November 23, 2015

The Honorable Bruce Rauner

Office of the Governor
207 State House
Springfield, IL 62706
Dear Governor Rauner:
I urge you to end your opposition to the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Illinois and instead join me in
working to close loopholes in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) and federal gun laws that truly endanger
the safety of Illinoisans.
The conflict in Syria is the epicenter of the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. More than half of Syrias
23 million people have been forced from their homes, and more than four million are registered as refugees,
including approximately two million Syrian children. This tragedy was seared in our memory by the
heartbreaking image of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean.
The United States has a long tradition of providing safe haven to refugees, and Illinois has played an
important role in this proud history. Since the international communitys tragic failure to shelter Jewish
refugees fleeing the Nazi genocide, the American people have welcomed millions of refugees fleeing war
and totalitarian regimes. We should not abandon the good work of generations of Americans who came
before us.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson sent
you the attached letter responding to your concerns about the security vetting of Syrian refugees. The facts
are clear. Refugees are the most carefully vetted of all travelers to the United States, with in-person
interviews and extensive biometric, biographic, and intelligence checks involving numerous agencies,
including the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBIs Terrorist Screening Center, the Department of
Homeland Security, the Department of State and the Department of Defense. No refugees are admitted to
the United States until after successful completion of this stringent security screening regime, which can
take 18-24 months. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, the United States has admitted more than
2,000 Syrian refugees. None have been charged with involvement in terrorism, and only two percent are
single men of military age.
Please during this holiday season take the time to meet the Syrian refugees living in Illinois and personally
learn their plights. You will learn that the careless and mean-spirited rhetoric from many political leaders
does not reflect the reality of their sad lives.
Our shared highest priority is the safety of the people of Illinois, but lets be clear about where the greatest
terrorism threat lies: not with children and families fleeing ISIS, but in glaring loopholes in the law that
could allow what happened in Paris to happen somewhere in America. One significant concern is the Visa
Waiver Program (VWP), which allows about 20 million foreign nationals, more than one-third of all foreign
visitors, to travel to the United States before checking biometrics like fingerprints. Chicago, which hosts
about 1.4 million foreign visitors every year and is home to the busiest airport in the world, is at particular
risk. Every participant in the Paris attacks who has been publicly identified held a passport from a VWP
country. Terrorists such as Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, a 9/11 coconspirator, have sought to enter the United States through the VWP.
Only biographic (name-based) checks are conducted before VWP travelers are allowed to board airplanes
and travel to the United States. Prior to departure, there are no checks against databases that use biometrics

such as fingerprints. Fingerprint checks are conducted upon arrival in the United States, which is too late
for a terrorist who might try to detonate an explosive on a plane. As U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee
Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) said:
I would tell you, from a threat standpoint, Im probably more concerned with the visa waiver
program today. Were I in Europe already, and I wanted to go the United States, and were I not on
a watch list or a no-fly list and I wanted to get there, the likelihood is I would use the visa waiver
program before I would try to pawn myself off as a refugee.
Vulnerabilities in the VWP are aggravated by a loophole in federal law that permits VWP travelers to buy
firearms. Current law prohibits visa holders from other countries from purchasing guns, but excludes
travelers from the 38 VWP countries. In 1998, I authored a federal law that prohibits visiting foreign
nationals from buying or possessing a firearm in the United States if the foreigner has been admitted to
the United States under a nonimmigrant visa. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Justices Office of Legal
Counsel determined that under the statute VWP travelers can legally purchase firearms because they have
not technically been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa.
Last week, I introduced S. 2323, the Visa Waiver Program Firearms Clarification Act, legislation that would
close this loophole and clarify that the prohibition on buying firearms applies to foreign visitors whether
they enter with a visa or not.
Congress also must address another critical gap in our gun laws. Current federal law prohibits nine
categories of dangerous people from possessing firearms (e.g., felons, the mentally unstable, fugitives, etc.)
but not suspected terrorists. The Government Accountability Office found that from 2004-2014, people
who were on the FBIs Terrorist Watchlist tried to buy guns from American gun dealers at least 2,233
times. In 2,043 of those cases 91 percent of the time these suspected terrorists were able to successfully
buy the gun. I am an original cosponsor of S. 551, the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous
Terrorists Act of 2015, which would close this terror gap in our federal gun laws.
In conclusion, I respectfully request that you support the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Illinois and
encourage your Republican allies in Congress to work with Democrats to address the critical gaps in our
security infrastructure outlined above. Rather than targeting a few thousand refugees who are themselves
fleeing from terrorism and are the most thoroughly vetted travelers to the United States, you should focus
on 20 million VWP travelers who travel to our country and our state every year without adequate security
checks, as well as an unknown number of suspected terrorists who are able to legally purchase firearms and
dangerous explosives.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
RICHARD J. DURBIN
United States Senator
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