The US House of Representatives Thursday approved legislation (S. 2195) that would prohibit terrorists from coming to the United States under the ruse of being an ambassador to the United Nations.
The Senate approved the legislation earlier this week.
Authored by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the bill came on the heels of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s nomination of Hamid Aboutalebi as Iran’s new ambassador to the United Nations.
Aboutabeli is suspected of having played a principal role in numerous international terrorist incidents, and was a member of the Muslim student group that seized the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 in which 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981.
Under current law, the President of the United States can use his or her authority to deny any individual’s admission to the US as a representative to the United Nations if the President determines that the individual has been involved in espionage activities.
S. 2195 amends this law to expand this prohibition to individuals who would otherwise be barred from entry to the US on terrorism-related grounds, such as by being members of a terrorist group or having committed acts of terror against the US and its allies.
“By naming a member of a terrorist group to be its United Nations ambassador, Iran’s government is simply attempting to disguise yet another act of hostility towards the US under the cloak of international diplomacy,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). “There is no reason why we should be forced to host Hamid Aboutalebi when he was a member of the group that brutally held 52 Americans hostage while they were in his country."
"As Chairman of the Committee of primary jurisdiction, I am pleased both the Senate and the House have moved this legislation expeditiously so that we protect our national security interests and show Iran that their continued aggression towards the United States and our allies will not be tolerated,” Goodlatte said.
http://www.hstoday.us/
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