American veterans standing 
     up for the principles of our nation--often the very same 
     principles that led them to enlist in the military to begin 
     with--was stirring. We tried, sometimes successfully and 
     sometimes not, to convey to politicians the importance of 
     remaining true to our Muslim brothers- and sisters-in-arms. 
     We also tried to remind them of the secondary and tertiary 
     effects of not honoring the bonds forged in combat. On the 
     other hand, bearing witness to how easily dismissed entire 
     lives and formative experiences can be by fellow citizens 
     (let alone elected representatives) was rather dismaying.
       Even in our era of yellow-ribbon patriotism and star-
     spangled grandiosity, veterans' stories of heroic Muslim 
     translators and brave, dedicated local Iraqis and Afghans 
     were, sometimes, met with hollow stares and empty platitudes 
     in Washington. What we were telling these officials defied 
     their preconceived notions about vets, and Muslims, and how 
     vets of the terror wars were supposed to feel about Muslims. 
     What we were telling them was that American security was 
     dependent on opening our doors to as many vetted refugees and 
     immigrants as possible, not barricading ourselves and saying, 
     ``We're not that America anymore.'' What we were telling them 
     was that we knew, more than any other group of Americans, 
     what the hearts and souls of the Middle Eastern people were, 
     and that those hearts and souls were so very much like our 
     own.

  These are just some of the stories of what Donald Trump is doing to 
people here in America, to Americans abroad, and people around the 
world.
  This Executive order is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is 
immoral, and it must be overturned by Congress.
  I understand that under the rules, a majority can stop any Senator 
after speaking for an hour postcloture, but there is a bit more I would 
like to say.
  Therefore, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 additional 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. WARREN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I will continue with the story that was published this morning in the 
Boston Globe. This is from a veteran who was writing of his own 
experiences.
  He says:

       Trump's executive order, which seeks to ``keep radical 
     Islamic terrorists out of the United States,'' will only 
     embolden those very same people, who already had a near-zero 
     chance of gaining entry to our country to begin with. This 
     order proves too many ISIS and al-Qaeda talking points true 
     about what the United States really is, and will serve as an 
     excellent recruiting tool for those organizations and others.
       This executive order isn't about national security. It's 
     about fear-mongering for ends we can only guess at.
       This shouldn't be a partisan issue. As my friend Phil Klay, 
     winner of the National Book Award and a Marine veteran, 
     pointed out last year, Ronald Reagan's ``city on a hill'' 
     speech outlined an America ``For all the pilgrims from all 
     the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness toward 
     home.''
       ``I get that people are scared,'' Klay continued. ``But 
     it's only during frightening times when you get to find out 
     if your country really deserves to call itself the `home of 
     the brave.'''
       Donald Trump's zero-sum worldview and flimsy understanding 
     of the intricacies of modern war and terrorism threaten to 
     undermine our republic. His policy on Middle Eastern refugees 
     and immigrants must be checked and resisted by citizens of 
     all political stripes, legislators of both major parties and 
     the judicial courts.
       After 16 years of war, much of my generation of military 
     veterans stands with the Middle Eastern people we sweated, 
     labored and bled with, and sometimes died for. It's going to 
     be a fight, but it's one we're not going to lose. The legacy 
     of America's past is at stake, as well as the soul of its 
     future.
       Matt Gallagher is the author of the novel ``Youngblood'' 
     and the memoir ``Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage 
     Little War.'' He is an Iraq war veteran and a former US Army 
     captain.

  And he wrote this morning in the Boston Globe.
  We are here tonight because this country is in crisis. We are here 
tonight because it is a constitutional crisis, because it is a moral 
crisis. We are here tonight to stand up and ask the rest of the U.S. 
Senate to overturn Donald Trump's Executive order. We have that power. 
All we need is the courage, the courage to stand up and do what is 
right. This is why we came to the U.S. Senate, to stand up and do what 
is right.
  I call on the rest of the Senate to overturn Donald Trump's illegal, 
unconstitutional, and immoral Executive order.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise in gratitude for the opportunity to 
speak on the Senate floor. I want to express a

[[Page 1294]]

lot of gratitude toward the Senator from Massachusetts. She has been an 
advocate for the truth of our country. She has spoken here on this 
hallowed floor. I have now watched her speak in the streets, at 
airports, at rallies. She is one of those people--like so many 
Americans, literally millions of Americans over the course of these 
last few weeks--who is saying with the force of conviction that they 
will not be silent when the cause of our country is at stake.
  I join with her tonight, along with some of my other colleagues, to 
stand up and really speak from the heart. I think this floor has seen 
many partisan speeches, but this is not going to be about Republican or 
Democrat. This is not a speech I ever imagined I would be giving in the 
U.S. Senate. I never thought I would be here today talking about 
something that quite honestly was unimaginable to me just months ago.
  This is a time I could not have foreseen, and I fear my generation of 
Americans maybe, perhaps, should have known that moments like this are 
possible; that we who believe in the values of our Nation, we who 
believe in the ideals enshrined in our Constitution, such as religious 
liberty, we should know that every generation of Americans has to prove 
worthy of these ideals and stay forever vigilant in their protection 
and never get so complacent as to think that this could never happen. 
The ideals we enjoy were fought for and struggled for and often bled 
for and died for. We of our generation who have the privileges we 
enjoy, the blessings of liberty that we luxuriate in, we have the 
obligation to stay the course to ensure that these moments never come, 
and when they do, that we stand with conviction to speak out against 
them, work against them to resist any retrenchment of American values.
  What Donald Trump did in this Executive action issued this past 
Friday is, in no uncertain terms, a break with American policy. I 
believe it is a violation of our very Constitution, that it is illegal, 
unconstitutional, as well as immoral. More than this, it very 
specifically makes this Nation less safe and not more so. I want to 
repeat that. It makes this Nation less safe and not more so.
  The ban was put forth in a climate of fear, intending to try to 
appeal to people's fears, trying to tell people that doing this 
Executive order was going to make us safer, but in its essence it is 
illogical when you look at the facts. Not only should it be known that 
it blocks immigration from seven majority Muslim countries--seven 
countries. Not a single perpetrator of terrorist attacks on American 
soil has come from these countries, dating back to well before 9/11. In 
fact, well before 2000, well before the nineties, well before the 
eighties and, in fact, not since the seventies, in over 40 years, no 
American has been killed on American soil by any of these countries in 
terrorist attacks.
  In addition to that, what this ban is doing is it is shutting down 
the Refugee Resettlement Program for about 4 months and suspends the 
Syrian refugee program indefinitely, despite the fact that individuals 
entering the United States as refugees undergo the most heavily vetted 
resettlement process of anybody traveling into the United States.
  So understand this. If you are trying to come into this country 
through student visas, Visa Waiver Programs, there are so many ways to 
come into this country without going through the refugee process, which 
takes between 1 year and 3 years, and you are not just going through 
the vetting of the Department of State but also the Department of 
Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the National 
Counterterrorism Center, numerous agencies for over up to 3 years are 
vetting you. Let me tell you right now, again, people who go through 
this program, history is showing, you have not seen in any recent years 
that folks going through these programs pose a terrorist threat or are 
taking American lives. So the very argument being used to push this ban 
is illogical and has no basis for any of the experiences we have had in 
this country.
  A former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration services 
remarked that no competent terrorist would choose the U.S. refugee 
process as a preferred strategy for gaining entry into this country. 
Subjecting yourself to the 1 to 3 years of vetting from multiple 
agencies, more than any other way to enter, is not a way for terrorists 
to try to gain access to this country at all.
  What we see is that this terrorist ban is putting focus--excuse me, 
this Executive order is putting focus in areas that do not produce 
safety but do have the collateral consequence of making us less safe.
  The order indefinitely suspends the resettlement of Syrian refugees 
in the United States. The majority of these folks are women and 
children who are fleeing barrel bombs, chemical attacks, military 
attacks on homes and schools. They are fleeing famine, they are fleeing 
starvation, they are fleeing the same violent extremism that we 
ourselves are trying to fight against. While the Syrian people face 
violence, terror, and oppression, the President has chosen to equate 
helpless refugees with those who are actually perpetrating the terror. 
Despite the fact that we have this stringent years-long vetting program 
for Iraqis and Afghans who risked their lives to help Americans by 
acting as interpreters, the ban ends--astonishingly, it ends a Special 
Immigrant Visa Program and substitutes it with nothing.
  What is this Special Immigrant Visa Program that many of my 
colleagues have spoken about? It is a program that is specifically 
there for Iraqis and Afghans who helped America and put their families 
in danger, who put their necks out for us. They put themselves out 
there to assist our servicemen and servicewomen. It actually is there 
to help people who, because of their service to us and our country, now 
have their lives endangered where they are.
  I want to read a series of tweets just yesterday from Kirk Johnson, a 
former USAID Administrator in Iraq who wrote about these folks who put 
themselves on the line for Americans who are our allies and our 
friends. This is what Kirk Johnson wrote:

