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Claudia Tenney

09/22/2022 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/22/2022 08:13

Tenney, Cruz Op-Ed in Newsweek Calls Out Biden Admin for Welcoming Iran’s Brutal Leader to America

Washington, DC - Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (NY-22), along with Senator Ted Cruz (TX) today published an op-ed in Newsweek highlighting their new Strengthening Entry Visa Enforcement and Restrictions Act, or SEVER Act, which would have banned Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi from entering the United States for the UN General Assembly in New York.

Iranian President Raisi is known as "The Butcher of Tehran" for his gross human rights abuses, including the execution of political dissenters. Raisi has threatened to assassinate former President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and other U.S. officials. As the Islamic Republic of Iran actively plots to kill American citizens on our own soil, it is obvious that its president should never have been allowed to freely walk the streets of New York.

In the op-ed, Tenney and Cruz argue that the United States has always retained the sovereign right to deny entry to any individual who poses a threat to national security and that the Biden administration should have exercised this right to deny entry to Raisi.

Read the full op-ed here(link is external) or below.

"Ebrahim Raisi, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran handpicked by Ayatollah Khamenei, touched down in the United States this week for the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

He should never have been allowed to enter our country. The President is prohibited by Congress from granting entry visas to the UN to leaders who have committed terrorist activities, including threats of assassination, and who pose a risk to our national security.

In January, Raisi threatened to assassinate former President Trump, Secretary of State Pompeo, and other officials. Last month, the Department of Justice unsealed charges against a member of Iran's terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for trying to assassinate former National Security Advisor Bolton.

The United States hosts the UN headquarters in New York. We have always retained the sovereign right to deny entry to any individual who poses a threat. The Biden administration should have exercised this right to deny Raisi a visa. Instead, they looked the other way at his terrorism and allowed him entry.

We introduced legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives, the Strengthening Entry Visa Enforcement and Restrictions Act of 2022 (SEVER Act), that would have barred Raisi from entering the United States and would do so in the future. Our bill prohibits Iranian officials who have been sanctioned for being the closest of close advisors to the Ayatollah from being granted entry. It would prevent a future president from using the loopholes used by the Biden administration.

Unfortunately, Raisi is already here. While in the United States, he has predictably used the opportunity as a platform to propagandize. When regime minions like Raisi visit the West, their chief objective is to obscure the Islamic Republic's brutality and atrocities, and to attack the United States. Reporters in the mainstream media and far too many in think tanks amplify that propaganda.

For instance, 60 Minutes recently aired its interview with Raisi. The CBS journalist doing the interview meekly wore a head scarf at the request of the regime. Meanwhile in Iran, brave dissidents marched in the streets in outrage, in response to the regime murdering 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for not wearing a head scarf. The host simply sat there as Raisi piled on shameful comments, including even questioning whether the Holocaust happened. It was utterly disgraceful.

But no amount of whitewashing can conceal the fact that Raisi is a uniquely despicable individual. A mass murderer and a terrorist. The Butcher of Tehran.

In 1988, Raisi was a member of the Islamic Republic's "death commission," a kangaroo court that sought to identify and eliminate political opposition in the earlier days of the Islamic Republic. The trials were a sham and executions were often carried out in a matter of days or weeks.

Raisi went on to be a prosecutor and eventually was picked to be head of the Islamic Republic's judiciary. Under his direction, Iran executed juveniles, torture was routinely employed, human rights lawyers were targeted, and peaceful protestors were brutally silenced. Raisi oversaw violent crackdowns on protests in 2009 and more recently in 2019, when 1,500 were savagely murdered by the regime. Then Ayatollah Khamenei picked him to be president.

There should be consequences when rogue regimes target American citizens. Raisi is a monster whose entry into the United States was completely unwarranted. As the Islamic Republic of Iran actively plots to kill American citizens on our own soil, it is obvious that its president should never have been allowed to freely walk the streets of New York.

That is why we have introduced the SEVER Act, a bill that would make sure that no future advocate of terrorism does again."

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