Speech #1040015248

Mr. President. today I am reintroducing legislation I originally drafted and introduced In the last Congress as a Member of the other body. This legislation would deny U.S. visas to known members of terrorist organizations. Under current law. a visa can be denied to a known member of a terrorist organization only if the United States has compelling evidence that the individual was personally involved in a past terrorist act or if it Is known that the person is coming to the United States to conduct such an act. Current law requires extraordinary steps to override the presumption that mere membership in a terrorist group is not grounds for denying a visa. Highlevel determination is required by the Secretary of State that permitting entry of the individual will be damaging to American foreign policy interests. My legislation will reverse that presumption. Under this bill. a known member of a group that conducts acts of terrorism will be excluded from the United States unless the Secretary of State determines on an individual basis that granting the visa would advance U.S. foreign policy interests. I discovered this dangerous loophole in our immigration laws last Congress during my investigation of the State Department failures that allowed the radical Egyptian cleric. Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. to travel to and reside in the United States since 1990. Sheikh Rahman is the spiritual leader of Egypts terrorist organization. the Islamic Group. His followers have been convicted for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. and the Sheikh himself is now on trial for his alleged role in planning and approving a second wave of terrorist acts in the New York City area. Last year. I also found out through the investigation of the senior Senator from Colorado that the State Department has in the past used this legal loophole to grant a visa to Tunisias Sheikh Rashid elGhanoushi. the convicted leader of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization Ennadha. At this very moment. the State Department is still considering a visa request by Sheikh Ghanoushi. A letter I received from the State Department on this matter confirmed that they interpret current law to require them to issue a visa to Ghanoushian acknowledged member of a terrorist organizationunless they can prove that he personally was involved in a terrorist act. Apparently his conviction in Tunisia for his part in an assassination plot against Tunisias proWestern President Ben All is not enough. Nor is the fact that he fled his country after his underground Islamic fundamentalist terrorist group launched violent attacks against the Government. Nor. apparently. do his virulently antiWestern and antiIsraeli statements have any relevance to the visa decisions. as fur as the State Department is concerned. Mr. President. after the recent rash of terrorist bombings in Israel.