Speech #1090121691

I have been working now for some time to get that amendment to move forward. It is an amendment I filed last week. It is a simple. commonsense amendment that denies visas to advocates of terrorism. Yesterday morning. I came to the Senate to speak on that amendment and asked for a vote. Now. more than 24 hours later. we have still not had a vote on my simple. 14line amendment. It is just one example of the Democrats continued obstruction of well intentioned efforts to debate and make improvements to the immigration bill. Put simply. the Democrats are denying me a vote on my proposal to deny visas to terrorists. Any Democrat who says this is anything other than partisan obstructionism are themselves in denial. To demonstrate the height to which this obstructionism has risen. I am again going to explain what my amendment does and how simple it really is. My amendment is so simple. in fact. that it adds only 6 words to the entire Immigration and Nationality Act. And half of those are the word "or." The other three are "advocate." "advocates." and "advocated." These 6 words are narrowly targeted to address a loophole in our current visa system that is evidenced by the following statement: Colleagues. believe it or not. this a heading from our very own Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual. The same Foreign Affairs Manual issued to the Departments 25.000 employees located in more than 250 posts or missions worldwide. Even more alarmingly. this is from the chapter that instructs our consular officers to whom visas should be issued. Visas are. of course. the ticket that foreigners. including terrorists. need to enter the U.S. This instruction says to the consular officer deciding whether or not to issue a visa that they need not deny a visa to an individual who advocates terrorism. I. for one. cannot imagine a more pertinent ground for denial. If advocacy of terrorism is not grounds for exclusion.