Ed Royce: “Let me begin by thanking Mr. Zeldin of New York for his work on H.R. 4314, the Counterterrorism Screening and Assistance…”

“Let me begin by thanking Mr. Zeldin of New York for his work on H.R. 4314, the Counterterrorism Screening and Assistance Act, as well as to thank the other members of the Committee on Homeland Security's bipartisan Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel. Under the leadership of Chairman McCaul and with the significant contributions of Mr. Katko of New York and the Foreign Affairs Committee, we unanimously approved this measure in January. Mr. Speaker, the reason we did goes back to a little bit of history. Al Qaeda planned the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan because they had the capacity to do so--to plan an attack there on the United States. Now, ISIS controls significant territory. They control that territory in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya. As long as terrorist groups maintain these safe havens abroad, where they can work on new forms of munitions, bombing, and go through trial runs on how they carry out an attack, as a consequence, we are under a threat here on our homeland, much like the situation prior to 9/11. {time} 1645 The perpetrators of the horrific attack that we all saw on that coverage out of Paris that killed 130--those killed were European nationals. Those who did those murders had trained to fight in Syria. They had traveled by train. They returned to Europe through Greece and through Turkey.…”