The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“TRAVEL BAN” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S462-S464 on Jan. 30, 2017.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRAVEL BAN
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon, like much of America, angry and perturbed but in resolute opposition to the President's Executive order issued on Friday. This Executive order was mean-spirited and un-American. It made us less secure. It put our troops in the field at increased risk. It was implemented in a way that caused chaos and confusion across the country. It must be reversed immediately. Let me give three reasons why.
First, it ought to be reversed because it will not make us safer, as the President argues. It will make us less safe.
The President's Executive order targeted seven Muslim-majority countries. Not one terrorist attack has been perpetrated on U.S. soil by a refugee from one of these countries--not one. Moreover, it could alienate and inflame the communities we need most in the fight against terrorism.
As my friend Republican Senator John McCain noted, it could increase the small number of lone wolves, which pose the greatest threat of terrorism. Both the San Bernardino and Orlando attacks were done by lone wolves, American citizens importuned by the evil ISIS. This rule would have nothing to do with that.
As my friend John McCain has noted, it could increase the small number of lone wolves, which pose the greatest threat of terrorism. As both Senators McCain and Graham expressed yesterday, this order is a valuable propaganda tool for ISIS. We saw that happen today. They predicted it yesterday, McCain and Graham. It happened today. They want nothing more than to paint the United States as a country at war with all of Islam. This order feeds right into the perception ISIS and other extremists want to create. The bottom line is, the policy will make us less safe, not more safe.
Second, while there is no way to defend the order, it was poorly constructed and even more poorly executed. The order was signed into effect without the consultation of the Federal agencies that are responsible for enforcing it: the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, or the Department of State, and possibly others.
People across America saw utter chaos and confusion that resulted in our airports over the weekend. The people in charge of implementing it weren't even told about it. Folks were caught in detention at airports around the country, young children separated from their mothers, husbands from their wives, green card holders and legal residents being denied the right to see an attorney. Some folks were pressured into signing away their permanent legal status. We are looking into that right now.
It raises serious doubts about the competence--the basic competence--
of the new administration when such an important order is so poorly vetted and executed, just like some of their Cabinet nominations. Such a far-reaching and impactful Executive order should have gotten extreme vetting. Instead, it was rushed through without much thought or deliberation. I could not disagree more with the intention behind the order, but the haphazard and completely incompetent way in which it was implemented made matters even worse.
Third, and most important of all, the order should be reversed because it is un-American. We are a nation founded by the descendants of asylum seekers, a nation that has been constantly invigorated, replenished, and driven forward by immigrants, many millions of whom came under duress, seeking a new birth of freedom in America. The ability to find refuge from persecution, whether based on one's religion or race or political views, goes to the very foundation of the country, starting with the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. The Executive order is antithetical to everything we are about.
President Trump seems to want people to believe that all immigrants are terrorists or criminals, but when you meet immigrants, you see they are not the face of terrorism; they are families just like ours. Yesterday I met two. They were at my office. Mr. Hameed, an Iraqi refugee, worked at a local university department in English literature and, because he loved our country and what we were trying to do, he chose to use his language skills to be a translator for American soldiers in Iraq. He worked as a translator for the U.S. Army in Iraq for 10 years. He endured death threats and harassment to himself and to his family because he was helping us and our soldiers. So he began the refugee process about 2 years ago.
He arrived on January 5. If Donald Trump had been inaugurated on January 1 and enacted his order 6 weeks sooner, Mr. Hameed would have had to stay in Iraq. His life would have been threatened for cooperating with our military.
What kind of message does this send to the untold millions of people just like Mr. Hameed throughout the Muslim world who today will be less likely to work for and with our great country?
Then I met the Elias family. They were a different type. They have four children. They arrived here a month ago. Their journey to the United States began 5 years ago from war-torn Syria. After surviving the brutal civil war, where suicide bombs had been blowing up in front of their house, they were finally reunited with their family in the Bronx. You see, the driving force that brought them here were two American citizens, their grandparents. Mr. and Mrs. Elias came in around 1970.
They are model Americans, the Eliases. I met them. I talked to them. I enjoyed talking to them. Mr. Elias started out as a tailor, a skill that is disappearing. We don't have too many tailors left in America. He is an entrepreneur, like so many immigrants, and he started a small business. He now refurbishes the interior of boats mainly on City Island over there in the Bronx. I have been there. It is a beautiful place.
