[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1418-1419]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     IRAQI SPECIAL IMMIGRANT VISAS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, we are seeing from coast to coast 
demonstrations, protests, with people speaking out against the 
outrageous, reckless, and cruel executive order promulgated by the 
administration on Friday. It is wrong, and it is immoral on so many 
levels. It is hard to know where to start.
  I just left my office with the president of the Western States 
chiropractic college--the largest such institution in the country--Joe 
Brimhall has a number of students who are dual citizens who need to 
leave the United States to take their board-certified tests next week 
in Canada. He doesn't know what to tell them. Pursue their professional 
career and maybe not be able to come back to the United States and 
finish at the college? It is embarrassing that we can't give him 
guidance about this ill-thought-out and reckless executive order that 
wasn't planned and still is having the details worked out.
  But perhaps the worst aspect of this blanket cancelation is as it 
affects Special Immigrant Visas for Iraqis who are waiting to come to 
the United States. Whatever you think about the Iraq war, the men and 
women in Iraq who volunteered to help our forces were essential. They 
were guides, they were interpreters, and they worked on the projects. 
We could not have done the job over there without them. In many cases, 
they blended into the units in which they served. I have had cases 
where our soldiers have described to me how these people literally 
saved their lives.
  I have heard from veterans who care deeply and wonder about the 
signal that they are sending to people they regarded essentially as 
family. They wonder how this administration could have forgotten about 
them. The guard in my office in Portland, who is a veteran, was asking 
me what is going on. He recalled his story about an interpreter who was 
critical to him when he served in Iraq. How could we have forgotten 
them?
  I will tell you somebody who has not forgotten them are the Taliban 
and the ISIS terrorists. They regard these people as traitors. The 
terrorists have long memories, and want to make people pay for helping 
the United States. We have seen countless examples of these people 
being hunted down by terrorists. They have been assaulted, they have 
been kidnapped, they have had family

[[Page 1419]]

members held for ransom, and they have been murdered.
  That is why I have worked on a bipartisan basis for 10 years 
establishing the Special Immigrant Visa program with the late Senator 
Kennedy, with Senator John McCain, Senator Shaheen, my Republican 
colleague Adam Kinzinger, and Congressmen Stivers and Hunter who were 
veterans themselves and understood why this program was important.
  There is a lot of talk about extreme vetting. Trust me--the 
applicants for these visas are extremely vetted, taking 2 and 3 years, 
sometimes longer, fighting the bureaucracy, trying to make sure that 
they can escape to safety. Many have been killed because the extreme 
vetting process took so long. To turn their lives upside down and put 
them at risk because there are people in the White House who don't 
understand or who don't care is appalling.
  I applaud my colleagues in both parties who are speaking out and 
asking the administration to come to its senses on this blanket ban of 
Muslims from seven countries--seven countries, by the way, that have 
not been involved with terrorist acts. This is not going to make us any 
safer. Some have speculated that some of the countries that have been 
left out, like Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11 terrorists came 
from, were left out because the President has business interests there.
  I don't know why these countries were selected, but the fact is it 
should end today. It should end not just because of the brave men and 
women under the Special Immigrant Visa program from Iraq whose lives 
are now at greater risk because of this reckless act. It is wrong 
because of the signals we are sending to foreign nationals whom we rely 
upon. It is not just in Iraq. We have people who work for the United 
States who live in many other countries who help us with the State 
Department programs and with the military. What message are we sending 
to them if the United States is not going to stand up and protect them?

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