       I served in Iraq as USAID's man in Fallujah. Lived 
     alongside Marines and interpreters as they fought terrorists.
       Over 100,000 of these Iraqis risked their lives for us 
     during the war. They bled for our country.
       You said, before signing--

  He is talking about President Trump--

       ``We only want to admit those into our country who will 
     support our country, and love deeply our people.''

  And what Kirk Johnson wrote follows:

       I'd like you to know [Donald Trump] about some of these 
     people.
       ``Homeboy'' lost his leg dragging a wounded U.S. SSgt from 
     MN out of the field of fire. He spent 4 years being vetted 
     before coming here.
       Hossam helped us build schools. When insurgents found out, 
     in Oct `06, they left a severed dog head on his front step 
     that said ``run.''
       Faisal, an interpreter for the troops you command [Donald 
     Trump], died of a suicide bomb on 3/14/2008.
       Mohammed was assassinated when terrorists, who wanted to 
     kill the ``traitor'' booby-trapped his house in Jan 2008.
       Ali had both his legs amputated by an IED blast while 
     working as an interpreter in Nov 2007.
       Hameed died of a gunshot wound to the head while helping 
     our troops in July 2007.

  I could do this all day, sadly.
  He wrote in his remarks. He goes on to say:

       Those that helped us were Christians, Muslims, Yazidis, 
     atheists, you name it.

  These people in Fallujah and the surrounding areas were our allies.

       When they ran through gunfire to save our troops, they 
     didn't think about such labels.
       These Iraqis believed in America. They loved our country. 
     They lost their country as a result of the choice they made 
     to help us.
       Your signature [Donald Trump] just banned them.

  He continues:

       I have heard from many, many soldiers and Marines (some of 
     extremely high rank) who believe this is a huge mistake.
       One senior military officer with extensive experience in 
     Iraq and Afghanistan told me it was ``heinous and 
     counterproductive.''

  Now why is it counterproductive? Well, for one, when we are 
conducting

[[Page 1295]]

