Speech #1140064172

That is why I have a problem with the bill that is on the floor today. It is because I think we have a much stronger. better option to protect the American people. and that is in the form of the ThompsonLofgren legislation. Unlike in the Republican bill. the Democratic alternative applies tough scrutiny to all potential refugees. not just to Syrians and Iraqis. as the Republican bill is limited to. The ThompsonLofgren Secure Refugee Process Act would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to verify the identities of all refugee applicants. Any application that contains insufficient. conflicting. or unreliable information would be denied from day one. The bill also requires that at least five Federal agenciesthe Department of Homeland Security. the Attorney General. the Federal Bureau of Investigation. the Secretary of State. the Secretary of Defense. the Director of National Intelligencecheck all refugee applications against their records. Any application that indicates a national security or a criminal threat would be deniedall. Not IraqSyriaall. Two former Secretaries of Homeland SecuritySecretary Janet Napolitano and Secretary Michael Chertoffhave written about the process that is in existence now and which the ThompsonLofgren legislation respects. The process that is currently in place is thorough and robust. and so long as it is fully implemented and not diluted. it will allow us to safely admit the most vulnerable refugees while protecting the American people. Fortunately. they say. these goals are not mutually exclusive. There are other things that we could be doing in a bipartisan way. and I would have hoped that that would have been a place we could have gone with this. One of them relates to closing loopholes in the Visa Waiver Program. Today our colleagues on the Senate side are putting forth their principles. which state: "If an ISIS recruit attempts to travel to the United States on a fraudulent paper passport issued by a country that participates in the Visa Waiver Program. that individual would avoid biometric screening and an inperson interview." How could we allow this loophole to exist if we are truly addressing this challenge in a comprehensive way? If the Republicans want to make the Nation safer in the face of terror. there is another clear area in which we should act. and that is we should be voting on Republican Congressman PETER KINGS bill in order to close the appalling loophole. It is outrageous that a person who is on the terrorism watch listlisten to this. If someone is on the terrorist watch list. he could walk into a gun store and buy a gun. His bill is called the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act. The visa waiver. Close the terrorist gun loophole. According to the GAO. over the last 11 years. more than 2.000 suspects on the FBIs terrorist watch list bought weapons in the United States.