John Katko: “I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas for yielding. Mr. Speaker, after having spent much of the last year…”

“I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas for yielding. Mr. Speaker, after having spent much of the last year heading a bipartisan task force with the author of this bill, Mr. Hurd, it became clear that we are not winning the fight to keep Americans from being recruited by terrorist groups. The majority of our citizens who have tried to go to join ISIS have succeeded in doing so. They were not stopped by law enforcement. And while authorities have worked hard and have disrupted serious plots, we have got to do more to shut down the foreign fighter pipeline. On the House Homeland Security Committee, we are constantly briefed about the new threat streams, the soaring number of terror investigations here at home, and the Americans being lured to fight in places like Syria alongside ISIS. We cannot simply listen to this information and sit on our hands. We need to act. I commend my colleague for this bill and for implementing one of our important task force recommendations. We need to conduct a top-to-bottom review of instances where Americans were recruited to fight with jihadist groups abroad, and we need to figure out where we could have done more to stop it. This is why I rise in strong support of H.R. 4402, the Foreign Fighter Review Act of 2016. This legislation will ensure that our government takes a hard look at how to better deter, detect, and disrupt terrorist travel, especially when it involves our own citizens.…”