dangerous missions, when we are relying on people in country to assist 
us with our counterterrorism efforts, if they are going to take that 
risk, put their lives on the line, be subjected to terrorism 
themselves, there should be a process that allows them, after proper 
vetting, to get into this country. That has been American policy. Even 
people who have been threatened, victimized, and persecuted can't just 
walk into our country because some of our high-ranking Marines say so. 
They still go through vetting that often takes years. That is the 
process. It is a process that Donald Trump has now stopped.
  Yesterday a report noted that radical jihadists--the people we are 
fighting against, the terrorists intending to kill us--were already 
using this Executive order as a victory, proof that the United States 
is at war with Islam. Now some people say that claim is hard to make. 
This is just banning people from seven countries. Well, look a little 
closer at the Executive order. There are exceptions made for non-
Muslims in those countries.
  Imagine this. We are the United States of America. Enshrined in our 
Constitution is this idea of freedom of religion; that there is no 
religious test to vote, there is no religious test to have citizenship, 
there is no religious test to enjoy the richness of a nation that 
believes in religious liberty. But in one action by the President of 
the United States, who claims to be concerned about terrorism from 
these countries, he says: I am going to stop people from entering. Oh, 
wait a minute, only Muslims. Christians are welcome. If that is not a 
violation of core principles of freedom of religion that there should 
be religious tests to enter from these countries--that is an assault on 
all we proclaim in our country to be our core values.
  This is not missed by our enemies. They are now trying to say this 
isn't a war between America and ISIS. This isn't a war between America 
and radical jihadists. They want, as a propaganda tool, for people to 
believe that this is a war between the United States and Islam, between 
America and a religion. That is a lie. But when Donald Trump takes 
actions like this that specifically target people because of their 
faith, he is playing into the hands of the propagandists who seek to 
hurt us.
  National security experts from across the political spectrum, from 
Republicans and Democrats, have spoken out against this order on this 
basis and on how it will affect our security as a country.
  The former Director of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, said of this 
order that it ``inarguably has made us less safe.''
  Those people who want to help us, who want to serve with our marines, 
who want to be interpreters, who want to stand up for America, what are 
they to think now when America has shut its doors, when they have 
watched others do this, and now they can't gain access to this country? 
What about those allies of ours who say that the great United States of 
America is standing up against terrorism and Muslim leaders in other 
countries? But it is not about Islam; it is about the people who are 
conducting vicious terrorism, which is a sin on a peaceful religion. 
What can our allies say now, when we have specifically targeted an 
Executive order from our President not at a country but at a people who 
pray a certain way in that country?
  What are we to think in the United States? This great Nation born 
from the ideas of liberty and freedom--freedom to pray as we want--what 
are we to think?
  Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, just 2 days after 
President Trump instituted this ban, he remarked: Hey, this ban is 
going ``nicely.'' Earlier today, President Trump's spokesman referred 
to those being unlawfully detained as just being ``temporarily 
inconvenienced.''
  We know that the reality of the situation is much different for the 
families and individuals across the globe who are affected. Many of 
them are permanent residents and green card holders for whom this 
Executive order has amounted to a door slammed in their face by the 
country that is supposed to represent the shining beacon on the planet 
Earth of liberty and hope.
  Hundreds of people of seven different nationalities have been trapped 
at American airports. Many of them were detained for hours on end 
without access to lawyers; they were handcuffed and interrogated; some 
were immediately deported, while many more have been turned away at the 
doors to their flights bound for the United States. These are people 
who followed all of the rules, who went through extensive vetting, who 
upended their lives--doors slammed in their faces.
  I am sorry, but this is not an inconvenience. This is a denial of 
process, a denial of procedure; it is a denial of basic liberty and a 
violation of our principles.
  It is no wonder, though, that judges across the country began issuing 
stays within hours of this order becoming effective. As we saw in New 
York, how people like Hamidyah Al Saeedi, the 65-year-old mother of a 
sergeant--65-year-old mother of a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne 
Division of the U.S. Army, who traveled from Iraq to see her son for 
the first time in 5 years. A mother of a sergeant in the 82nd 
Airborne--someone who should be honored--lawfully entered the United 
States, and because of this order, she was detained for 30 hours, 
denied a wheelchair, and handcuffed, before her release.
  On Saturday night and early into the morning, I saw Customs and 
Border Patrol officials at Dulles. I left Washington, DC, and drove to 
Virginia to go to Dulles Airport. I saw Customs and Border Patrol 
officials seemingly defy the orders coming from a Federal judge to at 
least permit all legal permanent residents in detention access to legal 
counsel. I held the judge's order in my hands. Because of the kindness 
of a local law enforcement officer who was stationed in Dulles, I was 
able to shuttle to Customs and Border Patrol, and I was then able to 
submit handwritten notes and questions to the officials who refused to 
meet with me. I did not get much of an explanation as to why they were 
defying a clear order from a Federal judge. Whether or not this was a 
case of bureaucratic confusion or a message from the courts getting 
lost, Federal law enforcement officers, under the supervision of the 
Department of Homeland Security, ignored and defied the orders of a 
Federal judge.
  To me, this is more reason for outrage. In a Nation with three 
branches of government, the judiciary with a clear role giving an order 
to the executive branch, I believe the defiance of that order also was 
unconstitutional.
  Access to counsel is a principle in our democracy. It is about 
fairness and due process. Failing to allow access to counsel, to me, 
seems a clear violation of constitutional norms and ideals. The judge 
obviously believes so, and that is why he ordered counsel to be 
provided.
  Still, right now, we don't know how many people are being detained 
across the country in the wake of this Executive order or how many were 
immediately and quietly deported once they came here again, thoroughly 
vetted, in accordance with the law, but they were still deported upon 
their arrival in this country. I think Congress deserves answers. I 
wrote to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly earlier this evening to 
seek them.
  This mistreatment of any legal permanent resident or visitors to this 
country is wrong. It is un-American. It undermines the truth of who we 
are. It is patently unacceptable.
  This Executive order has treated green card holders and immigrants in 
this Nation as if they were criminals. It has torn families apart 
across the world and pulled the rug out from families who were 
preparing to begin a new life in the United States of America. And this 
order has betrayed some of our closest allies--men and women who risked 
their lives to help American servicemembers deployed often on hostile 
soil. Ending the special immigrant visa programs established to help 
Iraqis and Afghans who risked their lives to help American forces is 
unacceptable. The United States cannot turn its back on those who 
stepped up and stepped in when we needed them most.
  Just this morning, I read about an Iraqi man, Sami, who had risked 
his

[[Page 1296]]

life to work with the American Government in Iraq. After waiting 7 
years to gain entry, going through a laborious process of vetting under 
the special immigrant visa program, he and his family finally got the 
OK, and they were ready to start their new lives in America. On 
Saturday, he and his wife and two daughters had flown from Iraq to 
Istanbul, and they were sitting in their seats ready to take off when 
they were removed from the plane by security officials. Foreign Policy 
magazine reported that, through tears, Sami's 7-year-old daughter 
asked, ``Why don't they want us in America?''
  American servicemembers and veterans are joining a growing core, 
speaking out against this misguided decision which threatens the 
commonsense program that helps our military do their jobs.
  Take Zachary Iscol, a former Marine infantry officer who wrote about 
some of the Iraqis he worked with who had risked everything to help the 
United States. He told the story of one man, Frank, who had served as 
an interpreter for his Marine Corps unit and, in doing so, had taken a 
bullet in his leg. Frank had remained in Iraq since then. Zachary 
wrote:

       He was still living in Baghdad with daily fears for his and 
     his family's safety. After six years of vetting, including 
     what seemed like countless interviews and background checks 
     by various government agencies, he had finally been cleared 
     to come to the United States with his pregnant wife and 18-
     month-old son.

  Zachary went on to write:

       My wife and I began to prepare our guest room for their 
     arrival. But now, because of a new executive order by 
     President Trump, Frank is no longer welcome.

