January 29, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 19 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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MUSLIM BAN; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 19
(House of Representatives - January 29, 2020)
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[Pages H708-H711] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] MUSLIM BAN The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2019, the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, as part of the incredible, large class of members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, I am really proud to be here helping my colleagues translate a number of policy positions and issues and in being able to translate that into action to various policies and to be able to express that. So this Special Order is very, very much an integral part of organizing within our caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on what we call frontline community issues. So I want to thank my colleagues for helping us organize today a Special Order hour to declare loudly and very clearly to every Muslim American and to Muslims around the world that the House of Representatives will not stand idly by as this administration continues to enforce its racist Muslim ban. So with that I really rise today to send a message to marginalized communities everywhere that through our work to repeal the Muslim ban we are preventing racist bans from ever happening again. I am so incredibly grateful for Congresswoman Chu's leadership of the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act, or what we call the NO BAN Act. I thank Congresswoman Chu for her leadership and courage to stand up to those who try to target folks based on their faith. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu). Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Tlaib for putting this Special Order hour together. I truly appreciate it, especially during this very, very significant week. Monday marked the third anniversary of the Muslim ban. We had a press conference on that day. It was incredible to see the Senators and the House Members and so many groups of great diverse backgrounds all coming together to say that now is the time to pass H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act. The failure of this ban was apparent the day it began. I will never forget that day in January of 2017, just 3 years ago, when Donald Trump announced his first Muslim ban, creating chaos and separating families with no justification. I was on my way to a community event when I received a frantic call about 50 Muslims who were being detained at LAX for hours with no end in sight, despite the fact that they had green cards and were legal. At that point I decided to drop everything and help in any way I could. I rushed over to LAX to advocate for these people, and once I arrived I found out that indeed there were scores of people there with a legal right to be here kept for hours with little food and blocked from receiving legal advice from an attorney. It was outrageous. When I pressed Customs and Border Protection for answers, they resisted and blocked me. I even got them on the phone only to have them hang up on me. I had never been more disrespected as a Member of Congress, but disrespect and chaos is what this Muslim ban is all about. The pain and psychological trauma this travel ban has caused are long lasting, spouses and fiances being separated, weddings, funerals and graduations have been missed. People have not been able to come to take care of sick ones. Over 5,000 adopted children of U.S. citizens cannot join their families. None of these people are a threat to the U.S., and we have every way of knowing that through our extensive vetting process. But they have been made victims of this hateful ban nonetheless. It just doesn't have to be this way. When the Supreme Court upheld the President's ability to issue these bans, the Court also required the administration to grant waivers to ensure that the program had a legitimate national security interest. But despite that requirement, the State Department has approved only 10 percent of these applicants. That means that the Trump administration believes that 90 percent of all travelers from these countries are threats to our national security, and it renders this waiver process virtually nonexistent. That is outrageous. That is why we have to fight back, and that is why last spring I introduced the NO BAN Act with Senator Chris Coons, which is the best way to reclaim Congress' power and stop this ban. First, it would repeal all three versions of President Trump's Muslim ban, putting an immediate end to this family separation. Second, it requires a report on the total number of waivers that were granted and the total number that were denied, so we know the truth about what has happened. Third, our bill says that if a President does want to implement such a ban in the future he would actually have to prove actual evidence of a threat. This ensures in the future no individuals are denied entry into the U.S. based solely on their religion. {time} 2030 With the President confirming that he now wants to expand this ban to even more countries, now is the time to act. The response to the NO BAN Act has been tremendous: 214 Members of Congress have cosponsored the bill in the House, and over 480 groups have endorsed it; 39 Members of the Senate are cosponsors. In September of 2019, the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees held a joint hearing that examined how few waivers have been granted to individuals since the ban was issued, even though most people applying for entry into the U.S. pose no threat to our country. Just this week, Chairman Nadler announced that the bill will be marked up in the Judiciary Committee in 2 weeks, and Speaker Pelosi announced that the NO BAN Act will be brought to the floor for a vote. This vote cannot happen soon enough for people like Ismail Alghazali, who will be my guest at the State of the Union next week. Ismail is a U.S. citizen