Tina Smith: “I rise to commend Senator Hatch and the other members of the conference committee for incorporating what originated in…”

“I rise to commend Senator Hatch and the other members of the conference committee for incorporating what originated in this Congress as my bill, S. 270, the Alien Terrorist Removal Act of 1995, into the conference report on S. 735, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. I also want to thank Senator Specter again for the opportunity to testify before his Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism last summer regarding my alien terrorist removal bill. My bill--now the alien terrorist removal section of the conference report on S. 735--essentially embodies the Smith-Simpson amendment that the Senate passed unanimously as part of the crime bill in the last Congress. Unfortunately, certain House members of the conference committee on the 1994 crime bill insisted on the deletion of the Smith-Simpson amendment from that legislation. After I introduced S. 270 early in the first session of this Congress, the Clinton administration proposed its own substantially identical version of my bill as part of its omnibus antiterrorism legislation. Then, in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, Senators Dole and Hatch introduced S. 735, which incorporated the substance of my bill, S. 270. S. 735, of course, passed the Senate by a vote of 91 to 8 last June. Unfortunately, when S. 735 reached the House, the alien terrorist removal provisions of the Senate-passed bill were removed from the legislation.”