  This is an American military man, preparing to have these folks who 
put their lives on the line for him, stay in his home.
  This special visa program is why people like Mohammed and Saif 
Alnasseri, whom I am proud to call Jersey residents--two of my 
constituents--were able to come to this country. I would like to share 
a little bit about this family.
  Mohammed Alnasseri was finishing high school in Iraq in 2003 when the 
Americans arrived. As an English speaker, Mohammed began helping the 
Americans stationed near his neighborhood, working for free as their 
neighborhood translator. When the unit he had become friends with left, 
he decided to apply for work as an official interpreter with the U.S. 
Army. By 2004, he had been sent to Fallujah to work with and help 
protect American military fighting there. Because of his work with the 
American military, he recounts receiving hundreds of death notes, 
threatening not just his life but the life of his mother and his 
family.
  He returned to Baghdad where he worked, despite these threats, as a 
contractor with an American company until one day he was targeted and 
almost assassinated in his car. He knew at that point, with the death 
threats and the assassination attempt, that he had to get out of the 
country.
  After moving to Australia, his sister informed him about America's 
special visa program, so he applied, and 2\1/2\ years later he was able 
to join his family in the United States.
  In a call with my office just earlier today, he wanted to make it 
clear that he arrived in the United States on July 3, and by August 10, 
he had started his job. He remarked to my team that he couldn't 
understand why anyone would think he was coming to America because it 
was easy or because he wanted something. He spent most of his savings 
trying to get to America, and he had never taken any benefit since 
arriving here.
  Mohammed met his wife in New Jersey and now lives in our State, works 
at Costco, and is working to obtain his citizenship. He shared that 
this Executive order made him more sad than scared and that it simply 
didn't make sense to ban regular, hard-working people who are also 
afraid of terrorists, persecuted by terrorists, almost killed by 
terrorists, and who had done so much to help our country. It made no 
sense to them.
  This is what he said: ``We ran away from these people. I paid all the 
money I had to leave.'' He did that for the safety of his family.
  Mohammed's brother is now a proud American citizen, father of two, 
and resident of Scotch Plains, NJ. Saif and his wife had worked as 
pharmacists in Iraq, but when the war began, he knew he needed to get 
involved. So Saif worked as a translator and reporter for the Los 
Angeles Times during the war in Iraq, providing support and key 
insights to the American media and the American public. They were able 
to come to the United States in 2008 through that special visa 
program--the SIV program--and slowly worked their way through school. 
Now, as pharmacy technicians, they have their pharmacy licenses.
  Saif is a pharmacy manager in Cranford, NJ, a homeowner in Scotch 
Plains, and a proud father of two girls. He savors this country, this 
precious Nation. He celebrates our values. He is a glowing testimony to 
the truth of who we are. His success is our success. His family's 
security and safety and thriving lives in New Jersey give luster to the 
greatness of America.
  In a phone call yesterday, Saif remarked that this Executive order 
was embarrassing and hurtful, that it was clear Muslims were being 
targeted, and that he couldn't understand why those who were so heavily 
vetted like his family posed such a threat.
  Saif and his family are heavily involved in their community in Scotch 
Plains, and they make sure to offer support to families similar to 
theirs who come from Iraq seeking refuge. They are not just basking and 
luxuriating in their good fortune to become American citizens; they are 
honoring one of the great hallowed traditions of our country, which is 
service.
  At the end of the call, Saif remarked that ``[he] didn't think this 
would happen in any other country.'' It seemed like he was about to say 
this kind of religiously targeted ban wouldn't happen anywhere else, 
and he might have been right. But instead, he said that ``if this kind 
of executive order from a leader in any other country happened against 
any group of people, you would never see the kind of resistance and 
action of so many standing up for them.''
  Even in one of the darkest moments in recent history, this man, this 
patriot, this person who served our Nation's interests and continues to 
volunteer in service to this day, could have every reason to be angry, 
upset, and cynical. But what is beautiful from our conversations with 
this man is that he hasn't given up faith. He still believes in the 
American people.
  The beautiful thing about the conversations my staff has had with 
those New Jersey residents who once were serving our Nation in theaters 
of violence and terrorism, standing up for our military, for our press, 
victimized by terroristic threats, shot at, assassination attempts--
these families now here in America witnessing this Executive order are 
saddened and embarrassed by it, but they are not giving up in their 
faith in America. That is our story.
  I stand here today--dare I say, all of the Members of the Senate 
stand here today because of this tradition of our country, that even 
when we had dark chapters from our past where others in positions of 
power violated our values, the faith and activism and engagement of 
American people remained.
  I dare say we are the oldest constitutional democracy on the planet 
Earth. God, the genius of our Founders who put on paper ideals that 
have been heralded for centuries on planet Earth. Newer constitutional 
democracies literally would study our Constitution and model their 
nations after elements of our Constitution. I am sad to tell you that 
some of those countries' democracies have failed. They had the vaunted 
words, they put forth the same principles and ideals, but their 
countries' democracies have been overthrown, have seen despots who 
destroyed the very spirit of those ideals.
  Why has America persisted? It is not just because of the documents 
that are sacred and so special in the course of human events. But what 
makes those documents true and real--because those sentiments are not 
just written on parchment; every generation has had them written on 
their hearts and have said: No matter what I may be experiencing in 
this country, I am going

[[Page 1297]]

to dedicate myself to the principles and ideals, because as great as 
our Founders were when they founded this country in liberty and in 
justice and equality under the law, it didn't apply to everyone. It 
didn't apply to women. Native Americans were referred to as savages. 
African Americans were fractions of human beings. Yet the faith of a 
people in every generation worked to expand the concepts of liberty and 
freedom. They made the Constitution more real. They made our Union more 
perfect. They made our country's truth more true for more people.
  It is why great poets like Langston Hughes wrote:

       America never was America to me,
       And yet I swear this oath--
       America will be!

  That is the call to the citizenry of this country.
  There have been dark days in our past, but every generation of 
Americans, despite the dark actions of people in power, understands the 
truth that the power of the people is greater than the people in power. 
If we never lose faith in the ideals of this Nation, if we keep 
standing and working and sacrificing and struggling, every generation 
could advance the ideals of our country and make us more free and more 
true and more real for more people.
  Last week, we saw yet another American leader shrink the ideals of 
this country, try to pull us backward to times past when we turned our 
backs on people fleeing persecution. What Donald Trump did is try to 
pull back on the ideals inscribed on that great statue that sits right 
next to New Jersey, the mother of exiles, who says in poetry, among 
other things, ``give us''--not ``Hey, you can come in'' but a demand:

       Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning 
     to breathe free,
       The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

  It is a demand to the world that we will take those who are 
oppressed, we will take those who are being violated, we will take 
those who are being victimized. A President turns his back on those 
ideals. We have seen it before.
  Dr. Lauren Feldman wrote to me about chapters of dark pasts. She 
wrote:

       Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. I am a Jew. My 
     relatives were unable to find refuge in our country and were 
     murdered by the Nazis. My grandmother lost her beloved aunt, 
     Rokhl Rosnick Gertman, and an uncle and 4 young cousins that 
     she never met. Had we as a country done the right thing and 
     welcomed the refugees fleeing the Nazis, Tante Rokhl and 
     millions of others could have joined their family members in 
     safety and we could have been proud of our country, instead 
     of ashamed of the racist paper walls built by the FDR 
     administration to keep my family and others out.
       Please tell Mr. Trump that we cannot go back. We must be a 
     beacon of safety and refuge for the persecuted. Please do all 
     that you can to prevent this ban from being enacted. Please 
     think of my relatives and the relatives of your other 
     constituents and fellow citizens who were needlessly and 
     shamefully murdered because of our fear and racism. We are 
     better than that. You are better than that.

  She concludes, ``Thank you for your time and service. Dr. Lauren 
Feldman, Princeton.''
  We are the United States of America. We haven't been perfect, but 
there has been a striving and a yearning in every generation to be more 
so.
  I am a product of people Black and White, Christian and Jewish and 
Muslim, who, even though issues didn't affect them directly, knew that 
injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. They marched and 
they fought. They sat in. They got on buses for freedom rides knowing 
they would be bombed. They tried to cross bridges, standing up against 
law enforcement, State troopers, Governors who dared them to try to 
pass them. There were implacable walls of hatred and racism, but they 
stood anyway, and they bled the southern soil red--for my freedom, for 
our freedom, for this Nation's freedom.
  I have worked all my career for the safety of communities. Yes, we 
must make sure our Nation is safe. But don't let fear and concern for 
safety ever make us ever turn our backs on our values as a nation. When 
we are threatened by our enemies, it is not a time to surrender our 
values, it is time to double down on them. The terrorists win if they 
change our free hearts and our souls set on liberty.
  We as a nation are called to be great, to be a beacon of liberty and 
justice. There are people now pulled off of airplanes, forced to return 
to communities where their lives are being threatened. We made a 
bargain with them: Stand for America. Stand with our military. Stand 
against terrorism.
  There are people who went through years and years of vetting by 
agency after agency, and when they were on the brink of freedom, like 
people of old who were on ships that came into our harbor, they were 
turned away, back to face persecution and injustice. That is not the 
America I believe in. It is not who we are.
  So I say to our President in prayer, in deep abiding faith: Repeal 
your Executive order. Stand up for our principles. Defend them. Be the 
champion millions of Americans want you to be.
  I say to Americans, to all of us as a country: This is not a time to 
despair. It is not a time to give up. It is not a time to grow cynical 
or lose faith in our country or our values. No, remember our history. 
When dark times come, when it seems that people in the highest points 
of power are turning their backs on their ideals, it is not a time to 
retreat or equivocate, it is a time to fight, to stand up, to resist.
  We are a great nation not just because of the words printed on a 
Constitution; we are a great nation because people with great sacrifice 
and struggle fought to live those words and to make them real in the 
lives of every single person.
  America, we must now stand up. The opposite of justice is not just 
injustice; it is silence and indifference. This may not affect you or 
your family directly, but it is a threat to all of our collective 
values.
  Go to the Jefferson Memorial and read those final words. Thomas 
Jefferson knew that for this Nation to be great, we had to pledge to 
each other an unusual level of commitment. He said that we must 
mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred 
honor.
  There is no honor in this Executive order. We as Americans now must 
pledge our sacred honor to do all we can to tear this order down so 
that the truth of America can rise again.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, there is a French farmer by the name of 
Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. He immigrated to the United States from 
Normandy, France, in 1759, and he settled in the Hudson Valley. He 
married an American woman. The astounding diversity of those who 
settled around him, his fellow farmers, was shocking to him. He said: 
It is ``a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, 
and Swedes.''
  There was one family he knew who had an English grandfather, a Dutch 
grandmother, an Anglo-Saxon son who had a French wife, whose four sons 
all married women who were from different places of different 
nationalities. Hector said: ``From this promiscuous breed, that race 
now called Americans has arisen.''
  He asked: ``What then is the American, this new man?''
  This farmer who came to America from Normandy in 1759 wrote this:

       He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient 
     prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode 
     of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the 
     new rank he holds. The American is the new man who acts upon 
     new principles. . . . Here individuals of all nations are 
     melted into a new race of men.

  George Washington told us that the bosom of America is open to the 
oppressed and the persecuted of all nations and religions.
  That great American philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, that observer 
of American life, said in a letter:

       Imagine, my dear friend, if you can, a society formed of 
     all the nations of the world . . . people having different 
     languages, beliefs, opinions: in a word, a society without 
     roots, without memories, without prejudices, without 
     routines, without common ideas, without a national character, 
     yet a hundred times happier than our own.


[[Page 1298]]


  I am not sure if any of those are completely accurate descriptions of 
what an American was or is or whether those are commensurate with our 
understanding as to the foundations of this country, but they speak to 
this founding ideal of America, this place where you could come from 
any part of the world with any set of beliefs, with any religion, with 
any skin color, and become something that is uniquely new.
  There were people here before those who traveled from far-off lands, 
but to be an American is in many ways an invention--an invention of the 
amalgamation of faiths of peoples from all over the world.
  Both Hector and de Tocqueville talk about the leaving behind of 
prejudices when you come to this new country. Inherent in that idea is 
this belief of new Americans that the discrimination they faced in 
other places could be washed away upon coming to a country, a land at 
that time in which everyone was equal, everyone started from the same 
place. Of course, that has to be true because this country was founded 
by individuals who were fleeing religious persecution, who thought that 
America was a place in which they could practice their religion freely. 
They could be who they knew themselves to be.
  The reason why you hear such anxiety and anger and sadness from many 
in this Chamber and from many people we represent is because what 
happened on Friday is an abandonment of American originalism. It is a 
walking back of the faith that we have held since the days in which 
Scotch and Irish and French and Dutch and German and Swede came to this 
country believing that they could leave behind prejudices. It feels as 
if we are shrinking as a country before our eyes.
  A young woman from Stamford, CT, wrote me this beautiful letter, and 
I want to read some of it to you. She encapsulates in modern language 
what Crevecoeur, Washington, and de Tocqueville were saying centuries 
ago. She said:

       I am the proud descendant of Syrian immigrants. My great-
     grandparent's sacrifices to resettle in Rhode Island have 
     shaped my entire life. I've grown up very close to my 
     grandfather, the first generation of his family born in 
     America, and I know what my ancestors did to be here and how 
     far we've come from them being persecuted and subjected to 
     religious violence in Damascus. I was able to grow up around 
     Syrian culture and appreciate how great-grandparents made it 
     possible for my entire family to be where they are now.
       To give you an idea, my grandfather went on to receive a 
     master's degree and was a high school teacher and guidance 
     counselor. He is also heavily involved in the Roman Catholic 
     church and quietly serves communion in hospitals each Sunday. 
     My father, second generation, also received a master's, 
     serves on hospital boards, and has had a successful career in 
     human resources. With their encouragement, I have begun a 
     career as a journalist, one I have dreamed of since I was in 
     high school.
       In 2012, on the 100-year anniversary of my family's arrival 
     in the United States, I was the third generation in my family 
     to graduate from high school and enroll in college. . . . I 
     tell you this because this moves me every day when I go to 
     work. How amazing it is that my family has gone from being 
     persecuted for their religion to being able to hold jobs 
     protected by the First Amendment? Surely, this is something 
     my great-grandparents never could've dreamed of when they 
     came here, and I embrace my career with the intention to 
     honor their sacrifices. . . . Recently, my heart broke at the 
     executive order to suspend the entry of refugees, 
     specifically from Syria. I have looked into this extensively 
     and recently worked on a story about the vetting process. . . 
     . Trump's order is nothing but xenophobic and racist. I was 
     preparing to report on a family that was supposed to be 
     coming to a community near me, but it seems that family won't 
     be coming now. How truly American it would've been for the 
     descendant of Syrian immigrants to welcome a new generation 
     of Syrians into this country.

