The U.S. Senate voted on the Hong Kong People’s Freedom and Choice Act on Friday (Dec. 18), but Republican Congressman Ted Cruz failed to pass the bill due to concerns about the lowering of the U.S. refugee threshold and the influx of Chinese Communist spies, and failed to send it to President Trump (Trump) for signature into law before the recess.
The Hong Kong People’s Liberty and Choice Act, which passed the full House earlier, was set to expedite refugee and asylum applications for Hong Kong people and their families arrested in the protests. However, the vote in the Senate on Friday was opposed by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who said the bill was not for Hong Kong, but for the Democrats themselves; he also accused the Democrats of trying to use the Hong Kong crisis to further their long-held goal of changing U.S. immigration laws.
Cruz said, “Hong Kong today is like the new Berlin, on the front lines of the fight against communist tyranny, but this bill does not solve that problem.” He also stressed that under current U.S. immigration laws, Hong Kong people are already eligible to apply for refugee status, and that Trump specifically increased the number of refugee slots allocated to Hong Kong people in July. The Hong Kong People’s Liberty and Choice Act threatens to significantly lower the threshold for refugees in the United States, leading to the possibility that the Chinese Communist Party may take the opportunity to arrange for more spies to come to the United States.
Cruz also tweeted after the meeting, “We need a substantive bipartisan dialogue to support our allies and confront the Chinese Communist Party. And the Democrats’ bill does not advance that goal.”
The bill, the Hong Kong People’s Liberty and Choice Act, led by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-CA) and Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinge (R-CA), passed the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously by voice vote on the 7th of this month and was forwarded to the Senate for a vote. The bill would require the U.S. government to expedite the processing of refugee applications from Hong Kong residents fleeing political persecution in the U.S. and exclude such applications from the overall annual U.S. refugee admissions limit. The bill would also promote international cooperation, particularly by encouraging like-minded allies to provide asylum to Hong Kong residents who have been suppressed by Beijing.
The current session of the U.S. Congress expires on Jan. 3, and lawmakers will be in recess next week for Christmas, meaning the bill has little chance of passing during the current session.
However, according to Voice of America, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has previously hinted that even if the bill does not pass this session, lawmakers who support the legislation will continue to push for it next year.
The executive director of the Hong Kong Democratic Council (HKDC), a group of Hong Kong residents in the U.S., also said in a Facebook and Twitter post that they will continue to work hard to get the U.S. Congress to pass and implement a sanctuary policy for Hong Kong residents in the next session.
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