The Obama administration is considering restricting or revoking passports held by Americans suspected of fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Several members of Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, over the last week have written measures that would strip the citizenship and revoke the passports of any known Americans fighting with the Islamic State.
Congress and the federal government are scrambling to respond to estimates that at least 100 Americans and thousands of Europeans have joined the group amid deep concerns that those individuals could use their Western passports to return to the U.S. or other European countries to carry out terrorist attacks.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s testimony Wednesday did little to quell fears about Islamic State militants. He told the House Homeland Security Committee that the U.S. has a “reasonable degree of confidence, not a high degree of confidence” that it knows who is traveling between Syria and the U.S.
President Obama huddled with this national security team Wednesday to discuss the threat posed by foreign fighters, and the White House afterward said he would chair a United Nations Security Council summit next week on the topic during the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., argue that time is of the essence and U.S. authorities don’t have enough intelligence sources in Syria to determine whether Americans have joined forces with the Islamic State.
Three Americans died fighting with the Islamic State this summer, he said, including a suicide bomber who traveled from Syria to Florida and back again in the months before his deadly act.
With fears that the Islamic State is stepping up recruitment in the U.S. or “lone wolf” citizens are radicalizing on their own, Wolf has drafted a bill that would prevent all U.S. citizens from traveling to Syria.
“We must take proactive steps to discourage Americans from traveling to Syria to link up with these groups,” Wolf said. “Current law does not prevent Americans from traveling freely to Syria and back, which creates a loophole that would-be jihadists can exploit.”
Unless the U.S. has solid evidence that Americans have joined one of the terrorist groups, the FBI cannot arrest suspects upon their return, he argues, and British Prime Minister David Cameron has already taken steps to prevent British citizens from traveling to Syria.
Other Republicans say restricting Americans’ travel to Syria is far more complex because most travelers are not flying straight from the U.S. to Syria and would likely choose to fly to NATO allies Turkey or Jordan instead and simply walk across the borders into Syria and find the Islamic State.
“I don’t think we’re going to ban travel to those countries but if we do have people going to places like Turkey and Jordan, the U.S. intelligence agencies should be closely monitoring their activities,” said David Inserra, a research associate for Homeland Security at the Heritage Foundation.
“There are plenty of legitimate reasons to go to those countries and there are also dangerous reasons,” he said.
Johnson told Congress Wednesday that that the U.S. and its allies are evaluating ways to limit the travel of those who want to leave this country to go to Syria and “pick up the fight.”
He also made the point that the State Department has the authority to suspend and revoke U.S. passports on an expedited basis “when the situation warrants” in a matter of hours or days.
“It does not necessarily need to be a lengthy process,” he said, adding that the government needs to “seriously consider” barring “certain” individuals from traveling to “certain” countries or back from them.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told the Washington Examiner that Secretary of State John Kerry has the power to revoke Americans’ passports if they’re “deemed” to pose a threat to national security.
Harf cited State’s revocation of the passport of Anwar al-Awlaki, a now-deceased leader of al Qaeda who was born in New Mexico to Yemeni immigrants and went on to become an imam at a mosque in Falls Church, Va., before fleeing to Yemen and ultimately being killed in a U.S. drone strike there.
U.S. government officials considered him a major recruiter for al Qaeda and said he helped train the Nigerian man who attempted to bring down a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 and corresponded with convicted Fort Hood Shooter Nidal Hasan.
“This is a high standard (as it should be),” she said in an email. “But it’s a tool we have to prevent Americans who’ve taken up arms with terrorist organizations form returning to the U.S. to threaten our citizens here at home.”
The State Department can also revoke the passport of U.S. citizens at law enforcement’s request if there are outstanding charges against someone, which she said, “can certainly include charges related to terrorist activities.”
“We are actively working with our partners in the [U.S. government], including the intelligence community and FBI and DHS to identify Americans who might pose a threat to see what tools we may have in that that regard,” she said.
FBI Director James Comey told Congress Wednesday that he met with one of his British counterparts this week to discuss the merits of their country’s ban but expressed “due process” concerns about replicating it here.
“How would I protect sources and methods, how would we be able to use, if at all, classified information to make the showing that would be necessary?” he asked. “So I’m interested in any tool that might help us identify and incapacitate these people but I’d want to understand the details a little bit better.”
The idea of an outright ban is attracting support from some corners in Congress but has run into some resistance from the intelligence community as they assess whether it would limit their ability to gather information. For instance, in some cases the FBI and other agencies might decide to allow suspects back into the U.S. so they could carefully track their interactions.
Decisions on whether to allow would-be terrorists back into the U.S. are made on a “case-by-case basis,” Comey said.
“Sometimes it makes sense under limited circumstances; let somebody back in, cover them very closely to see who they connect with,” he said. “Sometimes it makes sense to have them come back in the country and lock them up right away, so it’s hard to say in the abstract.”