  This is for many cataclysmic because everything they thought about 
this country seems to be disappearing in front of us. I understand that 
President Trump tries to sell this as something less than it is; that 
it isn't a ban on all Muslims entering the United States, it is just a 
ban on Muslims from a select set of countries. But these are countries 
that encapsulate over 230 million Muslims. That is almost two-thirds of 
the population of the United States of America, including some of the 
most populous Muslim nations in the world, and it is directly targeted 
at people of Muslim faith.
  It is simply not credible to say that this isn't a ban on members of 
one religion from entering the United States because it selects 
countries that are majority Muslim and then includes a caveat that if 
you are not of the majority religion, if you are of any religion that 
is not the majority religion, you can get around the ban and will be 
given priority to come to the United States.
  This is a Muslim ban--a Muslim ban that applies to over 200 million 
Muslims around the world. It makes us smaller and weaker and less great 
as a nation. It also makes us weaker from a national security 
standpoint as well.
  Let's step back for a second and understand the context here. This 
country does face a threat, a serious threat. There are religious 
extremists around the world who have perverted the religion of Islam 
and tried to turn it into a doctrine of violence. They are attempting 
today to do great violence in the Middle East and in other parts of the 
world, and they are trying to recruit attackers here on U.S. soil. But 
you are not likely to be killed in an act of terrorism in this country. 
In fact, on average, there have been about three Americans killed every 
year by terrorism.
  I am not trying to underplay the threat. People feel fearful. As a 
body, we need to respond to that fear. They see these awful things 
happening on TV, and they want us to make sure it will not happen to 
them. You are more likely to be killed in this country by lightning or 
by an elevator malfunction than you are by terrorism.
  If you really want to talk about securing this Nation, about 
protecting Americans, then the conversation has to be bigger than just 
banning individuals from one country but recognizing the real threats 
that are posed.
  Let me guarantee you this: If this ban goes into effect, if President 
Trump is successful, with the support from the Republican Congress, in 
sending a message to the world that America is at war with Islam, then 
that number of three Americans killed by terrorism every year will 
jump, it will skyrocket. More Americans will be killed by terrorism. 
Why? Because today ISIS is on its heels. It is in retreat. It has 
substantially less territory than it ever has before, and that has 
robbed from it one of its primary rationales for existence, one of its 
primary arguments to those it is trying to recruit into its fold--the 
idea that ISIS is forming a caliphate, an area of geographic control in 
the Middle East.
  That argument doesn't work any longer because the supposed caliphate 
is shrinking. The amount of territory they control is getting smaller 
and smaller. Most folks can see the writing on the wall, that it is 
just a matter of time before the Islamic State as a state is gone. But 
they have this second rationale for existence, this second argument 
that they proffer to would-be recruits, and that is that there is a war 
between East and West, that this is really about a long-term struggle 
between Islam and Christianity. You need to sign up with us because 
they--the West, America, the Christian world--are coming for us.
  We know that is not true, and we have watched Presidents of both 
parties make it very clear to the world that this is not the fight that 
we seek to engage in. Famously, immediately following the 9/11 attacks, 
President Bush said:

       The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.

  He said:

       That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.

  Yet the message that is being sent with this ban on Muslims from 
these seven countries entering the United States is clear. The message 
is that the United States is at war with this religion, that we are at 
war with people of the Muslim faith.
  As we speak, these recruitment bulletin boards are lighting up with 
arguments being made as to the true nature of America's intent against 
the Islamic people. One posting on one of these message boards said 
that Trump's actions ``clearly revealed the truth and

[[Page 1299]]

harsh reality behind the American government and their hatred toward 
Muslims.'' Another posting on one of these extremist Web sites hailed 
Trump as the ``best caller to Islam.'' Another message said that the 
leader of ISIS, ``Al Baghdadi[,] has the right to come out and inform 
Trump that banning Muslims from entering America is a blessed ban.'' 
That is a phrase with very meaningful connotations. To the extent that 
these messaging boards are calling this ban on Muslims entering from 
seven countries a ``blessed ban,'' it is rooted in a different phrase, 
something called the ``blessed invasion.''
  The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 became the starting point for the 
very insurgency that we are fighting today. It was that invasion that 
was called by Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the affiliated extremist 
groups that were drawn into the fight the ``blessed invasion.'' Today 
on extremist Web sites, the ban on Muslims entering the United States 
is being called the ``blessed ban.''
  This order is making this country less safe hour by hour. It is 
giving a pathway to rebirth for the very terrorist organizations that 
we had made such progress in pushing back and fighting back. In Iran 
specifically, it will lead to this country and our allies in the Middle 
East losing the fight against hardliners who pose a threat to the 
United States, to stability in the Middle East, and to our sacred ally 
of Israel. In Iran, there is a contest between moderates--and that is a 
relative term within the Iranian political space--and hardliners who 
chant ``Death to Israel'' who don't fear a world war or a conflict with 
the United States.
  With the signing of the Iran nuclear agreement and the lifting of a 
handful of sanctions on Iran, the moderates won a victory. The 
population of that country--which is surprisingly pro-American and 
supported that nuclear agreement--was ascended, potentially 
foreshadowing a day in which that country would no longer be a 
provocateur in the region and instead could join in conversations about 
how to bring stability to the Middle East. Now the hardliners have been 
handed a gift, a gift which proves that America is an enemy, not just 
of the Iranian state but of the Iranian people.
  Remember, when we think of actions that we take against governments 
that we don't like, we first try to start with actions that 
specifically identify individuals in the government, so that we make it 
clear that it is not about the people of that country but about their 
leaders. If that isn't strong enough, then we go to sanctions against 
commercial interests, against the economy writ large. Yes, those 
sanctions do filter down and hurt real people, but the sanctions are 
levied at the economy or against commercial actors.
  When you enact a specific ban on the people of a country being able 
to travel to the United States, you are levying that punishment 
directly on those individuals, who, by and large, bear no ill will 
toward the United States. You are telling them that it is their fault, 
and the Iranian people will turn against the United States, will turn 
toward the hardliners based upon this action.
  This ban makes us less safe. It will allow for terrorist groups to 
rebound. That is not just me saying it. Senators McCain and Graham have 
said the same thing. National security experts of both stripes have 
testified as such. Tonight I think back to the moment in which I first 
heard that Candidate Donald Trump was proposing a ban on all Muslims 
entering the United States. I remember the universal bipartisan 
derision that met that announcement. It was almost laughable at that 
point in time during the campaign. If you remember, Candidate Trump was 
flailing. He was weak. He needed to reassert himself. He needed to make 
news, and so he grabbed for the most controversial, most outlandish 
proposal he could make. Republicans and Democrats here in Congress 
condemned it.
  Speaker Ryan tweeted this:

       A religious test for entering our country is not reflective 
     of America's fundamental values. I reject it.

