Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment which would strike the section of the bill restricting the use of funds for building and modifying facilities in the United States to house prisoners presently at Guantanamo Bay. The argument for why we should strike this section is straightforward. The detainees at Guantanamo Bay must be brought to justice. Those who are guilty of terrorism need to be tried and punished in a swift and judicious manner. Any detainee who is innocent should, with equal speed and sincerity, be released. Two cases exemplify this argument and underline the importance of this amendment. The first is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the attack on the United States on 9/11. Since 2006, Mr. Mohammed has been detained at Guantanamo, where he has yet to be tried, convicted, or appropriately punished for his heinous actions. Justice for the victims, for the families who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania must be carried out. So far, this has not happened. At the same time, while they haven't managed to try and convict anyone at Guantanamo, more than 400 terrorists, including the 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, have been tried, convicted, and sentenced in the Federal courts in the United States without incident and in a manner befitting the American justice system. No convicted terrorist has ever escaped from a U.S. prison, and no prison has ever been compromised or been subject to an attack because of the dangerous persons being held within. The second case I want to mention is of Mr. Shaker Aamer, which came to my attention in a recent New York Times editorial or op-ed piece authored by a bipartisan group of British members of Parliament. In November 2001, Mr. Aamer, a British permanent resident, was doing charity work in Afghanistan when he was picked up by the Northern Alliance, sold to Americans for a bounty, and taken to Bagram prison before being moved to Guantanamo in February 2002. He was cleared for release by President Bush in 2007 and cleared again by President Obama in 2010. Six different U.S. agencies agreed, including the CIA, the FBI, the Departments of State and Defense, while Prime Minister David Cameron and the House of Commons unanimously have called for Mr. Aamer's immediate release and transfer to Britain. So far, this has not happened. Mr. Aamer has never been charged with anything and has twice been cleared for transfer. Every American agency that has looked at this says that he has not been a terrorist and did not fight against the United States. There is no reason for him to remain in this custodial purgatory; yet he remains a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay facility. As long as this provision remains in the bill, people like Mr. Aamer, guilty of nothing--not terrorists, not fighters against the United States--will be unjustly imprisoned, and people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who are guilty--probably, we think--of terrorism will not be tried. For too long, the terrible people in Guantanamo have avoided facing the consequences of answering to a U.S. court for their horrendous actions, while innocent detainees are denied recourse for continuing their detention. The United States must not keep people in prison indefinitely for no reason, with no trial. The opponents of this amendment must not share my faith in America's courts to deliver justice. For hundreds of years, our legal system has kept Americans safe by imprisoning dangerous individuals while protecting those who are innocent of any charges. Time and time again, Federal courts have successfully proven their ability to convict criminals and terrorists without violating the rights of due process. This amendment represents a return to our founding principles, that no person may be deprived of liberty without due process of law. Without this amendment, we will continue to hold terrorists and innocents alike, indefinitely and without charge, contrary to every tradition this country stands for. We must close this facility, try these people, release the innocent, and restore our national honor. I urge support of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. The continued repetition of untruths does not make them true. Not all these people were captured on the battlefield. Mr. Aamer, whom I referenced, for example, was picked up doing charity work in Afghanistan. He was picked up by a faction of the Northern Alliance, which then sold him for a bounty to the United States. He was not a fighter. He was not on the battlefield. He was a victim of a kidnapping by a foreign faction. Everyone who has looked at this--President Bush, President Obama, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the British Parliament--agrees on the facts with him; yet we hear that everybody was a fighter. No, they weren't. Some were; probably most were. We are told that military tribunals will try these people. Well, Mr. Aamer has been in Guantanamo for 9 years. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been in Guantanamo for 15 years. They can't get their act together. Every time they try to hold military tribunals, there is another legal objection. Federal courts have tried, convicted, and imprisoned 400 terrorists. We have to do justice. Keeping people in jail indefinitely because we repeat that they were caught on the battlefield, when some were not, hoping for a military tribunal that doesn't occur, is not American. It is un-American. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, we all obviously want to free Americans unjustly held by North Korea or Iran or anybody else. I suspect the reason that we don't spend a lot of time on the floor is because we all agree. There is nothing to debate. We obviously want them freed. I hope our government behind the scenes is doing whatever we can to do it; we should do whatever we can publicly, but that has nothing to do with Guantanamo. The fact of the matter is it isn't that the administration decided not to prosecute people by military tribunals. That is not the case. It is that every time the Bush administration or the Obama administration tried to prosecute--and they have continued to try--another legal obstacle comes up. They have never worked it out. Appeal after appeal has shut the process down. I should say judicial decision after judicial decision as a result of appeal after appeal has shut the process down because they haven't managed to find a military tribunal procedure that gives enough constitutional rights to pass judicial muster, but is short of a Federal article III court. That is why 400 terrorists have been convicted in article III Federal courts-- and no terrorists--let them be tried properly, and let the innocent be freed. We can't simply stand here and say they are all guilty. How do we know that? How do we know that every single one of them is guilty? We know that some are not. By what right do we hold those who are guilty of nothing forever? It is a blot on American justice; it is a blot on our country's representation, and we should stop it. I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I won't use it. I simply want to express my appreciation first to the ranking member for supporting the amendment, despite the very painful offset which he will have to deal with, which I won't have to deal with, except as a single Member of the House. I want to thank the chairman for not opposing this amendment. This amendment is a matter of life or death for a large number of people, and I urge my colleagues to adopt it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. When faced with a funding bill that fails to provide any new funding to support homeless veterans and is leaving victims of domestic violence and homeless families with no access to secure housing, we need to take action to support the most vulnerable among us. I hope that as we go forward, we can find a way to provide these funds so that kids, working families, and seniors are not out on the street.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, we can all agree that this amendment is necessary. We are talking about denying tens of thousands of families and seniors access to an efficient, cost-effective program that keeps families together and lowers the government's costs over the long term. Without this amendment, we will see a spike in homelessness, a spike in medical costs, and a spike in hungry children. I understand the point of order. I understand that the rules demand an offset for any funding increase in the bill. I also appreciate the chairman's efforts to support Section 8 and public housing. However, when funding levels are as restrictive as this bill provides across the board, it is impossible to offset such drastic underfunding without hurting other people in need. When faced with a funding bill----

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the funding levels provided in this bill are unrealistic and unsustainable and clearly demonstrate that our current budget process has failed. This bill reveals where the majority's priorities lie, and they clearly do not lie in serving the most basic function of government: to provide for the safety and well-being of its citizens. This bill makes major cuts to critical HUD programs. The public housing capital fund is slashed by $200 million, barely reaching its 1989 level, almost 30 years ago. This will cover less than half of the basic maintenance needs and does nothing to address the $25 billion in deferred projects. For the first time since 2007, this body will provide no new funding to provide housing and support to homeless veterans. The Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control program is cut by 32 percent, even as The Washington Post reported 2 months ago that in low-income West Baltimore neighborhoods, more than 3 percent of children under the age of 6 had dangerously high levels of lead in their blood, which we know leads to learning disabilities and can lead to lifelong dependency, not to mention lifelong dependency on the taxpayers. But perhaps most startling is the bill's failure to provide low- income seniors and hard-working families adequate access to affordable housing through HUD's Section 8 program. Rental assistance helps 2.1 million very-low-income households to rent modest homes in the private market at affordable costs. Households that use vouchers have an average income of $13,000 per year, well below the Federal poverty line, and nearly all include children, seniors, or people with disabilities. Only about one in four eligible low-income families receives Federal rental assistance. Long waiting lists remain in nearly every community, and these long waits are exacerbated by a lack of administrative funding for public housing agencies. Sequestration has only made this situation worse. As of June of last year, an estimated 100,000 fewer families were receiving assistance from Section 8 due to the sequestration cuts; 100,000 families cut off. These cuts have had a severe impact on communities at a time when the number of very-low-income renters with worst case housing needs remains 30 percent higher than it was before the Great Recession. Through the fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2015 appropriations bills, Congress began the work of reversing the deep cuts in assistance caused by sequestration, but nearly 67,000 vouchers have yet to be restored. My amendment would finally restore those lost vouchers by providing an additional $512 million to the voucher renewal account. This amendment mirrors the President's request and targets 30,000 vouchers to those families and individuals most in need of housing assistance: homeless families; veterans, including those not covered by the VASH program; victims of domestic violence; and Native Americans. The bill does include important and helpful language directing HUD to target vouchers to the vulnerable populations as they become available but provides no funds for HUD to do so. My amendment sets aside specific funding for these targeted vouchers to make sure the most vulnerable populations have access to safe, affordable housing. This additional funding will go a long way toward ensuring that every family that qualifies for rental assistance finds a home. However, at the funding levels for administrative fees in this legislation, it would be impossible for public housing agencies to hire and maintain enough staff to process and renew vouchers. We cannot continue to undermine our hard-working public housing agencies by failing to provide them enough money to function. My amendment would finally address the undercutting of public housing agencies by providing an additional $490 million to match the President's request. Mr. Chairman, this is the minimum we can do to meet the vital needs of our lowest-income citizens and of our veterans. I urge adoption of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, since 1992, the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS has provided a vital safety net. In the United States, 50,000 people become infected with HIV every year, and 1.2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. More than 500,000 of these individuals will need some form of housing assistance during the course of their illness, but 145,000 individuals have unmet housing needs. HOPWA combines housing support with additional services to help people living with HIV/AIDS and their families stay in stable, safe housing; manage their illness; and remain active in their communities. Housing interventions are critical in our continued fight against HIV/ AIDS, and research clearly shows that stable housing leads to better health outcomes. Providing stable housing to people living with HIV/AIDS reduces the risk of transmission to a partner by 96 percent; it reduces emergency room visits and expense to the public by 36 percent and hospitalizations by 57 percent. In other words, investing a modest amount in HOPWA today saves us millions, if not billions of Federal taxpayer dollars in the future. HOPWA is the only Federal housing program to provide cities and States with dedicated resources to address the housing crisis facing people living with HIV/AIDS, and the program traditionally enjoys strong bipartisan support. Congressional support for HOPWA is clear in this legislation. While nearly every other program in the bill has been slashed by millions of dollars and often funded at levels below the point of actually functioning, HOPWA saw a slight increase in funding during the committee's consideration of the bill. Some hail the bill's slim $332 million for HOPWA as a victory. I also applaud any additional funding for HOPWA, but I cannot call it a victory to fund this program below its 2010 funding level when wait lists for HOPWA services continue to grow and thousands of Americans die on the streets and in shelters because we refuse to provide a few extra million dollars to provide them with the care they need. I will not claim that my amendment completely solves that problem. The National AIDS Housing Coalition estimates that, in FY16, they will need $364 million to provide HOPWA services to those who need them and to fund vital administrative support to improve the program. To reach that goal, we would need to find $32 million somewhere in this bill to transfer to HOPWA, but the funding levels we are considering today are so abysmally low, it is nearly impossible to move that much money without gutting other important programs. What we do, at the very least, is pass my amendment to restore HOPWA to its FY10 funding level of $335 million, a scant $3 million increase. That funding level makes only a small dent in HOPWA's real need, but it will give hundreds more people and families access to lifesaving services. It is a very small step, but it is in the right direction, and I believe if we have the chance to save even one life, let alone hundreds, we have a duty to act. To protect those living with HIV/AIDS and to stay within the House rules, my amendment offsets this additional funding to cuts to HUD's information technology fund. I recognize the importance of providing HUD with phones and computers and understand the chairman and ranking member's concerns about additional cuts to this account, but nothing is more important than, quite simply, saving lives. We must pass this amendment and give those families battling HIV/AIDS a fighting chance. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment to strike section 528.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, this is really a continuation of our colloquy from the last amendment since they both seek to do the same thing. Let me just say a couple of things. Again, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that people in Guantanamo Bay have the same constitutional rights as people in Florida, New York, or Washington, so I do not seek to give people in Guantanamo Bay constitutional rights they do not already have. They have the constitutional rights. That was the Supreme Court decision, I think, in 2009 I think the decision was. They have the constitutional rights. Anyone under the jurisdiction and effective control of the United States has the constitutional rights, so that is not really in question. What is really in question is: Are we going to honor our obligations? Now, the gentleman says that some of these people are terrible people, that they are murderers. Some of them may be, and some of them are, but some of them may not be. They have not been tried. They ought to be tried. As the gentleman from Pennsylvania said, we have criticized the Chinese communists, and we have criticized many other nations for holding people in jail indefinitely, for not trying them and for not giving them any kind of due process. These people, like any other human beings, deserve some due process. Some of them, I am sure, have been terrorists. They ought to be condemned and put in jail forever. Some of them may not be. And some of them were captured on foreign battlefields and some were not. Some of them were simply victims of the Hatfields and the McCoys' feud between two tribes or clans in Afghanistan or wherever, and one clan said: Gee, the Americans are paying a $5,000 bounty, so why don't we tip them off to our enemy and tell them that they are a terrorist. Some of them were victims of that. The facts ought to come out. Some due process ought to be given. No one ought to be held in jail for life without a trial, without a hearing, and without some due process. That is what we stand for. And simply saying that Americans deserve due process but other people do not, A, it is wrong. Other people do not have constitutional rights, but if they are in the United States, they do. If they are in Guantanamo, they have constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has already said that. So the question here is: Are we going to bring them to a facility in the United States, a supermax facility? No one has escaped from them. It is cheaper. It saves the taxpayers a lot of money. Give them a military tribunal or a Federal trial and do what is right. That is what is at stake here. I will say one other thing. Our military has told us time and time again that the stain of Guantanamo, besides being a stain on our honor, is one of the greatest recruiting tools the terrorists have. They point to Guantanamo. They say: Look at those American hypocrites. They are persecuting Muslims. They are persecuting non-Americans. Well, they have a point. And other people think they have a point, and they get angry. They get radicalized, and they become terrorists against us. So why not, for the 120-odd people who are still at Guantanamo, the majority of whom have been judged not to pose a threat to this country by our own military authorities, do the right thing? Give them a trial. Throw them in jail for whatever lengthy period of time is indicated if they are guilty. And if they are not, then they ought to be released if they are not guilty of a crime, if they haven't been terrorists. We have to have some evidence. We can't simply point to someone and say, ``He is guilty of a crime. He is a terrorist,'' without some evidence to that fact. That is our tradition. Mr. Chairman, that is what this amendment calls for. I urge the adoption of the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, Mr. Chairman, even the Nazis who came ashore on Long Island that the gentleman referred to before were tried in the military tribunal. They weren't simply thrown in jail and held forever. They were tried in a military tribunal, condemned, and then sentenced to death. All this amendment says is we should do the same thing, that people who are in the custody and the jurisdiction of the United States already have constitutional rights. We are not giving them constitutional rights. The Supreme Court already said they have them. We are saying they should get a military tribunal or a civilian trial, whichever is chosen. This amendment doesn't deal with that. And they should be condemned or not. One more thing. The gentleman keeps saying that these people were enemies of the United States captured on the foreign battlefield. Some were and some were not.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. NADLER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NADLER. Does the gentleman not know what has been testified to repeatedly, that it will be a lot cheaper for the taxpayers' money to hold them in the United States than in Guantanamo?

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in strong support of this amendment to prevent bulk collection of data at the Department of Justice. Last month, this House spoke loud and clear that we oppose the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone metadata. Today, the Senate joined us in that judgment, and, together, we have reaffirmed our commitment to the Fourth Amendment and to protecting Americans from unconstitutional government surveillance. We learned earlier this year that long before the NSA program ban, the Drug Enforcement Administration engaged in its own bulk collection program that provided a model for the NSA to use nearly a decade later. This program included logs of virtually all telephone calls from the U.S. to as many as 116 countries, ostensibly linked to drug trafficking, all without a court order and without authorization from Congress. Mr. Chairman, enough is enough. Although the DOJ has since shut down this program, there is nothing preventing the Department from renewing it in secret without authorization, as it did before. This amendment would ensure that it remains dormant and that Americans' privacy remains secure. I thank Mr. Polis and the other cosponsors of the amendment, and I thank the gentleman from Texas for accepting this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have two amendments. The first strikes section 527; the second strikes section 528. I had to put them in as two separate amendments because only one amendment pends at a time, but they are really together. Sections 527 and 528, which my amendment would strike, restricts the President's authority to move Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States for trial. Mr. Chairman, simply put, it is time to punish Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. In GTMO, he has not been tried, convicted, or punished. Meanwhile, Federal courts have tried, convicted, and punished more than 400 terrorists. None of them have ever escaped from a U.S. prison. No prison where they are located has ever been subjected to an attack. The only thing my friends who are opposed to closing Guantanamo have on their side is fear. Fear, Mr. Chairman. As they argue against this amendment, they will try to tell us that these men are dangerous and scary, that these men can harm us, that these men are the worst of the worst--and some may be--but these men are already in our custody. Like so many murderers and terrorists already in prison, they have no power over us. They have been shut off from the outside world for more than a decade. If there are terrible people in Guantanamo--and I am not denying that there are--then it is time for them to face the consequences of their actions in a U.S. court. And that is the rub. The terrorists that have been prosecuted and sentenced had their day in court and were found guilty. U.S. Federal courts have successfully tried and convicted criminals and terrorists during times of war and peace for hundreds of years, all while respecting the rights of due process that our Constitution demands. This leads me to believe that some of my colleagues do not believe in the American system of justice. They do not trust our American courts to do justice. I do not understand why. Through the centuries, our legal system has kept America safe by putting away dangerous individuals while protecting those who were innocent of the government's charges against them. That is the beauty of our system that has made it the envy of the world. The principles underpinning the system, the right to due process and to a fair trial, are built into our Constitution and are part of our most basic values. But in order for the system to work, you actually need to get your day in court. Without our amendment, this bill guarantees that we will continue holding people indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay. Even though we suspect that we are holding people who are terrorists, some of whom probably are, in fact, terrorists, none of this has been proven in a court of law. Without this amendment, we will continue to hold them indefinitely without charge, contrary to every tradition this country stands for, contrary to any notion of due process. The founding principles of the United States, that no person may be deprived of liberty without due process of law and certainly may not be deprived of liberty indefinitely without due process of law, demands that we close the detention facility at Guantanamo. We must close this facility, try these people, condemn the guilty, place them in supermax facilities, release the innocent, if there are any; and restore our national honor. I urge the support of this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, almost everything the gentleman just said is not apropos and is wrong. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the people at Guantanamo have exactly the same constitutional rights--no more and no less--than they would have if brought to the United States. So it has nothing to do with giving constitutional rights to foreign nationals. Second of all, some of these people were, indeed, captured on foreign battlefields; some were not. Third of all, maybe they should be tried by military tribunals. But they have been held for 11, 12, 14, 15 years. We can't manage to try them by foreign tribunals. Put them in a Federal court. Try them. Convict them. Put them in a Federal court, try them, and convict them. If you want to put them in a military tribunal, you can do that, fine. We haven't managed to. But the fact is, by staying in Guantanamo, they don't have any less, fewer, or more constitutional rights than are here. Anyone within the jurisdiction of the United States, according to the Supreme Court, has constitutional rights. We must treat them with due process. All this amendment says is treat them the way the Supreme Court has said we should: try them, condemn them, or find them innocent, as the case may be. Some may be innocent. Many of them are not. Some may be. We should follow our traditions. Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of this amendment so that we can apply American concepts of justice as the Supreme Court has said we must. We can try them by military tribunal in Guantanamo or in the United States. We can try them in Federal Court. Military tribunals haven't worked. We haven't been able to make them work. Federal courts have worked. We should condemn the guilty and release the innocent, if there are any. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.