{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-colleagues-call-on-president-biden-to-deny-entry-to-iranian-president-senior-iranian-officials", "Cotton, Colleagues, Call on President Biden to Deny Entry to Iranian President, Senior Iranian Officials", "2021-07-28", "2021", "2021-07", "Republican", "Senate", "AR", "Tom Cotton", "C001095", "www.cotton.senate.gov", "cotton", "https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: James Arnold or Mary Collins Atkinson (202) 224-2353\n\nJuly 28, 2021\n\nCotton, Colleagues, Call on President Biden to Deny Entry to Iranian President, Senior Iranian Officials\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2014 Senators Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Rick Scott (R-Florida), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today sent a letter to President Biden calling on him to deny entry visas to Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi and other senior Iranian officials to attend the UN General Assembly in September.\n\nIn part, the senators wrote, \u201cRaisi\u2019s record as a violator of human rights is long-standing and clear. In 1988, during his tenure as the deputy prosecutor of Tehran, Raisi served on a four-member Death Commission which oversaw the killing of over 5,000 prisoners, including women and children. The Death Commission conducted interviews that lasted only minutes to determine a prisoner\u2019s loyalty to the Islamic Republic of Iran, then sentenced them to death without a lawyer, right to appeal, or fair trial. The executions, conducted by hanging or firing squad, often occurred on the same day as the Death Commission\u2019s interrogations. After burying the dead in unmarked mass graves, Iranian officials refused to notify families for months and never shared with them the locations of their graves. Raisi\u2019s Death Commission executed children as young as 15.\u201d\n\n\u201cEbrahim Raisi should remain sanctioned under U.S. law. If the United Nations General Assembly maintains its current plans to allow some in-person attendance, the White House should deny Raisi and other Iranian leaders visas to attend. Allowing Raisi to travel to the United States\u2014to the same city where the Iranian regime just tried to kidnap a U.S. citizen\u2014would legitimize his repression, undermine America\u2019s moral leadership, and potentially endanger our national security, given the likely presence of intelligence agents in the Iranian traveling party,\u201d the senators continued.\n\nText of the letter may be found here or below.\n\nJuly 27, 2021\n\nPresident Joseph R. Biden\n\nThe White House\n\n1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.\n\nWashington, D.C. 20500\n\nDear President Biden,\n\nWe are writing to express our concern about the prospect of incoming Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, visiting the United States to attend the United Nations General Assembly.\n\nRaisi\u2019s record as a violator of human rights is long-standing and clear. In 1988, during his tenure as the deputy prosecutor of Tehran, Raisi served on a four-member Death Commission which oversaw the killing of over 5,000 prisoners, including women and children. The Death Commission conducted interviews that lasted only minutes to determine a prisoner\u2019s loyalty to the Islamic Republic of Iran, then sentenced them to death without a lawyer, right to appeal, or fair trial. The executions, conducted by hanging or firing squad, often occurred on the same day as the Death Commission\u2019s interrogations. After burying the dead in unmarked mass graves, Iranian officials refused to notify families for months and never shared with them the locations of their graves. Raisi\u2019s Death Commission executed children as young as 15.\n\nEbrahim Raisi is proud of his record. In 2018, Raisi defended his role on the 1988 Death Commission, calling it \u201cdivine punishment\u201d and \u201cone of the proud achievements of the system.\u201d In the thirty years since the commission, Raisi continued to subject the Iranian people to extrajudicial prosecution, torture, and execution. During the 2009 Green Revolution, when Iranians protested the rigged presidential election, Raisi served as Iran\u2019s deputy chief justice. In this role, Raisi was directly involved in the regime\u2019s prosecution and death sentences of peaceful protesters. Years after, when Raisi served as prosecutor general, he advocated for maintaining Iran\u2019s house arrests on Green Revolution leaders.\n\nRaisi also consistently supports inhumane punishment against the Iranian people. In 2010, Raisi celebrated the Iranian judiciary\u2019s amputation of a prisoner\u2019s hand for stealing as \u201ca source of pride for us.\u201d More recently, Ebrahim Raisi led Iran\u2019s judiciary from 2019 to 2021. During his tenure, the judiciary regularly tortured its prisoners.\n\nRecently, the United States designated Raisi for his role as head of Iran\u2019s judiciary in facilitating the Supreme Leader of Iran\u2019s tyrannical agenda, where he oversaw the state\u2019s crackdown and murder of non-violent protesters. In 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Raisi, pursuant to Executive Order 13876, for his oversight over the executions of juveniles, torture, and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of Iranian prisoners, including amputations.\n\nEbrahim Raisi should remain sanctioned under U.S. law. If the United Nations General Assembly maintains its current plans to allow some in-person attendance, the White House should deny Raisi and other Iranian leaders visas to attend. Allowing Raisi to travel to the United States\u2014to the same city where the Iranian regime just tried to kidnap a U.S. citizen\u2014would legitimize his repression, undermine America\u2019s moral leadership, and potentially endanger our national security, given the likely presence of intelligence agents in the Iranian traveling party.\n\nThere is strong precedent for denying an entry visa to a foreign leader. In 1988, the United States barred PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat from entering the United States to attend a meeting of the United Nations. In 2014, President Obama denied an entry visa to Iranian Ambassador Hamid Aboutalebi, who was involved in taking American diplomats hostage in 1979. In 2020, the United States declined to issue a visa for Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Ebrahim Raisi\u2019s role in the Death Commissions, brutal crackdowns on Iranian protesters, and his association with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should disqualify him from receiving a visa to the United States.\n\nThank you for considering this important matter. We look forward to hearing from you.\n\nSincerely,", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:03:51Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-colleagues-call-on-president-biden-to-deny-entry-to-iranian-president-senior-iranian-officials"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4881347306072712, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}