  Governor Mike Pence said:

       Calls to ban Muslims from entering the United States are 
     offensive and unconstitutional.
       A religious test for entering this country is not 
     reflective of America's fundamental values. I reject it.
       Calls to ban Muslims from entering the United States are 
     offensive and unconstitutional.

  I give credit to a small handful of Republicans here in the Senate 
and a small handful of Republicans in the House who have raised serious 
concerns about this ban with respect to what it says about American 
values or what it says about American national security. But there is 
utter silence from Republican leadership. Republican leadership--who 
only months ago claimed that if there were a religious test for 
entering our country, they would reject it--today are quiet. The idea 
that individuals could come to this country without regard to their 
religion or their national origin or their set of beliefs has never 
been a partisan issue. Of all the things that divide us, that idea has 
been one that unifies us.
  My hope is that there is still a chance that both parties can come 
together and recapture the essence of American originalism, can put 
this country on firmer national security footing, and can continue the 
relentless drive against extremist groups like ISIS that now find 
themselves at a point of potential rebirth.
  You have heard a lot of stories on the floor of the Senate today. It 
is interesting. We have these incredibly compelling stories from real 
people who are caught today in the middle of this reckless ill-thought-
out ban. There are 67,000 refugees who are currently in the pipeline to 
come to this country right now. This isn't about 100, 200, 300, or 400. 
This is about tens of thousands of refugees who are fleeing 
persecution, terror, and torture. This is about the 230 million Muslims 
who live in those seven countries, who have been told that they are 
lesser. Frankly, every other Muslim in the world believes the message 
is being sent to them as well.
  These stories that we tell you are--the tip of the iceberg isn't even 
accurate. This is a pinprick. Fadi Kassar and his family--here are his 
two girls. They left Syria in 2011 due to the epic levels of violence 
that Fadi was sure would kill his two little girls if he didn't leave. 
His family went to the UAE, or the United Arab Emirates. But the way in 
which the UAE works is that if you have a job, you can stay, but if you 
don't have a job, you leave. When he lost his job, they were kicked out 
and that began an epic journey for Fadi and his family.
  These girls actually were born in the UAE, as I understand. He was 
fleeing Syria to protect his family and his future children, yet they 
were kicked out of the country they went to. Fadi then began a journey 
to try to find a home for him and his family. He tried to get to Europe 
via Tunisia, but he was detained and sent back to Turkey. He eventually 
flew to Brazil. He made his way to the United States by crossing the 
border with Mexico. Upon entry, he was detained. He was transferred to 
Miami. He was released and eventually found his way to Connecticut. He 
applied for asylum that was granted in December of 2015.
  Fadi's relatives in Syria were tortured and had been detained by the 
regime. His neighborhood was dangerous and deadly. Fadi and his family 
were exactly the kind of people whom this country historically has been 
able to rescue from war-torn countries, from terror, and from torture. 
His family had experienced torture. His children were later returned to 
Syria and would face potential death.
  He went through all of the processes that we asked him to go through. 
He didn't go into the shadows. He didn't hide. He applied for asylum 
status. It was granted in 2015. He filed forms that would allow for his 
wife and two daughters to follow. Those visas were issued last Tuesday, 
on January 24.
  Originally, they had a flight that was scheduled to bring his wife 
and these two little girls to the United States today, but last week, 
when Fadi learned of the potential for this Executive order, he paid 
$1,000 to move their flight up to Friday. His two little girls and his 
wife got on a flight from Jordan to Kiev, Ukraine, and eventually to 
the United States. But once in Kiev, their passports and their visas 
were taken from them. They were sent to

[[Page 1300]]

