No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENTZ. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 980, I call up the bill (H.R. 6679) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act with respect to aliens who carried out, participated in, planned, financed, supported, or otherwise facilitated the attacks against Israel, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. BENTZ. 6679.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas initiated its brutal, unprovoked terrorist attack on Israel, the deadliest terrorist attack since the State of Israel was formed. There is no place in the United States for people who would commit such acts.

H.R. 6679, the No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act ensures that aliens who carried out, participated in, planned, financed, provided material support to, or otherwise facilitated the attacks on the Israeli people that started on October 7 are inadmissible to and removable from the United States.

It also makes such aliens ineligible for any immigration relief.

Legislation like this is increasingly important because we have an executive who has implemented policies specifically designed to allow bad actors in the United States and to let them stay here.

The Biden administration's policies have thrown every facet of our immigration system into chaos. Since President Biden took office, more than 7 million illegal aliens have been encountered on our southwest border. We are on track to reach 12 million by the end of President Biden's term.

More than 3.3 million have been deliberately released into the United States. Another more than 1.7 million known got-aways successfully evaded Border Patrol agents to enter the country.

Thanks to the Biden administration's open-border policies, the immigration court backlog has ballooned to over 2.5 million cases. In addition, arrests of criminal aliens have dropped exponentially.

What does all of this mean? Illegal aliens do not face swift immigration consequences.

Open-border policies present grave national security risks for our country and the world.

The FBI Director warned the Judiciary Committee that the open border constitutes a massive security threat.

Post-October 7, Germany, Belgium, and France have already seen lone- wolf terrorist attacks inspired by the Hamas attack on Israel.

Foreign nationals exploit U.S. immigration laws and policy to do us harm.

We learned that lesson on September 11, 2001.

Since October 7, here in the United States, at least one foreign national has already been arrested for plotting an attack against Houston's Jewish community--a Jordanian national who had overstayed his visa several years ago, but then applied for asylum and was issued a work authorization by the Biden administration.

Just this week, we learned that last March, the Biden administration released an Al-Shabaab terrorist into the United States.

It is not farfetched to think that October 7 terrorists would try to come here. It is imperative that Congress ensures that such bad actors will find no refuge in the United States.

H.R. 6679 does just that.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. BENTZ. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers.

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Mr. BENTZ. Mr. Speaker, many of my Democrat colleagues joined with us during the Judiciary Committee markup to report H.R. 6679 favorably.

I hope many more Democrats join with Republicans today to send a message that if you engage in terrorist attacks against our Israeli friends, you are not welcome here.

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