Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 413

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I want to read here, briefly, from the law of the United States of America. This is the existing law; I am not trying to pass a law today. And it says: section 212(a)3(B), subsection--I am not going to read the whole number. The law of the United States Immigration and Nationality Act mandates that you are ineligible to enter into the United States if you endorse or espouse terrorist activity or persuade others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.

What that basically means is, if you are a supporter of a terrorist group or you encourage others to support the actions of a terrorist group--a designated terrorist group--the statute defines what that is, you are not supposed to get a visa.

And so it is reasonable to conclude that if you are already in the country--understand what I am talking about, I am not talking about American citizens; I am talking about someone who is a foreign national and that person is in the United States on a visa and that person is out there defending or encouraging others to defend and take the side of a terrorist organization, like, for example, Hamas or maybe Hezbollah or somebody else--if they are not supposed to have a visa to come into the country, once they are already here, if they do that, they should lose that visa. That is applying existing law.

And so what I am going to come here on the floor and try to do today is pass something that I, frankly, thought was common sense, doesn't go any further than this, that basically urges--it is not even a new law. It is in the resolution. It basically says the Senate is asking the Biden administration, if they come across anyone who is here--a foreign national on a visa who supports Hamas--that that person's visa should be canceled, and they should be removed from the country through the proceedings involving removal.

That is what this resolution does. It, obviously, does things like condemns anti-Semitism and condemns the horrible attack from Hamas. But all it basically says is if you are a foreign national in the United States, you are here on a visa as a visitor and you support Hamas or you encourage others to support Hamas, you should lose your visa and you should be gone. That is what I hope to be able to do here today.

Res. 413, which is at the desk; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. RUBIO. If I may respond for a moment. I understand my colleague has to go. I know it is late and other things are going on. He is welcome to stay, obviously.

There were a couple of mentions about how I characterized the resolution. I will just read from the resolution:

Resolved, That the Senate [1] calls on the President of the United States to enforce existing law to revoke visas and initiate deportation proceedings for any foreign national who has endorsed or espoused the terrorist activities of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad--

People whose rocket yesterday hit a hospital in Gaza and killed innocent people-- Hezbollah, or other Foreign Terrorist Organizations--

Which is a term that is defined by the State Department who issues a list of who those are-- That participated in terrorist attacks against Israel and United States citizens before, on, or after October 7, 2023.

Yes, we have a First Amendment right in this country to free speech, but everyone acknowledges there are limits to it. For example, you do not have a First Amendment right to call on people to overthrow the government of the United States. You don't have a First Amendment right to do that. You don't have a First Amendment right to incite people to violence. And there is no First Amendment right to a visa. I am not talking about U.S. citizens.

And, by the way, to be abundantly clear, this is very specifically written to talk about people who have endorsed or espoused the terrorist activities of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihads. This is not about people who support a two-state solution. This is not about people who are of Palestinian descent. It has nothing to do with any of them. People have every right to espouse those views. And I may disagree with them, but they have a right to do that.

What no one has a right to do, especially a visitor--not an American--a visitor to the United States granted a visa for which there is no constitutional right--that we are going to allow visitors into the country the law says they are not even allowed to be in, but now they are here. They got in because, obviously, nobody goes into their interview and says: I am a Hamas supporter, by the way, in case you are wondering. So they let them in the country. Or maybe they became a Hamas supporter while they are here. But they are here as visitors on a visa, espousing, defending, and supporting a terrorist organization that just committed a horrible slaughter, but they have been doing it for a long time--not at this scale and scope like we saw in one day.

This is not about the First Amendment. This is about people that are actively calling for the support of a terrorist organization that, if they could, they would slaughter Americans. If they have the capability to conduct an attack like that in the United States, they would. There is no constitutional right to that. And there is no constitutional right to a visa to remain in this country.

That is what I am talking about. That is what all this is about. It goes on, obviously, to condemn the attack and all the other things, which I think would not be controversial. But that is specifically what this is about.

The law is very clear. You are not allowed--it just makes all the sense in the world. Why would any country in the world say: We are going to give out visas to people who support terrorism? They wouldn't, and our law doesn't.

But now that they are here, somehow, they are immune to the application of the law? Now that visa is somehow a protected document? A visa is just like if we have to get a visa to go to another country. It is a country saying: We will allow you in as a visitor for a temporary period of time.

But there are all kinds of things that can get your visa canceled. There are all kinds of things that can get your visa canceled, like if you are here to do a certain kind of job and you are not doing that job, you are in default of the visa.

There are all kinds of things that, depending on the visa you are on, can get your visa canceled. Shouldn't one of them be espousing support for terrorism? Shouldn't that be one of the criteria we use? We can go back and forth. We can talk about all these other concepts. I promise you that all across America--I don't have to take a poll. If you went up to the average person and asked them: Let me ask you a question. If someone is a visitor to this country, say they are here on a tourist visa or student visa or here on a visa as a visiting professor. They are here on a visa. And that person is out there supporting and encouraging others to support a terrorist organization that hates America, hates our values, but more importantly, that carries out violence; that espouses violence as their primary tool for activism--if you went and told somebody: Should we kick people out of this country-- not Americans--who are foreign nationals who are here on temporary visas and are out there supporting terrorism inside our country? I guarantee you, the overwhelming majority of Americans would say, absolutely--absolutely, we should. I have had Democratic colleagues come up to me and say that today.

All this resolution does is--it doesn't even force the administration to do it. It just calls on them to do it. So I honestly don't understand the objection. I don't understand the rationale behind the objection. I hope we can maybe vote on it one day. Maybe we can get a vote on this, and that way everybody could be on the record.

We shouldn't have foreign nationals in our country that support Hamas or Hezbollah or any of these other groups.

I specifically tailored the language of this resolution to stick to the law and nothing more. I do not believe anybody should be out there committing acts of violence against people because of their ethnic heritage, because of their religion.

I tell this to people all the time. Do people realize, for example, that in the Israeli Army right now, there are Israeli Arabs who will be called to go into Gaza and fight in the war? There are Israeli Arabs who will fight for Israel because they are against terrorism. Do they realize in the Armed Forces of the United States, there are men and women who are Muslims, followers of Islam who have fought for the freedom of this country? This is not a Nation where your value as a person or status of American is determined by your religion or ethnic background. I reject that categorically.

We are heartbroken, for example, by a story that some deranged person knocks on a door and murders a little boy the other day screaming something about Muslim. That is a crime. I am glad he was arrested. He should go to jail. Anyone who does that should go to jail. That is the kind of violence that terrorists do.

No one is defending or talking about anything like that. What I am saying is common sense. You are a visitor. You are not even an American. You are a foreign national. You are here because we gave you a visa to be here temporarily, and now you are out there defending and supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization. You need to go. That is what this resolution asks the administration to do.

I hope we can get a vote on the Senate so at least everyone will know where everybody stands.

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