CBP. Their visas were rejected, and they were returned to Jordan.
  These two little girls are back in their old apartment, but they got 
rid of all their furniture. They got rid of all their clothes. Their 
neighbors have temporarily given them mattresses to sleep on. They 
don't even know where their suitcases are. Their father, who is ready 
to greet them at the airport here in the United States, may never see 
them.
  They are scared to death. I have two little boys who are the exact 
same age. I have an 8-year-old. I have a 5-year-old. I think about what 
these two little girls went through, getting ready to finally go see 
their dad who had gone through an epic struggle to try to find 
someplace in this world where his two little girls could be safe. He 
found it. He found it in America. He found it in my State of 
Connecticut.
  He found it, just like hundreds of thousands of other people who fled 
war-ravaged Europe, who fled the bombing in Vietnam, who left Albania 
and Kosovo to come live a better life just like they found. He was 
ready to go to the airport to welcome his two little girls, and they 
were told that they are not leaving. You are not going to see your dad. 
You are going to go back to Jordan and, potentially, eventually back to 
Syria.
  Imagine what those little girls went through. Imagine millions of 
other little boys and girls like them who had in their mind this place 
called America, a place that would welcome them, who would rescue them 
from the disaster that had become their lives.
  Imagine that dream that was literally hours away for these two little 
girls extinguishing, and extinguishing for millions of others like them 
all around this planet. It is up to us whether that light which 
flickered off on Friday relights. It is up to us as to whether we 
rekindle the American dream, that idea of America from our founding. 
This is not irreversible. These two little girls, you could bring them 
here. We could choose to bring them here. It is up to us.
  There is legislation on the floor of the Senate right now as we speak 
that would rescind this order. It is our decision, right? There are 100 
of us. There are only 435 down the hall. There are only 535 of us. It 
is our decision whether these two little girls come to the United 
States or they go back to their war-ravaged home that their father 
left. It is up to us. It is not up to the President of the United 
States alone. He does not get to make these decisions by himself.
  Democracy allows for us to make a different decision. It is up to us. 
I believe we can do it. I believe we can bring these girls here. I 
believe we can undo the damage that has been done to this country's 
security. I believe we can get back on a path such that ISIS remains on 
its heels. I believe we can recapture that idea of that farmer who came 
to this country from a far-off land who looked in amazement at the 
amalgam of cultures and peoples and religions that was America.
  I know this sounds like hyperbole. I know there are a lot of people 
out there who say: Wait a second. This is only temporary. It is only 
for a few months. It is only for a few countries. But people are 
listening and watching. Which direction are we heading? Do we really 
care about the things we have always cared about? Millions upon 
millions of people, all cross this country and all across this world 
are watching. What do we do?
  Is this a partisan issue or can we commit ourselves together to stand 
up for those basic ideas of America's founding? There are two little 
girls who are watching most closely, who are watching to see if we can 
rise above partisanship and deliver to them the promise that has been 
made real for millions and millions of Americans who call this place 
home.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, so we have had a number, a large number 
of eloquent speeches about the President's Executive order. While they 
were going on, of course, we had a Monday night massacre. Sally Yates, 
a person of great integrity, who follows the law, was fired by the 
President. She was fired because she would not enact, pursue, the 
Executive order on the belief that it was illegal, perhaps 
unconstitutional.
  It was a profile in courage. It was a brave act and the right act. I 
hope the President and his people who are in the White House learned 
something from this; first, that we are a nation under the rule of law. 
You cannot just sit down, Twitter something out, and then think: OK. 
Let's enact it. It is a complicated country. When you do something as 
major as what the President proposed in his Executive order, you have 
to think it through. You have to talk to people.
  Sally Yates was the Acting Attorney General. Why wasn't she 
consulted? Maybe they would have known what she felt and maybe they 
would not have done what they did. Clearly, that lack of consultation 
went up and down the line. Sally Yates is from a different 
administration. General Kelly was President Trump's selection.
  He learned of this Executive order when he got a phone call from the 
White House while he saw it being announced on television. How can you 
run a country like that? I am hearing from my constituents in New York. 
There are hard-core Trump supporters. They are for him. But they are a 
small minority of New Yorkers.
  There are many progressive, liberal, and pro-immigrant people. 
Obviously, they are horrified, but I would say this to the President 
and his minions. There are a lot of people who voted for President 
Trump--not the hard core--and they are appalled by the simple 
ineptitude of this administration. Substantively, even more important, 
how can you run a country like this? How can you make a major order, 
major doing, and not check it out with your Homeland Security 
Secretary, with the Justice Department and the Attorney General?
  I will say, if this continues, this country has big trouble. We 
cannot have a Twitter Presidency. We cannot have a Presidency that 
thinks: Oh, this sounds good. Let's just go do it and not think the 
consequences through. Most of all, we cannot have a Presidency that 
does not understand the beauty and depth of America, in this case when 
it comes to immigrants.
  We have been an amazing country. In the city in which I live there is 
a big lady in the harbor with a torch. It is a beautiful symbol. 
Americans revere it and admire it. The world reveres it and admires it. 
Why? Because it says: America will be a place where people can take 
refuge if they are persecuted religiously, politically, and then they 
can build a great life for themselves.
  That is a beautiful thing. That moral force of America helps us win 
wars, helps us win support, helps us be the greatest country in the 
world that everyone admires.
  Of course, we need a strong military. Of course, we need a strong 
economy. Praise God, America has had both through the decades, but we 
also have been a moral beacon, ``God's noble experiment,'' as the 
Founding Fathers called it. In those days, as now, we have welcomed 
people from distant shores and said: Come be Americans.
  Our President is trampling on that, to be honest with you. The idea 
that immigrants are preponderantly criminals and preponderantly 
terrorists is absurd. They are the future of America. In my State of 
New York, 25 percent of the people are foreign born, probably as high 
as 40 percent if you are either foreign born or had a parent foreign 
born.
  They are great New Yorkers. I was with a Syrian refugee this week. He 
and his wife and his children had just come. His parents were American 
citizens. They had come to America in 1970. The parents and Mr. Elias, 
who lived in the Bronx, came here. He was a tailor. We don't have that 
many fine tailors in America these days. It is a lost art. So people 
who do it tend to be immigrants; mainly from Italy is my experience.
  But he was a tailor from Syria. He then did what immigrants do in 
America. He founded a little business. He reupholsters boats, a lot of 
them in a place in the Bronx called City Island. He built a company. He 
made America better. He is a Syrian immigrant.

[[Page 1301]]

  His children and grandchildren were in danger. A suicide bomber had 
even blown up himself in front of their home nearly killing them. They 
just got in this month. Had Donald Trump's Executive order been in 
effect several weeks earlier, they would not have been able to get 
here. They might have perished. They might have been hurt.
  Similarly, another guy I met is Mohammed. Mohammed knows English. He 
was so impressed by America, by the lady with the torch, by our values, 
by what we stand for, that he volunteered to be a translator for our 
soldiers. He put his life in danger for doing that.
  Then he began to get threats from the terrorists in Iraq. He is an 
Iraqi. His wife was in danger. His children were in danger. He came 
January 5. Again, had President Trump and his evil order--and that is 
what it is, it is evil--gone into effect January 1, for all we know 
Mohammed would have died for helping our soldiers.
  Do we have to prevent terrorists from coming into America? 
Absolutely.
  The greatest source of terror are lone wolves. Americans, citizens--
ISIS gets its evil ideas in their heads, and they do terrorist things.
  John McCain, my colleague, the senior Senator from Arizona who is an 
expert on this stuff, said: This Executive order will encourage and 
increase the number of lone wolves.
  Here is another group that needs tightening, I would suggest to the 
President and his minions: those available in the Visa Waiver Program. 
If you are a country that has generally been friendly to us, there is 
something called the Visa Waiver Program, which means you can come into 
this country with very few questions asked, very little vetting.
  Refugees are vetted for 2 years. That is why not a single refugee 
from any of the countries that were proscribed by the President has 
committed an act of terror here--not a single one.
  I heard someone defending the President saying: Well, all these 
people would have come in; the terrorists would have come in had they 
done it slowly and announced a date.
  Well, we have done it like this for 15, 20 years, and we haven't had 
a single terrorist come in. What kind of absurdity is that?
  Anyway, the Visa Waiver Program allows people from, say, France and 
Belgium to come into this country with few questions asked. We have 
seen French citizens, Belgian citizens do terrorism. They would be 
allowed to come into this country to do it here. Why aren't we 
tightening that up? That is what should be done.
  So I am going to conclude. The evening is late.
  Sally Yates was a profile in courage, a profile in courage. Maybe 
some of her courage, her insight, and her wisdom would rub off on the 
people in the White House. Maybe they will back off and repeal this 
Executive order, and then we can work together and truly try to tighten 
up the laws, the actions of the administration to prevent terrorists 
from coming in.
  This Executive order makes us less safe. It was poorly done in a 
slipshod, quick way that foretells real trouble in the White House, 
and, most of all, it has done more to tarnish the great American dream, 
the great moral force of America that has, in part, made us the 
greatest country in the world--in 1, 2 days, undoing the work of 
generations.
  Please, Mr. President, reconsider. Really think about this. Don't 
just tweet. Don't just get mad. Don't just call names. Think about it. 
Change it. Repeal it.
  It is too far gone to change; we have to repeal it. And then maybe we 
can work together on tightening up some of the areas that I have talked 
about.
  I see my friend from Arizona has come to the floor, and I will not 
hold him up, so I yield the floor.

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