Speech #1040070215

Two events have changed this sense of safety. The first was the international terrorist attack of February 26. 1993. against the New York World Trade Center. and the second was the shocking domestic terrorist attack this April 19 against the Federal building in Oklahoma City. I first introduced the Terrorist Exclusion Act in the House 2 years ago. and this year I have reintroduced the legislation in the Senate with Senator BROWN as my original cosponsor. The Terrorist Exclusion Act will close a dangerous loophole in our visa laws which was opened up in the Immigration Reform Act of 1990. That bill eliminated thenexisting authority to deny a U.S. visa to a known member of a violent terrorist organization. The new standards required knowledge that the individual had personally been involved in a past terrorist act or was coming to the United States to conduct such an act. This provision will restore the previous standard allowing denial of a U.S. visa for membership in a terrorist group. The elimination of authority to exclude a foreigner from the United States for mere membership in a terrorist group happened in the context of Congr3ss rewrite of the old McCarranWaltrjrs Act. The McCarranWalters Act ...ontained a wide range of visa exclusi ons for ideological or associational reasons. But in narrowly refocusing all visa exclusions on personal acts. it perhaps inadvertently treated foreigners who join violent terrorist organizations no differently than if they had merely joined a political club. or fraternal order. This removed a valuable tool for protecting American lives. In my view. and I am sure the view of the vast majority of Americans. there is a difference. I discovered this dangerous weakness in our visa laws in early 1993 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. I undertock this investigation in my role as ranking Republican of the House International Operations Subcommittee. which has jurisdiction over terrorism issues. a role I have continued in the Senate as chair of the International Operations Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee. 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 planting and approving a second wave of terrorist acts in the New York City area. The significance of Sheikh Abdel Rahman is that he was clearly excludable from the United States under the old pre1990 law. but the legal authority to exclude him ended with enactment of the Immigration Reform Act that year. He was admitted to this country through an amazing series of bureaucratic blunders. But then. the 1990 law came into effect. and the State Department was forced to try to deport him on the grounds that he once bounced a check in Egypt and had more than one wife. rather than the fact that he was the known spiritual leader of a violent terrorist organization.