Real ID Act of 2005

REAL ID ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - February 09, 2005)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, in December, the President signed into law legislation intended to respond to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Unfortunately, the legislation that was enacted failed to include several key provisions critical to addressing vulnerabilities found in both the 9/11 Commission Report and of the 9/11 staff report on terrorist travel. To that end, on January 26th of this year, I introduced H.R. 418, the REAL ID Act. The bill, which now has 139 cosponsors, encompasses four of the most important border and document security provisions that the House overwhelmingly approved as a part of H.R. 10 last year.

The goal of the REAL ID Act is straightforward. It seeks to prevent another 9/11-type terrorist attack by disrupting terrorist travel. The 9/11 Commission terrorist travel report stated that "Abuse of the immigration system and the lack of interior enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activities."

The report further states that "Members of al Qaeda clearly valued freedom of movement as critical to their ability to plan and carry out the attacks prior to September 11th."

Finally, the report observed, "If terrorist travel options are reduced, they may be forced to rely on means of interaction which can be more easily monitored and to resort to travel documents that are more easily detectable."

The REAL ID Act contains four provisions aimed at disrupting terrorist travel. First, the legislation does not, does not, try to set States' policy for those who may or may not drive a car, but it does address the use of a driver's license as a form of identification to a Federal official such as an airport screener at a domestic airport.

American citizens have the right to know who is in their country, that the people are who they say they are, and that the name on the driver's license is the real holder's name, not some alias.

Second, this legislation will tighten our asylum system, which has been abused by terrorists. The 9/11 Commission staff report on terrorist travel states that "Once the terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here." Their primary method was immigration fraud.

Irresponsible judges have made asylum laws vulnerable to fraud and abuse. We will end judge-imposed presumptions that benefit suspected terrorists in order to stop providing a safe haven to some of the worst people on Earth. The REAL ID Act will reduce the opportunity for immigration fraud so that we can protect honest asylum seekers and stop rewarding the terrorists and criminals who falsely claim persecution.

Liberal activist judges in the Ninth Circuit have been overturning clearly established precedent and are preventing immigration judges from denying bogus asylum applications by aliens who are clearly lying. If criminal juries can sentence a defendant to life imprisonment or execution based on adverse credibility determinations, certainly an immigration judge can deny an alien asylum on this basis. It is one of the foundations of our system of jurisprudence that juries and trial judges should be able to decide cases on the basis of credibility or lack of credibility of witnesses. This bill will again allow immigration judges to deny asylum claims based on the lack of credibility.

The bill also overturns an even more disturbing Ninth Circuit precedent that has made it easier for terrorists to receive asylum. The circuit has actually held that an alien can receive asylum on the basis that his or her government believes that the alien is a terrorist.

Third, the REAL ID Act will waive Federal laws to the extent necessary to complete gaps in the San Diego border security fence which is still stymied 8 years after congressional authorization. Neither the public safety nor the environment are benefiting from the current stalemate.

Finally, the REAL ID Act contains a common-sense provision that helps protect Americans from terrorists who have infiltrated the United States. Currently, certain terrorism-related grounds of inadmissibility to our country are not also grounds for deportation of aliens already here. The REAL ID Act makes aliens deportable from the United States for terrorism-related offenses to the same extent they would be inadmissible to the United States to begin with. The act provides that any alien who knowingly provides funds or other material support to a terrorist organization will be subject to immigration consequences.

The REAL ID Act will make America a safer place. It is even endorsed by the 9/11 Families for a Secure America, an association of family members of 9/11 victims.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Chairman, several speakers on the other side said that if this bill was law at the time of 9/11, it would not have made any difference on what ID the terrorists used to get on the planes. That is flat out wrong.

What the bill say is that anyone who is admitted to this country on a temporary visa will have their driver's license expire as to the date of their visa.

Now, Mohammed Atta, who is the ring leader of 9/11 murderers, entered the United States on a 6-month visa. That visa expired on July 9, 2001. He got a driver's license from the State of Florida on May 5, 2001. That was a 6-year driver's license. Had this bill been in effect at the time, that driver's license would have expired on July 9, and he would not have been able to use that driver's license to get on a plane because it was an expired ID. Read the bill.

Secondly, relative to the asylum issue, what this bill does is two things. First of all, it says the burden of proof is on the applicant for asylum to prove that they qualify. What is wrong with that? The burden of proof is on anybody who is the plaintiff or an applicant in any type of proceeding. They have got to prove that they are entitled to the relief that they are requesting, and I will just read from page 3 of the bill.

In General. The burden of proof is on the applicant to establish that the applicant is a refugee, within the meaning of the law. To establish that the applicant is a refugee, the applicant must establish that race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group or political opinion was or will be the central reason for persecuting the applicant.

So nobody, nobody who falls under that definition will be denied asylum under this bill.

Secondly, it says that in sustaining the burden, it allows the trier of fact, the immigration judge in this case, to determine the credibility of the witnesses. Now, the trier of the fact, whether it is a judge or a jury in any other legal proceeding, bases determinations on the credibility of the witnesses as to what verdict is reached. Without this bill, a person can come before an immigration judge, be determined by that judge that they are lying through their teeth, and still get asylum. That is just flat out wrong, and it is a distortion of the type of jurisprudence that we have had where court proceedings are supposed to determine exactly what the truth is.

There is no one who is lying through their teeth that should be able to get relief from the courts, and I would just point out that this bill would give immigration judges the tool to get at the Blind Sheik who wanted to blow up landmarks in New York, the man who plotted and executed the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, the man who shot up the entrance to the CIA headquarters in northern Virginia, and the man who shot up the El Al counter at Los Angeles International Airport. Every one of these non-9/11 terrorists who tried to kill or did kill honest, law-abiding Americans was an asylum applicant. We ought to give our judges the opportunity to tell these people no and to pass the bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov