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Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 237) to authorize the revocation or denial of passports and passport cards to individuals affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations, and for other purposes, as amended.
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Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
International travel by terrorist recruits poses a deadly and growing threat. It is estimated that ISIS alone has drawn 20,000 foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq.
Extremist groups in Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere also draw foreigners into their deadly campaigns. These include thousands of westerners, primarily from Europe, but also a couple of hundred people from the United States so far.
The threats are as real as today's headlines: British officials today arrested a man for plotting attacks on U.S. military personnel there in Britain and for planning to travel to Syria to join ISIS, along with his uncle.
If they are successful in traveling, these foreign fighters receive terrorist training and they hone their skills
there on the battlefield. Some have even appeared as executioners in ISIS' gruesome propaganda videos. If they return home, hardened fighters come back more hateful, certainly more deadly.
The killing of four U.S. marines and one sailor in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last Thursday; the attempted attack in Garland, Texas, in May; and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing all demonstrate that the United States is not immune from lone wolf and small-scale attacks of the type that ISIS and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula continue to call for.
Surprisingly, the statutory authority to prohibit such travel in support of designated terrorist groups hasn't kept pace with the threat. I want to thank the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, Judge Ted Poe of Texas, for his work in introducing H.R. 237, the Foreign Terrorist Organization Passport Revocation Act, as a critical countermeasure.
This bipartisan and commonsense bill grants the Secretary of State the authority to refuse or revoke a passport to any individual whom the Secretary determines has helped a designated foreign terrorist organization in realizing its jihadist ambitions.
Such authority is not currently spelled out in statute, but depends on interpretation of Federal regulations, and this legislation will write it into permanent law.
Mr. Speaker, I would just note that the text before us today grants permissive authority to the Secretary and, thus, the discretion to avoid interfering with law enforcement or intelligence activities that might be compromised if such a revocation were mandatory.
While we, of course, expect that the Secretary of State will exercise this authority within the bounds of constitutional due process, the bill also requires a report to Congress whenever such authority is used to help ensure oversight and to provide transparency.
Individuals who actively support designated terrorist organizations must be stopped from traveling abroad to learn how to kill Americans and our allies. Spelling this out clearly in permanent law will help prevent misguided individuals from getting further radicalized abroad, which leads to terrorist attacks on the homeland.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) and his 10 bipartisan cosponsors for their work in bringing the bill forward, and this measure obviously deserves our support.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I will just quote the Bureau of Counterterrorism, Mr. Speaker. They say that the rate of foreign terrorist fighter travel to Syria exceeded the rate of foreign terrorist fighters that travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, or Somalia at any point in the last 20 years.
Individuals drawn to the conflict were diverse in their socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds, highlighting the need for comprehensive countermessaging and early engagement to dissuade vulnerable individuals from traveling to join the conflict.
The bill before us today, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 237, is a necessary addition to our national defense. It creates an important deterrent, and it reduces the ability of terrorists to travel.
I, again, thank the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Poe, and the ranking member, Mr. Keating of Massachusetts, and the bipartisan cosponsors of the bill before us today.
Mr. Speaker, I ask for support of the measure, and I yield back balance of my time.
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