who works at a small neighborhood market in New York, and, in 2013, he married his wife, Hend, in Yemen. Hend applied for a visa to join her husband in the U.S., but before her interview at the U.S. Embassy in Djibouti, Trump's hateful Muslim ban went into effect. Hend was 8 months pregnant, and her pregnancy has been difficult. Doctors had discovered she had a heart condition. Ismail and Hend hoped that that meant that they would be granted a waiver due to medical reasons. But after an interview that lasted just 5 minutes, Hend was denied a visa and left to give birth in Djibouti, while Ismail had to return to the U.S. He was not able to witness the birth of his first child. Last year, in April, Hend gave birth to another daughter, and Ismail has not been able to even meet his daughter for several months because of the ban. Luckily, however, the family has now been reunited in the United States. But too many others are left waiting for no reason, other than the President's prejudice. We have every ability to vet people like Hend as we have done for years. [[Page H709]] Leaving families divided by this ban is a choice. That is why we need the NO BAN Act. It is essential that we take away the President's power to put prejudice into policy before more countries and more families are impacted by this hateful ban. Madam Speaker, I thank all my colleagues who are here tonight for their steadfast support of this bill, and I thank Congresswoman Tlaib. Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, as one of its first acts, this White House decided to ban Muslims from entering the United States by issuing an executive order prohibiting the entry of nationals of certain Muslim- majority countries. The people this administration banned are not all the same. They represent a diverse array of countries and cultures, including Arab communities, Black communities, Southeast Asian communities, amongst so many others. All around our Nation, especially in Michigan's 13th District strong, we understand just how dangerous this administration's racist Muslim ban is for our families. The Muslim ban fuels anti-Muslim violence and discrimination. It promotes the dangerous myth that Muslims are inherently foreign, violent, and pose a threat to the United States. The Muslim ban also harms children. In the 2 years since it went into effect, countless families have been needlessly separated. People have been denied access to lifesaving medical treatments. Children have been denied their parents, access to their grandparents, and family members have missed births, deaths, weddings, and funerals for loved ones. I rise today to say that Muslims and Muslim Americans are our friends, our neighbors, and our family members--and, yes, they are also Members of Congress. This White House might not like that fact very much, because the racist Muslim ban represents the Federal Government's endorsement of an anti-Muslim discrimination culture. The policy endorses a fear- mongering campaign that only serves to dehumanize and divide, and it leads us to question if this White House has any plans for our country that are not centered on hate or greed. I am extremely troubled that this federally sanctioned discrimination has contributed to a significant spike in hate crimes against American Muslims and attacks on mosques in Muslim communities all across the country. That is why, as Members of Congress, we must put an end to discrimination by passing the NO BAN Act. We have over 200 Members of Congress who support and cosponsor this NO BAN Act. As introduced, the NO BAN Act would immediately rescind the Muslim ban and stop discriminatory orders and abuses of authority by this administration, thanks to the leadership of Congresswoman Judy Chu. By ending the Muslim ban, the NO BAN Act will also get us close to ending the extreme number of increasing religious discrimination within our immigration system now. The bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act, INA, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion and ensure that no President ever again will be able to ban an entire community without accountability. I urge my colleagues in the House leadership to bring the NO BAN Act to the floor as soon as possible, because our communities cannot wait. Minority communities across our country and, indeed, the international community are eager for action that repeals the Muslim ban. As someone who is raising two Muslim boys in our country, I can tell you they struggle now even sharing about their faith and even worried about the rhetoric that they hear from various folks in school, but also just in passing, not only through social media, but through different kinds of conversations that they are hearing where they talk about not only folks who are of the Muslim faith, but folks of various immigrant communities. And being two sons of a father who is also an immigrant, they now really struggle very much in feeling that they can be open. At 9 years old, my son, who is now 14, remembers me--I remember speaking to his father about a terrible ad, a cartoon that was put in USA Today, where it depicted Muslims in a certain way that would evoke violence towards Muslim Americans. I remember talking to his father at that moment and just kind of whispering to him: This is terrible. I can't believe they are doing this. This is just going to invoke people to really hate and even want to kill Muslims. And my son, who came into the bedroom, said: Don't worry, Mama. If anybody asks if I am Muslim, I will tell them that I am not. That is the kind of culture that we create by allowing these kinds of discriminatory policies to be placed and for us to allow it to be codified through executive orders and allow it to go without any action. I ran a campaign to take on hate, which really started in Michigan, but was implemented throughout the country in about 12 communities. And one of the things that young people understand is you have got to take on hate with action. You can't sit idly back--because people just thought: Well, this doesn't impact me--but really trying to understand