National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, this is an important step towards the enactment of the NO BAN Act, which would prevent overreach in a President's authority to suspend the entry of noncitizens into the United States under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

As a candidate for President, Donald Trump promised to ban ``all Muslims'' from entering the U.S., and he suggested without any evidence that it would somehow make our country safer.

Immediately after his election and swearing in, he tried to deliver on that promise by using section 212(f), claiming the admission of individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries would be detrimental to the U.S. interests.

In court, the Trump administration claimed the ban was necessary to keep our country safe from terrorists. And yet, a bipartisan coalition of former national security officials strongly rebuked those claims.

In addition to this ban, President Trump also relied on section 212(f) to circumvent clear statutory requirements related to asylum. Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act specifically allows individuals to apply for asylum ``whether or not they arrive at a designated port of arrival.''

The law could not be clearer. But apparently unhappy with it, the President invoked section 212(f) to categorically deny asylum to those who cross the border between ports of entry rather than seeking to amend the law by working with Congress.

This was an attempt to rewrite our Nation's immigration laws in direct violation of the constitutional separation of powers. The power to write the law is ours, not the President's.

Fortunately, this ban has now been reversed by President Biden, but this bill is still important. It is important to take action to prevent any future President from trying to usurp the legislative power of the Congress.

I thank Representative Chu for her persistence in pursuing this bill, and I think it is important to note that the President, if this bill passes, retains ample authority to act in the national interests of the United States to protect our security.

The bill allows the President to suspend the entry of individuals or class of individuals if he determines that they would undermine the security of the United States.

To be clear, under the current bill, if the President determines there is a national security issue related to a particular country that is so significant that it could only be addressed by suspending the admission of all nationals of that country, the President could still do so.

It is important that we also address the issue of children at the border. This bill isn't about children at the border.

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Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, we can do more than one thing at once. We need to make sure that the law is adhered to by the President. We also need to deal with the issue of unaccompanied children at the border and deal with the crisis in Central America that is causing it.

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