Well, he wanted to bring his people, his kids and grandchildren, here because their lives were threatened. They came again a month ago. I met the little boy, a beautiful little boy, a red-headed Syrian refugee.
I said: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A policeman.
I asked the daughter: What do you want to be?
A doctor.
The Elias family and their young children are not a threat to America; they are the promise of America, the same types of people, Mr. President, as your ancestors and mine who came here seeking a better life and working so hard for it.
It is my guess, if President Trump met these refugees, Mr. Hameed and the Elias family, he wouldn't be so hard-hearted.
Our country has a grand and proud tradition of welcoming families like these with open arms. America is at her best when she is a safe harbor in a world of stormy seas.
I urge my Republican colleagues to help us overturn this wrongheaded, counterproductive, dangerous, and un-American Executive order. So many of you know it is wrong. I understand party loyalty. I do. But what this order does is go against the grain that there are higher values at stake.
Eleven of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have expressed reservations already. I urge them and others to back up their words with action. Let's repeal the order, then sit down and thoughtfully and carefully construct a better way to keep our country safe from terrorism.
President Obama toughened up vetting. If there is more vetting that has to be done, we will be happy to look at it and work with you on it but not something like this.
At 5:15 today, I will be asking unanimous consent to call for a vote on a bill offered by my friend from California Senator Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, to overturn the order, and I hope our Republican colleagues will join us.
As proponents of this legislation, we believe it shows strength.
Proponents of the order say it shows strength, but it is not true; it is not true. Let me explain why. My middle name is Ellis; Charles Ellis Schumer. I was named after my uncle Ellis, who was named for Ellis Island. My daughter's middle name is Emma. We named her for the poet Emma Lazarus, whose timeless words adorn the base of the Statue of Liberty: ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.''
The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of our Nation. Around the world, people recognize it, that mighty beacon that I can see from my home in Brooklyn, and they know we are a nation whose might comes not only from our great military but from our morality, whose leadership--our country's leadership is demonstrated not by projecting a fear of outsiders but by inspiring them in a hope for a better life here in America. Our country is a country whose strength comes from its values, and among them is a commitment to be that golden door that Emma Lazarus spoke about, a shelter, a commitment to shelter the oppressed and the persecuted.
Just as we faced down and defeated the threat of communism with our values--a respect for the rule of law, for equality under the law, for free markets and free societies--we must face down the twin threats of terrorism and jihadism, not only with military strength, as important as that is, but also with our values: religious freedom, tolerance, decency.
Our greatest weapon will always be our values. That is what makes us strong. They are ``a new colossus,'' as Emma Lazarus called it over 100 years ago.
The only way we will lose the war against terrorism is if we lose ourselves and retreat from our values. Not only will this Executive order embolden and inspire those around the globe who wish to do us harm, it strikes against the very core of America, our values, our greatest strength. We are better than this. So I will fight with every fiber of my being until this Executive order is gone.
National Security Council
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on Friday, the President reshuffled the National Security Council to remove permanent postings for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence and installed a permanent seat for White House Political Adviser Steve Bannon. It is a disturbing and profound departure from past administrations.
On the most sensitive matters of national security, the President should be relying on the informed counsel of members of the military and intelligence agencies, not political advisers who made their careers promoting a White nationalist Web site.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the President's primary military adviser, and his voice, along with that of the Director of National Intelligence, are the only independent, apolitical voices. President Trump's move to strip them of their seats is baffling. It endangers our national security and is contrary to the spirit and intent of the National Security Act.
This morning, Gen. Michael Hayden--I can't think of a more respected general and intelligence leader. He has served bipartisanly, the Clinton, Bush, Obama administrations. He said that the move--and these are his words, not mine, General Hayden's--``puts ideology at the center over the professional kind of information that the DNI and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs bring to the party.''
That is a deeply disturbing thought. It reinforces this administration's preference to propagate its own reality, rather than grapple with the facts on the ground, and if that continues, America is going to have real trouble.
It is one thing when it comes to a dustup about the size of the inauguration crowd; it is an entirely different story when it is the most sensitive activities undertaken by our Nation's government.
Much like the Muslim ban, this decision was poorly thought out and ill-conceived. It has put a filter on the information going to the President and, like the Executive order, makes us less safe.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
____________________