that it does connect all of us; because this form of othering in the culture that you see within the administration is real and it is dangerous, and sitting idly by and not doing anything about it, to me, will increase that form of hate towards people of different faiths. And trust me, it is not just about Muslims. It is about other kinds of faiths, people of different ethnic backgrounds. This, in essence, is creating this kind of hate culture that we can't see, not only in our American society, but it is also festering within our school culture and with our young people again questioning constantly with identity and allowing this kind of othering to be normalized through acts like this executive order. When you hear Muslim leaders and those talk about the separation that happens, I remember at Bridging Communities in southwest Detroit, we had a press conference with Congresswoman Debbie Dingell fighting back against the separation of families, and it all stemmed around: Well, I didn't understand there was supposed to have been a waiver. Well, everyone should know, many of the people we represent who are coming to our offices were not granted waivers. And we are talking about people who are married, who have legal access through the immigration, but for the Muslim ban, and are not able to reunify with their family members. I have two young children who can't see their father because of the Muslim ban. I have folks who had a green card, had access to the United States, but when this got implemented, because it was implemented in a way where there was no notice, no policy, no procedures, no structure in place for folks on the ground to understand what was going on, that is why we saw what we saw, the overwhelming call for action and people showing up to airports all across the country saying: No, not now, not ever. It is really important that we do it through action within the Congress, and I hope my colleagues understand this should be bipartisan support. This is religious discrimination. This is one of our core values as Americans. We are founded on religious freedom. And for us to allow, again, targeting of folks solely based on their faith, to me, repeats history. We have done it in the past; and it wasn't right then, and it isn't right now. And I think I can speak on behalf of Muslim Americans. They do not want to wait for an apology. Apology is not enough. They want action today. They know this is discriminatory. They know this is bias. They know this is targeting Muslims. And, yes, it is leading to, again, increased hate crimes towards Muslims in huge amounts across the country; and so it is critical that we act, that we don't sit silently by, because doing nothing is not an option anymore. So I urge the House leadership to bring this NO BAN Act forward to the floor as soon as possible. I really commend the incredible leadership of many of our colleagues, especially my good colleague from Indiana, Congressman Andre Carson, whom I lovingly call the dean of the Muslim Caucus. Yes, we are your neighbors; we are your advocates; we are your doctors, your teachers, and all of those things, and also your Members of Congress. [[Page H710]] And so, again, it is really critically important that we push back against this ban. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Carson). Mr. CARSON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank Congresswoman Tlaib for her leadership, for her friendship, for all that she does not for just her constituents, but for Muslims, non- Muslims, and Americans. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the NO BAN Act, which was a great opportunity for me to be a coauthor, and I urge Congress to swiftly pass this legislation. Madam Speaker, in the 3 years since President Trump implemented his Muslim ban, its dangerous impact is clearer than ever: Families remain torn apart, America is less respected around the world, and our country isn't any safer. But for this President and for all of those who crafted this ban, this policy was never about national security. Since his first day in office, he has worked to advance a dangerous white nationalist agenda, and the Muslim ban is its cornerstone. It is no surprise, then, that he may be planning to expand this ban to even more countries, many in Africa, which he has previously described in some of the most vulgar and offensive ways. As a Muslim and as a Black man, it pains me to witness this low moment in our country. It is not the only time America has shut its doors to people in need simply because of their race, ethnicity, and nationality; but, thankfully, we can make it the last time. Madam Speaker, that is why it is so important that we pass the NO BAN Act to end the Muslim ban and make sure history no longer repeats itself in this way. Our legislation has more than 200 cosponsors in the House and the endorsement of nearly 400 diverse civil rights, faith, national security, and community organizations. Americans of all backgrounds are behind this great bill and are demanding Congress to pass it, to take a bold stand against bigotry. So I am extremely pleased that the NO BAN Act is expected to be taken up by the Judiciary Committee next month. As my colleague, Congresswoman Tlaib said, and I want to reaffirm, Muslims are part of what makes this country great. {time} 2045 Muslims have been a part of this country since the inception of what we now know to be America. Ever since those West African slaves were brought here to America, Muslims have contributed to our country. Go to any major courtroom, and you will find a Muslim lawyer, maybe a judge. Go to any major hospital in this great country, and you will find a Muslim physician. There are Muslim engineers, Muslim scientists, Muslim educators, Muslim politicians. You have three in Congress. We will see more in the future, God willing. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues and all Americans who believe in equality for all people to support the NO BAN Act. Together, we will get it passed and begin a new chapter in our country's history. Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Indiana. I really appreciate the incredible public service that not only stems here but, as you all know, many of our servicemen and women who are of Muslim faith are serving our country every single day. Again, people need not try to separate us as not being part of this amazing country. The Muslim ban completely tears that down and comes from, again, a place of hate that we need to push back against. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), who I really honor and respect, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, my good colleague, one of the fighters within this Chamber every single day for communities of color and marginalized communities. Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her incredible leadership. It has been wonderful working with her not just here in this body and in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which I am proud to co-chair, but for years we have known each other and worked together. It is wonderful to have her here to talk about this issue and her leadership on this issue, really the kind of leadership that America needs to show by passing the NO BAN Act. Three years ago, I had just been elected to Congress, and it was within my first weeks here that Donald Trump issued his first Muslim ban. When that happened, I thought back to after 9/11--that is actually when I started becoming very involved in politics as an activist. We faced some similar situations of Muslims, Arab Americans, and others being targeted simply for their religion, their ethnicity, their place of origin. The good news is that I knew what to do, which is that I immediately rushed to the airport. That Muslim ban created irreparable harm on Muslim families, here at home, but also around the world. We had generals in our military testify that we desperately need to have our allies and that some of those allies are, in fact, Muslims who help us in other countries. When I heard the news and rushed to SeaTac Airport, I saw absolute chaos, chaos that was caused by an administration that put forward a Muslim ban with no preparation, no notification, no planning at all for the kind of harm, irreparable harm, that would be caused for American citizens, for lawful residents, and for international visitors. Today, families remain separated from their loved ones, American businesses, and research institutions. I have many of those research institutions in my district and many American businesses in my district that are not able to recruit the best minds from abroad. Our Nation's doors are closed to people seeking safety from violence, war, and persecution. But it wasn't just then. The chaos has not stopped. Earlier this month, up to 200 Iranian Americans--almost all the ones that we know of are U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, green- card holders--were unjustly detained at the U.S.-Canada border in my own State of Washington. In the days after the Muslim ban, I had introduced the Access to Counsel Act, an act that once again was so important as we watched these detentions of Iranian Americans, who, by the way, travel across the border regularly. In fact, some of them travel across the border so much that they have expedited processing. What that means is that you go through additional security screening so that you can get a card that you hold up at the northern border as you cross the border. You don't need anything else other than that expedited screening, that extra security screening in order to cross the border. But that day, we believe over 200 Iranian Americans were stopped at the border, U.S. citizens, legal green-card holders, simply because they were of Iranian descent. The Access to Counsel Act, which we hope to mark up and bring to the floor at the same time as the NO BAN Act, just says that if you were here as a U.S. citizen, a legal permanent resident, or have any legal status and you are put through this unjust secondary screening, that at least you can have access to counsel, not counsel paid for by the government, but just counsel provided either through your own pocket or through nonprofits that provide that service, because people are being deported in an expedited manner. In fact, that is what happened in Seattle 3 years ago when I rushed to the airport when the Muslim ban was first introduced. We actually were able to, at the airport, get a temporary injunction from a judge that allowed us to essentially go and stop a plane on the tarmac that was ready to take off with some people who should not have been deported. We were able to stop that plane from taking off, thanks to the courts and the incredible speed of attorneys and nonprofit organizations that came together and filed for a temporary injunction. That allowed us to stop the plane and to stop people from actually being deported. It is not right that we are seeing U.S. citizens detained by CBP for up to 9 hours without a chance to speak to a lawyer simply because they weren't born here, even though they are United States citizens. It is not right that students with visas have increasingly been rejected at our airports and deported without a [[Page H711]] chance to speak to a lawyer, when people have legal status in the United States. It is not right that they are subjected to a second loyalty test simply because of their religion or their place of birth or their ethnicity. Madam Speaker, I am one of only 14 immigrants in the United States Congress, out of 535 naturalized citizens, who have the great honor and privilege of being a United States citizen. I don't want us to think that we have separate loyalty tests that we have to go through. We have examples of that--the Japanese internment, 123,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry who were put into internment camps simply for being Japanese American. The reality is we need the NO BAN Act to repeal President Trump's Muslim ban and stop any future President from implementing future discriminatory bans. I am very grateful to my colleague, Congresswoman Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, for introducing and