Enhancing Overseas Traveler Vetting Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4403) to authorize the development of open-source software based on certain systems of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State to facilitate the vetting of travelers against terrorist watchlists and law enforcement databases, enhance border management, and improve targeting and analysis, and for other purposes, as amended.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 4403

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Enhancing Overseas Traveler Vetting Act''. SEC. 2. OPEN-SOURCE SCREENING SOFTWARE.

(a) In General.--Subject to subsection (c), the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State--

(1) are authorized to develop open-source software based on U.S. Customs and Border Protection's global travel targeting and analysis systems and the Department of State's watchlisting, identification, and screening systems in order to facilitate the vetting of travelers against terrorist watchlists and law enforcement databases, enhance border management, and improve targeting and analysis; and

(2) may make such software and any related technical assistance or training available to foreign governments or multilateral organizations for such purposes.

(b) Report to Congress.--Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of State shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a plan to implement subsection (a).

(c) Provision of Software and Congressional Notification.-- Not later than 15 days before the open-source software described in subsection (a) is made available to foreign governments or multilateral organizations pursuant to such subsection, the Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of State, with the concurrence of the Director of National Intelligence, shall--

(1) certify to the appropriate congressional committees that such availability is in the national security interests of the United States; and

(2) provide to such committees information on how such software or any related technical assistance or training will be made available.

(d) Rule of Construction.--The authority provided under this section shall be exercised in accordance with applicable provisions of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.), the Export Administration Regulations, or any other similar provision of law.

(e) Prohibition on Additional Funding.--No additional funds are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section.

(f) Definitions.--In this section:

(1) Appropriate congressional committees.--The term ``appropriate congressional committees'' means--

(A) in the House of Representatives--

(i) the Committee on Homeland Security; and

(ii) the Committee on Foreign Affairs; and

(B) in the Senate--

(i) the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and

(ii) the Committee on Foreign Relations.

(2) Export administration regulations.--The term ``Export Administration Regulations'' means--

(A) the Export Administration Regulations as maintained and amended under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) and codified in subchapter C of chapter VII of title 15, Code of Federal Regulations; or

(B) any successor regulations.

I just want to begin by thanking our colleague, Mr. Hurd from Texas, for his work here on behalf of the safety and security of the American people. He is a former CIA undercover officer. As a result of that, I think he had some unique insights here in moving this legislation. The name of this bill is Enhancing Overseas Traveler Vetting Act.

I would also like to thank one other Member, and that is the Homeland Security chairman, Mr. McCaul. He is also on the committee that Mr. Sherman and I serve on, but I thank him for his leadership on the bipartisan Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel. That task force made recommendations, with the help of Mr. Hurd, and it led to the introduction of this important piece of legislation. It was passed out of the committee I chair, the Foreign Affairs Committee, back in February. I also want to recognize Mr. Eliot Engel and Mr. Sherman for their assistance and support on this as well.

I think the reason this has such resonance with the Members in the House is because the global threat of terrorism has never been as high as it is today. In just the last 12 months, we have seen terrorists strike in my home State of California; we have seen it in France, Belgium, Turkey, India, Tunisia--where I just was a few days ago--the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Iraq. We were up in Erbil and Baghdad.

And I have got to tell you, this is a situation that is compounding. No country is immune. This radical ideology that is now on the Internet--a virtual caliphate on the Internet, we should call it--knows no boundaries. It is pulling individuals from all over the globe. It is radicalizing them and, increasingly, doing it without them even having to leave their neighborhood.

I just returned, as I mentioned, from Iraq, Tunisia, and Jordan, and I heard firsthand there about the foreign fighter threat. You have got 35,000 foreigners right now, and 3,600 of them were from Europe. They are actually from a total of 120 countries. They have traveled to the Middle East to join ISIS. Many of these fighters are now looking to return to their homes back in Brussels, back in Paris and the capitals of Europe--even here in the United States.

Bazi was the name of a young girl who testified before our committee. Mr. Sherman and I remember some of the things she told us. She was taken captive by an American who had been recruited over the Internet to join ISIS. She became his concubine, and he felt compelled to tell her this was part of his ideology. He had converted to this. As a result of her being an apostate, she had to go through what other Yazidis and Christians and other faiths had to go through, which was to submit to him and to the will of his particular code.

Eventually, she got loose. She got free of him and told us that tale of how, ultimately, she lost every male in the village--all her brothers--and how her sisters are now concubines. Many of them were foreign fighters, and that is why information sharing between countries is more critical now than ever, because this thing is everywhere now.

The bipartisan task force's report highlighted the lack of any comprehensive global database of foreign fighters and suspected terrorists. In its absence, the U.S. and other countries rely on a patchwork system for exchanging extremist identities, which is weak and increases the odds that foreign fighters and suspected terrorists will be able to cross borders undetected.

So this bill, thanks to Mr. Hurd's expertise, will authorize the Secretaries of the Department of State and Homeland Security to develop open-source software platforms to vet travelers against terrorist watch lists and against law enforcement databases. It permits the open-source software to be shared with foreign governments and multilateral organizations for police purposes, like INTERPOL.

This bill reflects the recommendations made by, as I said, our colleagues on the task force, which we have worked together on. I thank Mr. Hurd and Chairman McCaul for their leadership working to make our Nation safer against terrorist threats.
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Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would just say this for the Members. The 9/11 Commission Report was pretty prescient on this point. It said: ``The U.S. Government cannot meet its own obligations to the American people to prevent the entry of terrorists without a major effort to collaborate with other governments.''

The report said further: ``We should do more to exchange terrorist information with trusted allies and raise U.S. and global borders security standards for travel and border crossing, over the medium and long term, through extensive international cooperation.''

This is what the bill does. And, frankly, the Department of State here and the Department of Homeland Security, giving them this authorization to develop this open-source software, to vet those travelers against terrorist watch lists and against those law enforcement databases, is absolutely vital.

I will just mention that the so-called Islamic State--we call it Daesh or ISIS--has already threatened to send hundreds of its European fighters back to the continent to carry out attacks like those attacks that they have already carried out in Paris and Brussels and, frankly, attacks like the one they carried out in San Bernardino, California. So I think this measure really deserves our unanimous support.

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