championing this critical bill to send an important message to our Muslim brothers and sisters here and abroad that America believes in religious liberty and that we remain committed to welcoming people regardless of their faith, regardless of the country in which they were born. In recent weeks, we have heard that an expanded Muslim ban may be coming from the Trump administration this week. Let me be very clear: Each iteration of these bans sends a terrible message to Muslims, to those who are targeted, that our foundational value of freedom of religion does not apply to them. An expanded Muslim ban will only worsen our relationships with countries around the world, and it will not make our country safer. It will harm refugees. It will isolate us from our allies. It will give extremists propaganda for recruitment. It will be a different Muslim ban pushed by the same xenophobic administration, and it will have the same negative ramifications as past versions of the Muslim ban. Madam Speaker, I just had the opportunity to come back from a codel to Sudan with a number of our Members, Republican and Democrat. This is a country that is transitioning from a 30-year dictatorship to a democracy, a civilian-led government. That was powered by a people's revolution in the streets that inspired us here in the United States and around the world, people who sat and peacefully protested a brutal dictatorship. Over 200 people were shot and killed in those peaceful protests on June 3. Madam Speaker, Sudan has been supposedly added to this next round of countries that may be added to the Muslim ban. The people of Sudan said to us, Republican and Democratic Representatives of the United States Government: ``Doesn't America believe in democracy, in transition?'' Why would Sudan, with a people's revolution that led to a democratic government through the overthrow of a dictator who has been in power for the last 30 years, why would Sudan be on a list of countries that have these restrictions and be part of this ban? That sends the totally wrong message. As the vice chair of the Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, I will do everything in my power to resist the Muslim ban and demand liberty and justice for all, without any caveats. We must pass the NO BAN Act to end not just the Muslim ban but other anti-immigrant policies pushed by this administration. Most importantly, we must pass the NO BAN Act to remind ourselves again of who we are as a country, a country that has welcomed people from all over the world, including myself. I came here as a 16-year-old with nothing in my pockets, by myself, and to now be standing here in the United States Congress, my responsibility--our responsibility as a body is to preserve those foundational values of freedom and justice and religious tolerance. Madam Speaker, I look forward to passing the NO BAN Act. I thank Representative Tlaib for her friendship, for her leadership, and for all that she does to advance justice. On behalf of the Progressive Caucus, 100-members strong, we are so glad to have her in it. Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman. Her incredible leadership and mentorship are so inspiring but also completely fuels my commitment to be centered around social justice and equality. Madam Speaker, I wanted to make sure that we talk about the fact that because of the Muslim ban and some of the kind of hate agenda policies that we see coming out of the administration, it all has resulted in an increase of hate crimes that still is underreported and has not, I think, truly, under this administration, been documented by the FBI. Even when the current President just called for a total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States, just days after that report, hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs nationwide spiked up 23 percent. As we hear about the various kinds of hate crimes, we get some of these complaints and incidents being reported to even our offices. I wanted to make sure that we talk about the fact that the FBI, when it released its report this past year, that Muslim advocates in their statement--which is very accurate, based on what we hear of our community members at home--said that, yet again, the FBI annual statistics on hate crimes show us that the worrying numbers of Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, and Latinos being victimized by hate crimes are not being reported, or the data does not reflect that. It is not a complete, accurate picture of the epidemic of hate that continues to threaten the safety of so many Americans across the country. Last year, an armed man drove a truck into a convenience store in Louisiana because he suspected the owners were Muslims. Also in March last year, a man deliberately tried to drive his car into a Muslim family in a parking lot in California and managed to strike the father twice. Both are clear examples of hate crimes. Neither of those were included in the FBI's data on hate crimes. Madam Speaker, it is completely unacceptable. As we push for the NO BAN Act, I also want to try to encourage my colleagues to try to have hearings and discuss the importance of accurate data around hate crimes increasing across the country. That is why we have to pass the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act to improve the hate crime reporting data collection. {time} 2100 Many of the organizations that support the NO BAN Act also want to see a much better reflection of the data being reported by the FBI around hate crime. The only way we are able to promote or push back against these forms of hate that lead to violence, and even death, for so many folks that are impacted by these forms of racist policies and hateful agenda policies, is to be able to document and to push back against it. So I really appreciate a number of my colleagues, over 200 Members that support the NO BAN Act, and I look forward to finally being able to vote for it on the floor. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President. ____________________
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